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Taquisara

by F. Marion Crawford · English · Gutenberg #11050 · 824,527 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Taquisara

Author: F. Marion Crawford


        
Release date: February 1, 2004 [eBook #11050]
                Most recently updated: October 28, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11050

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TAQUISARA ***

[Transcriber's note: Both "Matilde" and "Matilda" appear in the source
text.]


TAQUISARA

BY

F. MARION CRAWFORD

1895




CHAPTER I.


"Where shall I sign my name?"

Veronica Serra's thin, dark fingers rolled the old silver penholder
nervously as she sat at one end of the long library table, looking up at
the short, stout man who stood beside her.

"Here, if you please, Excellency," answered Lamberto Squarci, with an
affable smile.

His fingers were dark, too, but not thin, and they were smooth and dingy
and very pointed, a fact which the young princess noticed with dislike,
as he indicated the spot on the broad sheet of rough, hand-made paper,
where he wished her to sign. A thrill of repulsion that was strong
enough to be painful ran through her, and she rolled the penholder still
more quickly and nervously, so that she almost dropped it, and a little
blot of ink fell upon the sheet before she had begun to write.

"Oh! It is of no importance!" said the Neapolitan notary, in a
reassuring tone. "A little ink more or less!"

He had some pink blotting-paper ready, and was already applying a corner
of it to the ink-spot, with the neat skill of a professional scribe.

"I will erase it when it is dry," he said. "You will not even see it.
Now, if your Excellency will sign--that will make the will valid."

Three other persons stood around Donna Veronica as she set the point of
her pen to the paper, and two of them watched the characters she traced,
with eager, unwinking eyes. The third was a very insignificant personage
just then, being but the notary's clerk; but his signature was needed as
a witness to the will, and he patiently waited for his turn. The other
two were husband and wife, Gregorio and Matilde, Count and Countess
Macomer; and the countess was the young girl's aunt, being the only
sister of Don Tommaso Serra, Prince of Acireale, Veronica's dead father.
She looked on, with an eager, pleased expression, standing upright and
bending her head in order to see the point of the pen as it moved over
the rough paper. Her hands were folded before her, but the uppermost one
twitched and moved once or twice, as though it would go out to get
possession of the precious document which left her all the heiress's
great possessions in case of Donna Veronica's death. It was a bit of
paper well worth having.

The girl rose, slight and graceful, when she had written her name, and
the finely chiselled lips had an upward curve of young scorn, as she
turned from the table, while the notary and his clerk proceeded to
witness the will. Immediately, the countess smiled, very brightly,
showing beautiful teeth between smooth red lips, and her strong arms
went round her young niece. She was a woman at least forty years of age,
but still handsome.

"I thank you with all my heart!" she cried. "It is a proof of affection
which I shall never forget! You will live a hundred years--a thousand,
if God will it! But the mere wish to leave me your fortune is a token of
love and esteem which I shall know how to value."

Donna Veronica kissed her aunt's fresh cheek coldly, and drew back as
soon as she could.

"I am glad that you are pleased," she answered in a cool and colourless
voice.

She felt that she had said enough, and, so far as she expected any
thanks, her aunt had said too much. She had made the will and had signed
it, for the sake of peace, and she asked nothing but peace in return.
Ever since she had left the convent in which she had been educated and
had come to live with her aunt, the question of this will had arisen at
least once every day, and she knew by heart every argument which had
been invented to induce her to make it. The principal one had always
been the same. She had been told that if, in the inscrutable ways of
Providence, she should chance to die young, unmarried and childless,
the whole of the great Acireale property would go to relations whom she
had never seen and of whom she scarcely knew the names. This, the
Countess Macomer had insisted, would be a terrible misfortune, and as
human life was uncertain, even when one was very young, it was the duty
of Veronica to provide against it, by leaving everything to the one
remaining member of the Serra family who, with herself, represented the
direct line, who had taken a mother's place and duties in bringing up
the orphan girl, and who had been ready to sacrifice every personal
consideration for the sake of the child's welfare.

Veronica did not see clearly that the Countess Macomer had ever really
sacrificed anything at all in the execution of her trust as guardian,
any more than the count himself, who, with Cardinal Campodonico, was a
joint trustee, had ever been put to any inconvenience, beyond that of
being the uncle by marriage of one of the richest heiresses in Italy. It
was natural that when she had signed the will at last, she should
receive her aunt's effusive thanks rather coldly, and that she should
show very little enthusiasm when her uncle kissed her forehead and
expressed his appreciation of her loving intention. The plain truth was
that if she had refused any longer to sign the will, the two would have
made her life even more unbearable than it was already.

She knew that there was no reason why her life should be made hard to
bear. She was not only rich, and a princess in her own right. She was
young and, if not pretty, at least fairly well endowed with those gifts
which attract and please, and bring their possessor the daily little
satisfactions that make something very like happiness, before passion
throws its load into the scales of life on the right side or the wrong.
She knew that, at her age, she might have been married already, and she
wondered that her aunt should not have proposed to marry her before now.
Yet in this she was not displeased, for her best friend, Bianca
Campodonico, had been married two years already to Corleone, of evil
fame, and was desperately unhappy. Veronica dreaded a like fate, and was
in no haste to find a husband. The countess told her always that she
should be free to choose one for herself within reasonable limits of
age, name, and fortune. Such an heiress, with such a fortune, said
Matilde Macomer, could marry whom she pleased. But so far as Veronica
had been allowed to see the world, the choice seemed anything but large.

The count and countess had always been very careful in the selection of
their intimate associates--they could hardly be said to have any
intimate friends. Since Veronica had come to them from the convent in
Rome, where she had been educated according to her dead father's
desire, they had been doubly cautious and trebly particular as to the
persons they chose to receive. Their responsibility, they said openly,
was very great. The child's happiness, was wholly in their hands. They
would be held accountable if she should form an unfortunate attachment
for some ineligible young man who might chance to dine at their table.
The responsibility, they repeated with emphasis, was truly enormous. It
was also an unfortunate fact that in their Neapolitan society there were
many young men, princes and dukes by the score, who had nothing but
their names and titles to recommend them, and who would have found it
very hard to keep body and title together, so to say, if gambling had
suddenly been abolished, or had gone out of fashion unexpectedly.

Then, too, the Macomer couple had always led a retired life and had kept
aloof from the very gay portion of society. They lived well, according
to their station, and so far as any one could see; but it had always
been said that Gregorio Macomer was miserly. At the same time it suited
his wife, for reasons of her own, not to be conspicuous in the world,
and she encouraged him to lead a quiet existence, spending half the year
in the country, and receiving very few people when in Naples during the
winter and spring. Gregorio had one brother, Bosio, considerably younger
than himself and very different in character, who was not married and
who lived at the Palazzo Macomer, on excellent terms both with Gregorio
and the countess, as well as with Veronica herself. The young girl was
inclined to like him, though she felt dimly that she could never
understand him as she believed that she understood her aunt and uncle.
He was, indeed, almost the only man, excepting her uncle, whom she could
be said to know tolerably well. He was not present on that afternoon
when she signed the will, but his absence did not surprise her, for he
had always abstained from any remarks about her property or his
brother's and sister-in-law's guardianship, in such a marked way as to
make her understand that he really wished to know nothing about the
management or disposal of her fortune.

She liked him for several reasons,--for his non-interference in
discussions about her affairs, for a certain quiet consideration, just a
shade more friendly than deference, which he showed for her slightest
wishes, and chiefly, perhaps, for his conversation and perfectly even
temper.

Her uncle Macomer was not always good-tempered and he was never
considerate. He was a stiff man, of impenetrable face, much older than
his wife, cold when he was pleased, and harsh as rough ice when he was
annoyed; a tall, bony man, with flattened lips, from which the grey
moustaches and the beard were brushed smoothly away in all directions.
He had very small eyes--a witty enemy of his said they were so small
that one could not find them in his face, and those who knew him laughed
at the jest, for they always seemed hard to find when one wished to meet
them. His shoulders were unusually high and narrow, but he did not
stoop. On the contrary, he habitually threw back his head, with a
certain coldly aggressive stiffness, so that he easily looked above the
person with whom he was talking. Though he had never been given to any
sort of bodily exercise, his hands were naturally horny, and they were
almost always cold. For the rest, he was careful of his appearance and
scrupulous in matters of dress, like many of his fellow-countrymen. In
his household he insisted upon a neatness as fastidious as his own, and
nothing could have induced him to employ a Neapolitan servant. His
family colours were green and black, and the green of his servants'
liveries was of the very darkest that could be had.

He imposed his taste upon his household, and gave it a certain marked
respectability which betrayed no information about his fortune. To all
appearances he was not poor; but it would have been impossible to say
with certainty whether he were rich or only in moderate circumstances.
He was undoubtedly more careful than ninety-nine out of a hundred of his
fellow-citizens, in getting the value of what he spent, to the
uttermost splitting of farthings; and when he spoke of money there was a
certain cruel hardening of the hard lines in his face, which Veronica
never failed to notice with dislike. She wondered how her aunt could
have led an apparently tranquil life with such a man during more than
twenty years.

Doubtless, she thought, Bosio's presence acted as a palliative in the
somewhat grim atmosphere of the Palazzo Macomer. He was utterly
different from his brother. In the first place, he was gentle and kind
in speech and manner, though apparently rather sad than gay. He was
different in face, in figure, in voice, in carriage--having quiet brown
eyes, and brown hair only streaked with grey, with a full, silky beard;
a clear pale complexion; in frame shorter than Gregorio, with smaller
bones, slightly inclined to stoutness, but rather graceful than stiff;
small feet and well-shaped hands of pleasant texture; a clear, low voice
that never jarred upon the ear, and a kindly, half-sad laugh in which
there was a singular refinement, of the sort which shows itself more in
laughter than in speech. Laughter is, indeed, a terrible betrayer of the
character, and a surer guide in judgment than most people know. For men
learn to use their voices skilfully and to govern their tones as well as
their words; but, beyond not laughing too loud for ordinary decency of
behaviour, there are few people who care, or realize, how they laugh;
and those who do, and who, being aware that there is room for
improvement, endeavour to improve, very generally produce either a
semi-musical noise, which is false and affected, or a perfectly inane
cachinnation which has nothing human in it at all.

Bosio Macomer was a refined man, not only by education and outward
contact with the refinements he sought in others, but within himself and
by predisposition of nature. He read much, and found beauties in books
which his friends thought dull, but which appealed tenderly to his
innate love of tenderness. He had probably lost many illusions, but the
sweetest of them all was still fresh in him, for he loved nature
unaffectedly. In an unobtrusive way he was something of an artist, and
was fond of going out by himself, when in the country, to sketch and
dream all day. Veronica did not understand how with such tastes he could
bear the life in the Palazzo Macomer, for months at a time. He was free
to go and come as he pleased, and since he preferred the country, she
wondered why he did not live out of town altogether. His existence was
the more incomprehensible to her, as he rarely lost an opportunity of
finding fault with Naples as a city and with the Neapolitans as human
beings. Sometimes he did not leave the house for many days, as he
frankly admitted, preferring the little apartment in the upper story of
the house, where he lived independently, with one old servant, amongst
his books and his pictures, appearing downstairs only at dinner, and not
always then. His place was always ready for him, but no one ever
remarked his absence, nor inquired where he might be when he chose to
stay away.

He was on excellent terms with every one. The servants adored him, while
they feared his brother and disliked the countess; when he appeared he
never failed to kiss the countess's hand, and to exchange a friendly
word or two with Gregorio; but as for the latter, Bosio made no secret
of the fact that he preferred the society of the ladies of the household
to that of the count, with whom he had little in common. He certainly
admired his sister-in-law, and more than once frankly confessed to
Veronica that in his opinion Matilde Macomer was still the most
beautiful woman in the world. Yet Veronica had observed that he was
critical of looks in other women, and she thought his criticisms
generally just and in good taste. For her part, however, if he chose to
consider her middle-aged aunt lovely, Veronica would not contradict him,
for she was cautious in a certain degree, and in spite of herself she
distrusted her surroundings.

There were times when the Countess Macomer inspired her with confidence.
Those very beautiful dark eyes of hers had but one defect, namely, that
they were quite too near together; but they were still the best
features in the elder woman's face, and when Veronica looked at them
from such an angle as not to notice their relative position, she almost
believed that she could trust them. But she never liked the smooth red
lips, nor the over-pointed nose, which had something of the falcon's
keenness without its nobility. The thick and waving brown hair grew
almost too low on the white forehead, and, whether by art or nature, the
eyebrows were too broad and too dark for the face, though they were so
well placed as to greatly improve the defect of the close-set eyes.
There was a marvellous genuine freshness of colour in the clear
complexion, and the woman carried her head well upon a really
magnificent neck. She was strong and vital and healthy, and her
personality was as distinctly dominating as her physical self. Yet she
was generally very careful not to displease her husband, even when he
was capricious, and Veronica was sometimes surprised by the apparent
weakness with which she yielded to him in matters about which she had as
good a right as he to an opinion and a decision. The girl supposed that
her aunt was not so strong as she seemed to be, when actually brought
face to face with the rough ice of Gregorio Macomer's character.

Veronica made her observations discreetly and kept them to herself, as
was not only becoming but wise. At first the change from the
semi-cloistered existence of the convent in Rome to the life at the
Palazzo Macomer had dazzled the girl and had confused her ideas. But
with the natural desire of the very young to seem experienced, she had
begun by manifesting no surprise at anything she saw; and she had soon
discovered that, although she was supposed to be living in the society
of the most idle and pleasure-loving city in the world, her surroundings
were in reality neither gay nor dazzling, but decidedly monotonous and
dull. She had dim, childish memories of magnificent things in her
father's house, though the main impression was that of his death,
following closely, as she had been told, upon her mother's. Of the
latter, she could remember nothing. In dreams she saw beautiful things,
and brilliant light and splendid pictures and enchanted gardens, and
when she awoke she felt that the dreams had been recollections of what
she had seen, and of what still belonged to her. But she sought the
reality in vain. The grand old palace in the Toledo was hers, she was
told, but it was let for a term of years to the municipality and was
filled with public offices; the marble staircases were black and dingy
with the passing of many feet that tracked in the mud in winter and the
filthy dust of Naples in summer. Dark, poor faces and ill-clad forms
moved through the halls, and horrible voices echoed perpetually in the
corridors, where those who waited discussed taxes, and wrangled, and
cursed those in power, and cheated one another, and picked a pocket now
and then, and spat upon the marble pavement whereon royal and lordly
feet had so often trod in days gone by. It had all become a great nest
of dirt and stealing and busy chicanery, where dingy, hawk-eyed men with
sodden white faces and disgusting hands lay in wait for the unwary who
had business with the city government, to rob them on pretence of
facilitating their affairs, to cringe for a little coin flung them in
scorn sometimes by one who had grown rich in greater robbery than they
could practise--sometimes, too, springing aside to escape a kick or a
blow as ill-tempered success went swinging by, high-handed and vulgarly
cruel, a few degrees less filthy and ten thousand times more repulsive.

Once, Veronica had insisted upon going through the palace. She would
never enter it again, and after that day, when she passed it, she turned
her face from it and looked away. Vaguely, she wondered whether they
were not deceiving her and whether it were really the home she dimly
remembered. There had been splendid things in it, then--she would not
ask what had become of them, but without asking, she was told that they
had been wisely disposed of, and that instead of paying people for
keeping an uninhabited palace in order, she was receiving an enormous
rent for it from the city.

Then she had wished to see the lovely villa that came back in the
pictures of her dreams, and she had been driven out into the country
according to her desire. From a distance, as the carriage approached it,
she recognized the lordly poplars, and far at the end of the avenue the
elaborately stuccoed front and cornices of the old-fashioned "barocco"
building. But the gardens were gone. Files of neatly trimmed vines,
trained upon poles stuck in deep furrows, stretched away from the avenue
on either side. The flower garden was a vegetable garden now, and the
artichokes and the cabbages and the broccoli were planted with
mathematical regularity up to the very walls. There were hens and
chickens on the steps and running in and out of the open door, and from
a near sty the grunt of many pigs reached her ears. A pale,
earthy-skinned peasant, scantily clad in dusty canvas, grinned sadly and
kissed the hem of her skirt, calling her 'Excellency' and beginning at
once to beg for reduction of rent. A field-worn woman, filthy and
dishevelled, drove back half a dozen nearly naked children whose little
legs were crusted with dry mud, and whose faces had not been washed for
a long time.

And within, there was no furniture. In the rooms upstairs were stores of
grain and potatoes, and red peppers and grapes hanging on strings. The
cracked mirrors, built into the gilded stucco, were coated with heavy
unctuous dust, and the fine old painted tiles on the floor were loose
and broken in places. In the ceiling certain pink and well-fed cherubs
still supported unnatural thunderclouds through which Juno forever drove
her gold-wheeled car and team of patient peacocks, smiling high and
goddess-like at the squalor beneath. Still Diana bent over Endymion
cruelly foreshortened in his sleep, beyond the possibility of a waking
return to human proportions. Mars frowned, Jove threatened, Venus rose
glowing from the sea; and below, the unctuous black dust settled and
thickened on everything except the cracked floors piled with maize and
beans and lupins, and rubbed bright between the heaps by the peasants'
naked feet.

Veronica turned her back upon the villa, as she had turned from the
great palace in the Toledo. They whispered to her that the peasant's
rent must not be reduced, for he was well able to pay, and they pointed
to the closely planted vines and vegetables and olives that stretched
far away to right and left, where she remembered in her dreams of far
childhood that there had been lawns and walks and flowers. The man, she
was told, was not the only peasant on the place. There were other houses
now, and huts that could shelter a family, and there was land, land,
always more land, as far as she could see, all as closely and neatly
and regularly planted with vegetables and grain, vines and olives; and
it was all hers, and yielded enormous rents which were wisely invested.
She was very rich indeed, but to her it all seemed horribly sordid and
grinding and mean--and the peasants looked prematurely old, labour-worn,
filthy, wretchedly poor. If she had even had any satisfaction from so
much wealth, it might have seemed different. She said so, in her heart.
She was accustomed to tell her confessor that she was proud and
uncharitable and unfeeling--not finding any real misdeeds to confess.
She was willing to believe that she was all that and much more. If she
had been living in the whirling, golden pleasure-storm of an utterly
thoughtless world, she believed herself bad enough to have shut her
memory's eyes to the haggard peasant-mother of the dirty half-clad
children--to all the hundreds of them who doubtless lived just like the
one she had seen, all upon her lands; she could have forgotten the
busy-thieving, sodden-faced crowd that thronged the chambers wherein her
fathers had been born and had feasted kings and had died--the very room
where her own father had lain dead. She could have shut it all out, she
thought, if she had held in her hands the gold that all this brought, to
scatter it at her will; for she was sure that she had not a better heart
than other girls of her age. But she had never seen it. The reality of
her own life was too weak and colourless, by contrast, to make the name
of fortune an excuse for the sordid facts of meanness. There was no
splendour about her, no wild gaiety, none of the glorious extravagance
of conscious young wealth, and there was very little amusement to divert
her thoughts. The people she would have liked to know were kept at a
distance from her. She was advised not to buy the things which attracted
her eyes, and was told that they were not so good as they looked, and
that on the whole it was better to keep money than to spend it--but
that, of course, she might do as she pleased, and that when she wanted
money her uncle Macomer would give it to her.

It all passed through his hands, and he managed everything, with the
assistance of Lamberto Squarci the notary and of other men of
business--mostly shabby-looking men in black, with spectacles and
unhealthy complexions, who came and went in the morning when old Macomer
was in his study attending to affairs. Veronica knew none but Squarci by
name, and never spoke with any of them. There seemed to be no reason why
she should.

The count had told her that when she wished it, he was ready to render
an account of the estates and would be happy to explain everything to
her at length. She understood nothing of business and was content to
accept the roughest statement as he chose to give it to her. She was
far too young to distrust the man whom she had been taught to respect as
her guardian and as a person of scrupulous honesty. She was completely
in his power, and she was accustomed to ask him for any little sums she
needed. It never really struck her that he might misuse the authority
she indifferently left in his hands.

It was her aunt who had induced her to make the will, and for whose
conduct she felt a sort of undefined resentment and contempt.
Considering, she thought, how improbable it was that she herself should
die before Matilde Macomer, the latter had shown an absurd anxiety about
the disposal of the fortune. If Veronica had yielded the point, she had
done so in order to get rid of an importunity which wearied her
perpetually. She was to marry, of course, in due time. God would give
her children, and they would inherit her wealth. It was really
ridiculous of her aunt to be so anxious lest it should all go to those
distant relations in Sicily and Spain. Nevertheless, in order to have
peace, she signed the will, and her aunt thanked her effusively, and old
Macomer's flat lips touched her forehead while he spoke a few words of
gratified approval.

In the evening she told Bosio, the count's brother, of what she had
done. His gentle eyes looked at her thoughtfully for a few seconds, and
he did not smile, nor did he make any observation.

A few minutes later he was talking of a picture he had seen for sale--a
mere sketch, but by Ribera, called the Spagnoletto. She made up her mind
to buy it for him as a surprise, for it pleased her to give him
pleasure.

But when she was alone in her room that night she recalled Bosio's
expression when she had told him about the will. She was sure that he
was not pleased, and she wondered why he had not at least said something
in reply--something quite indifferent perhaps, but yet something,
instead of looking at her in total silence, just for those few seconds.
After all, she was really more intimate with him than with her aunt and
uncle, and liked him better than either of them, so that she had a right
to expect that he should have answered with something more than silence
when she told him of such a matter.

She sat a long time in a deep chair near her toilet table, thinking
about her own life, in the great dim room which half a dozen candles
barely lighted; and perhaps it was the first time that she had really
asked herself how long her present mode of existence was to continue,
how long she was to lie half-hidden, as it were, in the sombrely
respectable dimness of the Macomer establishment, how long she was to
remain unmarried. Knowing the customs of her own people in regard to
marriage, as she did, it was certainly strange that she should not have
heard of any offer made to her uncle and aunt for her hand. Surely the
mothers of marriageable sons knew of her existence, of her fortune, of
the titles she held in her own right and could confer upon her husband
and leave to her children. It was not natural that no one should wish to
marry her, that no mother should desire such an heiress for her son.

With the distrustful introspection of maiden youth, she suddenly asked
herself whether by any possibility she were different from other girls
and whether she had not some strange defect, physical or mental, of
which the existence had been most carefully concealed from her all her
life. In the quick impulse she rose and brought all the burning candles
to the toilet table, and lighted others, and stood before the mirror, in
the yellow light, gazing most critically at her own reflexion. She
looked long and earnestly and quite without vanity. She told herself,
cataloguing her looks, that her hair was neither black nor brown, but
that it was very thick and long and waved naturally; that her eyes were
very dark, with queer little angles just above the lids, under the
prominent brows; that her nose, seen in full face, looked very straight
and rather small, though she had been told by the girls in the convent
that it was aquiline and pointed; that her cheeks were thin and almost
colourless; that her chin was round and smooth and prominent, her lips
rather dark than red, and modelled in a high curve; that her ears were
very small--she threw back the heavy hair to see them better, turning
her face sideways to the glass; that her throat was over-slender, and
her neck and arms far too thin for beauty, but with a young leanness
which might improve with time, though nothing could ever make them
white. She was dark, on the whole. She was willing to admit that she was
sallow, that her eyes had a rather sad look in them, and even that one
was almost imperceptibly larger than the other, though the difference
was so small that she had never noticed it before, and it might be due
to the uncertain light of the candles in the dim room. But most
assuredly there was no physical defect to be seen. She was not beautiful
like poor Bianca Corleone; but she was far from ugly--that was certain.

And in mind--she laughed as she looked at herself in the glass. Bosio
Macomer told her that she was clever, and he certainly knew. But her own
expression pleased her when she laughed, and she laughed again with
pleasure, and watched herself in a sort of girlish and innocent
satisfaction. Then her eyes met their own reflexion, and she grew
suddenly grave again, and something in them told her that they were not
laughing with her lips, and might not often look upon things mirthful.

But she was not stupid, and she was not ugly. She had assured herself of
that. The worst that could be said was that she was a very thin girl and
that her complexion was not brilliant, though it was healthy enough, and
clear. No--there was certainly no reason why her aunt should not have
received offers of marriage for her, and many people would have thought
it strange that she should be still unmarried--with her looks, her name,
and that great fortune of which Gregorio Macomer was taking such good
care.




CHAPTER II.


On that same night, when Veronica had gone to her room, Bosio Macomer
remained alone with the countess in the small drawing-room in which the
family generally spent the evening. Gregorio was presumably in his
study, busy with his perpetual accounts or otherwise occupied. He very
often spent the hours between dinner and bed-time by himself, leaving
his brother to keep his wife company if Veronica chose to retire early.

The room was small and the first impression of colour which it gave was
that of a strong, deep yellow. There was yellow damask on the walls, the
curtains were of an old sort of silk material in stripes of yellow and
chocolate, and most of the furniture was covered with yellow satin. The
whole was in the style of the early part of this century, modified by
the bad taste of the Second Empire, with much gilded carving about the
doors and the corners of the big panels in which the damask was
stretched, while the low, vaulted ceiling was a mass of gilt stucco,
modelled in heavy acanthus leaves and arabesques, from the centre of
which hung a chandelier of white Venetian glass. There were no pictures
on the walls, and there were no flowers nor plants in pots, to relieve
the strong colour which filled the eye. Nevertheless the room had the
air of being inhabited, and was less glaring and stiff and old-fashioned
than it might seem from this description. There were a good many books
on the tables, chiefly French novels, as yellow as the hangings; and
there were writing materials and a couple of newspapers and two or three
open notes. A small wood fire burned in a deep, low fireplace adorned
with marble and gilt brass.

Matilde Macomer sat, leaning back, upon a little sofa which stood across
a corner of the room far from the fire. One hand lay idly in her lap,
the other, as she stretched out her arm, lay upon the back of the sofa,
and her head with its thick, brown hair was bent down. She had fixed her
eyes upon a point of the carpet and had not moved from her position for
a long time. The folds of her black gown made graceful lines from her
knees to her feet, and her imposing figure was thrown into strong relief
against the yellow background as she leaned to the corner, one foot just
touching the floor.

Bosio sat at a distance from her, on a low chair, his elbows on his
knees, staring at the fire. Neither had spoken for several minutes.
Matilde broke the silence first, her eyes still fixed on the carpet.

"You must marry Veronica," she said slowly; "nothing else can save us."

It was clear that the idea was not new to Bosio, for he showed no
surprise. But he turned deliberately and looked at the countess before
he answered her. There were unusual lines in his quiet face--lines of
great distress and perplexity.

"It is a crime," he said in a low voice.

Matilda raised her eyes, with an almost imperceptible movement of the
shoulders.

"Murder is a crime," she answered simply. Then Bosio started violently
and turned very white, almost rising from his seat.

"Murder?" he cried; "what do you mean?"

Matilde's smooth red lips smiled.

"I merely mentioned it as an instance of a crime," she said, without any
change of tone. "You said it would be a crime for you to marry Veronica.
It did not strike me that it could be called by that name. Crimes are
murder, stealing, forgery--such things. Who would say that it was
criminal for Bosio Macomer to marry Veronica Serra? There is no reason
against it. I daresay that many people wonder why you have not married
her already, and that many others suppose that you will before long. You
are young, you have never been married, you have a very good name and a
small fortune of your own."

"Take it, then!" exclaimed Bosio, impulsively. "You shall have it all
to-morrow--everything I possess. God knows, I am ready to give you all I
have. Take it. I can live somehow. What do I care? I have given you my
life--what is a little money? But do not ask me to marry her, your
niece, here, under your very roof. I am not a saint, but I cannot do
that!"

"No," answered the countess, "we are not saints, you and I, it is true.
For my part, I make no pretences. But the trouble is desperate, Bosio. I
do not know what to do. It is desperate!" she repeated with sudden
energy. "Desperate, I tell you!"

"I suppose that all I have would be of no use, then?" asked Bosio,
disheartened.

"It would pay the interest for a few months longer. That would be all.
Then we should be where we are now, or shall be in three weeks."

"Throw yourself upon her mercy. Ask her to forgive you and to lend you
money," suggested Bosio. "She is kind--she will do it, when she knows
the truth."

"I had thought of that," answered Matilde. "But, in the first place, you
do not know her. Secondly, you forget Cardinal Campodonico."

"Since he has left the management of her fortune in Gregorio's hands, he
will not begin to ask questions at this point. Besides, the guardianship
is at an end--"

"The estate has not been made over. He will insist upon seeing the
accounts--that is no matter, for they will bear his inspection well
enough. Squarci is clever! But Veronica sees him. She would tell him of
our trouble, if we went to her. If not, she would certainly tell Bianca
Corleone, who is his niece. If he suspected anything, let alone knowing
the truth, that would be the end of everything. It would be better for
us to escape before the crash--if we could. It comes to that--unless you
will help us."

"By marrying Veronica?" asked Bosio, with a bitterness not natural to
him.

"I see no other way. The cardinal could see the accounts. You could be
married, and the fortune could be made over to you. She would never
know, nor ask questions. You could set our affairs straight, and still
be the richest man in Naples or Sicily. It would all be over. It would
be peace--at last, at last!" she repeated, with a sudden change of tone
that ended in a deep-drawn sigh of anticipated relief. "You do not know
half there is to tell," she continued, speaking rapidly after a moment's
pause. "We are ruined, and worse than ruined. We have been, for years.
Gregorio got himself into that horrible speculation years and years ago,
though I knew nothing about it. While Veronica was a minor, he helped
himself, as he could--with her money. It was easy, for he controlled
everything. But now he can do nothing without her signature. Squarci
said so last week. He cannot sell a bit of land, a stick of timber,
anything, without her name. And we are ruined, Bosio. This house is
mortgaged, and the mortgage expires on the first of January, in three
weeks. We have nothing left--nothing but the hope of Veronica's
charity--or the hope that you will marry her and save us from starvation
and disgrace. I got her to sign the will. There was--"

The countess checked herself and stopped short, turning an emerald ring
which she wore. She was pale.

"There was what?" asked Bosio, in an unsteady tone.

"There was just the bare possibility that she might die before January,"
said Matilde, almost in a whisper. "People die young sometimes, you
know--very young. It pleases Providence to do strange things. Of course
it would be most dreadful, if she were to die, would it not? It would be
lonely in the house, without her. It seems to me that I should see her
at night, in the dark corners, when I should be alone. Ugh!"

Matilde Macomer shivered suddenly, and then stared at Bosio with
frightened eyes. He glanced at her nervously.

"I am afraid of you," he said.

"Of me?" Her presence of mind returned. "What an idea! just because I
suggested that poor little Veronica might catch a cold or a fever in
this horrible weather and might die of the one or the other? And just
because I am fond of her, and said that I should be afraid of seeing her
in the dark! Heaven give her a hundred years of life! Why should we talk
of such sad things?"

"It is certainly not I who wish to talk of them, or think of them,"
answered Bosio, thoughtfully, and turning once more to the fire. "You
are overwrought, Matilde--you are unhappy, afraid of the future--what
shall I say? Sometimes you speak in a strange way."

"Is it any wonder? The case is desperate, and I am desperate, too--"

"Do not say it--"

"Then say that you will marry Veronica, and save us all, and bring peace
into the house--for my sake, Bosio--for me!"

She leaned forward, and her hands met upon her knee in something like a
gesture of supplication, while she sought his eyes.

"For your sake," repeated Bosio, dreamily. "For your sake? But you ask
the impossible, Matilde. Besides, she would not marry me. She would
laugh at the idea. And then--for you and me--it is horrible! You have no
right to ask it."

"No right? Ah, Bosio! Have I not the right to ask anything of you, after
all these years?"

"Anything--but not that! Your niece--under your roof! No--no--no! I
cannot, even if she would consent."

"Not even--" Matilda's splendid eyes, so cruelly close together,
fastened themselves upon the weak man's face, and she frowned.

"Not even if you thought it would be much better for her?" she asked
very slowly, completing the sentence.

Again he started and shrank from her.

"Just God!" he exclaimed under his breath. "That a woman should have
such thoughts!" Then he turned upon her with an instinctive revival of
manhood and honour. "You shall not hurt her!" he cried, as fiercely as
his voice could speak. "You shall not hurt a hair of her head, not even
to save yourself! I will warn her--I will have her protected--I will
tell everything! What is my life worth?"

"You would merely be told that you were mad, and we should have you
taken out to the asylum at Aversa--as mad as I am, or soon shall be, if
this goes on! You are mad to believe that I could do such things--I, a
woman! And yet, I know I say words that have no reason in them! And I
think crimes--horrible crimes, when I am alone--and I can tell no one
but you. Have pity on me, Bosio! I was not always what I am now--"

She spoke incoherently, and her steadiness broke down all at once, for
she had been living long under a fearful strain of terror and anxiety.
The consciousness that she could say with safety whatever came first to
her lips helped to weaken her. She half expected that Bosio would rise,
and come to her and comfort her, perhaps, as she hid her face in her
hands, shivering in fear of herself and shaking a little with the
convulsive sob that was so near.

But Bosio did not move from his seat. He sat quite still, staring at the
fire. He was not a physical coward, but, morally speaking, he was
terrified and stunned by what he had understood her to say. Probably no
man of any great strength of character, however bad, could have lived
the life he had led in that house for many years, dominated by such a
woman as Matilde Macomer. And now his weakness showed itself, to himself
and to her, in what he felt, and in what he did, respectively. A strong
man, having once felt that revival of manly instinct, would have turned
upon her and terrified her and mastered her; and, within himself, his
heart might have broken because he had ever loved such a woman. But
Bosio sat still in his seat and said nothing more, though his brow was
moist with a creeping, painful, trembling emotion that twisted his heart
and tore his delicate nerves. He felt that his hands were very cold,
but that he could not speak. She dominated him still, and he was ashamed
of the weakness, and of his own desire to go and comfort her and forget
the things she had said.

If he had spoken to her, she would have burst into tears; but his
silence betrayed that he had no strength, and she suddenly felt that she
was strong again, and that there was hope, and that he might marry
Veronica, after all. A woman rarely breaks down to very tears before a
man weaker than herself, though she may be near it.

"You must marry her," said Matilde, with returning steadiness. "You owe
it to your brother and to me. Should I say, 'to me,' first? It is to
save us from disgrace--from being prosecuted as well as ruined, from
being dragged into court to answer for having wilfully defrauded--that
is the word they would use!--for having wilfully defrauded Veronica
Serra of a great deal of money, when we were her guardians and
responsible for everything she had. My hands are clean of that--your
brother did it without my knowledge. But no judge living would believe
that I, being a guardian with my husband, could be so wholly ignorant of
his affairs. There are severe penalties for such things, Bosio--I
believe that we should both be sent to penal servitude; for no power on
earth could save us from a conviction, any more than anything but
Veronica's money can save us from ruin now. Gregorio has taken much,
but it has been, nothing compared with the whole fortune. If you marry
her, she will never know--no one will know--no one will ever guess. As
her husband you will have control of everything, and no one then will
blame you for taking a hundredth part of your wife's money to save your
brother. You will have the right to do it. Your hands will be clean,
too, as they are to-day. What is the crime? What is the difficulty? What
is the objection? And on the other side there is ruin, a public trial, a
conviction and penal servitude for your own brother, Gregorio, Count
Macomer, and Matilde Serra, his wife."

"My God! What a choice!" exclaimed Bosio, pressing both his cold hands
to his wet forehead.

"There is no choice!" answered the woman, with low, quick emphasis.
"Your mind is made up, and we will announce the engagement at once. I do
not care what objection Veronica makes. She likes you, she is half in
love with you--what other man does she know? And if she did--she would
not repent of marrying you rather than any one else. You will make her
happy--as for me, I shall at least not die a disgraced woman. You talk
of choice! Mine would be between a few drops of morphia and the
galleys,--a thousand times more desperate than yours, it seems to me!"

Her large eyes flashed with the furious determination to make him do
what she desired. His hands had fallen from his face, and he was looking
at her almost quietly, not yielding so much as she thought, but at least
listening gravely instead of telling her that she asked the impossible.

The door opened discreetly, and a servant appeared upon the threshold.

"The Signor Duca della Spina begs your Excellency to receive him for a
moment, if it is not too late."

"Certainly," answered the countess, instantly, and with perfect
self-control.

The servant closed the door and went back to deliver the short message.
Matilde threw the folds of her black gown away from her feet, so that
she might rise to meet the visitor, who was an old man and a person of
importance. She looked keenly at Bosio.

"Do not go away," she said quickly, in a low voice. "Your forehead is
wet--dry it--compose yourself--be natural!"

Before Bosio had returned his handkerchief to his pocket the door opened
again, and a tall old man entered with a stooping gait. He had weak and
inquiring eyes that looked about the room as he walked. His head was
bald, and shone like a skull in the yellow reflexion from the damask
hangings. His gait was not firm, and as he passed Bosio in order to
reach the countess, he had an uncertain movement of head and hand, as
though he were inclined to speak to him first. Matilde had risen,
however, and had moved a step forward to meet the visitor, speaking at
the same time, as though to direct him to herself, with the somewhat
maternal air which even young women sometimes assume in greeting old
men.

The Duca della Spina smiled rather feebly as he took the outstretched
hand, and slowly sat down upon the sofa beside Matilde.

"I feared it might be too late," he began, and his watery blue eyes
sought her face anxiously. "But my son insisted that I should come this
evening, when he found that I had not been able to see you this
afternoon."

"How is he?" asked the countess, suddenly assuming an expression of
great concern.

"Eh! How he is! He is--so," answered the Duca, with a gesture which
meant uncertainty. "Signora Contessa," he added, "he is not well at all.
It is natural with the young. It is passion. What else can I tell you?
He is impatient. His nerves shake him, and he does not eat. Morning and
evening he asks, 'Father, what will it be?' So, to content him, I have
come to disturb you."

"Not in the least, dear Duca!"

The door opened again, and Gregorio Macomer entered the room, having
been informed of the presence of a visitor. The Duca looked up, and his
head shook involuntarily, as he at once began the slow process of
getting upon his legs. But Macomer was already pressing him into his
seat again, holding the old hand in both of his with an appearance of
much cordiality.

"I hope that Gianluca is no worse?" he said, with an interrogation that
expressed friendly interest.

"Better he is not," answered the Duca, sadly. "What would you? It is
passion. That is why I have come at this hour, and I have made my
excuses to the Signora Contessa for disturbing her."

"Excuses?" cried Gregorio, promptly. "We are delighted to see you, dear
friend!"

But as he spoke he turned a look of inquiry upon his wife, and she
answered by a scarcely perceptible sign of negation.

They had been taken by surprise, for they had not expected the Duca's
visit. Not heeding them, his heart full of his son, the old man
continued to speak, in short, almost tremulous sentences.

"It is certain that Gianluca is very ill," he said. "Taquisara has been
with him to-day, and Pietro Ghisleri--but Taquisara is his best friend.
You know Taquisara, do you not?"

"A Sicilian?" asked the countess, encouraging the old man to go on.

"Yes," said Macomer, answering for the Duca, for he was proud of his
genealogical knowledge, "The only son of the old Baron of Guardia. But
every one calls him Taquisara, though his father is dead. There is a
story which says that they are descended from Tancred."

"It may be," said the old Duca. "There are so many legends--but he is
Gianluca's best friend, and he comes to see him every day. The boy is
ill--very ill." He shook his head, and bent it almost to his breast. "He
wastes away, and I do not know what to do for him."

The Count and Countess Macomer also shook their heads gravely, but said
nothing. Bosio, seated at a little distance, looked on, his brain still
disturbed by what had gone before, and wondering at Matilde's power of
seeming at her ease in such a desperate situation; wondering, too, at
his brother's hard, cold face--the mask that had so well hidden the
passion of the gambler, and perhaps many other passions as well, of
which even Bosio knew nothing, nor cared to know anything, having
secrets of his own to keep.

All at once, and without warning, after the short pause, the old man
broke out in tremulous entreaty.

"Oh! my friends!" he cried. "Do not say no! I shall not have the courage
to take such a message to my poor son! Eh, they say that nowadays
old-fashioned love is not to be found. But look at Gianluca--he consumes
himself, he wastes away before my eyes, and one day follows another, and
I can do nothing. You do not believe? Go and see! One day follows
another--he is always in his room, consuming himself for love! He is
pale--paler than a sheet. He does not eat, he does not drink, he does
not smoke--he, who smoked thirty cigarettes a day! As for the theatre,
or going out, he will not hear of it. He says, 'I will not see her, for
if she will not have me, it is better to die quickly.' A father's heart,
dear Macomer--think of what I suffer, and have compassion! He is my only
one--such a beautiful boy, and so young--"

"We are sorry," said Matilde, with firm-voiced sympathy that was already
a refusal.

"You will not!" cried the old man, shakily, in his distress. "Say you
will not--but not that you are sorry! And Heaven knows it is not for
Donna Veronica's money! The contract shall be as you please--we do not
need--"

"Who has spoken of money?" The countess's tone expressed grave
indifference to such a trifle. "Dear Duca, do not be distressed. We
cannot help it. We cannot dictate to Providence. Had circumstances been
different, what better match could we have found for her than your dear
son? But I told you that the girl's inclinations must be consulted, and
that we had little hope of satisfying you. And now--" She looked
earnestly at her husband, as though to secure his consent
beforehand--"and now it has turned out as we foresaw. Courage, dear
Duca! Your son is young. He has seen Veronica but a few times, and they
have certainly never been alone together--what can it really be, such
love-passion as that? Veronica has made her choice."

Not a muscle of Macomer's hard face moved. He knew that if his wife had
a surprise for him on the spur of the moment, it must be for their joint
interest. But the Duca della Spina's jaw dropped, and his hands shook.

"Yes,"--continued the countess, calmly, "Veronica has made her choice.
It is hard for us to tell you, knowing how you feel for your son.
Veronica is engaged to be married to Bosio, here."

Bosio started violently, for he was a very nervously organized man; but
his brother's face did not change, though the small eyes suddenly
flashed into sight brightly from beneath the drooping, concealing lids.
A dead silence followed, which lasted several seconds. Matilde had laid
her hand upon the Duca's arm, as though to give him courage, and she
felt it tremble under her touch, for he loved his son very dearly.

"You might have written me this news," he said at last, in a low voice
and with a dazed look. "You might--you might have spared me--oh, my son!
My poor Gianluca!" His voice broke, and the weak, sincere tears broke
from the watery eyes and trickled down the wasted cheeks piteously,
while his head turned slowly from side to side in sorrowfully hopeless
regret.

"It has only been decided this evening," said Matilde. "We should have
written to you in the morning."

"Of course," echoed her husband, gravely. "It was our duty to let you
know at once."

The Duca della Spina rose painfully to his feet. He seemed quite
unconscious of the tears he had shed, and too much shaken to take leave
with any formality. Bosio stood quite still, when he had risen too, and
his face was white. The old man passed him without a word, going to the
door.

"My poor son! my poor Gianluca!" he repeated to himself, as Gregorio
Macomer accompanied him.

Matilde and Bosio were left alone for a moment, but they knew that the
count would return at once. They stood still, looking each at the other,
with very different expressions.

Bosio felt that, in his place, a strong, brave man would have done
something, would have stood up to deny the engagement, perhaps, or would
have left the room rather than accept the situation in submissive
silence, protesting in some way, though only Matilde should have
understood the protest. She, on her side, slowly nodded her approval of
his conduct, and in her dark eyes there was a yellow reflexion from the
predominating colour of the room; there was triumph and satisfaction,
and there was the threat of the woman who dominates the man and is sure
of doing with him as she pleases. Yet she was not so sure of herself as
she seemed, and wished to seem, for she dreaded Bosio's sense of honour,
which was not wholly dead.

"Do not deny it to Gregorio," she said, in a low tone, when she heard
her husband's footstep returning through the room beyond.

Old Macomer came back and closed the door behind him.

"What is this?" he asked, at once; but though his voice was hard, it was
trembling with the anticipation of a great victory. "Has Veronica
consented?"

"No one has spoken to her," answered Bosio, before Matilde could speak.

"As though that mattered!" cried the countess, with contempt. "There is
time for that!"

Gregorio's eyelids contracted with an expression of cunning.

"Oh!" he exclaimed thoughtfully, "I understand." He began to walk up and
down in the narrow space between the furniture of the small
sitting-room, bending his head between his high shoulders. "I see," he
repeated. "I understand. But if Veronica refuses? You have been rash,
Matilde."

"Veronica loves him," answered the countess. "And of course you know
that he loves her," she added, and her smooth lips smiled. "You need
not deny it before us, Bosio. You have loved her ever since she came
from the convent--"

"I?" Bosio's pale face reddened with anger.

"See how he blushes!" laughed Matilde. "As for Veronica, she will talk
to no one else. They are made for each other. She will die if she does
not marry Bosio soon."

The yellow reflexion danced in her eyes, as she fastened them upon her
brother-in-law's face, and he shuddered, remembering what she had said
before the Duca had come.

"If that is the case," said Macomer, "the sooner they are married, the
better. Save her life, Bosio! Save her life! Do not let her die of love
for you!"

He, who rarely laughed, laughed now, and the sound was horrible in his
brother's ears. Then he suddenly turned away and left the room, still
drily chuckling to himself. It was quite unconscious and an effect of
his overwrought and long-controlled nerves.

Matilde and Bosio were alone again, and they knew that he would not come
back. Bosio sank into his chair again, and pressed the palms of his
hands to his eyes, resting his elbows on his knees.

"The infamy of it!" he groaned, in the bitterness of his weak misery.

Matilde stood beside him, and gently stroked his hair where it was
streaked with grey. He moved impatiently, as though to shake off her
strong hand.

"No," she said, and her voice grew as soft as velvet. "It is to save
me--to save us all."

He shook her off, and rose to his feet with spasmodic energy.

"I cannot--I will not--never!" he cried, walking away from her with
irregular steps.

"But it will be so much better--for Veronica, too," she said softly, for
she knew how to frighten him.

He turned with startled eyes. Then, with the impulse of a man escaping
from something which he is not strong enough to face, he reached the
door in two quick strides, and went out without looking back.

Matilde watched the door, as it closed, and stood still a few seconds
before she left the room. Her eyes wandered to the clock, and she saw
that it was nearly midnight.

The look of triumph faded slowly from her face, and the brows contracted
in a look which no one could easily have understood, except Bosio
himself, perhaps, had he still been there. The smooth lips were drawn in
and tightly compressed; and she held her breath, while her right hand
strained upon her left with all her might. Then the lips parted with a
sort of little snap as she drew breath again; and she turned her head
suddenly, and looked behind her, growing a trifle paler, as though she
expected to see something startling.

She tried to smile, and roused herself, rang the bell for the servant to
put out the lights, and left the room. It was long before she slept that
night. In the next room she could hear Gregorio's slow and regular
footsteps, as he walked up and down without ceasing. In his own room
upstairs, Bosio Macomer sat staring at the ashes of the burnt-out fire
on his hearth. Only Veronica was asleep, dreamless, young, and restful.




CHAPTER III.


Naples, more than any other city of Italy, is full of the violent
contrasts which belong to great old cities everywhere, and the absence
of which makes new cities dull, be they as well built, as well situated,
as civilized and as beautiful as they can be made by art handling nature
for the greater glory of modern humanity.

In Naples, there is a fashionable new quarter, swept, watered, and
garnished with plants and trees, but many of the great palaces stand in
old and narrow streets, rising up, grim and solemn and proud, out of the
recklessly vital life of one of the worst populaces in the world. Fifty
paces away, again, is a wide thoroughfare, perhaps, raging and roaring
with traffic from the port. A hundred yards in another direction, and
there is a clean, deserted court, into which the midday sun pours itself
as into a reservoir of light,--a court with a quiet church and simple
old houses, through the doors of which pale-faced ecclesiastics silently
come and go.

Round the next corner leads a dark lane, between hugely high buildings
that press the air and keep out the sun and all sky but a thin ribband
of blue. And the air is heavy with all vile things, from the ill-washed
linen that hangs, slowly drying, from the upper windows, thrust out into
the draught with sticks, to the rotting garbage in the gutters below.
The low-arched doors open directly upon the slimy, black pavement; and
in the deep shadows within sit strange figures with doughy faces and
glassy eyes, breathing in the stench of the nauseous, steamy
air,--working a little, perhaps, at some one of the shadowy, back-street
trades of a great city, but poisoned to death from birth by the air they
live in, diseased of the diseased, from very childhood, and prolific as
disease itself, multiplying to fatten death at the next pestilence.

And then, again, a vast square, gaudy with coloured handbills, noisy
with wheels and the everlasting Neapolitan chattering of a thick-lipped,
loud, degenerate dialect. There the little one-horse cabs tear hither
and thither, drivers lashing their wretched beasts, wheels whirling,
arms gesticulating, bad eyes flashing and leering, thick lips chattering
everlastingly: and the tram-cars roll along, crowded till the people
cling to one another on the steps; and the small boys dodge in and out
between the cars and the carriages and the horses and the
foot-passengers, some screaming out papers for sale, some looking for
pockets to pick, some hunting for stumps of cigars in the dust,--dirty,
ragged, joyous, foul-mouthed, God-forsaken little boys; and then through
the midst of all, as a black swan swimming stately through muddy waters,
comes a splendid, princely equipage, all in mourning, from the black
horses to the heavy veil just raised across a young widow's white
face--and so, from contrast to contrast, through the dense city, and
down to the teeming port, and out at last to the magic southern sea,
where the clean life of the white-sailed ships passes silently, and
scarce leaves a momentary wake to mar the pure waters of the tideless
bay.

But there is life everywhere,--reckless, excessive, and the desire for
life as a supreme good, worth living for its own sake--even if it is to
be food for the next year's pestilence--a life that can support itself
on anything, and thrive in its own fashion in the flashing sun, and the
dust and the dirt, and multiply beyond measure and mysteriously fast.
Only here and there in the swarm something permanent and fossilized
stands solid and unchanging, and divides the flight of the myriad
ephemeral lives--a monument, a church, a fortress, a palace: or,
perhaps, the figure of some man of sterner race, with grave eyes and
strong, thin lips, and manly carriage, looms in the crowd, and by its
mere presence seems to send all the rest down a step to a lower level of
humanity.

Such a man was Taquisara, the Sicilian, of whom the old Duca della Spina
had spoken. He had no permanent abode in Naples, but lived in a hotel
down by the public gardens, beyond Santa Lucia; and on the day after the
Duca had been to see the Countess Macomer, he strolled up as usual, by
short cuts and narrow streets, to see his friend Gianluca in the Spina
palace, in the upper part of the city. Many people looked at him, as he
went by, and some knew him for a Sicilian, by his face, while some took
him for a foreigner, and pressed upon him to beg, or made faces and vile
gestures at him, as soon as he could not see, after the manner of the
lower Neapolitans. But he passed calmly on, supremely indifferent, his
handsome, manly face turning neither to the right nor the left.

He might have stood for the portrait of a Saracen warrior of the
eleventh century, with his high, dark features and keen eyes, his even
lips, square jaw, and smooth, tough throat. He had, too, something of
the Arabian dignity in his bearing, and he walked with long,
well-balanced steps, swiftly, but without haste, as the Arab walks
barefooted in the sand, not even suspecting that weariness can ever come
upon him; erect, proud, without self-consciousness, elastic; collected
and ever ready, in his easy and effortless movement, for sudden and
violent action. He was not pale, as dark Italians are, but his skin had
the colour and look of fresh light bronze, just chiselled, and able to
reflect the sun, while having a light of its own from the strong blood
beneath. That was the reason why the Neapolitans who did not chance to
have seen Sicilians often, took him for a foreigner and got into his
way, holding out their hands to beg, and making ape-like grimaces at him
behind his back. But those who knew the type of his race and recognized
it, did nothing of that sort. On the contrary, they were careful not to
molest him.

The friend whom he sought, high up in the city, in a luxurious, sunlit
room overlooking the harbour and the wide bay, was as unlike him as one
man could be unlike another--white, fair-haired, delicate, with soft
blue eyes and silken lashes, and a passive hand that accepted the
pressure of Taquisara's rather than returned it--the pale survival of
another once conquering race.

Gianluca was evidently ill and weak, though few physicians could have
defined the cause of his weakness. He moved easily enough when he rose
to greet his friend, but there was a mortal languor about him, and an
evident reluctance to move again when he had resumed his seat in the
sun. He was muffled in a thickly wadded silk coat of a dark colour. His
fair, straight hair was brushed away from his thin, bluish temples, and
the golden young beard could not conceal the emaciation of his throat
when his head leaned against the back of his easy-chair.

Taquisara sat down and looked at him, lighted a black cigar and looked
again, got up, stirred the fire and then went to the window.

"You are worse to-day," he said, looking out. "What has happened?" He
turned again, for the answer.

"It is all over," said Gianluca. "My father was there last night. She is
betrothed to Bosio Macomer."

His voice sank low, and his head fell forward a little, so that his chin
rested upon his folded hands. Taquisara uttered an exclamation of
surprise, and bit the end of his cigar.

"She? To marry Bosio Macomer? No--no--I do not believe it."

"Ask my father," said Gianluca, without raising his eyes. "Bosio was
there, in the room, when they told my father the news."

"No doubt," said Taquisara, beginning to walk up and down. "No doubt,"
he repeated. "But--" He lit his cigar instead of finishing the sentence,
and his eyes were thoughtful.

"But--what?" asked his friend, dejectedly. "If it had not been true,
they would not have said it. It is all over."

"Life, you mean? I doubt that. Nothing is over, for nothing is done.
They are not married yet, are they?"

"No, of course not!"

"Then they may never marry."

"Who can prevent it? You? I? My father? It is over, I tell you. There is
no hope. I will see her once more, and then I shall die. But I must see
her once more. You must help me to see her."

"Of course," answered Taquisara. "But what strange people you are!" he
exclaimed, after a moment's pause. "Who can understand you? You are
dying for love of her. That is curious, in the first place. I understand
killing for love, but not dying oneself, just by folding one's hands and
looking at the stars and repeating her name. Then, you do nothing. You
do not say, 'She shall not marry Macomer, because I, I who speak, will
prevent it, and get her for myself.' No. Because some one has said that
she will marry him, you feel sure that she will, and that ends the
question. For the word of a man or a woman, all is to be finished. You
are all contemplation, no action--all heart, no hands--all love, no
anger! You deserve to die for love. I am sorry that I like you."

"You always talk in that way!" said Gianluca, with a wearily sad
intonation. "I suppose that life is different in Sicily."

"Life is life, everywhere," returned the Sicilian. "If I love a woman,
it is not for the pleasure of loving her, nor for the glory of having it
written on my tombstone that I have died for her. It is better that
some one else should die and that I should have what I want. How does
that seem to you? Is it not logic? It is true that I have never loved
any woman in that way. But then, I am young, though I am older than you
are."

"What can I do?" The pale young man smiled sadly and shook his head.
"You do not understand our society. I cannot even see her except at a
distance, unless they choose to permit it. I cannot write love letters
to her, can I? In our world one cannot do such things, and it would be
of no use if I could--"

"I would," said Taquisara. "I would write. I would see her--I would
empty hell and drag Satan out by the hair to help me, if the saints
would not. But you! You sit still and die of love. And when you are
dead, what will you have? A fine tomb out in the country, and lights,
and crowns, and some masses--but you will not get the woman you love. It
is not love that consumes you. It is imagination. You imagine that you
are going to die, and unless you recover from this, you probably will.
With your temperament, the best thing you can do is to come with me to
Sicily and forget all about Donna Veronica Serra. No woman would ever
look at a man who loves as you do. She might pity you enough to marry
you, if no one else presented himself just then; but when she was tired
of pitying you she would love some one else. It is not life to be
always pitying. That is the business of saints and nuns--not of men and
women."

Gianluca was hurt by his friend's tone.

"You admit that you never were in love," he said; "how can you
understand me?"

"That is just it! I do not understand you. But if I were you, I would
take matters into my own hands. I will wager anything you please that
Donna Veronica has never so much as heard that you wish to marry her--"

"But they have told her, of course!" interrupted Gianluca. "They have
asked her--"

"Who told you so?" inquired Taquisara, incredulously. "And if any one
has told you, why should you believe it? There are several millions on
the one side, which Macomer wishes to possess, and there can be nothing
on the other but the word of one of the interested persons. You have met
her in the world and exchanged a few words--that has been all--"

"I have spoken with her five times," said Gianluca, thoughtfully.

"Have you counted?" Taquisara smiled. "Very good--five times--seventeen,
if you like--you, sitting on the edge of your chair and opening your
eyes wide to see her profile while she was looking at her aunt--you,
saying that it was a fine day, or that Tamagno was a great singer; and
she, saying 'yes' to everything. And you love her. Well, no doubt. I
could love a woman with whom I might never have spoken at
all--surely--and why not? But you take it for granted that she knows you
love her and expects you to ask for her, and has been told that you have
done so and has herself dictated the refusal. You are credulous and
despondent, and you are not strong. Besides, you sit here all day long,
brooding and doing nothing but expecting to die, and hoping that she
will shed a tear when she hears of your untimely end. Is that what you
call making love in Naples?"

"I have told you that I can do nothing."

"It does not follow that there is nothing to be done."

"What is there, for instance?"

"Go to the Palazzo Macomer and find out the truth yourself. Write to
her--take your place before the door and stand there day and night until
she sees you and notices you." Taquisara laughed. "Do anything--but do
not sit here waiting to die in cotton wool with your feet to the fire
and your head in the clouds."

"All that is absurd!" answered Gianluca, petulantly.

"Is it absurd? Then I will begin by doing it for you, and see what
happens."

"You?" The younger man turned in surprise.

"I. Yes. All the more, as I have nothing to lose. I will go and find
Bosio Macomer and talk with him--"

"You will insult him," said Gianluca, anxiously. "There will be a
quarrel--I know you--and a quarrel about her."

"Why should we quarrel?" asked Taquisara. "I will congratulate him on
his betrothal. I know him well enough for that, and in the course of
conversation something may appear which we do not know. Besides, if I go
to the house, I may possibly meet Donna Veronica; if I do, I shall soon
know everything, for I will speak to her of you. I know her."

"One sees that you are not a Neapolitan," said Gianluca, smiling
faintly.

"No," answered the other, "I am not." And he laughed with a sort of
quiet consciousness of strength which his friend secretly envied. "It is
true," he added, "that things look easy to me here, which would be
utterly impossible in Palermo. We are different with our women--and we
are different when we love. Thank Heaven, for the present--I am as I
am."

He smiled and relit his cigar, which had gone out.

"No," said Gianluca. "You have never been in love, I think."

His fair young head leaned back wearily against the chair, and his eyes
were half closed as he spoke.

"Nor ever shall be, in your way, my friend," answered the Sicilian,
rising from his seat. "I suppose it is because we are so different that
we have always been such good friends. But then--one need not look for
reasons. It is enough that it is so."

Again he took the delicate, thin hand in his and pressed it, and went
away, much more anxious about Gianluca than he was willing to show. For
though he had suspected much of what he now saw, as a possibility, it
was a phase too new and startling not to trouble him greatly. It will
readily be conceived that if Gianluca had always been the weak and
dejected and despairing individual from whom Taquisara parted that
morning, there could never have been much friendship between the two.
But Gianluca, not in love, had been a very different person. With an
extremely delicate organization and a very sensitive nature, he was
naturally of a gay and sunny temper. The two had done voluntary military
service in the same regiment during more than a year, and their rank,
together with the fact that they were both from the south, had in the
first place drawn them together. Before long they had become firm
friends. In his normal condition Gianluca, though never strong, was
brave, frank, and cheerful. Taquisara thought him at times poetic and
visionary, but liked the impossible loftiness of his young ideals,
because Taquisara himself was naturally attracted by all that looked
impossible. Amongst a number of rather gay and thoughtless young men,
who jested at everything, Gianluca adhered to his faith openly, and no
one thought of laughing at him. He must have possessed something of that
wonderful simplicity, together with much of the extraordinary tact,
which helped some of the early saints to be what they were--the saints
who were beloved rather than those who were persecuted. Not, indeed,
that his conduct was always saintly, by any means, nor his life without
reproach. But in an existence which ruins many young men forever he
preserved an absolutely unaffected admiration for everything good and
high and true, and had the rare power of asserting the fact, now and
then, without being offensive to others. Taquisara had no desire to
imitate him, but was nevertheless very strongly attracted by him, and if
Gianluca had ever needed a defender, the Sicilian would have silenced
his enemies at the risk of his own life. Gianluca, however, was
universally liked, and had never been in need of any such old-fashioned
assistance.

Since he had been in love with Veronica Serra, he was completely
changed, and it was no wonder that his friend was anxious about him.
Taquisara, like most men of perfectly healthy mind and body, would have
found it hard to believe that Gianluca was merely love-sick, and was
literally 'consuming himself,' even to the point of death, in an
unrequited passion. It was certainly true, however, that he had lost
strength rapidly and without the influence of any illness which could be
defined, ever since the negotiations for Veronica's hand had shown signs
of coming to an unsatisfactory conclusion. And they had lasted long.
Many letters had been exchanged. The old Duca had been several times to
the Palazzo Macomer, and the count and countess had found many reasons
by which to put off their decision. For Gianluca was a good match, and
altogether an exceedingly desirable young man, and the countess had
always thought that if she could not marry Veronica to Bosio, it might
be wisest to accept Gianluca. He was always in delicate health, Matilda
reflected, and he might possibly die and leave his wife still absolute
mistress of her fortune, if the marriage contract were cleverly framed
with a view to that contingency.

But the young man himself had been diffident from the beginning, and at
the first hesitation on the other side he had taken it for granted that
all was lost. His slight vitality sank instantly under the
disappointment, he refused to eat, he could not sleep, and he was in a
really dangerous state before ten days had passed. Then he had sent for
Taquisara, who visited him daily for nearly a week, encouraging him in
every way, until to-day, when the news of the refusal was no more to be
denied. It was characteristic of the Sicilian that he at once attempted
to interfere with destiny in favour of his friend. He was not a man to
lose time when time was precious. His ardent temper loved difficulties,
even when they were not his own. Bold, untiring, discreet, and loyal, if
there were anything to be done in Gianluca's case, he was the man to do
it.

Bosio Macomer was somewhat surprised that morning, when his old servant
informed him that Taquisara was at the door. He knew him but slightly in
the way of acquaintance, though very well by name and reputation, and he
wondered what had brought him at that hour. He was inclined to say that
he could not receive him, offering as an excuse that he was ill, which
was almost true. But he reflected that such a man must have a good
reason for wishing to see him. He remembered, too, that the Duca had
spoken of him as Gianluca's friend, and in the terrible position in
which Bosio himself was placed, it seemed to him possible that one of
Gianluca's friends might help him,--how, he had not the power of
concentrating his mind enough to guess,--and he ordered the servant to
admit him.

Bosio had not slept that night. He had spent the six hours between
midnight and the December dawn in his easy-chair before the fireplace.
Once or twice, towards morning, he had felt sleep creeping upon him
through sheer physical exhaustion, but he had fought it off, afraid to
lose one of the precious moments which he still had before him in which
to think over what he should do. They were few enough, for a man of his
nature.

He knew the absolute truth of all that Matilde had told him, and he had
even suspected much of it before she had first spoken. He knew that his
brother had secretly ruined himself in financial speculations, in which
he had employed Lamberto Squarci as his agent, and that, with Squarci's
assistance, Gregorio had staved off the consequences of his actions by a
fraudulent use of Veronica's fortune,--of such part of it as he could
control, of course,--absorbing much of the enormous income, and even,
from time to time, obtaining the consent of Cardinal Campodonico for the
sale of certain lands, on pretence of making more profitable
investments. During fully ten years, Gregorio's management of the estate
must have been a systematic fraud upon Veronica Serra, carried on with
sufficient skill to evade all inquiry from the cardinal. Gregorio's
fictitious reputation as a strictly honourable man had helped him,
together with the fact that his wife was the ward's own aunt, which was
a strong presumption in favour of her honesty as a guardian. Then, too,
it was generally believed that Macomer was a miser, and much richer than
he allowed any one to suppose. As for the accounts of the estate, they
could bear inspection, as Matilde had said, provided that no attempt
were made to verify the existence of all the property therein described.

The worst of the case was that Squarci had been an accomplice from the
beginning, and had doubtless enriched himself while Macomer had lost
everything. In the event of a suit brought by the ward against the
guardians, it would be in Squarci's power to turn evidence in favour of
Veronica, and expose the whole enormous theft; and it would be like him
to keep on the side of wealth against ruin. For Veronica was still very
rich, in spite of all that had been stolen.

There could be little doubt but that in the event of an action, Gregorio
and Matilde Macomer would be condemned to penal servitude, as the
countess herself anticipated. It was equally certain that if Veronica
married any one but Bosio, her husband and his family would demand that
the accounts of the estate should be formally audited and the property
scheduled; this must ultimately lead to the dreaded prosecution, which
could have no possible conclusion but conviction and infamy.

Whatever Bosio's true relations with Matilde had been in the course of
the last ten years, he had at least loved her faithfully, with the
complete devotion of a man who not only loves a woman, but is morally
dominated by her in all the circumstances of life. He had not the
character which seeks ideals, and he asked for none.

Matilde's beauty and conversation had sufficed him, for in his opinion
he had never known any one to be compared with her; and on her side she
had been strong enough to make a slave of him from the first. To the
extent of his weak character and considerable physical courage, there
was no sacrifice which Bosio would not have been ready to make for her,
and few dangers which he would not at least have attempted to face for
her sake.

But where all moral sense of right and all natural action of conscience
were gone, there remained in the man an inheritance of traditional
feeling, which even Matilde's influence could not make him wittingly
violate any further,--a remnant of honour, a thread, as it were, by
which his soul was still held above the level of total destruction.
There was nothing, perhaps, involving himself alone, which he would have
refused to do for Matilde's sake, under the pressure of her strong will.
But what she required of him now was more than that, and worse. After a
night of thought, he still felt that he could not do it.

Of course, there was the possibility that Veronica herself might
absolutely refuse to marry him, and thus save his weakness from the
necessity of trying to be strong. But Bosio thought this improbable.

The fatherless and motherless girl had been purposely kept from all
outside influences by Gregorio and Matilde, in order that they might
control her disposition for their own interests. She had been taught to
expect that in due time they would select a husband for her from the men
who might offer themselves, and that it would be more or less her duty
to accept their decision, as being really the best for her own
happiness. They had hindered her from forming friendships with girls of
her own age, and altogether from acquaintanceship with young married
women, excepting Bianca Corleone, who had been her friend in the
convent. In society, when she went with them, men were introduced to her
very rarely. Bosio had been present once or twice on such occasions, and
he remembered having seen her with Gianluca. It had been very much as
Taquisara had described it to Gianluca himself--a mere exchange of a few
words, while the girl watched her aunt almost all the time with a sort
of childish fear of doing something not quite right. Veronica could not
be said to know any man to the extent of exchanging ideas with him,
except her uncle and Bosio himself. And she liked Bosio very much. It
was not at all improbable, considering all the circumstances, that she
might be delighted with the idea of marrying him, merely because she
liked him, and he was familiar in her daily life. Bosio knew that
Matilde would speak to her about it at once; and when he tried to think
what he should do if Veronica readily accepted the proposition, the pain
in his head grew intolerable, and he found it impossible to think
connectedly. The horrible dishonour of it stared him in the face--and
beyond the dishonour, still more fearfully imposing, rose the vision of
sure disgrace and infamy for the woman he loved, if he himself refused
to do this vile deed.

He looked ill, worn out with mental distress and physical exhaustion,
when Taquisara entered the room, and the servant closed the door. The
Sicilian came forward, and Bosio rose to meet him, still wondering why
he had come, but far too much disturbed by his own troubles to care.
Nevertheless, he supposed that the matter must be of some importance.
Taquisara was surprised by his appearance, for he was evidently
suffering.

"I ought almost to ask you to excuse me for having received you, in my
condition," said Bosio, politely. "I have a violent headache. But I am
wholly at your service. In what can I be of use to you?"

Taquisara found himself in an awkward position. He had expected to find
Bosio Macomer radiant and ready to be congratulated by any one who chose
to knock at his door. Instead, he found a man apparently both ill and
distressed. He hesitated a moment, for he knew Bosio but slightly, after
all.

"I do not know whether you will think it strange that I should come," he
said, and his square face grew more square as he looked straight at
Bosio. "I am Gianluca della Spina's best friend."

"Ah! Yes--I think I have heard so," answered Bosio, not startled, but
considerably disturbed, as his gentle eyes met Taquisara's bold glance.

"I have come, as a friend, to ask whether it is really true that you are
to marry Donna Veronica Serra," continued Taquisara, feeling that after
all he might as well go straight to the point.

Bosio straightened himself a little in his chair, and there was a look
of surprise in his face. But he hesitated an instant, in his turn.

"That was the answer which my brother and his wife gave to the Duca
della Spina," he replied coldly.

"Yes," said Taquisara. "I know it was. That is the reason why I have
come to you, directly, as Gianluca's friend."

"Does Don Gianluca propose to call me out, because he cannot marry Donna
Veronica?" asked Bosio, in surprise, and in a tone which showed that he
was already offended.

"No. He is very ill, and in no condition for that sort of amusement."

"I am sorry to hear it," said Bosio, with cold civility. "But you come
to represent him, in some way. Do I understand?"

"He is ill--of love, as they say." Taquisara smiled at the idea, in
spite of himself. "It is serious, at all events--so serious, that I have
come in person to ask whether it is really true that you are betrothed
to Donna Veronica, in order that I may take him the truth as I hear it
from your lips. I daresay you think me indiscreet, Count Macomer, for I
am only slightly acquainted with you. But I am sincerely devoted to
Gianluca, and if you were a total stranger to me, I should come to you
as I have come now."

"And if I refuse to answer your question, Baron Taquisara--what then?"

"As the answer--yes or no--cannot possibly involve anything in the
slightest degree indelicate, I shall of course infer that you have no
answer to give, and that the matter is not yet really settled."

Bosio's eyebrows contracted spasmodically, and his white hand stroked
his silky beard, while his eyes turned quickly from his guest and looked
down at the carpet. In two passes, as though they had been fencing
together, this singularly direct man had thrust him to the wall, and was
forcing him to make a decision. Of course it was still in his power to
answer in one way or the other, though he was yet undecided. But he
honestly could not bring himself to say that he would marry Veronica,
and yet, if he denied that he was betrothed to her, he must put his
brother and Matilde in the position of having told a deliberate lie to
Gianluca's father. He felt that he was growing confused, and that his
hesitation and confusion were every moment making it clearer to
Taquisara that the betrothal was by no means as yet a fact. He tried to
temporize.

"It depends upon what you understand by an engagement," he said. "With
us, here in Naples, the betrothal means the signing of the marriage
contract. Now, the contract has not even been discussed. I think that my
brother's announcement was premature, though it was perhaps justifiable,
as he wished to discourage any false expectations on the part of Don
Gianluca."

"I am not a diplomatist," answered the Sicilian. "The statement was
categorical--that you were betrothed to Donna Veronica. For the sake of
my friend, I am indiscreet enough to wish to hear the confirmation of
the statement from your own lips, without in the least questioning the
right of the Count Macomer to make it last night. Gianluca is honestly
and very deeply in love. The happiness of his whole life is involved.
With his delicate constitution and sensitive temper, I believe that his
life itself is in danger. You will be doing him an honourable kindness
in letting him know the truth, through me."

"I will," said Bosio, absently, "I will--as soon as--" He checked
himself and glanced nervously at Taquisara.

"As soon as you yourself have decided," said the latter, quietly. "I
think I understand. Your brother and the countess feel quite sure of the
fact, as though it had already taken place, but for some reason which
does not concern me, you yourself are not so certain of the result. To
be plain, there is still a possibility that the marriage may not take
place. I need not tell you that in speaking to Gianluca I shall be very
careful not to raise any false hopes in his mind. But I am exceedingly
indebted to you for being so honourably frank with me."

Taquisara repressed a smile at his own words as he rose from his seat,
for he was very far from wishing to offend Bosio. The latter rose, too,
and looked at him with a dazed, uncertain expression, like a man not
quite sure of being in his senses. He put out his hand mechanically,
without speaking, and a moment later he was alone with the horror of his
desperate difficulty.

The Sicilian descended the stairs slowly, and paused to look out of one
of the big windows at a landing, which offered nothing in the way of a
view but an almost blank wall on the other side of the narrow street. He
did not know what to do next, and yet, being eminently a man of action,
rather than of reflexion, he knew that he must do more to satisfy
himself, for his suspicions were aroused. He had expected to find Bosio
jubilant. From what he had seen, he had understood well enough that
there was some mysterious trouble. He could not hope to extort any
information from Macomer or his wife, and he had no means of reaching
Veronica, nor could he have asked direct questions if he had succeeded
in seeing her.

Suddenly, he thought of the young Princess Corleone, whom he knew
tolerably well, Corleone being a Sicilian like himself. She was
Veronica's only intimate friend. She was the niece of Cardinal
Campodonico, one of Veronica's guardians. If any one knew the truth, she
might be expected to know it.

Taquisara looked at his watch, lit a cigar, and left the gloomy Palazzo
Macomer, glad to be outside and to turn his face to the sunshine, and
his back upon all the wickedness of which its old walls kept the
secret.




CHAPTER IV.


The villas along the shore towards Posilippo face the sun all day in
winter, for they look due south from the water's edge, and their marble
steps lead down into the tideless sea, as though it were a landlocked
lagoon or a Swiss lake. In winter the roses blossom amongst the laurels,
and before the rose leaves are all fallen the violets peep out in the
borders; the broad, fan-like palms stand unsheltered in the south wind,
and the oranges and lemons are left hanging on the trees for beauty's
sake. There are but two changes in the year, from spring to summer, and
from summer back to spring.

It is sometimes cold in Naples, high up in the city, when the northeast
wind comes screaming from the snowy Abruzzi, and when Vesuvius is clad
in white almost to the lower villages. In Naples it is sometimes dreary
when the water-laden southwest sends up its mountains of black clouds.
But somehow in soft Posilippo the wind is tempered and the rain seems
but a shower, and spring and summer, summer and spring, ever join hands
amongst the ilexes and the laurels and the orange trees.

On this day it was all summer, for there was not a cloud in the air nor
a whitecap on the sea as the water gently lapped against the steps at
the foot of Bianca Corleone's garden. It was so warm that she was
sitting there herself, a book unread on her knees, her marvellous face
towards the day, her small feet resting on the lower rail of another
chair before her, just because the gravel might possibly be damp.

Beside her, and turned towards her, looking earnestly to her averted
eyes, sat Pietro Ghisleri, the man who many years afterwards married
Lady Herbert Arden, of whom many have heard,--a man young at that time
and not world-worn as he was later, nor prematurely gaunt and
weather-beaten. He was only five-and-twenty years of age, then, and the
beautiful Bianca was but twenty-one, and had already been married two
years to Corleone. But the suffering of a lifetime had been crushed into
those two years; for Corleone was bad, from his head to his heart, all
through, and she had believed that she loved him.

Then, half broken-hearted, she had listened to Ghisleri; and he loved
her truly, with all his heart. Even society found little to say at that,
and perhaps there was little enough to be said. To all intents and
purposes, Corleone had abandoned her, and Ghisleri was often with her.
It was not until later that her brother, Gianforte Campodonico, lifted
up his hand against Ghisleri for the first time.

So Ghisleri was sitting beside Bianca on that morning, in her garden,
when there was a sound of wheels, behind the house; and then,
unannounced, as one familiar with the place, Veronica Serra came swiftly
down the walk towards the pair. Ghisleri rose to his feet,--a tall, fair
man, sunburnt, lean and strong, with bright blue eyes,--and Bianca
turned in her chair, with a smile, and held out her hand, as she sat, to
the young girl.

"You do not mind?" asked Veronica, smiling innocently. "Am I not
interrupting you?"

"No, dear--no." A very faint dawn of colour rose in Bianca's almost
unnatural pallor.

"Something so strange has happened," said Veronica.

Then she nodded to Pietro Ghisleri, realizing that she had forgotten
him. He moved forward for her the chair on which he had been sitting,
while he continued to stand. Veronica had often met him there before.

"Donna Veronica has something to say to you," he said to Bianca. "If you
will allow me, I will go up to the stable and look at that dog."

Bianca nodded, as though it were a matter of course that Pietro should
look after her dogs when there was anything the matter with them, and
Veronica sat down. Her expression was strange, Bianca thought, as
though she did not know whether to laugh or cry. Yet she looked fresh
and well and not tired. The girl told her story in half a dozen words,
as soon as Ghisleri was out of hearing.

"They want me to marry Bosio," she said, and then drew breath, holding
both of Bianca's hands and looking into her eyes.

"You? Marry Bosio Macomer? Oh! no--Veronica--no!"

Bianca's voice expressed the greatest apprehension, for Veronica was
almost her only intimate friend. Veronica seemed surprised.

"Why not?" she asked. "That is, if I wished to. Why do you speak in that
way? Do you know anything about him which I do not know? You must have
some reason."

Bianca's exquisite face grew calm and grave, and she looked away, and
waited some seconds before she spoke. The sins of the earth were
familiar to her before her time, and suffering and the payment. But
Veronica was a child.

"It seems unfitting," she said quietly. "He is almost like your uncle.
Of course, one may marry one's uncle--but he is too old for you, dear.
And, after all, with your name, and all you have--"

"But I like Bosio," answered Veronica, simply. "He is always good to me.
I talk with him a great deal. And he is really not old, though his hair
is a little grey. I think I would perhaps rather have him just for a
friend, instead of a husband. But then, he would be both. I do not know
what to do, so I came to you for advice."

"Why do you not marry Gianluca della Spina?" asked Bianca, suddenly.

"Don Gianluca?" repeated Veronica, rather blankly. "Why him,
particularly? I have only seen him three or four times."

"He is dying of love for you, my dear," said Bianca. "At least, every
one says so. I have heard it from Taquisara and from Signor Ghisleri,
who are friends of his."

"Dying of love for me?" Veronica broke out in a girlish laugh. "How
absurd! Why does he not ask for me, if that is true? Not that I would
ever marry him! He is like a Perugino angel, with his yellow hair and
blue eyes."

She laughed again. Bianca knew from Ghisleri that Gianluca's father had
done his best to bring about the marriage. She was amazed to find that
Veronica knew nothing of the negotiations.

"It is very strange," she said thoughtfully, and hesitating as to how
much she should tell of what she had heard.

"What is strange?" asked the young girl.

"That you should not have known about Gianluca. They go to see him every
day. He is really madly in love with you, and is positively ill about
it. That is why I say that you should marry him, if you marry at
all--but not your uncle Bosio."

"He is not my uncle," said Veronica. "He is my aunt's brother-in-law."

"It is the same thing--"

"No. It is not the same. Tell me all about Don Gianluca. It is
interesting--I feel like a heroine in a book--a man dying for love of
me, whom I scarcely know! It is too ridiculous! He must be in love with
my fortune, as my aunt says that so many people are."

"No, dear," said Bianca, gravely, "do not say that. It is for yourself,
and he does not need your fortune."

"I did not mean to say anything unkind," answered Veronica. "But I
scarcely know him--and I have heard nothing about it. Have they spoken
of the marriage?"

"Yes."

They were interrupted by a servant, who came quickly down from the
house. The man asked if the princess would receive Baron Taquisara.
Bianca ordered him to be admitted, and told the man to ask Ghisleri to
come back from the stables.

"Do you know Taquisara?" she asked Veronica.

"A Sicilian? With a bronze face and fiery eyes? I have seen him once or
twice at balls, I think. Yes--he was introduced to me somewhere. I
remember him because they say he is descended from Tancred."

"Yes," said Bianca. "I could not refuse to receive him, because Signor
Ghisleri is here. They will both go away before long, and then we can
talk. Can you stay to breakfast with me?"

"Oh, no! I should not dare to do that!" Veronica laughed a little. "No
one knows where I am," she added. "My aunt thinks I have gone for a
drive to think over the matter. I just pulled down the curtain of the
brougham and told the man to bring me here--all alone."

At this moment Taquisara and Ghisleri appeared on the gravel path,
walking side by side, two men strongly contrasted with each other,
Italians of the Lombard and the Saracen types, fine specimens both, in
the prime of youth and strength. Bianca gave the Sicilian her hand, and
he bowed gravely to Veronica. Ghisleri brought out more chairs, and
without the slightest hesitation sat down beside Bianca, forcing
Taquisara to place himself near the young girl.

Taquisara was a man almost incapable of anything like social timidity,
in whatever position he might be placed, and he was in reality delighted
at thus being thrust upon Donna Veronica, from whom he felt sure that he
should learn something about the projected marriage. For he had great
and unaffected confidence in himself. But he hesitated a moment before
he spoke, for he did not now remember that he had ever before entered
intentionally into a serious conversation with a young girl, in the
whole course of his life. The customs of the society in which he lived
made such things well-nigh impossible. As usual with him, he meditated
going straight to the matter in hand, and he only paused to consider
what words he should use. Veronica, as she had been taught to do in such
a position, looked vacantly before her at the roots of the trees,
waiting for him to say something.

He had not seen her, except from a distance, since Gianluca had fallen
so madly in love with her, and while she looked away from him, his bold
eyes scrutinized her face. He saw what she had seen, when she had looked
into the glass on the previous evening--neither more nor less, except
that she was dressed for walking, and something feathery was around her
slender throat--and she wore a hat, which, in her own opinion, changed
her appearance very much. But, as he looked, he was aware that there was
more in her face than he had supposed.

There was something in the expression which was, all at once, far more
beautiful to him, than anything he had ever discovered in the sad and
faultless features of the already famous beauty who sat beside her.
Unconsciously, as he realized it, he forgot that he was expected to
speak.

Then, wondering at his silence, and conscious of his gaze, Veronica
turned her face to his, with a shy look of girlish inquiry, and their
eyes met. Taquisara was too dark to blush, but to his own surprise he
felt that the blood had mounted in his face, and in Veronica's own thin,
young cheeks there was a faint and lovely tinge which lasted but a
moment and then faded, coming again more strongly as she turned her eyes
away. Then he felt that he must speak. Ghisleri and Bianca, on the other
side, had begun at once to talk, and their voices, unknown to
themselves, had sunk to a low key.

"I am very glad I have met you here, this morning, Donna Veronica," said
Taquisara, leaning forward so as to speak close to her, but looking down
at the gravel under his feet. "I had something especial to say to you."

Veronica glanced at him, half startled. His tone and manner were quite
different from anything she had hitherto heard and seen. She saw that he
was not looking at her, and her eyes went back to the roots of the
trees.

"Yes," she said, almost inaudibly, for she did not know whether he
expected her to say anything.

"I have a very good friend, Donna Veronica," he continued; "I have been
with him this morning. You have heard his name often of late, I think,
and you know him--Gianluca della Spina."

Veronica started a little, and again the colour came and went in her
delicate face.

"Yes," she said. "I--I know him a little."

"He loves you, Donna Veronica," Taquisara said, his voice softening
almost to a whisper, for he did not wish Bianca Corleone to hear him.
"He loves you so much that he is almost dangerously ill--indeed, I think
it is dangerous--because you will not marry him."

He paused to see what she would do. She quickly turned her startled eyes
to him, and her lips parted, but she said nothing. He raised his face
and met her look as he went on.

"Last night, his father was at your house, and he was told that there
was no hope, because you were betrothed to Count Bosio Macomer."

"They told him that?" asked Veronica, quickly, and the colour mounted a
third time in her cheeks. "But it is not true!" she added; and her eyes
set themselves sharply, for she was angry.

"No," said Taquisara, "I know that it is not quite true, for I have been
to see Count Bosio. I was there half an hour ago."

"You have quarrelled?" asked Veronica, in sudden anxiety.

"Quarrelled? no. Why should we quarrel? He gave me to understand that
nothing was settled. I thanked him, and came away. I did not hope to see
you; but I knew that the Princess Corleone was your best friend, as I
am Gianluca's. I thought I would speak to her. Since, by a miracle, we
have met, I have spoken directly to you. Do you forgive me? I hope so,
though I daresay that no mere acquaintance has ever talked as I am
talking. If you blame me, remember that it is for Gianluca, that he is
my friend, that he knows nothing of my speaking to you, since you and I
have met by chance, and that he is perhaps dying--dying for you, Donna
Veronica."

The girl's face was white and grave now, for Taquisara spoke in earnest.

"How dreadful!" she exclaimed.

Bianca turned her head, for she was not so much absorbed in her
conversation with Ghisleri as not to have noticed that Veronica and
Taquisara were speaking almost in whispers, which was strange conduct
for a young girl with a mere acquaintance, to say the least of it.

"What is so dreadful?" she asked, with a smile.

"Oh!--nothing," answered Veronica, glancing at her, and turning back
instantly to Taquisara.

A shade of annoyance was in his face, and Veronica felt suddenly that
this was the first real crisis in her life, and that she must hear all
he had to say, to the end, at any cost of propriety.

"Come!" she said to Taquisara.

She rose as calmly as a married woman, many years older than she, might
have done, and Taquisara was on his feet at the same moment. She led
the way down to the marble steps that descended to the sea, and stood on
the uppermost one, looking out. Bianca and Ghisleri watched her in
surprise and Bianca made a slight movement, as though to follow, but
then leaned back again. There was then, and still is, a very strong
feeling in Southern Italy against allowing a young girl to be out of
earshot with a man.

Though Bianca and Veronica had been children, together, and there was
little difference of age between them, Bianca felt that, as the married
woman, she was responsible for the observance of social custom. But in a
moment she realized that Taquisara was talking of Gianluca, and that
anything would be better than to allow Veronica to marry Bosio Macomer.

"I understand," she said to Ghisleri; "let them alone. It is better, so
long as only you and I see it."

Down by the steps, Veronica stood very still, looking out over the blue
water, and Taquisara was beside her. She waited for him to speak again,
sure that he had not said all.

"Such things seem improbable in these days," he said quietly. "You say
that it is dreadful. It is. I have seen it, and have been with him day
after day. I am not very sensitive, as a rule, but I have had a strange
impression which I shall never forget. Gianluca and I met when we were
serving our time as volunteers. He was unlike the rest of us, even then.
That was why we became friends--because he was unlike me, I suppose."

"Unlike--in what way?" asked Veronica, still looking at the sea.

"It is hard to explain. He is a man of ideals, a religious man, a good
man." Taquisara smiled gravely. "That was enough to make him quite
different from us all, was it not?"

"I do not know," said the young girl. "Are all men bad, as a rule?"

"Perhaps," answered the Sicilian, shortly. "At all events, Gianluca was
not. One saw that all the little that was bad in his life was only a
jest, while all the much that was good was real and true."

"You are indeed his friend," said Veronica, softly.

She was struck by the beauty of what the man had said so plainly and
unaffectedly.

"Yes, I am his friend," replied Taquisara. "One of his friends,
say,--for he has many. I am his friend as you are the friend of Donna
Bianca. You understand that, do you not? And you understand that there
is nothing you would not do for a friend? Not out of mere obligation,
because your friend has done much for you, but just for
friendship--love, if you choose to call it so. I have heard people speak
eloquently of friendship--so have you perhaps. And we both understand
what it means, though many do not. That is why I speak as I do, and if I
do not speak well, you must forgive me, and feel the meaning I cannot
express to your ears. Gianluca loves you, Donna Veronica, as men very
rarely love women, so immensely, so strongly, that his love is burning
up his life in him--and it has all been kept from you for some reason or
other, while your relations are doing their best to make you marry Bosio
Macomer, who can no more be compared with Gianluca della Spina than--"

He checked himself, for he felt that his tone was contemptuous, and
remembered that Veronica might perhaps like Bosio. She was listening,
her eyes fixed on the distance, her mind wide open to the new experience
of life which had come so unexpectedly.

"He cannot be compared with Gianluca," continued Taquisara, modifying
his sentence and omitting whatever simile had presented itself in his
thoughts. "If you knew Gianluca, you would understand. It is because I
know him well that I speak for him, that I implore you, pray you,
beseech you, to see him before you consent to marry Count Bosio--"

"To see him!" exclaimed Veronica, startled at the sudden proposition,
which was a blow to every tradition she had ever learned.

But the Sicilian was not a man to hesitate at trifles where women were
concerned, nor men either.

"Yes--to see him!" he answered with a certain vehemence. "Is it a sin?
Is it a crime? Is it dishonourable? Why should you cry out? What is
society that it should take you young girls by the throat, like martyrs,
and chain you with proprieties to the stake of its rigid law--to be
burnt to death afterwards by slow fire, like your best friend there,
Donna Bianca? Ah--you understand that. You know her life, and I know it
too. It is the life--or the death--to which you may look forward if you
will neither open your eyes to see, nor raise your hand to guard
yourself. And you cry out in outraged horror at the idea of seeing
Gianluca della Spina here, in this garden, by these steps, under God's
sunlight, as you see me here to-day by accident. It seems to you--what
shall I say?--unladylike!" Taquisara laughed scornfully. "What does it
matter whether you are unladylike or not, so long as you are womanly,
and kind, and brave? I am telling you truths you have never heard, but
you have a woman's right to hear them, whatever you may think of me. And
I speak for another. I have the holy right to say for him, for his life,
for his happiness, all that I would not say for myself, perhaps. And I
do say, what is to prevent Gianluca from being here to-morrow, or this
very afternoon, as I am here now, and why should it be such a dreadful
thing for you to come here, knowing that you will meet him? Do you think
that he would not give the last drop of his blood, at one word from your
lips, to save you from trouble, or danger, or insult? Do you think, if
he knew how I am speaking to you--speaking roughly, perhaps, because I
am rough--he would not turn upon me, his friend, who am fighting for his
life, and quarrel with me, and disown me, because my roughness comes
near you and may offend you? You do not know him. How should you? But
because you do not know him and cannot guess how he loves you, do not
throw his life away without seeing it, without understanding what you
despise, and learning that it is far above your contempt--a noble life,
an honest life, a true-hearted young life, which may be lived out for
you only--and, for you, I think it would be worth living."

Taquisara was a man who could be in earnest for his friend, and there
was a strong vibration in his low voice which few could have heard with
indifference. While he was speaking and forcing the appeal of his honest
black eyes upon Veronica's face, she could not help slowly turning to
meet them, and her lips parted a little as though in wonder, while she
drank in eagerly the words he spoke. It was the first time in her life
that she had ever heard a man speak to her of love, and, in his rough
eloquence, he spoke well and strongly, though it was not for himself. In
his own cause, the words might not have come so readily, but they were
not now the less evidently sincere, because they were many. She was glad
that she had boldly risen, and left Bianca's side, in order to hear him.
But when he paused, she scarcely knew what to answer. She wanted to hear
more. It was as though a dawn were rising, high and clear, in the dim
country through which childhood had led her, and she longed suddenly for
the full light of broad day.

"Indeed, you speak as though you loved him," she said.

"Yes, but I am trying to tell you how he loves you, and I cannot, though
I know it all. You must hear it for yourself, you must see him, you must
know him--"

"But it is impossible--" Veronica's protest broke off rather weakly in
the middle.

"It is impossible that you should be here to-morrow at this hour?
Perhaps--I do not know. But to-morrow at this hour Gianluca will be
here, though he has not been able to leave the house for a week; and if
you come, all the impossibility is gone. It is as simple as that--"

"That is an appointment--with a man--"

Again the blood rushed to the young girl's face but this time it was
genuine shame of doing a thing which she had been taught to think the
most dreadful in the whole world.

"An appointment!" Taquisara laughed contemptuously. "Do you not come
often to see the Princess Corleone? You will come again. And Gianluca
will come often, too--and if you chance to meet to-morrow, it will be an
accident of fate, that is all, as you chanced to see me here to-day. You
cannot forbid him to come here. You cannot, without a reason, ask Donna
Bianca to refuse to receive him--"

"Oh!--if she ever guessed--" Veronica checked herself, still blushing,
but Taquisara was too sincerely in earnest to smile at the slip she had
made.

"That is all," he said. "There is neither appointment, nor engagement,
nor anything but the possibility of a meeting which you cannot be sure
of avoiding, unless you never come to see your friend, or unless you
give her some unjust reason for not letting him come, in case he calls.
There is nothing but chance. How can I tell whether you will come
to-morrow, or not? I shall perhaps never know, for I shall not come with
him. I have been here to-day--what excuse could I give for calling again
to-morrow? Donna Bianca would think it strange. I can hope, for his
sake. I can tell you that no woman has the right to throw away such love
as his, to ruin such a life as his, to break such a heart without a
thought and without so much as hearing the man speak--whatever this
wretched society in which we live may say about proprieties and rights
and wrongs, and the difference between the proper behaviour for young
girls and married women. This is God's earth, Donna Veronica--not
society's!"

Veronica said nothing; but there was perplexity in her face, and she
looked down, and pulled at one finger of her glove. She was wondering
whether, if she came on the next day, and stood with Gianluca della
Spina on that very spot, he would speak for himself as strongly and well
as his friend had been speaking for him.

Somehow, she doubted it, and somehow, too, she knew that if by magic
Taquisara should all at once turn out to be the real Gianluca,--not the
Gianluca she knew,--she should be better satisfied with the world. For
as things seemed just then, she was not satisfied at all, and the future
was more dim and uncertain than ever. Still she looked down, thinking,
and Taquisara glanced at her occasionally, and respected her silence.

"You do not know Bosio Macomer," she said, at last. "Or you know him
little. If you chanced to be his friend, instead of Don Gianluca's, you
could speak as eloquently for him."

"I think not," answered Taquisara. And his lip curled a little, though
she did not see the expression.

"Why not? You do not know him. How can you tell? A little while ago, you
said that he was not to be compared to your friend. How can you be so
sure? Everything is not written in men's faces."

"I judge as I can, from what I see and know."

"So do I."

"From seeing and knowing the one and not the other. That is it. All I
ask is that you will wait until you know both, before you make up your
mind--a week--no more, if you can spare no more. It is not for me to
tell you what your rights are, that you are not in the position of the
average young girl, just from the convent, who accepts the choice her
father and mother make for her--because, perhaps, she may never have
another; and, at all events, because she cannot choose. You have the
world to choose from, and--forgive me for saying it--you have no one to
choose for you but those who are interested in the choice. May I speak?"

She hesitated, and their eyes met for a moment.

"Yes," she said suddenly.

"Count Bosio may be the best of men. I do not know. But he is the
middle-aged, younger brother of Count Macomer, with a very slender
fortune of his own and a position no better than the rest of us. If he
marries you, he becomes Prince of Acireale, a Prince of the Holy Roman
Empire, a Grandee of Spain of the First Class--and many times a
millionnaire. For you have all that to give the man you marry. Grant
that he is the best of men. Is his brother wholly disinterested? I speak
plainly. It is rumoured that Count Macomer has lost most of his fortune
in speculations. I do not know whether that is true. Even if it is not,
what was all his fortune compared to what it would mean to him if his
brother held yours?"

"My uncle never speculated in his life!" answered Veronica, rather
indignantly.

"Grant that. The other side remains. And the countess? Is she wholly
disinterested? Has she been disappointed by the marriage she made, or
not? She was born a Serra, like yourself, and she married Macomer in the
days of the old court, when he was a favourite with the old king and had
a brilliant position, and people said that he might be one of the first
men in the kingdom. But Garibaldi swept all that away, and Macomer's
chances with it, and the countess is a disappointed woman, for her
husband has remained just what he always was--plain Count Macomer, with
his name and his palace, neither of them extraordinary. Truly, Donna
Veronica, though you may refuse to speak to me again for what I say, I
will dare to tell you that you must be very unsuspicious! They conceal
from you the honourable offer of such a man as Gianluca della Spina, the
eldest son of a great old house, and they announce your betrothal with
Count Bosio before either you or he know of it. One need not be very
distrustful to think all that strange--even granting that Count Bosio is
the best of men, a matter of which you are a judge."

"I would rather that you should not say those things to me," said
Veronica, a little pale, and turning half round as though she would go
back to Bianca and Ghisleri.

"Forgive me--for I have risked such opinion of me as you may have, to
say them. There may be reasonable doubt about them. But of the
rest--there is no doubt. There is a man's life in it, and death is
beyond doubts, and a love that can take a man and tear him and hurt him
until he dies has a right to a woman's hearing--and to her
charity--before she throws it away. I ask no forgiveness of you for
saying that. Gianluca will come to-morrow at this time, and he will come
again until he sees you. I have kept you too long, Donna Veronica, and
you have been kind in listening to me. If you need service in your life,
use mine."

She said nothing, but gravely inclined her head a little when she had
once more looked into his eyes, before she turned towards Bianca and
walked slowly up the short, broad path by his side.




CHAPTER V.


Bosio felt that if he remained in his room alone with the horror of his
position, he should go mad before night. He was weakly resolved not to
marry Veronica, but he knew and for the first time dreaded the power
Matilde had over his thoughts as well as his actions. He felt that if he
could avoid her, he could still cling to the remnant of honour, but that
she would tear it from him if she could and cast it to the winds. The
whole card-house of his ill-founded life was trembling under the breath
of fate, and its near fall seemed to threaten its existence.

He went out and walked slowly through sunny, unfrequented places, high
up in the city, trying to shake off the chill of his fear as a man hopes
to rid himself of an ague by sitting in the sun. But the chill was in
his heart, and it was his soul that shivered. He weakly wished that he
were wholly bad, that he might feel less.

Then, in true Italian humour, he tried to think of something which might
divert his thoughts from the duty of facing their own terrible
perplexity. If it had been evening, he would have strolled into the
theatre; had it been already afternoon, he would have had himself driven
out along the public garden towards Posilippo, to see the faces of his
friends go by. But it was morning. There was nothing but the club, and
he cared little for the men he might meet there. There was nothing to
do, and his eyes did not help him to forget his troubles. He wandered on
through ways broad and narrow, climbing up one steep lane and descending
again by the next, hardly aware of direction and not noticing whether he
went east or west, north or south, up or down.

At last, at a corner, he chanced to read the name of a street. It was
familiar enough to him, as a Neapolitan, but just now it reminded him of
something which might possibly help to distract his attention. He
stopped and got out his pocket-book, and found in it a card, glanced at
the address on it, and then once more at the name of the street. Then he
went on till he came to the right number, entered a gloomy doorway,
black with dampness and foul air, ascended four flights of dark stone
steps, and stopped before a small brown door. The card nailed upon it
was like the one he had in his pocket-book. The name was 'Giuditta
Astarita,' and under it, in another character, was printed the word
'Somnambulist.'

There was nothing at all unnatural in the name or the profession, in
Naples, where somnambulists are plentiful enough. And the name itself
was a Neapolitan one, and by no means uncommon. The card, however, was
white and clean, which argued either that Giuditta Astarita had not long
been a professional clairvoyante, or else that she had recently changed
her lodgings. Bosio knew nothing about her, except that she had suddenly
acquired an extraordinary reputation as a seer, and that many people in
society had lately visited her, and had come away full of extraordinary
stories about her power. He rang the little tinkling bell, which was
answered by a very respectably dressed woman servant with only one
eye,--a fact which Bosio noticed because it was the blind side of her
face which first appeared as the door opened.

The Signora Giuditta Astarita was at home, and there was no other
visitor. Bosio, without giving his name, was ushered into a small
sitting-room, of which the only window opened upon a narrow court
opposite a blank wall. The furniture was scant and stiff, and such of it
as was upholstered was covered with a cheap cotton corded material of a
spurious wine colour. There were small square antimacassars on the
chairs, and two of them, side by side, on the back of the sofa. The
single window had heavy curtains, now drawn aside, but evidently capable
of shutting out all light. A solid, square, walnut table stood before
the sofa, without any table-cloth, and upon it were arranged half a
dozen large books, bound with a good deal of gilding, and which looked
as though they had never been opened.

Bosio was standing before the window, looking out at the blank wall,
when he heard some one enter the room and softly close the door.
Giuditta Astarita came forward as he turned round.

He saw a heavy, phlegmatic woman, still very young, though abnormally
stout, with an unhealthy face, thin black hair and large weak eyes of a
light china blue. Her lips were parted in a sort of chronic sad smile,
which showed uneven and discoloured teeth. She wore a long trailing
garment of heavy black silk, not gathered to the figure at the waist,
but loose from the shoulders down, and buttoned from throat to feet in
front, with small buttons, like a cassock. From one of the upper
buttonholes dangled a thin gold chain, supporting a bunch of small
charms against the evil eye, a little coral horn, a tiny silver
hunchback, a miniature gilt bell, and two or three coins of gold and
silver, besides an Egyptian scarabee in a gold setting. The woman
remained standing before Bosio.

"You wish to consult me, Signore?" she inquired, in a professional tone,
through the chronic smile, as it were. Her voice was very hoarse.

Bosio bowed gravely, whereupon she pointed to a chair for him, drew
another into position for herself, opposite his, and at some distance
from it, and then fumbled in the curtains for the cord that pulled
them.

"If you will sit down," she said, "I will darken the room."

Bosio seated himself, and in a moment the light was shut out as the
heavy curtains ran together. Then he heard the rustle of the woman's
silk dress as she sat down opposite to him in the dark. He felt
unaccountably nervous, and her china blue eyes had made a disagreeable
impression upon him. He expected something to happen.

"I see a name over your head," said a clear, bell-like voice, certainly
not Giuditta Astarita's. "It is Veronica."

Bosio started uneasily, though like most Neapolitans, he had visited
somnambulists more than once.

"Who is speaking?" he asked quickly.

"It is the spirit," said the woman's hoarse tones. "That is his voice.
Is there such a person as Veronica in your life? Is it about her that
you wish to consult the spirits?"

"Yes," said the spirit voice, before Bosio could answer. "You are afraid
that they will murder her, if you do not marry her--or if she will not
marry you."

Bosio uttered a loud exclamation of alarm and astonishment, for this was
altogether beyond anything in his experience.

"Is it so?" asked Giuditta Astarita.

"Yes. It is true," said Bosio, in uncertain tones. "And I wish to
know--whether--" he stopped.

"Whether the grey-faced man and the handsome woman whose eyes are near
together will really kill her?" asked the spirit voice.

Bosio felt his soft hair rising on his head. "Do you know who I am?" he
asked nervously.

"No," replied the voice of Giuditta. "The spirits know everything, but I
do not. They only speak through me with another voice. I do not know
what they are going to say. You need have no apprehension. This is more
sacred than the confessional, Signore, more secret than the tomb."

The phrase sounded as though it had been carefully studied and often
repeated, but the dramatic tone in which it was uttered produced a
certain reassuring effect upon Bosio, in his half-frightened state.

"Do you wish to tell whether they will really kill Veronica?" inquired
Giuditta. "If you have any question to ask, you must put it quickly. I
cannot keep the spirits waiting. They exhaust me when they are
impatient."

"What shall I do to avoid marrying her?" asked Bosio, suddenly springing
to the main point of his doubts.

"The handsome woman whose eyes are near together will make you marry
Veronica," said the spirit voice.

"But if I refuse? If I say that I will not? What then? Is her life
really in danger?"

"Yes. They wish to kill her to get her money. The handsome woman has her
will leaving her everything if she dies."

"But will they really kill her?" insisted Bosio, half breathless in his
fear and nervous excitement.

The spirit voice did not answer. In the silence Bosio heard Giuditta
Astarita's breathing opposite to him.

"Will they really kill her?" he asked again.

Still there was silence, and Bosio held his breath. Then Giuditta spoke
hoarsely.

"The spirit is gone," she said. "He will not answer any more questions
to-day."

"Can you not call it back?" asked Bosio, anxiously, and peering into the
blackness before him, as though hoping to see something.

"No. When he is gone he never comes back for the same person. He
answered you many things, Signore. You must have patience."

He heard her rise, and a moment later the light dazzled him as he looked
up and met her china blue eyes. He was dazed as well as dazzled, for
there had been an extraordinary directness and accuracy about the few
questions and answers he had heard in the clear voice which was so
utterly unlike Giuditta's, though quite human and natural. He was
certain that he had not heard the door open after she had drawn the
curtains. He looked about the scantily furnished room, in search of
some corner in which some third person might have been hidden. Giuditta
Astarita's chronic smile was momentarily intensified.

"There was no one else here," she said, answering his unspoken question.
"You heard the spirit's voice through my ears."

"How can that be?"

"I do not know. But what the spirit says is true. You may rely upon it.
I do not know what it said, for when I return from the trance state I
remember nothing I have heard or seen while I have been in it. If you
wish to ask more, you must have the kindness to come again. It is very
fatiguing to me. You can see that I am not in good health. The hours are
from ten till three."

The smile had subsided within its usual limits, and the china blue eyes
stared coldly. She was evidently waiting to be paid.

"What do I owe you?" asked Bosio, with a certain considerateness of
tone, so to say.

"It is twenty-five lire," answered Giuditta Astarita. "I have but one
price. Thank you," she added, as he laid the notes upon the polished
walnut table. "Do you wish a few of my cards? For your friends, perhaps.
I shall be grateful for your patronage."

"Thank you," said Bosio, taking his hat and going towards the door. "I
have one of your cards. It is enough. Good morning."

As he opened the door, he found the one-eyed serving-woman in the
passage, ready to show him out. Instinctively he looked at the single
eye as he glanced at her face, and he was surprised to notice that it
was of the same uncommon china blue colour as Giuditta's own. The woman
who did duty as a servant to admit visitors was undoubtedly Giuditta's
mother or elder sister, or some very near relative. It would be natural
enough, amongst such people, as Bosio knew, but he wondered how many
more of the same family lived in the rooms beyond the one in which he
had received spirit-communications, and whether Giuditta Astarita
supported them all by her extraordinary talents.

He descended the damp stone stairs and passed out into the street again,
dazed and disturbed in mind. He had been to such people before, as has
been said, and he had generally seen or heard something which had either
interested or amused him. He had never had such an experience as this.
He had never heard a voice of which he had been so certain that it did
not come from any one in the room, and he had never found any
somnambulist who had so instantly grasped his most secret thoughts,
without the slightest assistance or leading word from himself. Yet at
the crucial test--the question of a certainty in the future, this one
had stopped short as all stopped, or failed in their predictions of what
was to come. He had been startled and almost frightened. Like many
Southern Italians, he was at once credulous and sceptical--a
superstitious unbeliever, if one may couple the two words into one
expression. His intelligence bade him deny what his temperament inclined
him to accept. Besides, on the present occasion, no theory which he
could form could account for the woman's knowledge of his life. She had
never seen him. He had no extraordinary peculiarity by which she might
have recognized him at first sight from hearsay, nor was he in any way
connected with public affairs. He had come quite unexpectedly and had
not given his name, and the spirit, or whatever it might be, had
instantly told him of Veronica, of her danger, of his brother and
sister-in-law and of the will. Moreover, the friends who had spoken to
him of Giuditta Astarita had told him similar tales within a few days.

The spirit had said that the handsome woman would make him marry
Veronica. But what had the silence meant, when he had asked more? That
was the question. Did it mean that the spirit was unwilling to affirm
that Veronica must die if he refused to marry her? He passed his hand
over his eyes as he walked. This was the end of the nineteenth century;
he was in Naples, in the largest city of an enlightened country. And
yet, the situation might have been taken from the times of the Medici,
of Paolo Giordano Orsini, of Beatrice Cenci, of the Borgia. There was a
frightful incongruity between civilization and his life--between broad,
flat, comfortable, every-day, police-regulated civilization, and the
hideous drama in which he was suddenly a principal actor.

More than once he told himself that he was mistaken and that such things
could not possibly be; that it was all a feverish dream and that he
should soon wake to see that there was a perfectly simple, natural and
undramatic solution before him. But turn the facts as he would, he could
not find that easy way. If he refused to marry Veronica and attempted to
get legal protection for her, the inevitable result would be the
prosecution, conviction, and utter ruin of his brother and of the woman
he loved. If he refused to marry Veronica and did nothing to protect
her, Matilde's eyes had told him what Matilde would do to escape public
shame and open infamy. If he married Veronica and saved his brother--he
was still man enough to feel that he could not do that. He could die.
That was a possibility of which he had thought. But would his death,
which would save him from committing the last and greatest baseness,
save Veronica? She would have one friend less in the world, and she had
not many.

With a half-childish smile on his pale face, he wondered what such a man
as Taquisara would do, if he were so placed, and the Sicilian's manly
face and bold eyes rose up contemptuously before him. To such a depth
as Bosio had already reached, Taquisara could never have fallen. Bosio's
instinct told him that.

If he had been able to find one friend in all his acquaintance to whom
he might turn and ask advice, it would have been an infinite relief. But
such friends were rare, he knew, and he had never made one. Pleasant
acquaintances he had, by the score and the hundred, in society, and
amongst artists and men of letters. But the life he had led had shut out
friendship. To have a friend would have been to let some one into his
life, and that would have meant, sooner or later, the betrayal of the
woman he loved.

Yet, though he felt that Taquisara was his enemy and not his friend, he
had such sudden confidence in the man's honour and truth that he was
insanely impelled to go to him and tell him all, and implore him to save
Veronica at any cost, no matter what, or to whom. Then of course, a
moment later, the thought seemed madness, and he only felt that he was
losing hold more quickly upon his saner sense. His visit to the
somnambulist, too, had helped to unnerve him, and as he wandered through
the streets he forgot that it was time to eat, so that physical
faintness came upon him unawares and suddenly.

He did not wish to go home; for if he did, the final decision would be
thrust upon him by Matilde, and he did not feel that he could face
another scene with her yet. When he found himself near the Palazzo
Macomer, he turned back, walking slowly, and went towards the sea, till
he came to the vast Piazza San Ferdinando, beyond San Carlo. He went
into a café and sat down in a corner to drink a cup of chocolate by way
of luncheon. The seat he had chosen was at the end of one of the long
red velvet divans close to a big window looking upon the square. There
were little marble tables in a row, and at the one before that which
Bosio chose, a priest was seated, reading, with an empty cup before him.
He was evidently near-sighted, for he held his newspaper so near his
eyes that Bosio could not have seen his face even had he thought of
looking at it. The priest had thrown back his heavy black cloak after he
had sat down, so that it fell in wide folds upon the seat, on each side
of him. His hands, which held up the paper, while he seemed to be
searching for something in the columns, were thin to emaciation, almost
transparent, and very carefully kept,--a fact which might have argued
that he was not an ordinary, hard-working parish priest of the people,
even if his presence in a fashionable café had not of itself made that
seem improbable. On the other hand, he wore heavy, coarse shoes; his
clothes, though well brushed, were visibly threadbare, and his clean
white stock was frayed at the edge and almost worn out. He had taken off
his three-cornered hat, and his high peaked head was barely covered with
scanty silver-grey hair. When he dropped his paper and looked about him
for the waiter, evidently wishing to pay for his coffee, he showed a
face sufficiently remarkable to deserve description. The prominent
feature was the enormous, beak-like nose--the nose of the fanatic which
is not to be mistaken amongst thousands, with its high, arching bridge,
its wide, sensitive nostrils, and its preternaturally sharp,
down-turning point. But the rest of the priest's face was not in keeping
with what was most striking in it. The forehead was not powerful,
narrow, prominent--but rather, broad and imaginative. The chin was round
and not enough developed; the clean-shaven lips had a singularly gentle
expression, and the very near-sighted blue eyes were not set deeply
enough to give strength to the look. The priest carried his head
somewhat bent and forward, in a sort of deprecating way, which made his
long nose seem longer, and his short chin more retreating. The skull was
unusually high and peaked at the point where phrenologists place the
organ of veneration. The man himself was tall and exceedingly thin, and
looked as though he fasted too often and too long. He was certainly a
very ugly man, judged according to the standards of human beauty; and
yet there was about him an air of kindness and sincerity which had in it
something almost saintly, together with a very unmistakable individual
identity. He was one of those men whom one can neither forget nor
mistake when one has met them once. Bosio did not notice him, being much
absorbed by his own thoughts. The waiter came to ask what he wished, and
was stopped on his way back by the priest, who desired to pay for what
he had taken. But Bosio had turned to the window again, and sat looking
out and watching the people in the broad semicircular Piazza.

The priest, having paid his little score, carefully folded his newspaper
and put it into the wide pocket of his cassock. Then he gathered up the
collar of his big cloak behind him, as he sat, and began to edge his way
out from behind the little marble table. But the long folds had fallen
far on each side--so far that Bosio had unawares sat down upon the
cloth, and as the priest tried to get out, he felt the cloak being
dragged from under him. The priest stopped and turned, just as Bosio
rose with an apology on his lips, which became an exclamation of
surprise, as he began to speak.

"Don Teodoro!" he cried. "You were next to me, and I did not see you!"

The priest's eyelids contracted to help his imperfect sight, and he
smiled as he moved nearer to Bosio.

"Bosio!" he exclaimed, when he had recognized him. "I am almost blind,
but I was sure I knew your voice."

"You are in Naples, and you have not let me know it?" said Bosio,
reproachfully and interrogatively.

"I have not been in Naples two hours, and have just left my bag at my
usual quarters with Don Matteo. Then I came here to get a cup of coffee,
and now I was going to you. Besides, it is the tenth of December. You
know that I always come on the tenth every year, and stay until the
twentieth, in order to be back in Muro four days before Christmas. But I
am glad I have met you here, for I should have missed you at the
Palazzo."

"Yes," said Bosio, "I am glad that we have met. Sit with me, now, while
I drink a cup of chocolate. Then we will do whatever you wish." He sat
down again. "I am glad you have come, Don Teodoro," he added
thoughtfully. "I am very glad you have come."

Don Teodoro produced a pair of silver spectacles as he reseated himself,
and proceeded to settle them very carefully on his enormous nose. Then
he turned to Bosio, and looked at him.

"Have you been ill?" he asked, after a careful scrutiny of the pallid,
nervous face.

"No." Bosio looked out of the window, avoiding the other's gaze. "I am
nervous to-day. I slept badly; and I have been walking, and have not
breakfasted. Oh! no--I am not ill. I am never ill. I have excellent
health. And you?" He turned to his companion again. "How are you? Always
the same?"

"Always the same," answered the priest. "I grow old, that is the only
change. After all, it is not a bad one, since we must change in some
way. It is better than growing young--better than growing young again,"
he repeated, shaking his head sadly. "Since the payment must be made, it
is better that the day of reckoning should come nearer, year by year."

"For me it has come," said Bosio, in a low voice, and his chin sank upon
his breast, as he leaned back, clasping his hands before him on the edge
of the marble table. The priest looked at him anxiously and in silence.
The two would certainly have met later in the day, or on the morrow, and
the accident of their meeting at the café had only brought them together
a few hours earlier. For the hard-working country parish priest came
yearly to Naples for a few days before Christmas, as he had said, and
the first visit he made, after depositing his slender luggage at the
house of the ecclesiastic with whom he always stopped, was to Bosio
Macomer, his old pupil.

In his loneliness, that morning, Bosio had thought of Don Teodoro and
had wished to see him. It had occurred vaguely to him that the priest
generally made a visit to the city about that time of the year, but he
had never realized that Don Teodoro always arrived on the same day, the
tenth of December, and had done so unfailingly for many years past.

Before he had been curate of the distant village of Muro, which belonged
to the Serra family, Don Teodoro had been tutor to Bosio Macomer. He had
lived in Naples as a priest at large, a student, and in those days, to
some extent, a man of the world. When Bosio was grown up, his tutor had
remained his friend--the only really intimate friend he had in the
world, and a true and devoted one. It was perhaps because he was too
much attached to Bosio that Matilde Macomer had induced him at last to
accept the parish in the mountains with the chaplaincy of the ancestral
castle of the Serra,--an office which was a total sinecure, as the
family had rarely gone thither to spend a few weeks, even in the days of
the late prince. Matilde hated the place for its appalling gloominess
and wild scenery, and Veronica, to whom it now belonged, had never seen
it at all. It had the reputation of being haunted by all manner of
ghosts and goblins, and during the first ten years following the Italian
annexation of Naples, the surrounding mountains had been infested by
outlaws and brigands. But Don Teodoro, as curate and chaplain, received
a considerable stipend which enabled him to procure for himself books at
his pleasure, when he could bring himself to curtail the daily and
yearly charities in which he spent almost all he received.

He was, indeed, a man torn between two inclinations which almost
amounted to passions,--charity and the love of learning,--and their
action was so evenly balanced that it was a real pain to him either to
deny himself the book he coveted, or to forfeit the pleasure of giving
the money it would cost to the poor. He had sometimes kept the last note
he had left at the end of the month for many days, quite unable to
decide whether he should send it to Naples for a new volume, or buy
clothes with it for some half-clad child. So sincere was he in both
longings, that after he had disposed of the money in one way or the
other, he almost invariably had an acute fit of self-reproach. His
common sense alone told him that when he had given away nine-tenths of
all he received, he had the right to spend the other tenth upon such
food for his mind as was almost more indispensable to him than bread.
But, besides this, he had been engaged for twenty years upon a history
of the Church, in compiling which he believed he was doing a work of the
highest importance to mankind; so that it appeared to him a duty to
expend, from time to time, a certain amount of money in order to procure
such books, old and new, as were necessary for his studies. As a matter
of fact, the seasons themselves decided his conduct in these
difficulties; for in cold weather, or times of scarcity, his charity
outran his desire for books; whereas, in the warm weather, and when
there was plenty, and no pitiful starved faces gathered about his door,
he bought books, instead of searching for the few who were still in
need.

In his youth, Don Teodoro had travelled much. He had accompanied a
mission to Africa at the beginning of his life, and had afterwards
wandered about Europe, being at that time, as yet, more studious than
charitable, and possessed of a small independence left him by his
father, who had been an officer in the Neapolitan army in the old days.
He had seen many things and known many men of many nations, before he
had at last settled in Muro, in the little priest's house, under the
shadow of the dismal castle, and close to the church. There he lived
now, all the year round, excepting the ten days which he annually spent
in Naples. The little house was full of books, and there was a big, old
shaky press, containing his manuscripts, the work of his whole life. He
had neither friends nor companions of his own class, but he was beloved
by all the people. Playing on his name, Teodoro, in their dialect, they
called him, O prevete d'oro'--'the priest of gold.' And many said that
he had performed miracles, when he had fasted in Lent.

This was practically Bosio Macomer's only intimate friend. For although
the intimacy had been interrupted for years, by circumstances, it had
never been checked by any action or word of either. It is true that
neither was, as a rule, in need of friendship, nor desirous of
cultivating it. Learning and charity absorbed the priest's whole life.
Bosio's existence, of which Don Teodoro knew in reality nothing, had
moved in the vicious circle of a single passion, which he could never
acknowledge, and which excluded, for common caution's sake, anything
like intimacy with other men. But Bosio had not ceased to look upon the
priest as the best man he had ever known, and in spite of his own
errings, he was still quite able to appreciate goodness in others; and
Don Teodoro had always remembered his pupil as one of the few men to
whom he had been accustomed to speak freely of his hopes, and
sympathies, and aspirations, feeling sure of appreciation from a nature
at once refined and reticent, though itself hard to understand. For Don
Teodoro was, strange to say, painfully sensitive to ridicule, though in
all other respects a singularly brave man, morally and physically. As a
child or as a boy, he had been laughed at by his companions for his
extraordinary nose and his short sight; and he had never recovered from
the childish suffering thus inflicted upon him by thoughtless children.
The fear of being ridiculous had largely influenced him through life,
and had really contributed much towards deciding him to accept the cure
of the wild mountain town.

Bosio's almost solemn words, as his chin fell upon his breast, and he
clasped his hands before him, suddenly recalled to the priest the years
they had spent together, the confidence there had been between them, the
interest he had once felt in Bosio's fortune,--as an object once daily
familiar, and fresh once and not without beauty, then long hidden for
years, and coming suddenly to sight again, moth-eaten, dusty, and all
but destroyed, is oddly painful to him who used it long ago, and then
sees it when it is fit only to be thrown away.

"You are suffering," said Don Teodoro, leaning forward upon the marble
table and peering through his silver-rimmed spectacles into Bosio's pale
face, and gentle, exhausted eyes.

The priest's nervous, emaciated hand softly pressed the sleeve of the
younger man's coat, and the fantastic features grew wonderfully gentle
and kind. It was the transformation that came over them whenever any one
was visibly poor, or starving, or sorrowing, or hurt,--the change which
a beautiful passion brings to the ugliest face in the world.

Bosio smiled faintly as he saw it, and a little hope was breathed into
his heart, as though somewhere, at some immeasurable distance, there
might be a possibility of salvation from the ruin and wreck of his
horrible life.

"Yes," he said. "I am suffering. It is a great suffering. I do not think
that I can live much longer."

"Can I do nothing?" asked Don Teodoro.

Bosio still smiled, as a man smiles in torture when one speaks to him of
peace.

"If I believed that anything could be done," he said, "I should not
suffer as I do. I have lived a bad life, and the time has come when I
must pay the score. But it is not my fault if things are as they are--it
is not all my fault."

The priest sighed, and looked away after a moment.

"We have all done some one great wrong thing in our lives," he said
gently. "The price may perhaps be paid to God in good, as well as to man
in pain."




CHAPTER VI.


Bosio shook his head, and a long silence followed. Once or twice he
roused himself, stirred the cup of chocolate which the waiter had set
before him, and sipped a teaspoonful of it absently. The corner where
the two men sat together was quiet, but from the front of the café came
the continual clatter of plates and glasses, the echo of feet, and the
ring of voices; for it was just midday, and the place was full of its
habitual frequenters.

"If we were in church," said Bosio at last, "and if you were in a
confessional--"

He stopped, and glanced at his companion without completing the
sentence.

"You would make a confession? There are churches near," said Don
Teodoro. "I am ready. Will you come?"

Bosio hesitated.

"No," he said at last. "I could tell you nothing without betraying
others."

"Betraying! Is it a crime that you have on your conscience?" The
priest's voice was low and troubled.

"Many crimes," answered Bosio. "The crimes that must come, and that I
cannot prevent by living, nor hinder by dying."

Again there was silence during several minutes.

"You may trust me as a friend, even if, as a priest, you could not
confess all the circumstances to me," said Don Teodoro, after the long
pause. "I do not wish you to make confidences to me, unless you are
impelled to do so. But you are in that frame of mind, my dear Bosio, in
which a man will sooner or later unburden himself to some one. You might
do worse than choose me. I am your friend, I am old, and I know that I
am discreet. I am extraordinarily discreet. It may seem strange that I
should say so myself, but my own life has taught me that I am to be
trusted with secrets."

"Yes," replied Bosio. "You must have heard strange things sometimes
under the seal of confession."

"I have known of strange things." Don Teodoro's face grew sad and
thoughtful, and Bosio, seeing it, suddenly made up his mind.

He leaned far back against the painted wall for a moment, with
half-closed eyes. Then he drew nearer to his friend, so that he spoke
close to the latter's ear, though he looked down at the table before
him. His nervous fingers played with the teaspoon in the saucer of his
cup.

It was a strange confession, there in the corner of the crowded café at
midday, and those who glanced idly at the two men from a distance would
hardly have guessed that an act in a mysterious life was before their
eyes--an act which was itself but a verbal recapitulation of many
actions past, but which to the speaker had an enormous importance of its
own, and an influence on the future of all concerned.

Not much had been needed to break through the barrier of Bosio's
reticence. Walking through the streets that morning he had for a moment
even thought of telling some of his story to Taquisara. It was far
easier to tell it to the only true friend he had in the world, to one in
whom he had confided as a boy and had trusted as a young man. He told
almost all. He confessed that his love of many years had been his
brother's wife, and though he spoke no word of her love for him, the old
priest knew the evil truth from the man's tone and look. For the rest he
spared neither Matilde nor any one else, but told Don Teodoro all the
truth, and all his anxious fears for Veronica's safety, if he should not
marry her, with all his horror of his own shame if he should yield to
the pressure brought upon him.

Don Teodoro's expression changed more than once while he listened, but
he never turned his head nor moved in his seat.

"You see what I am," said Bosio, at last. "You see what my people are.
Indeed, I need a confessor, if one could save my soul; but I need a
friend even more, for through me that poor girl is in danger of her
life. That is her choice--to die or to be my wife. Mine is, to see her
murdered or to do an unutterably shameful thing--or to see the woman I
love driven out of the world with infamy for the crimes she has not
committed, and the fear of that disgrace is making her mad. It is for
her, and for Veronica! What do I care about myself? What have I left to
care for? What I have done, I have done. I am not good, I am not
religious, I am perhaps a worse sinner than most men, and a poorer
believer than many. But I will not be the instrument of these deeds--and
yet, if I refuse--there is death, or shame, or both, to those I love! At
least I have spoken, and you will not betray me. It has been a relief, a
moment's respite from torture. I thank you for it, my friend, and I wish
I could repay you. You cannot give me advice, for I have twisted and
turned it all in fifty ways, and there is no escape. You cannot help me,
for no one can. But you have done me some little momentary good, just by
sitting there and hearing my story. Beyond that there is nothing to be
done."

The wretched man closed his eyes, and again leaned back against the
bright red wall, which threw his white face and dark-ringed eyes into
strong and painful relief. Don Teodoro was silent, bending his mind upon
the hideous problem. Bosio misunderstood him and spoke again without
moving.

"I know," he said. "You need not speak. I know by heart all the
reproaches I deserve, and I know that no human being, much less a holy
man like yourself, could possibly feel anything but horror at all
this--"

"I am very far from being a holy man," interrupted the priest. "If I
feel horror, it is for what has been, and may be, but not for you.
Bosio--" he hesitated a moment. "Will you come with me to Muro, and
leave all this?" he asked suddenly. "Will you come out of the world for
a while? No--I am not proposing to you to make a religious retreat. I
wish I could. I know the world, and you, and your people, for I lived
long among you, and I know that one cannot change one's soul, as one
changes one's coat--nor enter upon a retreat as one springs into the sea
for a bath in hot weather. What you have made yourself, you are. Heaven
itself would need time to unmake you. I speak just as one man to
another. Come with me to the mountains for a week, a month--as long as
you will. It is dreary and cold, and you will have to eat what you can
get; but you will have peace, for nobody will come up there to disturb
you. Meanwhile, something may happen. You are overwrought by all you
have seen and heard and felt. Whatever the countess may have said,
Donna Veronica is quite safe. My dear Bosio, people in your rank of
life do not murder one another for money nowadays. It is laughable, the
mere idea of it--"

"Laughable!" Bosio turned and looked at him. "If you had seen her eyes,
you would find it hard to laugh, I think. Such things happen rarely,
perhaps, but they happen sometimes."

Don Teodoro was not persuaded. He thought that Bosio, in his excited
state, very much overestimated the danger.

"At all events," he said, "nothing will happen, so long as there is the
possibility that you may marry her. If you come with me, you will at
least have time to think before acting. But here, you may be forced to
act before you have been able to think."

But Bosio shook his head slowly.

"There are difficulties which can be helped by putting them off," he
answered. "This is not one. You forget that in just three weeks my
brother will be ruined--absolutely ruined--if he cannot pay. If I stayed
that time with you, I should come back to find him a beggar--or obliged
to throw himself upon Veronica's mercy and charity for his daily bread
and for a roof to cover him."

"There is one other way," said the priest, thoughtfully. "There is one
thing left for you to do, if you have courage to do it. And you know
better than I what chance there would be of success. It is what I
should do myself. It is a heroic remedy, but it may save everything
yet."

Bosio's eyes turned anxiously to his friend, by way of question.

"Find Veronica alone," said Don Teodoro. "Take all rights into your own
hands and tell her everything, just as you have told me. You know her
well. If she is kind-hearted, as I think she is, she will pay your
brother's debts, take over the estates herself, since it is time, and
manage that Cardinal Campodonico shall never suspect that there has been
anything wrong with the administration. If she is not so charitable as
to do that of her own free will, why then, since you believe it, tell
her that she must do it to save her life. It is most unlikely that she
will refuse and take refuge with the cardinal in order to bring public
disgrace upon her father's sister. And even that, horrible as it seems
to you--if it must be, it will be, and it will not be your fault--"

"But Matilde--" Bosio began in troubled tones. "And yet, perhaps, it is
possible. Veronica would not be so cruel as to ruin them--the money is
nothing to her. And, after all, she will hardly feel the loss out of her
immense fortune. Yes--" his face brightened slowly with the rays of
hope. "Yes--it may be possible, after all. I had thought of going to
her, but not of telling her the whole truth. It did not seem as though
I could, until I had heard myself tell it to you. It will be hard, but
it seems possible, and it will save her--and then--"

His face changed again, as he broke off in the sentence, and his
melancholy eyes turned slowly to his friend.

"And then," said Don Teodoro, "perhaps you will go back with me to Muro,
and rest and forget it all."

"Yes," answered Bosio, sadly and dreamily, "perhaps I shall go to Muro
with you. I wonder," he continued, after a short pause, "that you should
want such a man as I am in your priest's house there."

"Oh! I am glad of a little society when I can get it, and I have much to
show you which might interest you. I have worked perpetually for many
years, since we used to talk about my history of the Church."

He checked himself. In spite of all he had just heard, and the real
distress and sympathy he had felt for Bosio, the one of his dominant
passions which was uppermost just then had almost made him forget
everything, and launch into an account of his work and studies. Men who,
intellectually, are deeply engrossed in one matter, and who, socially,
have long lived very lonely lives, are not generally able to lose
themselves in sympathy for others. As Bosio was not exactly an object
for Don Teodoro's charity, he was in some danger of being made a
listener for the outpouring of the priest's tremendous intellectual
enthusiasm. But the latter checked himself. The things he had heard were
indeed of a nature not so easily forgotten. He went back to them at
once.

"My dear Bosio," he began again, "do not put yourself down as the worst
of men. It is just as bad to go too far in one direction as in the
other. There is undoubtedly, in theory, the man in the world, at any
given moment, who must be a little worse than any other living man; but
though he might be our next-door neighbour, we have no means whatever of
knowing that he is the greatest sinner alive, because we do not know all
about all existing sinners. Consequently, and for the same reason, no
man has any right to assume that he is worst of men. And as far as that
goes, many men have done worse things, even in the religious view, than
you have done, and very much worse things, in the opinion of society.
You are not responsible for all that the others have done. You are only
responsible in the immediate future for your share of duty, in doing the
wisest and best thing which may present itself. And if you can induce
Donna Veronica to forgive your brother and your brother's wife, by
telling her the truth without prevarication, you will have done
something to atone for the past evil which, you cannot undo. I am not
preaching to you, my dear friend. Pray look upon me as a man and not as
a priest. Indeed, I would rather that you should never think of me as a
priest at all. If you need spiritual help, there are many better men
than I, who can give it to you. But as a man and a friend, come to me if
you will. You are to me also a man and a friend, and not a penitent."

He finished speaking, took off his spectacles, and rested his head
against the wall behind him, as Bosio had done, and the younger man
glanced sideways at his friend's extraordinary profile. Its fantastic
outline had a moral effect upon him; for it recalled, as nothing else
could, the early days of his life before he had been what he now was,
when he had known what hope meant, and had understood aspirations in
others which had no meaning for him now. He was very grateful, too, for
Don Teodoro's words, which certainly comforted him in a way he had not
expected.

"Thank you," he said, "I will think of it. I think I shall take your
advice and speak to Veronica. She can save us all, if she will."

"Yes," said Don Teodoro. "She can save you all--and she will."

Then they sat a long time in silence in their corner, and the priest's
mind wandered occasionally to the thought of his manuscript, and of the
many points he intended to discuss with his friend Don Matteo, a man as
learned as himself, but indolent instead of active, one of those
passive, living treasuries of thought upon which the active worker
fastens greedily when he has a chance, to extract all the riches he can
in the shortest possible time, in any shape, to carry the gold away with
him to his workshop and fashion it to his wish.

And Bosio, whose intelligence was essentially dramatic and given to
throwing future interviews into an imaginary dramatic shape, thought
over and over what he would say to Veronica and what she might be
expected to say to him. But he was terribly exhausted and harassed, and
by degrees as the stimulant of recent comfort lost its cheering warmth
within him, he silently grew despondent again within himself, and his
dramatic fancies of fear became near and tragic realities. He thought he
could hear the clear, bell-like voice of the somnambulist telling him
that he should be forced to marry Veronica.

At last, realizing that he was probably detaining Don Teodoro, he roused
himself, and the two went out together into the broad light of the
Piazza San Ferdinando.

"I will go home," Bosio said. "I will think of it all. At this time I
can easily be alone with Veronica."

His voice sounded as though he were speaking to himself, and his head
was bent, so that he stooped from the neck as Don Teodoro did. But the
latter, as he walked, his silver-rimmed spectacles balanced on his great
nose, thrust his bent head more forward. Or rather, it was as though his
head moved first in the direction he meant to follow, while his thin
legs had difficulty in keeping up with it.

Bosio was willing to put off the moment of going home as long as
possible, and he accompanied his friend to the door of Don Matteo's
lodging, which was in a clean, quiet, sunlit street, behind the
Piazza--in one of those oases of light and cleanliness upon which one
sometimes comes in the heart of Naples. The little green door was
reached by a couple of steps up from the level of the street. Don
Teodoro had a key and stood on the upper step, holding it in his hand
and blinking in the warm sunshine.

"You know this house," he said. "You have been to see me here once or
twice. If you want me, you can always send for me in the afternoon, for
I only go out in the morning. But I will come and see you. When?
To-morrow, before noon?"

"Yes," Bosio answered. "By to-morrow at midday something will be
decided."

They shook hands and parted, Bosio turning eastward in the direction of
his home. The priest absently tried to insert the key in the lock of the
door, while his eyes followed his friend to the corner of the street.
Then, as Bosio's still graceful figure disappeared, he turned from the
keyhole with a sigh, and let himself in.

Bosio walked rapidly at first, and then more slowly as he came nearer to
the old quarter in which the Palazzo Macomer was situated. As with all
men of such character, his irresolution increased just when he fancied
that he was about to do something decisive. He would not have hesitated
in the same way, if he had been called upon to face a physical danger;
for though he was certainly no hero, he was by no means a physical
coward, and in a quarrel he would have stood up bravely enough to face
his antagonist. But this was very different. He had been ruled by
Matilde Macomer through many years, and when he thought of meeting her
he had a deadly presentiment of assured defeat. She would extract from
him something more than the silent assent which he had been forced into
giving on the previous evening, and she could not let him go till he
promised to marry Veronica. He walked more slowly, as he felt the fear
and uncertainty twisting his scant courage from his heart.

Then he was ashamed of himself, and in a sudden attempt to be brave he
hailed a passing cab and drove rapidly to the Palazzo Macomer. He asked
for Veronica and was told that she was in her room. He did not wish to
send her a message. Gregorio had gone out immediately after the midday
breakfast. Bosio was glad of that. He had not seen his brother since the
previous evening, and he did not wish to see him alone. There were
monstrous wrongs on both sides, and it was better to pretend mutual
ignorance, and keep up the ghastly farce, pretending that nothing was
the matter. The very smallest incautious word would crack the swaying
bubble that was blown to bursting with hell's breath.

Bosio had entered the main apartments in order to inquire for Veronica,
had passed through the long outer hall with its red walls, its matted
floor and its great table covered with green baize, to the antechamber
within, where, with some ostentation, as Bosio had always thought,
Gregorio had hung up the escutcheon with the quartered arms of Macomer
and Serra, flanked by half a dozen big old family portraits on either
side, opposite the three windows. He had waited there until the footman
returned after looking for Veronica in the drawing-room, and when he
heard that she was not there, he turned to reach the staircase again and
go up to his own bachelor's quarters, for he feared to meet Matilde and
hoped to put off seeing her until dinner-time, when he might so
manoeuvre as not to be left alone with her.

But the footman had hardly delivered his answer, and Bosio was in the
act of turning, when one of the two masked doors under the pictures
opened suddenly, and Matilde spoke into the room, calling him by name.
He turned pale and stopped short, as though a cold hand had taken him by
the throat. The footman went out to the hall, as Bosio met Matilde's
eyes.

"Come," she said briefly, "I want to speak to you."

He obeyed silently, and followed her through the narrow door and through
a passage beyond, to her own morning-room. Matilde shut the door. The
afternoon sun streamed in through two high windows, filling every corner
with light and turning the crimson carpet blood red, where Matilde
stood, all round her feet and the folds of her loose dark gown, so that
she seemed to rise out of a pool of vivid colour, a dark, strong figure
with the brightness all behind her and the gleam of her eyes just
lightening in the shadow of her face.

"Why did you go out without seeing me this morning?" she asked in a hard
tone. "And why did Taquisara come to see you early? You scarcely know
him--"

"I certainly did not send for him," said Bosio, uneasily.

"He did not come for nothing," retorted Matilde. "He is no friend of
yours. He must have come for some particular reason."

Bosio said nothing, but turned from her and moved towards a table
covered with books. In an objectless way he opened a volume and looked
at the title page. Matilde followed him with her eyes.

"Well?" she said presently, "I am waiting. What did Taquisara have to
say? He is Gianluca's friend--he came with a message. That is clear.
What did he say? I am waiting to hear."

"He came because he chose to come," answered Bosio, still looking at the
title page of the book. "Gianluca did not send him. He wished to know
whether it were true that I was to marry Veronica."

"I thought so. And what did you answer? Of course you told him that it
was quite settled."

"We had a long conversation--I do not remember all that we said--"

"You do not remember whether you told him that you were to marry
Veronica or not?" Matilde laughed angrily and came forward.

"Let that book alone!" she said imperiously. "Look at me--so--now tell
me the truth!"

She laid her hand upon his arm, and not gently, and she made him turn to
her. Bosio felt that shock of shame which smites a man in the back, as
it were, when a woman is too strong for him and orders him brutally to
do her will.

"I told him the truth," he answered, and his pale cheeks reddened with
futile anger.

"The truth!" Matilde's face darkened. "What? What did you tell him?"

Bosio was weakly glad to have frightened her a little.

"The truth," he said, trying to assume a certain indifference. "Just
that. I let him understand that nothing is definitely settled yet, and
that there is no contract--"

Matilde was silent, and her eyes seemed to draw nearer together, while
the smooth red lips curled scornfully.

"Oh, what a coward you are!" she cried in a low voice, in deep disgust,
and as she spoke she dropped his arm in contempt, though she still held
his face with her angry gaze.

"You have no right to call me a coward," answered Bosio, defending his
manhood. "I told you that I could not do it. The man put it in such a
way that I had to give him a definite answer. For your sake I would not
deny the engagement altogether--"

"For my sake!" exclaimed Matilde. "Do not use such phrases to me. They
mean nothing. For some wretched quibble of your miserable conscience--as
you still have the assumption to call it--you will ruin us in another
day."

"Yes, I still have some conscience," replied Bosio, trying to be bold
under her scornful eyes. "I would not let Taquisara think that you and
Gregorio had lied, and I would not lie myself--"

"You are reforming, then? You choose the moment well!"

"I have told you what passed between Taquisara and me," said Bosio.
"That was what you wished to know. I will judge of myself whether I did
right or not."

He turned from her and walked away, towards the door.

"Well?" she said, not moving, for she knew that her voice would stop
him.

"Is there anything else?" he asked, turning again and standing still.

"There is much more. Come back! Sit down and talk to me like a sensible
being. There is much to be said. The matter is all but settled in spite
of the account which Taquisara frightened you into giving him. I like
that man, he is so brave! He is not at all like you."

"If you wish me to stay longer, you must not insult me again," said
Bosio, not yet seating himself, but resting his hands on the back of a
chair as he stood. "You know very well that I am no more a coward, if it
comes to fighting men, than others are. One need not be cowardly to
dread doing such a thing as you are trying to force me to."

"It does not seem such a very terrible thing," said Matilde, her tone
suddenly changing and growing thoughtful. "It really does not seem to me
such a dreadful thing that you should be Veronica's husband. Of course
I do not speak of the material advantages. You were always an idealist,
Bosio--you do not care for those things, and I daresay that when you are
married you will not even care to take her titles, nor to spend much of
her money. I know well enough what passes in your mind. Sit down. Let us
talk about it. We cannot afford to quarrel, you and I, can we? I am
sorry I spoke as I did--and I never meant that you were cowardly in the
ordinary sense. I was angry about Taquisara. What right had he to come
here, to pry into our affairs? I should think you would have resented
it, too."

"I did," said Bosio, somewhat sullenly. "But I could not turn him out,
nor get into a quarrel with him. It would have made a useless scandal
and would have set every one talking."

"Certainly," assented Matilde. "Perhaps you did right, after all--at
least, you thought you did. I am sure of that. I do not know why I was
so angry at you. I am unstrung, and nervous, I suppose. Did I say very
dreadful things to you, dear? I do not know what I said--"

"You called me a coward several times," replied Bosio, thinking to show
a little strength by relenting slowly.

"Oh! but I did not mean it!" cried the countess. "Bosio, forgive me. I
did not mean to say such things--indeed, I did not. But do you wonder
that I am nervous? Say that you forgive me--"

"Of course I forgive you," answered Bosio, raising his eyebrows rather
wearily. "I know that you are under a terrible strain--but you say
things sometimes which are unjust and hard. I know what all this means
to us both--but there must be some other way."

Matilde shook her head mournfully, as Bosio sat down beside her, already
sinking back to his long-learned docility.

"There is no other way," she said. "There is certainly none, that is
sure. I have thought it all over, as one thinks of everything when
everything is in danger. The only other course is to throw ourselves
upon Veronica's mercy--"

"Well? Why not?" asked Bosio, eagerly, as Don Teodoro's advice gained
instant plausibility again. "She is kind, she is charitable, she will
forgive everything and save you--"

"The shame of it, Bosio! Of confessing it all--and she may refuse.
Veronica is not all kindness and charity. She is a Serra, as I am, and
though she is a mere girl, if she takes it into her head to be hard and
unforgiving, there would be no power on earth that could move her. She
is not so unlike me, Bosio. You may think so because she is so unlike me
in looks. She has the type of her father, poor Tommaso. But we Serra
are all Serra--there is not much difference. No--do not interrupt me,
dear. And as for your marriage, there is much to be said for it. It is
time that you were married, you know. You and I have lived our lives,
and we are not what we were. I shall always be fond of you--we shall
always be more than friends--but always less than what we have been. It
must have come sooner or later, Bosio, and it may as well come now. You
know--we cannot be always young. And as for me, if I am not already old,
I soon shall be."

The woman who had held him so long knew how to tempt him, sacrificing
everything in the desperate straits to which she was reduced. Though he
had loved her well, and sinfully, but truly, for so many years, his love
had sometimes seemed an unbearable thraldom, to escape from which he
would have given his heart piecemeal, though he should lose all the
happiness life held for him, for the sake of a momentary freedom.
Possibly, too, she knew that he never longed for that freedom so much as
when she had just been most violent and despotic. She was prepared for
the feeble dissent with which he answered her suggestion of separation.
He would be the more easily persuaded to yield and marry Veronica.

"As for your being old," he said, "it is absurd. It is I who have grown
old of late. But our being friends--" he paused thoughtfully.

"A man is never too old to marry," answered Matilde. "It is only women
who grow too old to be loved. You will begin your life all over again
with Veronica. You and she will go away together--you can live in Rome,
when you are tired of Paris. It will be better. You and I will see each
other seldom at first. By and by it will be so easy for us to be good
friends after we have been separated some time."

"Friends?" Bosio spoke the one word again, with a sad and dreamy
intonation.

"I asked Veronica this morning," continued Matilde, not heeding him, and
beginning to speak more rapidly. "You have no idea how very fond she is
of you. When I spoke of the marriage, she seemed to think it the most
natural thing in the world. She found arguments for it herself."

"She?"

"Yes. She said--what I have said to you--that there was no man whom she
knew so well and liked so much as you, that of course she had never
thought of marrying you, nor, indeed, of being married at all, but that,
at the same time, she should think that you would make a very good
husband. She wished to think of it--that is as much as to say that she
will not even make any serious objections. You have no idea how young
girls feel about marriage, Bosio. How should you? You cannot comprehend
the horror a girl like Veronica feels of a stranger, of a man like
Gianluca, even, whom she has met half a dozen times and talked with. It
seems so dreadful to think of spending a lifetime with a man about whom
she knows nothing, or next to nothing. And yet it is the custom, and
most of them accept it and are happy. But the idea of marrying some one
with whom she is really intimate, whom she really likes, who really
understands her, places marriage in a new light for a young girl.
Without knowing it, Veronica is half in love with you. It is no wonder
that she likes the thought of being your wife--apart from the fact that
you are a very desirable husband."

"I cannot believe that," said Bosio.

"That you are desirable as a husband? My dear Bosio, do not pretend to
be so absurdly modest! Any woman would be glad to marry you. But for me,
you could have made the best match in Naples years ago--"

"Not even years ago. Much less now. But that was not what I meant. I
cannot believe that Veronica is really inclined to marry me. It seems to
me that she might be my daughter--"

"If you had been married at fifteen," suggested Matilde, laughing
softly. "Because you feel tired and harassed to-day, you feel a hundred
years old. It is no compliment to me to say so, for I am even a little
older than you, I think. And you--you are young, you are handsome, you
are talented, you have the manners that women love--"

"It is not many minutes since you were saying that we were both growing
old--"

"No, no! I said that we could not always be young. That is very
different. And that we have lived our lives--our lives so long as they
can be lived together--that is what I meant. You are young! How many men
marry at fifty! And you are not forty yet. You have ten years of youth
before you. That is not the question. So far as that is concerned, say
that you are old to-night, at dinner, and you shall see how Veronica
will laugh at you! But that you and I should part, Bosio--and yet, it is
far better, if you have the courage."

"Have you?" he asked sadly.

"Yes--I have, for your sake, since I see how you look at this. And you
are right. I know you are, though I am only a woman, and cannot have a
man's ideas about honour. For my own part--well, I am a woman, and I
have loved you long. But you are the one to be thought of. You shall be
free, as though I had never lived. You shall be able to say to yourself
that in marrying Veronica you are not doing anything in the least
dishonourable. I shall not exist for you. I shall not feel that I have
the right to think of you and for you as I always have. I shall never
ask you to do anything for me, lest you should feel that I were
asserting some claim to you, as though you were still mine. It will be
hard at first. But I can do it, and I will do it, in order that your
conscience may be free. You shall marry her, as though you had never
known me, and hereafter I will always be the same. Only--" She fixed her
eyes upon him with a look which, whether genuine or assumed, was fierce
and tender--

"Only--if you are not true to her, Bosio--if you leave her and go after
some other woman--then I will turn upon you!"

Bosio met her glance with a look of something like astonishment,
wondering how in a few sentences she had got herself into a position to
threaten him with vengeance if he were unfaithful to Veronica.

"We will not speak of that," she exclaimed before he said anything in
answer or protest. "We have harder things to do than to imagine evil in
the future. Since we are decided--since it is to be the end--let it be
now, quickly! You shall not have it on your mind that you belong to me
in any way, from now. No--you are right--you must feel free. You must
feel free, besides really being free. You must feel, when you speak to
Veronica to-night or to-morrow, as she expects you to speak, that all
our life together is utterly past and swept away, and that I only exist
henceforth as a relative--as--as your wife's aunt, Bosio!"

She laughed, half-bitterly, half-nervously, at the idea, and turning
away her face she held out her hand to him.

He took it, and held it, pressing it between both his own.

"Do you mean this, Matilde?" he asked in a low voice.

"Yes, I mean it," she answered, speaking away from him with averted
face.

He could not see, but she was biting her lip till it almost bled. In her
own strange way she loved him with all her evil nature, and if she were
breaking with him now, it was to save herself from something worse than
death. It was the hardest thing she had ever done. He hesitated: there
was the mean prompting of the spirit, to take her at her word and to set
himself free, since she offered him freedom, caring not whether she
might repent to-morrow; and there was the instinct of fidelity which in
so much dishonour had remained with him through so many years.

"Besides," she said hoarsely, "I do not love you any more. I would not
keep you longer, if I could. Oh--we shall be friends! But the other--no!
Good bye, Bosio--good bye."

Something moved him, as she had not meant that anything should.

"I do not believe you," he said. "You love me still--I will not leave
you!"

"No, no! I do not--but if you still care at all, save me. Say good bye,
but do the rest also. You are free now. You are an honourable man again.
Bosio, look at my hair. You used to love it. Would you have it cut off
and cropped by the convict's shears? My hands that you are
holding--dear--would you love them galled by the irons, riveted upon
them for years? Save me, Bosio! You are free now--save me, for the dear
sake of all that has been!"

Still she turned her face away, and as Bosio saw the waving richness of
her brown hair and heard her words, he felt a desperate thrust of pain
in his heart. It was all so fearfully true and possible.

"But do not say that you do not love me," he pleaded, in low tones,
bending to her ear.

There was a moment's silence, and he thought he saw a convulsive
movement of her throat--he guessed it rather than saw it.

"It is true!" she cried, with an effort, drawing her hands from him and
turning her pale face fiercely. "If I loved you still, do you think I
would give you to Veronica Serra, or to any living woman? Was that the
way I loved you? Was that how you loved me?"

"Ah no! But now--"

She would not let him speak.

"Do you think that if I loved you, as I have loved you--as I did once--I
should be so ready to give you up? Do you know me so little? Do you
think that I have no pride?" asked Matilde Macomer, holding him at arm's
length from her with her strong hands and throwing back her head, while
the lids half veiled her eyes, and her face grew paler still.

The words that were so strange, spoken by such a woman, fell from her
lips with force and earnest conviction, whether she truly believed that
they had meaning for her, or not. Then her voice changed and softened
again.

"But your friend--yes, always, as you must be mine--that and nothing
more. We have said good bye to all the rest--now go, for I would rather
be alone for a little while. Go, Bosio--please go!"

"As you will," he answered.

Then he kissed her hand and looked into her face for a moment, as though
expecting that she should speak again. But she only shook her head, and
her hand gave his no pressure. He kissed it again. There were tears in
his eyes when he left the room.




CHAPTER VII.


Love is not the privilege of the virtuous, nor the exclusive right of
the weak man and woman. The earth brings forth the good thing and the
bad thing with equal strength to grow great and multiply side by side,
and it is not the privilege of the good thing to live forever because it
is good, nor is it the condemnation of the bad to die before its time,
perishing in its own evil.

A moment after Bosio had left the room, Matilde rose to her feet, very
pale and unsteady, and locked the door. Then, as though she were groping
her way in darkness, she got back to the sofa, and falling upon it,
buried her face in the cushions, and bit them, lest she should cry out.
She felt that it would have been easier, after all, to have killed
Veronica Serra, than it had been to part with the one thing she had
loved in her life.

She had not loved him better than herself, perhaps, since it was to save
herself that she had driven him away. But it had not been to save
herself from so small and insignificant a thing as death, though she was
vital and loved life for its own sake. She had not realized, either,
until it had been almost done, how necessary it was. Yesterday she had
been more cynical. Her own wickedness was teaching her the necessity of
some good, and she saw now clearly that Bosio was one degree less base
than herself. She believed that he would now be willing to marry
Veronica, but she understood that until now he would not have done
it--unless she had freed him from the galling remnant of his own
conscience, and had formally given him his liberty. To give him that, in
order that he might save her, she had torn out her heart by the roots.

The bitterest of all was this, that he had scarcely struggled against
her will, when she had left him to himself. He had said a few words,
indeed, but he could hardly have said less, if he had meant nothing. She
knew well enough that at almost any point she could have brought him
back, playing upon the fidelity of habit. At her voice, at her glance,
for one word of her pleading, he would have come back to her feet,
willing to remain. But there was no vital strength of passion in him to
keep him to her against her mere spoken will. Once or twice, in spite of
herself, her voice had softened; she had felt that her face betrayed
her, and had turned it away; she had known that her hands were icy cold
in his, and had hoped that he would not notice it and understand, and
feel, perhaps, that his accursed habit of fidelity would not let him
take the freedom she thrust upon him. He had not seen, he had not felt,
he had noticed nothing; and he was gone, glad to be free from her at
last, willing to marry another woman, ready to forget what had held him
by a thread which he respected, but not by a bond which he could not
break. She had long guessed how it was; she knew it now--she had known
the truth last night, when she had smoothed his soft hair with her hand
and had spoken softly to him, but had not got from him the promise that
meant salvation to her and her husband. Then she had known what she must
do. Once more she had tried to impose her strength upon his weakness,
and had failed. Then, almost without an outward sign, she had made up
her mind. And now--he was gone. That was all she knew, or remembered,
for an hour, as she lay there on the sofa, biting the cushions. It would
have been far easier to kill Veronica, than to let him go. It was not
her conscience that suffered, but her heart, and it could suffer still.

It would have been worse, had that been possible, if she had known what
Bosio felt at that moment. Happily for her, she never knew. For in the
midst of the life-and-death terror of the situation, he was conscious
that he rejoiced at being unexpectedly free at last from the slavery of
her power. It was perhaps the satisfaction of an aspiration, good in
itself, of a long-smouldering revolt against the life of deception she
had imposed upon him; but in respect of his manhood, it was mean. For
good is what men are, when they are doing good. It cannot be the good
itself, which, though it profit many, may be so done as to stab and
wound the secret enemy of the man's own heart. The good such a man does
the whole world is but the knife in his hand wherewith to hurt the one.
But Bosio hurt only himself, and little, at that, for he was almost past
hurting; and Matilde never knew what he felt. And though he suffered
most of all, perhaps, between the beginning and the end, there was no
one moment of all his suffering which was like the agony of the strong
and evil woman when she had driven him away, and was quite alone. She
knew, now, what it meant to be alone.

When she rose at last, her face was changed; there was a keen, famished
look in her eyes, and her movements were steady and direct. Her nature
was very unlike Bosio's, for she was able to drive her will into action,
as it were, and she could be sure that it would not turn and bend, and
disappoint her. But, for the present, she could do little more, and she
knew it. She could only hope that all things might go well, standing
ready at hand to throw her weight upon the scale-beam if fate alone
would not bear down the side that bore her safety. She had said all
that she could say to Veronica and to Bosio. Gregorio Macomer, her
husband, whom she hated and despised, but whom she was saving, or trying
to save, with herself, carried the effrontery of his sham-honest face
and cold manner through it all, unmoved, so far as she could see. Only
once or twice in the course of the day he had laughed suddenly and
nervously, with a contraction of the face and a raising of the flat
upper lip that showed his sharp yellow teeth. No one noticed it but
Matilde, and it frightened her. But hitherto he had said nothing more
since he had first confided to her, as to his only possible helper, the
nature of his danger.

She had not reproached him with what he had done. The danger itself was
too great for that, and perhaps she had suspected its approach too long
to be surprised at his confession. She had paid very little attention to
the words he used; for, considering his nature, it was natural that he
should, even in such extremity, attempt to throw a side-light of dignity
upon his misfortunes, and should call crimes by names which suggested
honest dealing to the ordinary hearer, such as 'transference of title,'
'reinvestment,' 'realization,' and the like; all of which, in plain
language, meant that he had taken what was not his, without the shadow
of authorization from any one, in the quite indefensible way which the
law calls 'stealing.'

Matilde had been amazed, however, at the impunity he had hitherto
enjoyed. The mere fact that the estate had never been handed over by the
guardians, of whom she was one and Cardinal Campodonico the third, was
probably in itself actionable, had Veronica chosen to protest; and it
was an indubitable fact that Gregorio Macomer had taken large sums after
the guardianship had legally expired. There had been none to hinder him
and Lamberto Squarci from doing as they pleased. The cardinal was deeply
engaged in other matters, and was, moreover, not at all a man of
business. He believed Gregorio to be honest, and now and then, when he
talked with Veronica, he applauded her wisdom in leaving the management
of her affairs in such experienced hands.

Matilde unlocked her door when she felt that she was once more mistress
of herself and able to face the world. A woman does not lead the life
she had led for years without at least knowing herself well and
understanding exactly how far she can rely upon her face and voice. She
knew when she rose from the sofa that she could go through the remainder
of the day well enough; and though her eyes gleamed hungrily, there was
a cynical smile on her lips as she turned over the red cushion, on which
there were marks where she had bitten it, and softly unlocked the door.
She went into her dressing-room, beyond, for a moment, to smooth her
hair. That was all, for there had been no tears in her eyes.

When she returned, she was surprised to see her husband standing before
the window, with his back to the broad sunshine, peacefully smoking a
cigarette. The smoke curled lazily about his grey head, in the quiet
air, as he allowed it to issue from his parted lips almost without the
help of his breath. His face was like stone, but as he opened his mouth
to let out the wreathing smoke, his lips smiled in an unnatural way.
Matilde half unconsciously compared him to one of those grimacing
Chinese monsters of grey porcelain, made for burning incense and
perfumes, from whose stony jaws the thick smoke comes out on the right
and left in slowly curling strings. His expression did not change when
he saw her, and as he stood with his back to the light, his small eyes
were quite invisible in his face.

"What news?" he asked calmly, as he closed the door and came forward
into the room. "Is all going well?"

His breath, as he spoke, blew the clouds of smoke from his face in thin
puffs.

"If you wish things to go well," answered Matilde, "leave everything to
me. Do not interfere. You have an unlucky hand."

She sat down in the corner of the sofa, taking a book from the table,
but not yet opening it. He smoked in silence for a moment.

"Yes," he said, presently. "I have been unfortunate. But I have great
confidence in you, Matilde--great confidence."

"That is fortunate," replied his wife, coldly. "It would be hard, if
there were no confidence on either side."

"Yes. Of course, you have none in me?"

He laughed suddenly, and the sound was jarring and startling, like the
unexpected breaking of plates in a quiet room. Matilde's lips quivered
and her brow contracted spasmodically. She hated his voice at all times,
as she hated him and all that belonged to him and his being; but during
the past twenty-four hours he had developed this strange laugh which set
her teeth on edge every time she heard it.

"What is the matter with you?" she asked impatiently. "Why do you laugh
in that way?"

"Did I laugh?" he inquired, by way of answer. "It was unconscious. But
my voice was never musical. However, in the present state of our family
affairs, a little laughter might divert our thoughts. Have you seen
Bosio to-day? Why did he not come to luncheon? I hope he is not ill,
just at this moment."

Matilda 'placed' her voice carefully, as a singer would do, before she
answered.

"He is not ill," she said. "He was here an hour ago. I did not ask him
why he did not come to luncheon, because it did not concern me."

"Well? And the rest?"

"The rest? How anxious you are!" she exclaimed scornfully. "The rest is
as well as ill can be. I think he will marry Veronica."

"I should suppose so, if she will marry him," observed Macomer. "It
would be as sensible to doubt that a starving man would take bread, as
to question whether a poor man will accept a fortune, especially in such
an agreeable shape. It is quite another matter, whether the fortune will
give itself to the poor man. What does Veronica say? Is she pleased with
the idea?"

"Moderately. She has not refused. She wishes to think about it."

"I hope that she will not think too long. To-day is the tenth of
December. There are just three weeks. By the bye, Matilde, I hope you
have put the will in a safe place. Where is it?"

Matilde paused two seconds before she answered. Though she could not
imagine in what way Gregorio could improve his desperate position by
getting the will out of her hands, nor by tampering with it, of which
she knew him to be quite capable, yet, on general principles, she
distrusted him so wholly and profoundly that she determined to deceive
him as to the place in which she kept it. Being clever at concealing
things, she began by showing it to him. She rose, took a key from behind
a photograph on the mantelpiece, and unlocked the drawer of her
writing-table. The will lay there, folded in a big envelope.

"Here it is," she said. "Do you wish to look over it again?"

She drew it half out of the cover and held it up before him. He
recognized the document and seemed satisfied.

"Oh! no," he answered. "I know it by heart. I only wished to know where
it was."

"Very well; it is here," said Matilde, putting it back and locking the
drawer again. "I generally carry the key about with me," she added
carelessly, "but I have no pocket in this gown, so I laid it behind that
photograph. It is not a very good place for it, is it?"

She hesitated, holding the key in her hand, and looking about the room
while he watched her. The woman's enormous power of deception showed
itself in the spontaneous facility with which she went through a
complicated little scene, quite improvised, in order to mislead her
husband. She knew that he himself would suggest some place for the key
to lie in.

"Put it under the edge of the carpet in the corner near the door," he
suggested. "You can easily turn the carpet up a little between the
rings."

"That is a good idea," she said. "It is as well that you should know
where it is, in case anything were to happen to me."

She was already in the corner, and she thrust the key under the doubled
edge of the crimson carpet.

"You are ingenious," she observed drily, as she rose to her feet. "I
should not have thought of that. It is a pity that you have not been
able to apply your ingenuity better in other ways, too. It has been
wasted."

"I am not sure," answered Macomer, thoughtfully. "If Bosio marries
Veronica, our position will be a very good one, considering the
misfortunes through which we have passed. If he should not, and if
Veronica should die, it will be much better. I am not sure but that, if
I had no affection for the girl, I might prefer that she should die."

Matilde glanced at him sideways, uneasily.

"We will not speak of that," she said, as though it were a disagreeable
subject.

"No."

T

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