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Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2

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Title: Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2

Author: F. Marion Crawford

Illustrator: J. André Castaigne


        
Release date: August 16, 2008 [eBook #26327]
                Most recently updated: January 3, 2021

Language: English

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CASA BRACCIO

[Illustration: Emblem]

[Illustration: "He looked at her long and sadly."--Vol. I., p. 239.]




CASA BRACCIO

BY

F. MARION CRAWFORD

AUTHOR OF "SARACINESCA," "PIETRO GHISLERI," ETC.

IN TWO VOLUMES

VOL. I.

_WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY A. CASTAIGNE_

                 =New York=
              MACMILLAN AND CO.
                 AND LONDON
                   1895

          _All rights reserved_

          COPYRIGHT, 1894,

          BY F. MARION CRAWFORD.


          =Norwood Press=
          J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith
          Norwood Mass. U.S.A.




          THIS STORY, BEING MY TWENTY-FIFTH NOVEL,
              IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED TO
                         MY WIFE

          SORRENTO, 1895




CONTENTS.

          PART I.
          SISTER MARIA ADDOLORATA      1


          PART II.
          GLORIA DALRYMPLE           225




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

VOL. I.

                                                         PAGE

          Nanna and Annetta                                15

          Maria Addolorata                                 25

          "Sor Tommaso was lying motionless"               78

          "She had covered her face with the veil"        126

          "An evil death on you!"                         218

          "He looked at her long and sadly"               239

          "Fire and sleet and candle-light;
              And Christ receive thy soul"                324




PART I.

_SISTER MARIA ADDOLORATA._




CASA BRACCIO.




PART I.

_SISTER MARIA ADDOLORATA._




CHAPTER I.


SUBIACO lies beyond Tivoli, southeast from Rome, at the upper end of a
wild gorge in the Samnite mountains. It is an archbishopric, and gives a
title to a cardinal, which alone would make it a town of importance. It
shares with Monte Cassino the honour of having been chosen by Saint
Benedict and Saint Scholastica, his sister, as the site of a monastery
and a convent; and in a cell in the rock a portrait of the holy man is
still well preserved, which is believed, not without reason, to have
been painted from life, although Saint Benedict died early in the fifth
century. The town itself rises abruptly to a great height upon a mass of
rock, almost conical in shape, crowned by the cardinal's palace, and
surrounded on three sides by rugged mountains. On the third, it looks
down the rapidly widening valley in the direction of Vicovaro, near
which the Licenza runs into the Anio, in the neighbourhood of Horace's
farm. It is a very ancient town, and in its general appearance it does
not differ very much from many similar ones amongst the Italian
mountains; but its position is exceptionally good, and its importance
has been stamped upon it by the hands of those who have thought it worth
holding since the days of ancient Rome. Of late it has, of course,
acquired a certain modernness of aspect; it has planted acacia trees in
its little piazza, and it has a gorgeously arrayed municipal band. But
from a little distance one neither hears the band nor sees the trees,
the grim mediaeval fortifications frown upon the valley, and the
time-stained dwellings, great and small, rise in rugged irregularity
against the lighter brown of the rocky background and the green of
scattered olive groves and chestnuts. Those features, at least, have not
changed, and show no disposition to change during generations to come.

In the year 1844, modern civilization had not yet set in, and Subiaco
was, within, what it still appears to be from without, a somewhat gloomy
stronghold of the Middle Ages, rearing its battlements and towers in a
shadowy gorge, above a mountain torrent, inhabited by primitive and
passionate people, dominated by ecclesiastical institutions, and,
though distinctly Roman, a couple of hundred years behind Rome itself in
all matters ethic and aesthetic. It was still the scene of the Santacroce
murder, which really decided Beatrice Cenci's fate; it was still the
gathering place of highwaymen and outlaws, whose activity found an
admirable field through all the region of hill and plain between the
Samnite range and the sea, while the almost inaccessible fortresses of
the higher mountains, towards Trevi and the Serra di Sant' Antonio,
offered a safe refuge from the halfhearted pursuit of Pope Gregory's
lazy soldiers.

Something of what one may call the life-and-death earnestness of earlier
times, when passion was motive and prejudice was law, survived at that
time and even much later; the ferocity of practical love and hatred
dominated the theory and practice of justice in the public life of the
smaller towns, while the patriarchal system subjected the family in
almost absolute servitude to its head.

There was nothing very surprising in the fact that the head of the house
of Braccio should have obliged one of his daughters to take the veil in
the Convent of Carmelite nuns, just within the gate of Subiaco, as his
sister had taken it many years earlier. Indeed, it was customary in the
family of the Princes of Gerano that one of the women should be a
Carmelite, and it was a tradition not unattended with worldly advantages
to the sisterhood, that the Braccio nun, whenever there was one, should
be the abbess of that particular convent.

Maria Teresa Braccio had therefore yielded, though very unwillingly, to
her father's insistence, and having passed through her novitiate, had
finally taken the veil as a Carmelite of Subiaco, in the year 1841, on
the distinct understanding that when her aunt died she was to be abbess
in the elder lady's stead. The abbess herself was, indeed, in excellent
health and not yet fifty years old, so that Maria Teresa--in religion
Maria Addolorata--might have a long time to wait before she was promoted
to an honour which she regarded as hereditary; but the prospect of such
promotion was almost her only compensation for all she had left behind
her, and she lived upon it and concentrated her character upon it, and
practised the part she was to play, when she was quite sure that she was
not observed.

Nature had not made her for a recluse, least of all for a nun of such a
rigid Order as the Carmelites. The short taste of a brilliant social
life which she had been allowed to enjoy, in accordance with an ancient
tradition, before finally taking the veil, had shown her clearly enough
the value of what she was to abandon, and at the same time had
altogether confirmed her father in his decision. Compared with the
freedom of the present day, the restrictions imposed upon a young girl
in the Roman society of those times were, of course, tyrannical in the
extreme, and the average modern young lady would almost as willingly go
into a convent as submit to them. But Maria Teresa had received an
impression which nothing could efface. Her intuitive nature had divined
the possible semi-emancipation of marriage, and her temperament had felt
in a certain degree the extremes of joyous exaltation and of that
entrancing sadness which is love's premonition, and which tells maidens
what love is before they know him, by making them conscious of the
breadth and depth of his yet vacant dwelling.

She had learned in that brief time that she was beautiful, and she had
felt that she could love and that she should be loved in return. She had
seen the world as a princess and had felt it as a woman, and she had
understood all that she must give up in taking the veil. But she had
been offered no choice, and though she had contemplated opposition, she
had not dared to revolt. Being absolutely in the power of her parents,
so far as she was aware, she had accepted the fatality of their will,
and bent her fair head to be shorn of its glory and her broad forehead
to be covered forever from the gaze of men. And having submitted, she
had gone through it all bravely and proudly, as perhaps she would have
gone through other things, even to death itself, being a daughter of an
old race, accustomed to deify honour and to make its divinities of
tradition. For the rest of her natural life she was to live on the
memories of one short, magnificent year, forever to be contented with
the grim rigidity of conventual life in an ancient cloister surrounded
by gloomy mountains. She was to be a veiled shadow amongst veiled
shades, a priestess of sorrow amongst sad virgins; and though, if she
lived long enough, she was to be the chief of them and their ruler, her
very superiority could only make her desolation more complete, until her
own shadow, like the others, should be gathered into eternal darkness.

Sister Maria Addolorata had certain privileges for which her companions
would have given much, but which were traditionally the right of such
ladies of the Braccio family as took the veil. For instance, she had a
cell which, though not larger than the other cells, was better situated,
for it had a little balcony looking over the convent garden, and high
enough to afford a view of the distant valley and of the hills which
bounded it, beyond the garden wall. It was entered by the last door in
the corridor within, and was near the abbess's apartment, which was
entered from the corridor, through a small antechamber which also gave
access to the vast linen-presses. The balcony, too, had a little
staircase leading down into the garden. It had always been the custom to
carry the linen to and from the laundry through Maria Addolorata's cell,
and through a postern gate in the garden wall, the washing being done in
the town. By this plan, the annoyance was avoided of carrying the huge
baskets through the whole length of the convent, to and from the main
entrance, which was also much further removed from the house of Sora
Nanna, the chief laundress. Moreover, Maria Addolorata had charge of all
the convent linen, and the employment thus afforded her was an undoubted
privilege in itself, for occupation of any kind not devotional was
excessively scarce in such an existence.

In the eyes of the other nuns, the constant society of the abbess
herself was also a privilege, and one not by any means to be despised.
After all, the abbess and her niece were nearly related, they could talk
of the affairs of their family, and the abbess doubtless received many
letters from Rome containing all the interesting news of the day, and
all the social gossip--perfectly innocent, of course--which was the
chronicle of Roman life. These were valuable compensations, and the nuns
envied them. The abbess, too, saw her brother, the archbishop and
titular cardinal of Subiaco, when the princely prelate came out from
Rome for the coolness of the mountains in August and September, and his
conversation was said to be not only edifying, but fascinating. The
cardinal was a very good man, like many of the Braccio family, but he
was also a man of the world, who had been sent upon foreign missions of
importance, and had acquired some worldly fame as well as much
ecclesiastical dignity in the course of his long life. It must be
delightful, the nuns thought, to be his own sister, to receive long
visits from him, and to hear all he had to say about the busy world of
Rome. To most of them, everything beyond Rome was outer darkness.

But though the nuns envied the abbess and Maria Addolorata, they did not
venture to say so, and they hardly dared to think so, even when they
were all alone, each in her cell; for the concentration of conventual
life magnifies small spiritual sins in the absence of anything really
sinful, and to admit that she even faintly wishes she might be some one
else is to tarnish the brightness of the nun's scrupulously polished
conscience. It would be as great a misdeed, perhaps, as to allow the
attention to wander to worldly matters during times of especial
devotion. Nevertheless, the envy showed itself, very perceptibly and
much against the will of the sisters themselves, in a certain cold
deference of manner towards the young and beautiful nun who was one day
to be the superior of them all by force of circumstances for which she
deserved no credit. She had the position among them, and something of
the isolation, of a young royal princess amongst the ladies of her queen
mother's court.

There was about her, too, an undefinable something, like the shadow of
future fate, a something almost impossible to describe, and yet
distinctly appreciable to all who saw her and lived with her. It came
upon her especially when she was silent and abstracted, when she was
kneeling in her place in the choir, or was alone upon her little balcony
over the garden. At such times a luminous pallor gradually took the
place of her fresh and healthy complexion, her eyes grew unnaturally
dark, with a deep, fixed fire in them, and the regular features took
upon them the white, set straightness of a death mask. Sometimes, at
such moments, a shiver ran through her, even in summer, and she drew her
breath sharply once or twice, as though she were hurt. The expression
was not one of suffering or pain, but was rather that of a person
conscious of some great danger which must be met without fear or
flinching.

She would have found it very hard to explain what she felt just then.
She might have said that it was a consciousness of something unknown.
She could not have said more than that. It brought no vision with it,
beatific or horrifying; it was not the consequence of methodical
contemplation, as the trance state is; and it was followed by no
reaction nor sense of uneasiness. It simply came and went as the dark
shadow of a thundercloud passing between her and the sun, and leaving no
trace behind.

There was nothing to account for it, unless it could be explained by
heredity, and no one had ever suggested any such explanation to Maria.
It was true that there had been more than one tragedy in the Braccio
family since they had first lifted their heads above the level of their
contemporaries to become Roman Barons, in the old days before such
titles as prince and duke had come into use. But then, most of the old
families could tell of deeds as cruel and lives as passionate as any
remembered by Maria's race, and Italians, though superstitious in
unexpected ways, have little of that belief in hereditary fate which is
common enough in the gloomy north.

"Was Sister Maria Addolorata a great sinner, before she became a nun?"
asked Annetta, Sora Nanna's daughter, of her mother, one day, as they
came away from the convent.

"What are you saying!" exclaimed the washerwoman, in a tone of rebuke.
"She is a great lady, and the niece of the abbess and of the cardinal.
Sometimes certain ideas pass through your head, my daughter!"

And Sora Nanna gesticulated, unable to express herself.

"Then she sins in her throat," observed Annetta, calmly. "But you do not
even look at her--so many sheets--so many pillow-cases--and good day!
But while you count, I look."

"Why should I look at her?" inquired Nanna, shifting the big empty
basket she carried on her head, hitching her broad shoulders and
wrinkling her leathery forehead, as her small eyes turned upward. "Do
you take me for a man, that I should make eyes at a nun?"

"And I? Am I a man? And yet I look at her. I see nothing but her face
when we are there, and afterwards I think about it. What harm is there?
She sins in her throat. I know it."

Sora Nanna hitched her shoulders impatiently again, and said nothing.
The two women descended through the steep and narrow street, slippery
and wet with slimy, coal black mud that glittered on the rough
cobble-stones. Nanna walked first, and Annetta followed close behind
her, keeping step, and setting her feet exactly where her mother had
trod, with the instinctive certainty of the born mountaineer. With heads
erect and shoulders square, each with one hand on her hip and the other
hanging down, they carried their burdens swiftly and safely, with a
swinging, undulating gait as though it were a pleasure to them to move,
and would require an effort to stop rather than to walk on forever. They
wore shoes because they were well-to-do people, and chose to show that
they were when they went up to the convent. But for the rest they were
clad in the costume of the neighbourhood,--the coarse white shift, close
at the throat, the scarlet bodice, the short, dark, gathered skirt, and
the dark blue carpet apron, with flowers woven on a white stripe across
the lower end. Both wore heavy gold earrings, and Sora Nanna had eight
or ten strings of large coral beads around her throat.

Annetta was barely fifteen years old, brown, slim, and active as a
lizard. She was one of those utterly unruly and untamable girls of whom
there are two or three in every Italian village, in mountain or plain, a
creature in whom a living consciousness of living nature took the place
of thought, and with whom to be conscious was to speak, without reason
or hesitation. The small, keen, black eyes were set under immense and
arched black eyebrows which made the eyes themselves seem larger than
they were, and the projecting temples cast shadows to the cheek which
hid the rudimentary modelling of the coarse lower lids. The ears were
flat and ill-developed, but close to the head and not large; the teeth
very short, though perfectly regular and exceedingly white; the lips
long, mobile, brown rather than red, and generally parted like those
of a wild animal. The girl's smoothly sinewy throat moved with every
step, showing the quick play of the elastic cords and muscles. Her
blue-black hair was plaited, though far from neatly, and the braids were
twisted into an irregular flat coil, generally hidden by the flap of the
white embroidered cloth cross-folded upon her head and hanging down
behind.

[Illustration: Nanna and Annetta.--Vol. I., p. 15.]

For some minutes the mother and daughter continued to pick their way
down the winding lanes between the dark houses of the upper village.
Then Sora Nanna put out her right hand as a signal to Annetta that she
meant to stop, and she stood still on the steep descent and turned
deliberately till she could see the girl.

"What are you saying?" she began, as though there had been no pause in
the conversation. "That Sister Maria Addolorata sins in her throat! But
how can she sin in her throat, since she sees no man but the gardener
and the priest? Indeed, you say foolish things!"

"And what has that to do with it?" inquired Annetta. "She must have seen
enough of men in Rome, every one of them a great lord. And who tells you
that she did not love one of them and does not wish that she were
married to him? And if that is not a sin in the throat, I do not know
what to say. There is my answer."

"You say foolish things," repeated Sora Nanna.

Then she turned deliberately away and began to descend once more, with
an occasional dissatisfied movement of the shoulders.

"For the rest," observed Annetta, "it is not my business. I would rather
look at the Englishman when he is eating meat than at Sister Maria when
she is counting clothes! I do not know whether he is a wolf or a man."

"Eh! The Englishman!" exclaimed Sora Nanna. "You will look so much at
the Englishman that you will make blood with Gigetto, who wishes you
well, and when Gigetto has waited for the Englishman at the corner of
the forest, what shall we all have? The galleys. What do you see in the
Englishman? He has red hair and long, long teeth. Yes--just like a wolf.
You are right. And if he pays for meat, why should he not eat it? If he
did not pay, it would be different. It would soon be finished. Heaven
send us a little money without any Englishman! Besides, Gigetto said the
other day that he would wait for him at the corner of the forest. And
Gigetto, when he says a thing, he does it."

"And why should we go to the galleys if Gigetto waits for the
Englishman?" inquired Annetta.

"Silly!" cried the older woman. "Because Gigetto would take your
father's gun, since he has none of his own. That would be enough. We
should have done it!"

Annetta shrugged her shoulders and said nothing.

"But take care," continued Sora Nanna. "Your father sleeps with one eye
open. He sees you, and he sees also the Englishman every day. He says
nothing, because he is good. But he has a fist like a paving-stone. I
tell you nothing more."

They reached Sora Nanna's house and disappeared under the dark archway.
For Sora Nanna and Stefanone, her husband, were rich people for their
station, and their house was large and was built with an arch wide
enough and high enough for a loaded beast of burden to pass through with
a man on its back. And, within, everything was clean and well kept,
excepting all that belonged to Annetta. There were airy upper rooms,
with well-swept floors of red brick or of beaten cement, furnished with
high beds on iron trestles, and wooden stools of well-worn brown oak,
and tables painted a vivid green, and primitive lithographs of Saint
Benedict and Santa Scholastica and the Addolorata. And there were lofts
in which the rich autumn grapes were hung up to dry on strings, and
where chestnuts lay in heaps, and figs were spread in symmetrical order
on great sheets of the coarse grey paper made in Subiaco. There were
apples, too, though poor ones, and there were bins of maize and wheat,
waiting to be picked over before being ground in the primeval household
mill. And there were hams and sides of bacon, and red peppers, and
bundles of dried herbs, and great mountain cheeses on shelves. There was
also a guest room, better than the rest, which Stefanone and his wife
occasionally let to respectable travellers or to the merchants who came
from Rome on business to stay a few days in Subiaco. At the present time
the room was rented by the Englishman concerning whom the discussion had
arisen between Annetta and her mother.

Angus Dalrymple, M.D., was not an Englishman, as he had tried to explain
to Sora Nanna, though without the least success. He was, as his name
proclaimed, a Scotchman of the Scotch, and a doctor of medicine. It was
true that he had red hair, and an abundance of it, and long white teeth,
but Sora Nanna's description was otherwise libellously incomplete and
wholly omitted all mention of the good points in his appearance. In the
first place, he possessed the characteristic national build in a
superior degree of development, with all the lean, bony energy which has
done so much hard work in the world. He was broad-shouldered,
long-armed, long-legged, deep-chested, and straight, with sinewy hands
and singularly well-shaped fingers. His healthy skin had that mottled
look produced by countless freckles upon an almost childlike complexion.
The large, grave mouth generally concealed the long teeth objected to by
Sora Nanna, and the lips, though even and narrow, were strong rather
than thin, and their rare smile was both genial and gentle. There were
lines--as yet very faint--about the corners of the mouth, which told of
a nervous and passionate disposition and of the strong Scotch temper, as
well as of a certain sensitiveness which belongs especially to northern
races. The pale but very bright blue eyes under shaggy auburn brows were
fiery with courage and keen with shrewd enterprise. Dalrymple was
assuredly not a man to be despised under any circumstances,
intellectually or physically.

His presence in such a place as Subiaco, at a time when hardly any
foreigners except painters visited the place, requires some explanation;
for he was not an artist, but a doctor, and had never been even tempted
to amuse himself with sketching. In the first place, he was a younger
son of a good family, and received a moderate allowance, quite
sufficient in those days to allow him considerable latitude of
expenditure in old-fashioned Italy. Secondly, he had entirely refused to
follow any of the professions known as 'liberal.' He had no taste for
the law, and he had not the companionable character which alone can make
life in the army pleasant in time of peace. His beliefs, or his lack of
belief, together with an honourable conscience, made him naturally
opposed to all churches. On the other hand, he had been attracted almost
from his childhood by scientific subjects, at a period when the
discoveries of the last fifty years appeared as misty but beatific
visions to men of science. To the disappointment and, to some extent, to
the humiliation of his family, he insisted upon studying medicine, at
the University of St. Andrew's, as soon as he had obtained his ordinary
degree at Cambridge. And having once insisted, nothing could turn him
from his purpose, for he possessed English tenacity grafted upon Scotch
originality, with a good deal of the strength of both races.

While still a student he had once made a tour in Italy, and like many
northerners had fallen under the mysterious spell of the South from the
very first. Having a sufficient allowance for all his needs, as has been
said, and being attracted by the purely scientific side of his
profession rather than by any desire to become a successful
practitioner, it was natural enough that on finding himself free to go
whither he pleased in pursuit of knowledge, he should have visited Italy
again. A third visit had convinced him that he should do well to spend
some years in the country; for by that time he had become deeply
interested in the study of malarious fevers, which in those days were
completely misunderstood. It would be far too much to say that young
Dalrymple had at that time formed any complete theory in regard to
malaria; but his naturally lonely and concentrated intellect had
contemptuously discarded all explanations of malarious phenomena, and,
communicating his own ideas to no one, until he should be in possession
of proofs for his opinions, he had in reality got hold of the beginning
of the truth about germs which has since then revolutionized medicine.

The only object of this short digression has been to show that Angus
Dalrymple was not a careless idler and tourist in Italy, only half
responsible for what he did, and not at all for what he thought. On the
contrary, he was a man of very unusual gifts, of superior education, and
of rare enterprise; a strong, silent, thoughtful man, about
eight-and-twenty years of age, and just beginning to feel his power as
something greater than he had suspected, when he came to spend the
autumn months in Subiaco, and hired Sora Nanna's guest room, with a
little room leading off it, which he kept locked, and in which he had a
table, a chair, a microscope, some books, a few chemicals and some
simple apparatus.

His presence had at first roused certain jealous misgivings in the heart
of the town physician, Sor Tommaso Taddei, commonly spoken of simply as
'the Doctor,' because there was no other. But Dalrymple was not without
tact and knowledge of human nature. He explained that he came as a
foreigner to learn from native physicians how malarious fevers were
treated in Italy; and he listened with patient intelligence to Sor
Tommaso's antiquated theories, and silently watched his still more
antiquated practice. And Sor Tommaso, like all people who think that
they know a vast deal, highly approved of Dalrymple's submissive
silence, and said that the young man was a marvel of modesty, and that
if he could stay about ten years in Subiaco and learn something from Sor
Tommaso himself, he might really some day be a fairly good
doctor,--which were extraordinarily liberal admissions on the part of
the old practitioner, and contributed largely towards reassuring
Stefanone concerning his lodger's character.

For Stefanone and his wife had their doubts and suspicions. Of course
they knew that all foreigners except Frenchmen and Austrians were
Protestants, and ate meat on fast days, and were under the most especial
protection of the devil, who fattened them in this world that they might
burn the better in the next. But Stefanone had never seen the real
foreigner at close quarters, and had not conceived it possible that any
living human being could devour so much half-cooked flesh in a day as
Dalrymple desired for his daily portion, paid for, and consumed.
Moreover, there was no man in Subiaco who could and did swallow such
portentous draughts of the strong mountain wine, without suffering any
apparent effects from his potations. Furthermore, also, Dalrymple did
strange things by day and night in the small laboratory he had arranged
next to his bedroom, and unholy and evil smells issued at times through
the cracks of the door, and penetrated from the bedroom to the stairs
outside, and were distinctly perceptible all over the house. Therefore
Stefanone maintained for a long time that his lodger was in league with
the powers of darkness, and that it was not safe to keep him in the
house, though he paid his bill so very regularly, every Saturday, and
never quarrelled about the price of his food and drink. On the whole,
however, Stefanone abstained from interfering, as he had at first been
inclined to do, and entering the laboratory, with the support of the
parish priest, a basin of holy water, and a loaded gun--all three of
which he considered necessary for an exorcism; and little by little, Sor
Tommaso, the doctor, persuaded him that Dalrymple was a worthy young
man, deeply engaged in profound studies, and should be respected rather
than exorcised.

"Of course," admitted the doctor, "he is a Protestant. But then he has a
passport. Let us therefore let him alone."

The existence of the passport--indispensable in those days--was a strong
argument in the eyes of the simple Stefanone. He could not conceive
that a magician whose soul was sold to the devil could possibly have a
passport and be under the protection of the law. So the matter was
settled.




CHAPTER II.


[Illustration: Maria Addolorata.--Vol. I., p. 25.]

SISTER MARIA ADDOLORATA sat by the open door of her cell, looking across
the stone parapet of her little balcony, and watching the changing
richness of the western sky, as the sun went down far out of sight
behind the mountains. Though the month was October, the afternoon was
warm; it was very still, and the air had been close in the choir during
the Benediction service, which was just over. She leaned back in her
chair, and her lips parted as she breathed, with a perceptible desire
for refreshment in the breath. She held a piece of needlework in her
heavy white hands; the needle had been thrust through the linen, but the
stitch had remained unfinished, and one pointed finger pressed the
doubled edge against the other, lest the material should slip before she
made up her mind to draw the needle through. Deep in the garden under
the balcony the late flowers were taking strangely vivid colours out of
the bright sky above, and some bits of broken glass, stuck in the mortar
on the top of the opposite wall as a protection against thieving boys,
glowed like a line of rough rubies against the misty distance. Even the
white walls of the bare cell and the coarse grey blanket lying across
the foot of the small bed drank in a little of the colour, and looked
less grey and less grim.

From the eaves, high above the open door, the swallows shot down into
the golden light, striking great circles and reflecting the red gold of
the sky from their breasts as they wheeled just beyond the wall, with
steady wings wide-stretched, up and down; and each one, turning at full
speed, struck upwards again and was out of sight in an instant, above
the lintel. The nun watched them, her eyes trying to follow each of them
in turn and to recognize them separately as they flashed into sight
again and again.

Her lips were parted, and as she sat there she began to sing very softly
and quite unconsciously. She could not have told what the song was. The
words were strange and oddly divided, and there was a deadly sadness in
a certain interval that came back almost with every stave. But the voice
itself was beautiful beyond all comparison with ordinary voices, full of
deep and touching vibrations and far harmonics, though she sang so
softly, all to herself. Notes like hers haunt the ears--and sometimes
the heart--when she who sang them has been long dead, and many would
give much to hear but a breath of them again.

It was hard for Maria Addolorata not to sing sometimes, when she was
all alone in her cell, though it was so strictly forbidden. Singing is a
gift of expression, when it is a really natural gift, as much as speech
and gesture and the smile on the lips, with the one difference that it
is a keener pleasure to him or her that sings than gesture or speech can
possibly be. Music, and especially singing, are a physical as well as an
intellectual expression, a pleasure of the body as well as a
'delectation' of the soul. To sing naturally and spontaneously is most
generally an endowment of natures physically strong and rich by the
senses, independently of the mind, though melody may sometimes be the
audible translation of a silent thought as well as the unconscious
speech of wordless passion.

And in Maria's song there was a strain of that something unknown and
fatal, which the nuns sometimes saw in her face and which was in her
eyes now, as she sang; for they no longer followed the circling of the
swallows, but grew fixed and dark, with fiery reflexions from the sunset
sky, and the regular features grew white and straight and square against
the deepening shadows within the narrow room. The deep voice trembled a
little, and the shoulders had a short, shivering movement under the
heavy folds of the dark veil, as the sensation of a presence ran through
her and made her shudder. But the voice did not break, and she sang on,
louder, now, than she realized, the full notes swelling in her throat,
and vibrating between the narrow walls, and floating out through the
open door to join the flight of the swallows.

The door of the cell opened gently, but she did not hear, and sang on,
leaning back in her chair and gazing still at the pink clouds above the
mountains.

          "Death is my love, dark-eyed death--"

she sang.

"Maria!"

The abbess was standing in the doorway and speaking to her, but she did
not hear.

          "His hands are sweetly cold and gentle--
           Flowers of leek, and firefly--
           Holy Saint John!"

"Maria!" cried the abbess, impatiently. "What follies are you singing? I
could hear you in my room!"

Maria Addolorata started and rose from her seat, still holding her
needlework, and turning half round towards her superior, with suddenly
downcast eyes. The elder lady came forward with slow dignity and walked
as far as the door of the balcony, where she stood still for a moment,
gazing at the beautiful sky. She was not a stately woman, for she was
too short and stout, but she had that calm air of assured superiority
which takes the place of stateliness, and which seems to belong
especially to those who occupy important positions in the Church. Her
large features, though too heavy, were imposing in their excessive
pallor, while the broad, dark brown shadows all around and beneath the
large black eyes gave the face a depth of expression which did not,
perhaps, wholly correspond with the original character. It was a
striking face, and considering the wide interval between the ages of the
abbess and her niece, and the natural difference of colouring, there was
a strong family resemblance in the two women.

The abbess sat down upon the only chair, and Maria remained standing
before her, her sewing in her hands.

"I have often told you that you must not sing in your cell," said the
abbess, in a coldly severe tone.

Maria's shoulders shook her veil a little, but she still looked at the
floor.

"I cannot help it," she answered in a constrained voice. "I did not know
that I was singing--"

"That is ridiculous! How can one sing, and not know it? You are not
deaf. At least, you do not sing as though you were. I will not have it.
I could hear you as far away as my own room--a love-song, too!"

"The love of death," suggested Maria.

"It makes no difference," answered the elder lady. "You disturb the
peace of the sisters with your singing. You know the rule, and you must
obey it, like the rest. If you must sing, then sing in church."

"I do."

"Very well, that ought to be enough. Must you sing all the time? Suppose
that the Cardinal had been visiting me, as was quite possible, what
impression would he have had of our discipline?"

"Oh, Uncle Cardinal has often heard me sing."

"You must not call him 'Uncle Cardinal.' It is like the common people
who say 'Uncle Priest.' I have told you that a hundred times at least.
And if the Cardinal has heard you singing, so much the worse."

"He once told me that I had a good voice," observed Maria, still
standing before her aunt.

"A good voice is a gift of God and to be used in church, but not in such
a way as to attract attention or admiration. The devil is everywhere, my
daughter, and makes use of our best gifts as a means of temptation. The
Cardinal certainly did not hear you singing that witch's love-song which
I heard just now. He would have rebuked you as I do."

"It was not a love-song. It is about death--and Saint John's eve."

"Well, then it is about witches. Do not argue with me. There is a rule,
and you must not break it."

Maria Addolorata said nothing, but moved a step and leaned against the
door-post, looking out into the evening light. The stout abbess sat
motionless in her straight chair, looking past her niece at the distant
hills. She had evidently said all she meant to say about the singing,
and it did not occur to her to talk of anything else. A long silence
followed. Maria was not timid, but she had been accustomed from her
childhood to look upon her aunt as an immensely superior person, moving
in a higher sphere, and five years spent in the convent as novice and
nun had rather increased than diminished the feeling of awe which the
abbess inspired in the young girl. There was, indeed, no other sister in
the community who would have dared to answer the abbess's rebuke at all,
and Maria's very humble protest really represented an extraordinary
degree of individuality and courage. Conventual institutions can only
exist on a basis of absolute submission.

The abbess was neither harsh nor unkind, and was certainly not a very
terrifying figure, but she possessed undeniable force of character,
strengthened by the inborn sense of hereditary right and power, and her
kindness was as imposing as her displeasure was lofty and solemn. She
had very little sympathy for any weakness in others, but she was always
ready to dispense the mercy of Heaven, vicariously, so to say, and with
a certain royally suppressed surprise that Heaven should be merciful.
On the whole, considering the circumstances, she admitted that Maria
Addolorata had accepted the veil with sufficient outward grace, though
without any vocation, and she took it for granted that with such
opportunities the girl must slowly develop into an abbess not unlike her
predecessors. She prayed regularly, of course, and with especial
intention, for her niece, as for the welfare of the order, and assumed
as an unquestionable result that her prayers were answered with perfect
regularity, since her own conscience did not reproach her with
negligence of her young relative's spiritual education.

To the abbess, religion, the order and its duties, presented themselves
as a vast machine controlled for the glory of God by the Pope. She and
her nuns were parts of the great engine which must work with perfect
regularity in order that God might be glorified. Her mind was naturally
religious, but was at the same time essentially of the material order.
There is a material imagination, and there is a spiritual imagination.
There are very good and devout men and women who take the world, present
and to come, quite literally, as a mere fulfilment of their own
limitations; who look upon what they know as being all that need be
known, and upon what they believe of God and Heaven as the mechanical
consequence of what they know rather than as the cause and goal,
respectively, of existence and action; to whom the letter of the law is
the arbitrary expression of a despotic power, which, somehow, must be
looked upon as merciful; who answer all questions concerning God's logic
with the tremendous assertion of God's will; whose God is a magnified
man, and whose devil is a malignant animal, second only to God in
understanding, while extreme from God in disposition. There are good men
and women who, to use a natural but not flippant simile, take it for
granted that the soul is cast into the troubled waters of life without
the power to swim, or even the possibility of learning to float,
dependent upon the bare chance that some one may throw it the life-buoy
of ritual religion as its only conceivable means of salvation. And the
opponents of each particular form of faith invariably take just such
good men and women, with all their limitations, as the only true
exponents of that especial creed, which they then proceed to tear in
pieces with all the ease such an undue advantage of false premise gives
them. None of them have thought of intellectual mercy as being, perhaps,
an integral part of Christian charity. Faith they have in abundance, and
hope also not a little; but charity, though it be for men's earthly ills
and, theoretically, if not always practically, for men's spiritual
shortcomings, is rigidly forbidden for the errors of men's minds. Why?
No thinking man can help asking the little question which grows great in
the unanswering silence that follows it.

All this is not intended as an apology for what the young nun, Maria
Addolorata, afterwards did, though much of it is necessary in
explanation of her deeds, which, however they may be regarded, brought
upon her and others their inevitable logical consequences. Still less is
it meant, in any sense, as an attack upon the conventual system of the
cloistered orders, which system was itself a consequence of spiritual,
intellectual and political history, and has a prime right to be judged
upon the evidence of its causes, and not by the shortcomings of its
results in changed times. What has been said merely makes clear the fact
that the characters, minds, and dispositions of Maria Addolorata and of
her aunt, the abbess, were wholly unsuited to one another. And this one
fact became a source of life and death, of happiness and misery, of
comedy and tragedy, to many individuals, even to the present day.

The nun remained motionless, pressing her cheek against the door-post
and looking out. Her aunt had not quite shut the door by which she had
entered, and a cool stream of air blew outward from the corridor and
through the cell, bringing with it that peculiar odour which belongs to
all large and old buildings inhabited by religious communities. It is
made up of the cold exhalations from stone walls and paved floors in
which there is always some dampness, of the acrid smell of the heavy,
leathern, wadded curtains which shut off the main drafts of air, as the
swinging doors do in a mine, of a faint but perceptible suggestion of
incense which penetrates the whole building from the church or the
chapel, and, not least, of the fumes from the cookery of the great
quantities of vegetables which are the staple food of the brethren or
the sisters. It is as imperceptible to the monks and nuns themselves as
the smell of tobacco to the smoker.

It had been very close in the little cell, and Maria was glad of the
coolness that came in through the open door. Her eyes were fixed on the
sky with a longing look. Again the words of her song rose to her lips,
but she checked them, remembering her aunt's presence, and with the
effort to be silent came the strong wish to be free, to be over there
upon those purple hills at evening, to look beyond and watch the sun
sinking into the distant sea, to breathe her fill of the mountain air,
to run along the crests of the hills till she should be tired, to sleep
under the open sky, to see, in dreams, to-morrow's sun rising through
the trees, to be waked by the song of birds and to find that the dream
was true.

Instead of that, and instead of all it meant to her, there was to be
the silent evening meal, the close, lighted chapel, the wearily nasal
chant of the sisters, her lonely cell, with its close darkness, the
unrefreshing sleep, broken by the bell calling her to another office in
the chapel; then, at last, the dawn, and the day that would seem as much
a prisoner as herself within the convent walls, and the praying and
nasal chanting, and the counting of sheets and pillow-cases, and doing a
little sewing, and singing to herself, perhaps, and then the being
reproved for it--the whole varied by meals of coarse food, and
periodical stations in her seat in the choir. The day! The very sun
seemed imprisoned in his corner of the garden wall, dragging slowly at
his chain, in a short half-circle, from morning till evening, like a
watch-dog tied up in a yard beside his kennel. The night was better.
Sometimes she could see the moon-rays through the cracks of the balcony
door, as she lay in her bed. She could see them against the darkness,
and the ends of them were straight white lines and round white spots on
the floor and on the walls. Her thoughts played in them, and her maiden
fancies caught them and followed them lightly out into the white night
and far away to the third world, which is dreamland. And in her dreams
she sang to the midnight stars, and clasped her bare arms round the
moon's white throat, kissing the moon-lady's pale and passionate cheek,
till she lost herself in the mysterious eyes, and found herself once
more, bathed in cool star-showers, the queen of a tender dream.

There sat the abbess, in the only chair, stolid, righteous, imposing.
The incarnation and representative of the ninety and nine who need no
forgiveness, exasperatingly and mathematically virtuous as a dogma, a
woman against whom no sort of reproach could be brought, and at the mere
sight of whom false witnesses would shrivel up and die, like jelly-fish
in the sun. She not only approved of the convent life, but she liked it.
She was at liberty to do a thousand things which were not permitted to
the nuns, but she had not the slightest inclination to do any of them,
any more than she was inclined to admit that any of them could possibly
be unhappy if they would only pray, sing, sleep, and eat boiled cabbage
at the appointed hours. What had she in common with Maria Addolorata,
except that she was born a princess and a Braccio?

Of what use was it to be a princess by birth, like a dozen or more of
the sisters, or even a noble, like all the others? Of what use or
advantage could anything be, where liberty was not? An even plainer and
more desperate question rose in the young nun's heart, as she leaned her
cheek against the door-post, still warm with the afternoon sun. Of what
use was life, if it was to be lived in the tomb with the accompaniment
of a lifelong funeral service? Why should not God be as well pleased
with suicide as with self-burial? Why should not death all at once, by
the sudden dash of cleanly steel, be as noble and acceptable a sacrifice
as death by sordid degrees of orderly suffering, systematic starvation,
and rigidly regulated misery? Was not life, life--and blood,
blood--whether drawn by drops, or shed from a quick wound in the
splendid redness of one heroic instant? Surely it would be as grand a
thing, if a mere sacrifice were the object, to be laid down stark dead,
with the death-thrust in the heart, at the foot of the altar, in all her
radiant youth and full young beauty, untempted and unsullied, as to fast
and pray through forty querulous years of misery in prison.

But then, there was the virtue of patience. Therein, doubtless, lay the
difference. It was not the death alone that was to please God, but the
long manner of it, the summed-up account of suffering, the interest paid
on the capital of life after it was invested in death. God was to be
pleased with items, and the sum of them. Item, a sleepless night. Item,
a bad cold, caught by kneeling on the damp stones. Item, a dish of
sweets refused on a feast-day. Item, the resolution not to laugh when a
fly settled on the abbess's nose. Item, the resolution not to wish that
her hair had never been cut off. Item, being stifled in summer and
frozen in winter, in her cell. Item, appreciating that it was the best
cell, and that she was better off than the other sisters.

Repeat the items for half a century, sum them up, and offer them to God
as a meet and fitting sacrifice--the destruction, by fine degrees of
petty suffering, of one woman's whole life, almost from the beginning,
and quite to the end, with the total annihilation of all its human
possibilities, of love, of motherhood, of reasonable enjoyment and
legitimate happiness. That was the formula for salvation which Maria
Addolorata had received with the veil.

And not only had she received it. It had been thrust upon her, because
she chanced to be the only available daughter of the ancient house of
Braccio, to fill the hereditary seat beneath the wooden canopy, as
abbess of the Subiaco Carmelites. If there had been another sister, less
fair, more religiously disposed, that sister would have been chosen in
Maria's stead. But there was no other; and there must be a young Braccio
nun, to take the place of the elder one, when the latter should have
filled her account to overflowing with little items to be paid for with
the gold of certain salvation.

That a sinful woman, full of sorrows, and weary of the world, might
silently bow her head under the nun's veil, and wear out with prayerful
austerity the deep-cut letters of her sin's story, that, at least, was a
thing Maria could understand. There were faces amongst the sisters that
haunted her in her solitude, lips that could have told much, but which
said only 'Miserere'; eyes that had looked on love, and that fixed
themselves now only on the Cross; cheeks blanched with grief and
hollowed as the marble of an ancient fountain by often flowing tears;
hearts that had given all, and had been beaten and bruised and rejected.
The convent was for them; the life was a life for them; for them there
was no freedom beyond these walls, in the living world, nor anywhere on
this side of death. They had done right in coming, and they did right in
staying; they were reasonable when they prayed that they might have
time, before they died, to be sorry for their sins and to touch again
the hem of the garment of innocence.

But even they, if they were told that it would be right, would they not
rather shorten their time to a day, even to one instant, of aggregated
pain, and offer up their sacrifice all at once? And why should it not be
right? Did God delight in pain and suffering for its own sake? The
passionate girl's heart revolted angrily against a Being that could
enjoy the sufferings of helpless creatures.

But then, there was that virtue of patience again, which was beyond her
comprehension. At last she spoke, her face still to the sunset.

"What difference can it make to God how we die?" she asked, scarcely
conscious that she was speaking.

The abbess must have started a little, for the chair creaked suddenly,
several seconds before she answered. Her face did not relax, however,
nor were her hands unclasped from one another as they lay folded on her
knees.

"That is a foolish question, my daughter," she said at last. "Do you
think that God was not pleased by the sufferings of the holy martyrs,
and did not reward them for what they bore?"

"No, I did not mean that," answered Maria, quickly. "But why should we
not all be martyrs? It would be much quicker."

"Heaven preserve us!" exclaimed the abbess. "What are you thinking of,
child?"

"It would be so much quicker," repeated Maria. "What are we here for? To
sacrifice our lives to God. We wish to make this sacrifice, and God
promises to accept it. Why would it be less complete if we were led to
the altar as soon as we have finished our novitiate and quickly killed?
It would be the same, and it would be much quicker. What difference can
it make how we die, since we are to die in the end, without
accomplishing anything except dying?"

By this time the abbess's pale hands were unclasped, and one of them
pressed each knee, as she leaned far forward in her seat, with an
expression of surprise and horror, her dark lips parted and all the
lines of her colourless face drawn down.

"Are you mad, Maria?" she asked in a low voice.

"Mad? No. Why should you think me mad?" The nun turned and looked down
at her aunt. "After all, it is the great question. Our lives are but a
preparation for death. Why need the preparation be so long? Why should
the death be so slow? Why should it be right to kill ourselves for the
glory of God by degrees, and wrong to do it all at once, if one has the
courage? I think it is a very reasonable question."

"Indeed, you are beside yourself! The devil suggests such things to you
and blinds you to the truth, my child. Penance and prayer, prayer and
penance--by the grace of Heaven it will pass."

"Penance and prayer!" exclaimed Maria, sadly. "That is it--a slow death,
but a sure one!"

"I am more than sixty years old," replied the abbess. "I have done
penance and prayed prayers all my life, and you see--I am well. I am
stout."

"For charity's sake, do not say so!" cried Maria, making the sign of the
horns with her fingers, to ward off the evil eye. "You will certainly
fall ill."

"Our lives are of God. It is our own eyes that are evil. You must not
make horns with your fingers. It is a heathen superstition, as I have
often told you. But many of you do it. Maria, I wish to speak to you
seriously."

"Speak, mother," answered the young nun, the strong habit of submission
returning instantly with the other's grave tone.

"These thoughts of yours are very wicked. We are placed in the world,
and we must continue to live in it, as long as God wills that we should.
When God is pleased to deliver us, He will take us in good time. You and
I and the sisters should be thankful that during our brief stay on earth
this sanctuary has fallen to our lot, and this possibility of a holy
life. We must take every advantage of it, thanking Heaven if our stay be
long enough for us to repent of our sins and obtain indulgence for our
venial shortcomings. It is wicked to desire to shorten our lives. It is
wicked to desire anything which is not the will of God. We are here to
live, to watch and to pray--not to complain and to rebel."

The abbess was stout, as she herself admitted, and between her sudden
surprise at her niece's wholly unorthodox, not to say blasphemous,
suggestion of suicide as a means of grace, and her own attempt at
eloquence, she grew rapidly warm, in spite of the comparatively cool
draft which was passing out from the interior of the building. She
caught the end of her loose over-sleeve and fanned herself slowly when
she had finished speaking.

But Maria Addolorata did not consider that she was answered. There in
the cell of a Carmelite convent, in the heart of a young girl who had
perhaps never heard of Shakespeare and who certainly knew nothing of
Hamlet, the question of all questions found itself, and she found for it
such speech as she could command. It broke out passionately and
impatiently.

"What are we? And why are we what we are? Yes, mother--I know that you
are good, and that all you say is true. But it is not all. There is all
the world beyond it. To live, or not to live--but you know that this is
not living! It is not meant to be living, as the people outside
understand what living means. What does it all signify but death, when
we take the veil, and lie before the altar, and are covered with a
funeral pall? It means dying--then why not altogether dying? Has not God
angels, in thousands, to praise Him and worship Him, and pray for
sinners on earth? And they sing and pray gladly, because they are
blessed and do not suffer, as we do. Why should God want us, poor little
nuns, to live half dead, and to praise Him with voices that crack with
the cold in winter, and to kneel till we faint with the heat in summer,
and to wear out our bodies with fasting and prayer and penance, till it
is all we can do to crawl to our places in the choir? Not I--I am young
and strong still--nor you, perhaps, for you are strong still, though you
are not young. But many of the sisters--yes, they are the best ones, I
know--they are killing themselves by inches before our eyes. You know
it--I know it--they know it themselves. Why should they not find some
shorter way of death for God's glory? Or if not, why should they not
live happily, since many of them could? Why should God, who made us,
wish us to destroy ourselves--or if He does, then why may we not do it
in our own way? Ah--it would be so short--a knife-thrust, and then the
great peace forever!"

The abbess had risen and was standing before Maria, one hand resting on
the back of the rush-bottomed chair.

"Blasphemy!" she cried, finding breath at last. "It is blasphemy, or
madness, or both! It is the evil one's own doing! Forgive her, good God!
She does not know what she is saying! Almighty and most merciful God,
forgive her!"

For a moment Maria Addolorata was silent, realizing how far she had
forgotten herself, and startled by the abbess's terrified eyes and
excited tone. But she was naturally a far more daring woman than she
herself knew. Though her face was pale, her lips smiled at her good
aunt's fright.

"But that is not an answer--just to cry 'blasphemy!'" she said. "The
question is clear--"

She did not finish the sentence. The abbess was really beside herself
with religious terror. With almost violent hands she dragged and thrust
her niece down till Maria fell upon her knees.

"Pray, child! Pray, before it is too late!" she cried. "Pray on your
knees that this possession may pass, before your soul is lost forever!"

She herself knelt beside the girl upon the stones, still clasping her
and pressing her down. And she prayed aloud, long, fervently, almost
wildly, appealing to God for protection against a bodily tempting devil,
who by his will, and with evil strength, was luring and driving a human
soul to utter damnation.




CHAPTER III.


"IT is well," said Stefanone. "The world is come to an end. I will not
say anything more."

He finished his tumbler of wine, leaned back on the wooden bench against
the brown wall, played with the broad silver buttons of his dark blue
jacket, and stared hard at Sor Tommaso, the doctor, who sat opposite to
him. The doctor returned his glance rather unsteadily and betook himself
to his snuffbox. It was of worn black ebony, adorned in the middle of
the lid with a small view of Saint Peter's and the colonnades in mosaic,
with a very blue sky. From long use, each tiny fragment of the mosaic
was surrounded by a minute black line, which indeed lent some tone to
the intensely clear atmosphere of the little picture, but gave the
architecture represented therein a dirty and neglected appearance. The
snuff itself, however, was of the superior quality known as Sicilian in
those days, and was of a beautiful light brown colour.

"And why?" asked the doctor very slowly, between the operations of
pinching, stuffing, snuffing, and dusting. "Why is the world come to an
end?"

Stefanone's eyes grew sullen, with a sort of dull glare in their
unwinking gaze. He looked dangerous just then, but the doctor did not
seem to be in the least afraid of him.

"You, who have made it end, should know why," answered the peasant,
after a short pause.

Stefanone was a man of the Roman type, of medium height, thick set and
naturally melancholic, with thin, straight lips that were clean shaven,
straight black hair, a small but aggressively aquiline nose and heavy
hands, hairy on the backs of the fingers, between the knuckles. His
wife, Sora Nanna, said that he had a fist like a paving-stone. He also
looked as though he might have the constitution of a mule. He was at
that time about five-and-thirty years of age, and there were a few
strong lines in his face, notably those curved ones drawn from the
beginning of the nostrils to the corners of the mouth, which are said to
denote an uncertain temper.

He wore the dress of the richer peasants of that day, a coarse but
spotless white shirt, very open at the throat, a jacket and waistcoat of
stout dark blue cloth, with large and smooth silver buttons,
knee-breeches, white stockings, and heavy low shoes with steel buckles.
He combined the occupations of farmer, wine-seller, and carrier. When he
was on the road between Subiaco and Rome, Gigetto, already mentioned,
was supposed to represent him. It was understood that Gigetto was to
marry Annetta--if he could be prevailed upon to do so, for he was the
younger son of a peasant family which held its head even higher than
Stefanone, and the young man as well as his people looked upon Annetta's
wild ways with disapproval, though her fortune, as the only child of
Stefanone and Sora Nanna, was a very strong attraction. In the meantime,
Gigetto acted as though he were the older man's partner in the
wine-shop, and as he was a particularly honest, but also a particularly
idle, young man with a taste for singing and playing on the guitar, the
position suited him admirably.

As for Sor Tommaso, with whom Stefanone seemed inclined to quarrel on
this particular evening, he was a highly respectable personage in a
narrow-shouldered, high-collared black coat with broad skirts, and a
snuff-coloured waistcoat. He wore a stock which was decidedly shabby,
but decent, and the thin cuffs of his shirt were turned back over the
tight sleeves of his coat, in the old fashion. He also wore amazingly
tight black trousers, strapped closely over his well-blacked boots. To
tell the truth, these nether garments, though of great natural
resistance, had lived so long at a high tension, so to say, that they
were no longer equally tight at all points, and there were, undoubtedly,
certain perceptible spots on them; but, on the whole, the general effect
of the doctor's appearance was fashionable, in the fashion of several
years earlier and judged by the standard of Subiaco. He wore his hair
rather long, in a handsome iron-grey confusion, his face was
close-shaven, and, though he was thin, his complexion was somewhat
apoplectic.

Having duly and solemnly finished the operation of taking snuff, the
doctor looked at the peasant.

"I do not wish to have said anything," he observed, by way of a general
retraction. "These are probably follies."

"And for not having meant to say anything, you have planted this knife
in my heart!" retorted Stefanone, the veins swelling at his temples.
"Thank you. I wish to die, if I forget it. You tell me that this
daughter of mine is making love with the Englishman. And then you say
that you do not wish to have said anything! May he die, the Englishman,
he, and whoever made him, with the whole family! An evil death on him
and all his house!"

"So long as you do not make me die, too!" exclaimed Sor Tommaso, with
rather a pitying smile.

"Eh! To die--it is soon said! And yet, people do die. You, who are a
doctor, should know that. And you do not wish to have said anything!
Bravo, doctor! Words are words. And yet they can sting. And after a
thousand years, they still sting. You--what can you understand? Are you
perhaps a father? You have not even a wife. Oh, blessed be God! You do
not even know what you are saying. You know nothing. You think, perhaps,
because you are a doctor, that you know more than I do. I will tell you
that you are an ignorant!"

"Oh, beautiful!" cried the doctor, angrily, stung by what is still
almost a mortal insult. "You--to me--ignorant! Oh, beautiful, most
beautiful, this! From a peasant to a man of science! Perhaps you too
have a diploma from the University of the Sapienza--"

"If I had, I should wrap half a pound of sliced ham--fat ham, you
know--in it, for the first customer. What should I do with your
diplomas! I ask you, what do you know? Do you know at all what a
daughter is? Blood of my blood, heart of my heart, hand of this hand.
But I am a peasant, and you are a doctor. Therefore, I know nothing."

"And meanwhile you give me 'ignorant' in my face!" retorted Sor Tommaso.

"Yes--and I repeat it!" cried Stefanone, leaning forwards, his clenched
hand on the table. "I say it twice, three times--ignorant, ignorant,
ignorant! Have you understood?"

"Say it louder! In that way every one can hear you! Beast of a
sheep-grazer!"

"And you--crow-feeder! Furnisher of grave-diggers. And then--ignorant!
Oh--this time I have said it clearly!"

"And it seems to me that it is enough!" roared the doctor, across the
table. "Ciociaro! Take that!"

"Ciociaro? I? Oh, your soul! If I get hold of you with my hands!"

A 'ciociaro' is a hill-man who wears 'cioce,' or rags, bound upon his
feet with leathern sandals and thongs. He is generally a shepherd, and
is held in contempt by the more respectable people of the larger
mountain towns. To call a man a 'ciociaro' is a bitter insult.

Stefanone in his anger had half risen from his seat. But the wooden
bench on which he had been sitting was close to the wall behind him, and
the heavy oak table was pushed up within a few inches of his chest, so
that his movements were considerably hampered as he stretched out his
hands rather wildly towards his adversary. The latter, who possessed
more moral than physical courage, moved his chair back and prepared to
make his escape, if Stefanone showed signs of coming round the table.

At that moment a tall figure darkened the door that opened upon the
street, and a quiet, dry voice spoke with a strong foreign accent. It
was Angus Dalrymple, returning from a botanizing expedition in the
hills, after being absent all day.

"That is a very uncomfortable way of fighting," he observed, as he stood
still in the doorway. "You cannot hit a man across a table broader than
your arm is long, Signor Stefano."

The effect of his words was instantaneous. Stefanone fell back into his
seat. The doctor's anxious and excited expression resolved itself
instantly into a polite smile.

"We were only playing," he said suavely. "A little discussion--a mere
jest. Our friend Stefanone was explaining something."

"If the table had been narrower, he would have explained you away
altogether," observed Dalrymple, coming forward.

He laid a tin box which he had with him upon the table, and shook hands
with Sor Tommaso. Then he slipped behind the table and sat down close to
his host, as a precautionary measure in case the play should be resumed.
Stefanone would have had a bad chance of being dangerous, if the
powerful Scotchman chose to hold him down. But the peasant seemed to
have become as suddenly peaceful as the doctor.

"It was nothing," said Stefanone, quietly enough, though his eyes were
bloodshot and glanced about the room in an unsettled way.

At that moment Annetta entered from a door leading to the staircase. Her
eyes were fixed on Dalrymple's face as she came forward, carrying a
polished brass lamp, with three burning wicks, which she placed upon the
table. Dalrymple looked up at her, and seeing her expression of inquiry,
slowly nodded. With a laugh which drew her long red-brown lips back from
her short white teeth, the girl produced a small flask and a glass,
which she had carried behind her and out of sight when she came in. She
set them before Dalrymple.

"I saw you coming," she said, and laughed again. "And then--it is always
the same. Half a 'foglietta' of the old, just for the appetite."

Sor Tommaso glanced at Stefanone in a meaning way, but the girl's father
affected not to see him. Dalrymple nodded his thanks, poured a few drops
of wine into the glass and scattered them upon the brick floor according
to the ancient custom, both for rinsing the glass and as a libation, and
then offered to fill the glasses of each of the two men, who smiled,
shook their heads, and covered their tumblers with their right hands. At
last Dalrymple helped himself, nodded politely to his companions, and
slowly emptied the glass which held almost all the contents of the
little flask. The 'foglietta,' or 'leaflet' of wine, is said to have
been so called from the twisted and rolled vine leaf which generally
serves it for a stopper. A whole 'foglietta' contained a scant pint.

"Will you eat now?" asked Annetta, still smiling.

"Presently," answered Dalrymple. "What is there to eat? I am hungry."

"It seems that you have to say so!" laughed the girl. "It is a new
thing. There is beefsteak or mutton, if you wish to know. And ham--a
fresh ham cut to-day. It is one of the Grape-eater's, and it seems good.
You remember, Sor Tommaso, the--speaking with respect to your face--the
pig we called the Grape-eater last year? Speaking with respect, he was a
good pig. It is one of his hams that we have cut. There is also salad,
and fresh bread, which you like. And wine, I will not speak of it. Eh,
he likes wine, the Englishman! He comes in with a long, long face--and
when he goes to bed, his face is wide, wide. That is the wine. But then,
it does nothing else to him. It only changes his face. When I look at
him, I seem to see the moon waxing."

"You talk too much," said Stefanone.

"Never mind, papa! Words are not pennies. The more one wastes, the more
one has!"

Dalrymple said nothing; but he smiled as she turned lightly with a toss
of her small dark head and left the room.

"Fine blood," observed the doctor, with a conciliatory glance at the
girl's father.

"You will be wanted before long, Sor Tommaso," said Dalrymple, gravely.
"I hear that the abbess is very ill."

The doctor looked up with sudden interest, and put on his professional
expression.

"The abbess, you say? Dear me! She is not young! What has she? Who told
you, Sor Angoscia?"

Now, 'Sor Angoscia' signifies in English 'Sir Anguish,' but the doctor
in spite of really conscientious efforts could not get nearer to the
pronunciation of Angus. Nevertheless, with northern persistency,
Dalrymple corrected him for the hundredth time. The doctor's first
attempt had resulted in his calling the Scotchman 'Sor Langusta,' which
means 'Sir Crayfish'--and it must be admitted that 'Anguish' was an
improvement.

"Angus," said Dalrymple. "My name is Angus. The abbess has caught a
severe cold from sitting in a draught when she was overheated. It has
immediately settled on her lungs, and you may be sent for at any moment.
I passed by the back of the convent on my way down, and the gardener was
just coming out of the postern. He told me."

"Dear me, dear me!" exclaimed Sor Tommaso, shaking his head.
"Cold--bronchitis, pleurisy, pneumonia--it is soon done! One would be
enough! Those nuns, what do they eat? A little grass, a little boiled
paste, a little broth of meat on Sundays. What strength should they
have? And then pray, pray, sing, sing! It needs a chest! Poor lungs! I
will go to my home and get ready--blisters--mustard--a lancet--they
will not allow a barber in the convent to bleed them. Well--I make
myself the barber! What a life, what a life! If you wish to die young,
be a doctor at Subiaco, Sor Angoscia. Good night, dear friend. Good
night, Stefanone. I wish not to have said anything--you know--that
little affair. Let us speak no more about it. I am more beast than you,
because I said anything. Good night."

Sor Tommaso got his stick from a dark corner, pressed his broad catskin
hat upon his head, and took his respectability away on its tightly
encased black legs.

"And may the devil go with you," said Stefanone, under his breath, as
the doctor disappeared.

"Why?" inquired Dalrymple, who had caught the words.

"I said nothing," answered the peasant, thoughtfully trimming one wick
of the lamp with the bent brass wire which, with the snuffers, hung by a
chain from the ring by which the lamp was carried.

"I thought you spoke," said the Scotchman. "Well--the abbess is very
ill, and Sor Tommaso has a job."

"May he do it well! So that it need not be begun again."

"What do you mean?" Dalrymple slowly sipped the remains of his little
measure of wine.

"Those nuns!" exclaimed Stefanone, instead of answering the question.
"What are they here to do, in this world? Better make saints of
them--and good night! There would be one misery less. Do you know what
they do? They make wine. Good! But they do not drink it. They sell it
for a farthing less by the foglietta than other people. The devil take
them and their wine!"

Dalrymple glanced at the angry peasant with some amusement, but did not
make any answer.

"Eh, Signore!" cried Stefanone. "You who are a foreigner and a
Protestant, can you not say something, since it would be no sin for
you?"

"I was thinking of something to say, Signor Stefanone. But as for that,
who does the business for the convent? They cannot do it themselves, I
suppose. Who determines the price of their wine for them? Or the price
of their corn?"

"They are not so stupid as you think. Oh, no! They are not stupid, the
nuns. They know the price of this, and the cost of that, just as well as
you and I do. But Gigetto's father, Sor Agostino, is their steward, if
that is what you wish to know. And his father was before him, and
Gigetto will be after him, with his pumpkin-head. And the rest is sung
by the organ, as we say when mass is over. For you know about Gigetto
and Annetta."

"Yes. And as you cannot quarrel with Sor Agostino on that account, I do
not see but that you will either have to bear it, or sell your wine a
farthing cheaper than that of the nuns."

"Eh--that is soon said. A farthing cheaper than theirs! That means half
a baiocco cheaper than I sell it now. And the best is only five baiocchi
the foglietta, and the cheapest is two and a half. Good bye profit--a
pleasant journey to Stefanone. But it is those nuns. They are to blame,
and the devil will pay them."

"In that case you need not," observed Dalrymple, rising. "I am going to
wash my hands before supper."

"At your pleasure, Signore," answered Stefanone, politely.

As Dalrymple went out, Annetta passed him at the door, bringing in
plates and napkins, and knives and forks. The girl glanced at his face
as he went by.

"Be quick, Signore," she said with a laugh. "The beefsteak of mutton is
grilling."

He nodded, and went up the dark stairs, his heavy shoes sending back
echoes as he trod. Stefanone still sat at the table, turning the glass
wine measure upside down over his tumbler, to let the last drops run
out. He watched them as they fell, one by one, without looking up at his
daughter, who began to arrange the plates for Dalrymple's meal.

"I will teach you to make love with the Englishman," he said slowly,
still watching the dropping wine.

"Me!" cried Annetta, with real or feigned astonishment, and she tossed a
knife and fork angrily into a plate, with a loud, clattering noise.

"I am speaking with you," answered her father, without raising his eyes.
"Do you know? You will come to a bad end."

"Thank you!" replied the girl, contemptuously. "If you say so, it must
be true! Now, who has told you that the Englishman is making love to me?
An apoplexy on him, whoever he may be!"

"Pretty words for a girl! Sor Tommaso told me. A little more, and I
would have torn his tongue out. Just then, the Englishman came in. Sor
Tommaso got off easily."

The girl's tone changed very much when she spoke again, and there was a
dull and angry light in her eyes. Her long lips were still parted, and
showed her gleaming teeth, but the smile was altogether gone.

"Yes. Too easily," she said, almost in a whisper, and there was a low
hiss in the words.

"In the meanwhile, it is true--what he said," continued Stefanone. "You
make eyes at him. You wait for him and watch for him when he comes back
from the mountains--"

"Well? Is it not my place to serve him with his supper? If you are not
satisfied, hire a servant to wait on him. You are rich. What do I care
for the Englishman? Perhaps it is a pleasure to roast my face over the
charcoal, cooking his meat for him. As for Sor Tommaso--"

She stopped short in her speech. Her father knew what the tone meant,
and looked up for the first time.

"O-e!" he exclaimed, as one suddenly aware of a danger, and warning some
one else.

"Nothing," answered Annetta, looking down and arranging the knives and
forks symmetrically on the clean cloth she had laid.

"I might have killed him just now in hot blood, when the Englishman came
in," said Stefanone, reflectively. "But now my blood has grown cold. I
shall do nothing to him."

"So much the better for him." She still spoke in a low voice, as she
turned away from the table.

"But I will kill you," said Stefanone, "if I see you making eyes at the
Englishman."

He rose, and taking up his hat, which lay beside him, he edged his way
out along the wooden bench, moving cautiously lest he should shake the
table and upset the lamp or the bottles. Annetta had turned again, at
the threat he had uttered, and stood still, waiting for him to get out
into the room, her hands on her hips, and her eyes on fire.

"You will kill me?" she asked, just as he was opposite to her.
"Well--kill me, then! Here I am. What are you waiting for? For the
Englishman to interfere? He is washing his hands. He always takes a long
time."

"Then it is true that you have fallen in love with him?" asked
Stefanone, his anger returning.

"Him, or another. What does it matter to you? You remind me of the old
woman who beat her cat, and then cried when it ran away. If you want me
to stay at home, you had better find me a husband."

"Do you want anything better than Gigetto? Apoplexy! But you have
ideas!"

"You are making a good business of it with Gigetto, in truth!" cried the
girl, scornfully. "He eats, he drinks, and then he sings. But he does
not marry. He will not even make love to me--not even with an eye. And
then, because I love the Englishman, who is a great lord, though he says
he is a doctor, I must die. Well, kill me!" She stared insolently at her
father for a moment. "Oh, well," she added scornfully, "if you have not
time now, it must be for to-morrow. I am busy."

She turned on her heel with a disdainful fling of her short, dark skirt.
Stefanone was exasperated, and his anger had returned. Before she was
out of reach, he struck her with his open hand. Instead of striking her
cheek, the blow fell upon the back of her head and neck, and sent her
stumbling forwards. She caught the back of a chair, steadied herself,
and turned again instantly, at her full height, not deigning to raise
her hand to the place that hurt her.

"Coward!" she exclaimed. "But I will pay you--and Sor Tommaso--for that
blow."

"Whenever you like," answered her father gruffly, but already sorry for
what he had done.

He turned his back, and went out into the night. It was now almost quite
dark, and Annetta stood still by the chair, listening to his retreating
footsteps. Then she slowly turned and gazed at the flaring wicks of the
lamp. With a gesture that suggested the movement of a young animal, she
rubbed the back of her neck with one hand and leisurely turned her head
first to one side and then to the other. Her brown skin was unusually
pale, but there was no moisture in her eyes as she stared at the lamp.

"But I will pay you, Sor Tommaso," she said thoughtfully and softly.

Then turning her eyes from the lamp at last, she took up one of the
knives from the table, looked at it, felt the edge, and laid it down
contemptuously. In those days all the respectable peasants in the Roman
villages had solid silver forks and spoons, which have long since gone
to the melting-pot to pay taxes. But they used the same blunt, pointless
knives with wooden handles, which they use to-day.

Annetta started, as she heard Dalrymple's tread upon the stone steps of
the staircase, but she recovered herself instantly, gave a finishing
touch to the table, rubbed the back of her head quickly once more, and
met him with a smile.

"Is the beefsteak of mutton ready?" inquired the Scotchman, cheerfully,
with his extraordinary accent.

Annetta ran past him, and returned almost before he was seated, bringing
the food. The girl sat down at the end of the table, opposite the street
door, and watched him as he swallowed one mouthful of meat after
another, now and then stopping to drink a tumbler of wine at a draught.

"You must be very strong, Signore," said Annetta, at last, her chin
resting on her doubled hand.

"Why?" inquired Dalrymple, carelessly, between two mouthfuls.

"Because you eat so much. It must be a fine thing to eat so much meat.
We eat very little of it."

"Why?" asked the Scotchman, again between his mouthfuls.

"Oh, who knows? It costs much. That must be the reason. Besides, it does
not go down. I should not care for it."

"It is a habit." Dalrymple drank. "In my country most of the people eat
oats," he said, as he set down his glass.

"Oats!" laughed the girl. "Like horses! But horses will eat meat, too,
like you. As for me--good bread, fresh cheese, a little salad, a drink
of wine and water--that is enough."

"Like the nuns," observed Dalrymple, attacking the ham of the
'Grape-eater.'

"Oh, the nuns! They live on boiled cabbage! You can smell it a mile
away. But they make good cakes."

"You often go to the convent, do you not?" asked the Scotchman, filling
his glass, for the first mouthful of ham made him thirsty again. "You
take the linen up with your mother, I know."

"Sometimes, when I feel like going," answered the girl, willing to show
that it was not her duty to carry baskets. "I only go when we have the
small baskets that one can carry on one's head. I will tell you. They
use the small baskets for the finer things, the abbess's linen, and the
altar cloths, and the chaplain's lace, which belongs to the nuns. But
the sheets and the table linen are taken up in baskets as long as a man.
It takes four women to carry one of them."

"That must be very inconvenient," said Dalrymple. "I should think that
smaller ones would always be better."

"Who knows? It has always been so. And when it has always been so, it
will always be so--one knows that."

Annetta nodded her head rhythmically to convey an impression of the
immutability of all ancient customs and of this one in particular.

Dalrymple, however, was not much interested in the question of the
baskets.

"What do the nuns do all day?" he asked. "I suppose you see them,
sometimes. There must be young ones amongst them."

Annetta glanced more keenly at the Scotchman's quiet face, and then
laughed.

"There is one, if you could see her! The abbess's niece. Oh, that one is
beautiful. She seems to me a painted angel!"

"The abbess's niece? What is she like? Let me see, the abbess is a
princess, is she not?"

"Yes, a great princess of the Princes of Gerano, of Casa Braccio, you
know. They are always abbesses. And the young one will be the next, when
this one dies. She is Maria Addolorata, in religion, but I do not know
her real name. She has a beautiful face and dark eyes. Once I saw her
hair for a moment. It is fair, but not like yours. Yours is red as a
tomato."

"Thank you," said Dalrymple, with something like a laugh. "Tell me more
about the nun."

"If I tell you, you will fall in love with her," objected Annetta. "They
say that men with red hair fall in love easily. Is it true? If it is, I
will not tell you any more about the nun. But I think you are in love
with the poor old Grape-eater. It is good ham, is it not? By Bacchus, I
fed him on chestnuts with my own hands, and he was always stealing the
grapes. Chestnuts fattened him and the grapes made him sweet. Speaking
with respect, he was a pig for a pope."

"He will do for a Scotch doctor then," answered Dalrymple. "Tell me,
what does this beautiful nun do all day long?"

"What does she do? What can a nun do? She eats cabbage and prays like
the others. But she has charge of all the convent linen, so I see her
when I go with my mother. That is because the Princes of Gerano first
gave the linen to the convent after it was all stolen by the Turks in
1798. So, as they gave it, their abbesses take care of it."

Dalrymple laughed at the extraordinary historical allusion compounded of
the very ancient traditions of the Saracens in the south, and of the
more recent wars of Napoleon.

"So she takes care of the linen," he said. "That cannot be very amusing,
I should think."

"They are nuns," answered the girl. "Do you suppose they go about
seeking to amuse themselves? It is an ugly life. But Sister Maria
Addolorata sings to herself, and that makes the abbess angry, because it
is against the rules to sing except in church. I would not live in that
convent--not if they would fill my apron with gold pieces."

"But why did this beautiful girl become a nun, then? Was she unhappy, or
crossed in love?"

"She? They did not give her time! Before she could shut an eye and say,
'Little youth, you please me, and I wish you well,' they put her in. And
that door, when it is shut, who shall open it? The Madonna, perhaps? But
she was of the Princes of Gerano, and there must be one of them for an
abbess, and the lot fell upon her. There is the whole history. You may
hear her singing sometimes, if you stand under the garden wall, on the
narrow path after the Benediction hour and before Ave Maria. But I am a
fool to tell you, for you will go and listen, and when you have heard
her voice you will be like a madman. You will fall in love with her. I
was a fool to tell you."

"Well? And if I do fall in love with her, who cares?" Dalrymple slowly
filled a glass of wine.

"If you do?" The young girl's eyes shot a quick, sharp glance at him.
Then her face suddenly grew grave as she saw that some one was at the
street door, looking in cautiously. "Come in, Sor Tommaso!" she called,
down the table. "Papa is out, but we are here. Come in and drink a glass
of wine!"

The doctor, wrapped in a long broadcloth cloak with a velvet collar,
and having a case of instruments and medicines under his arm, glanced
round the room and came in.

"Just a half-foglietta, my daughter," he said. "They have sent for me.
The abbess is very ill, and I may be there a long time. If you think
they would remember to offer a Christian a glass up there, you are very
much mistaken."

"They are nuns," laughed Annetta. "What can they know?"

She rose to get the wine for the doctor. There had not been a trace of
displeasure in her voice nor in her manner as she spoke.




CHAPTER IV.


SOR TOMMASO was rarely called to the convent. In fact, he could not
remember that he had been wanted more than half a dozen times in the
long course of his practice in Subiaco. Either the nuns were hardly ever
ill, or else they must have doctored themselves with such simple
remedies as had been handed down to them from former ages. Possibly they
had been as well off on the whole as though they had systematically
submitted to the heroic treatment which passed for medicine in those
days. As a matter of fact, they suffered chiefly from bad colds; and
when they had bad colds, they either got well, or died, according to
their several destinies. Sor Tommaso might have saved some of them; but
on the other hand, he might have helped some others rather precipitately
from their cells to that deep crypt, closed, in the middle of the little
church, by a single square flag of marble, having two brass studs in it,
and bearing the simple inscription: 'Here lie the bones of the Reverend
Sisters of the order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel.' On the
whole, it is doubtful whether the practice of not calling in the doctor
on ordinary occasions had much influence upon the convent's statistics
of mortality.

But though the abbess had more than once had a cold in her life, she had
never suffered so seriously as this time, and she had made little
objection to her niece's strong representations as to the necessity of
medical aid. Therefore Sor Tommaso had been sent for in the evening and
in great haste, and had taken with him a supply of appropriate material
sufficient to kill, if not to cure, half the nuns in the convent. All
the circumstances which he remembered from former occasions were
accurately repeated. He rang at the main gate, waited long in the
darkness, and heard at last the slapping and shuffling of shoes along
the pavement within, as the portress and another nun came to let him in.
Then there were faint rays of light from their little lamp, quivering
through the cracks of the old weather-beaten door upon the cracked
marble steps on which Sor Tommaso was standing. A thin voice asked who
was there, and Sor Tommaso answered that he was the doctor. Then he
heard a little colloquy in suppressed tones between the two nuns. The
one said that the doctor was expected and must be let in without
question. The other observed that it might be a thief. The first said
that in that case they must look through the loophole. The second said
that she did not know the doctor by sight. The first speaker remarked
with some truth that one could tell a respectable person from a
highwayman, and suddenly a small square porthole in the door was opened
inwards, and a stream of light fell upon Sor Tommaso's face, as the nuns
held up their little flaring lamp behind the grating. Behind the lamp he
could distinguish a pair of shadowy eyes under an overhanging veil,
which was also drawn across the lower part of the face.

"Are you really the doctor?" asked one of the voices, in a doubtful
tone.

"He himself," answered the physician. "I am the Doctor Tommaso Taddei of
the University of the Sapienza, and I have been called to render
assistance to the very reverend the Mother Abbess."

The light disappeared, and the porthole was shut, while a second
colloquy began. On the whole, the two nuns decided to let him in, and
then there was a jingling of keys and a clanking of iron bars and a
grinding of locks, and presently a small door, cut and hung in one leaf
of the great, iron-studded, wooden gate, was swung back. Sor Tommaso
stooped and held his case before him, for the entrance was low and
narrow.

"God be praised!" he exclaimed, when he was fairly inside.

"And praised be His holy name," answered both the sisters, promptly.

Both had dropped their veils, and proceeded to bolt and bar the little
door again, having set down the lamp upon the pavement. The rays made
the unctuous dampness of the stone flags glisten, and Sor Tommaso
shivered in his broadcloth cloak. Then, as before, he was conducted in
silence through arched ways, and up many steps, and along labyrinthine
corridors, his strong shoes rousing sharp, metallic echoes, while the
nuns' slippers slapped and shuffled as one walked on each side of him,
the one on the left carrying the lamp, according to the ancient rules of
politeness. At last they reached the door of the antechamber at the end
of the corridor, through which the way led to the abbess's private
apartment, consisting of three rooms. The last door on the left, as Sor
Tommaso faced that which opened into the antechamber, was that of Maria
Addolorata's cell. The linen presses were entered from within the
anteroom by a door on the right, so that they were actually in the
abbess's apartment, an old-fashioned and somewhat inconvenient
arrangement. Maria Addolorata, her veil drawn down, so that she could
not see the doctor, but only his feet, and the folds of it drawn across
her chin and mouth, received him at the door, which she closed behind
him. The other two nuns set down their lamp on the floor of the
corridor, slipped their hands up their sleeves, and stood waiting
outside.

The abbess was very ill, but had insisted upon sitting up in her
parlour to receive the doctor, dressed and veiled, being propped up in
her great easy-chair with a pillow which was of green silk, but was
covered with a white pillow-case finely embroidered with open work at
each end, through which the vivid colour was visible--that high green
which cannot look blue even by lamplight. Both in the anteroom and in
the parlour there were polished silver lamps of precisely the same
pattern as the brass ones used by the richer peasants, excepting that
each had a fan-like shield of silver to be used as a shade on one side,
bearing the arms of the Braccio family in high boss, and attached to the
oil vessel by a movable curved arm. The furniture of the room was very
simple, but there was nevertheless a certain ecclesiastical solemnity
about the high-backed, carved, and gilt chairs, the black and white
marble pavement, the great portrait of his Holiness, Gregory the
Sixteenth, in its massive gilt frame, the superb silver crucifix which
stood on the writing-table, and, altogether, in the solidity of
everything which met the eye.

It was no easy matter to ascertain the good lady's condition, muffled up
and veiled as she was. It was only as an enormous concession to
necessity that Sor Tommaso was allowed to feel her pulse, and it needed
all Maria Addolorata's eloquent persuasion and sensible argument to
induce her to lift her veil a little, and open her mouth.

"Your most reverend excellency must be cured by proxy," said Sor
Tommaso, at his wit's end. "If this reverend mother," he added, turning
to the young nun, "will carry out my directions, something may be done.
Your most reverend excellency's life is in danger. Your most reverend
excellency ought to be in bed."

"It is the will of Heaven," said the abbess, in a very weak and hoarse
voice.

"Tell me what to do," said Maria Addolorata. "It shall be done as though
you yourself did it."

Sor Tommaso was encouraged by the tone of assurance in which the words
were spoken, and proceeded to give his directions, which were many, and
his recommendations, which were almost endless.

"But if your most reverend excellency would allow me to assist you in
person, the remedies would be more efficacious," he suggested, as he
laid out the greater part of the contents of his case upon the huge
writing-table.

"You seem to forget that this is a religious house," replied the abbess,
and she might have said more, but was interrupted by a violent attack of
coughing, during which Maria Addolorata supported her and tried to ease
her.

"It will be better if you go away," said the nun, at last. "I will do
all you have ordered, and your presence irritates her. Come back
to-morrow morning, and I will tell you how she is progressing."

The abbess nodded slowly, confirming her niece's words. Sor Tommaso very
reluctantly closed his case, placed it under his arm, gathered up his
broadcloth cloak with his hat, and made a low obeisance before the sick
lady.

"I wish your most reverend excellency a good rest and speedy recovery,"
he said. "I am your most reverend excellency's most humble servant."

Maria Addolorata led him out into the antechamber. There she paused, and
they were alone together for a moment, all the doors being closed. The
doctor stood still beside her, waiting for her to speak.

"What do you think?" she asked.

"I do not wish to say anything," he answered.

"What do you wish me to say? A stroke of air, a cold, a bronchitis, a
pleurisy, a pneumonia. Thanks be to Heaven, there is little fever. What
do you wish me to say? For the stroke of air, a little good wine; for
the cold, warm covering; for the bronchitis, the tea of marshmallows;
for the pleurisy, severe blistering; for the pneumonia, a good mustard
plaster; for the general system, the black draught; above all, nothing
to eat. Frictions with hot oil will also do good. It is the practice of
medicine by proxy, my lady mother. What do you wish me to say? I am
disposed. I am her most reverend excellency's very humble servant. But I
cannot perform miracles. Pray to the Madonna to perform them. I have
not even seen the tip of her most reverend excellency's most wise
tongue. What can I do?"

"Well, then, come back to-morrow morning, and I will see you here," said
Maria Addolorata.

Sor Tommaso found the nuns waiting for him with their little lamp in the
corridor, and they led him back through the vaulted passages and
staircases and let him out into the night without a word.

The night was dark and cloudy. It had grown much darker since he had
come up, as the last lingering light of evening had faded altogether
from the sky. The October wind drew down in gusts from the mountains
above Subiaco, and blew the doctor's long cloak about so that it flapped
softly now and then like the wings of a night bird. After descending
some distance, he carefully set down his case upon the stones and
fumbled in his pockets for his snuffbox, which he found with some
difficulty. A gust blew up a grain of snuff into his right eye, and he
stamped angrily with the pain, hurting his foot against a rolling stone
as he did so. But he succeeded in getting his snuff to his nose at last.
Then he bent down in the dark to take up his case, which was close to
his feet, though he could hardly see it. The gusty south wind blew the
long skirts of his cloak over his head and made them flap about his
ears. He groped for the box.

[Illustration: "Sor Tommaso was lying motionless."--Vol. I., p. 78.]

Just then the doctor heard light footsteps coming down the path behind
him. He called out, warning that he was in the way.

"O-e, gently, you know!" he cried. "An apoplexy on the wind!" he added
vehemently, as his head and hands became entangled more and more in the
folds of his cloak.

"And another on you!" answered a woman's voice, speaking low through
clenched teeth.

In the darkness a hand rose and fell with something in it, three times
in quick succession. A man's low cry of pain was stifled in folds of
broadcloth. The same light footsteps were heard for a moment again in
the narrow, winding way, and Sor Tommaso was lying motionless on his
face across his box, with his cloak over his head. The gusty south wind
blew up and down between the dark walls, bearing now and then a few
withered vine leaves and wisps of straw with it; and the night grew
darker still, and no one passed that way for a long time.




CHAPTER V.


WHEN Angus Dalrymple had finished his supper, he produced a book and sat
reading by the light of the wicks of the three brass lamps. Annetta had
taken away the things and had not come back again. Gigetto strolled in
and took his guitar from the peg on the wall, and idled about the room,
tuning it and humming to himself. He was a tall young fellow with a
woman's face and beautiful velvet-like eyes, as handsome and idle a
youth as you might meet in Subiaco on a summer's feast-day. He exchanged
a word of greeting with Dalrymple, and, seeing that the place was
otherwise deserted, he at last slung his guitar over his shoulder,
pulled his broad black felt hat over his eyes, and strolled out through
the half-open door, presumably in search of amusement. Gigetto's chief
virtue was his perfectly childlike and unaffected taste for amusing
himself, on the whole very innocently, whenever he got a chance. It was
natural that he and the Scotchman should not care for one another's
society. Dalrymple looked after him for a moment and then went back to
his book. A big glass measure of wine stood beside him not half empty,
and his glass was full.

He was making a strong effort to concentrate his attention upon the
learned treatise, which formed a part of the little library he had
brought with him. But Annetta's idle talk about the nuns, and especially
about Maria Addolorata and her singing, kept running through his head in
spite of his determination to be serious. He had been living the life of
a hermit for months, and had almost forgotten the sound of an educated
woman's voice. To him Annetta was nothing more than a rather pretty wild
animal. It did not enter his head that she might be in love with him.
Sora Nanna was simply an older and uglier animal of the same species. To
a man of Dalrymple's temperament, and really devoted to the pursuit of a
serious object, a woman quite incapable of even understanding what that
object is can hardly seem to be a woman at all.

But the young Scotchman was not wanting in that passionate and fantastic
imagination which so often underlies and even directs the hardy northern
nature, and the young girl's carelessly spoken words had roused it to
sudden activity. In spite of himself, he was already forming plans for
listening under the convent wall, if perchance he might catch the sound
of the nun's wonderful voice, and from that to the wildest schemes for
catching a momentary glimpse of the singer was only a step. At the same
time, he was quite aware that such schemes were dangerous if not
impracticable, and his reasonable self laughed down his unreasoning
romance, only to be confronted by it again as soon as he tried to turn
his attention to his book.

He looked up and saw that he had not finished his wine, though at that
hour the measure was usually empty, and he wondered why he was less
thirsty than usual. By force of habit he emptied the full glass and
poured more into it,--by force of that old northern habit of drinking a
certain allowance as a sort of duty, more common in those days than it
is now. Then he began to read again, never dreaming that his strong head
and solid nerves could be in any way affected by his potations. But his
imagination this evening worked faster and faster, and his sober reason
was recalcitrant and abhorred work.

The nun had fair hair and dark eyes and a beautiful face. Those were
much more interesting facts than he could find in his work. She had a
wonderful voice. He tried to recall all the extraordinary voices he had
heard in his life, but none of them had ever affected him very much,
though he had a good ear and some taste for music. He wondered what sort
of voice this could be, and he longed to hear it. He shut up his book
impatiently, drank more wine, rose and went to the open door. The gusty
south wind fanned his face pleasantly, and he wished he were to sleep
out of doors.

The Sora Nanna, who had been spending the evening with a friend in the
neighbourhood, came in, her thin black overskirt drawn over her head to
keep the embroidered head-cloth in its place. By and by, as Dalrymple
still stood by the door, Stefanone appeared, having been to play a game
of cards at a friendly wine-shop. He sat down by Sora Nanna at the
table. She was mixing some salad in a big earthenware bowl adorned with
green and brown stripes. They talked together in low tones. Dalrymple
had nodded to each in turn, but the gusty air pleased him, and he
remained standing by the door, letting it blow into his face.

It was growing late. Italian peasants are not great sleepers, and it is
their custom to have supper at a late hour, just before going to bed. By
this time it was nearly ten o'clock as we reckon the hours, or about
'four of the night' in October, according to old Italian custom, which
reckons from a theoretical moment of darkness, supposed to begin at Ave
Maria, half an hour after sunset.

Suddenly Dalrymple heard Annetta's voice in the room behind him,
speaking to her mother. He had no particular reason for supposing that
she had been out of the house since she had cleared the table and left
him, but unconsciously he had the impression that she had been away,
and was surprised to hear her in the room, after expecting that she
should pass him, coming in from the street, as the others had done. He
turned and walked slowly towards his place at the table.

"I thought you had gone out," he said carelessly, to Annetta.

The girl turned her head quickly.

"I?" she cried. "And alone? Without even Gigetto? When do I ever go out
alone at night? Will you have some supper, Signore?"

"I have just eaten, thank you," answered Dalrymple, seating himself.

"Three hours ago. It was not yet an hour of the night when you ate.
Well--at your pleasure. Do not complain afterwards that we make you die
of hunger."

"Bread, Annetta!" said Stefanone, gruffly but good-naturedly. "And
cheese, and salt--wine, too! A thousand things! Quickly, my daughter."

"Quicker than this?" inquired the girl, who had already placed most of
the things he asked for upon the table.

"I say it to say it," answered her father. "'Hunger makes long jumps,'
and I am hungry."

"Did you win anything?" asked Sora Nanna, with both her elbows on the
table.

"Five baiocchi."

"It was worth while to pay ten baiocchi for another man's bad wine, for
the sake of winning so much!" replied Sora Nanna, who was a careful
soul. "Of course you paid for the wine?"

"Eh--of course. They pay for wine when they come here. One takes a
little and one gives a little. This is life."

Annetta busied herself with the simple preparations for supper, while
they talked. Dalrymple watched her idly, and he thought she was pale,
and that her eyes were very bright. She had set a plate for herself, but
had forgotten her glass.

"And you? Do you not drink?" asked Stefanone. "You have no glass."

"What does it matter?" She sat down between her father and mother.

"Drink out of mine, my little daughter," said Stefanone, holding his
glass to her lips with a laugh, as though she had been a little child.

She looked quietly into his eyes for a moment, before she touched the
wine with her lips.

"Yes," she answered, with a little emphasis. "I will drink out of your
glass now."

"Better so," laughed Stefanone, who was glad to be reconciled, for he
loved the girl, in spite of his occasional violence of temper.

"What does it mean?" asked Sora Nanna, her cunning peasant's eyes
looking from one to the other, and seeming to belie her stupid face.

"Nothing," answered Stefanone. "We were playing together. Signor
Englishman," he said, turning to Dalrymple, "you must sometimes wish
that you were married, and had a wife like Nanna, and a daughter like
Annetta."

"Of course I do," said Dalrymple, with a smile.

Before very long, he took his book and went upstairs to bed, being tired
and sleepy after a long day spent on the hillside in a fruitless search
for certain plants which, according to his books, were to be found in
that part of Italy, but which he had not yet seen. He fell asleep,
thinking of Maria Addolorata's lovely face and fair hair, on which he
had never laid eyes. In his dreams he heard a rare voice ringing true,
that touched him strangely. The gusty wind made the panes of his bedroom
window rattle, and in the dream he was tapping on Maria Addolorata's
casement and calling softly to her, to open it and speak to him, or
calling her by name, with his extraordinary foreign accent. And he
thought he was tapping louder and louder, upon the glass and upon the
wooden frame, louder and louder still. Then he heard his name called
out, and his heart jumped as though it would have turned upside down in
its place, and then seemed to sink again like a heavy stone falling into
deep water; for he was awake, and the voice that was calling him was
certainly not that of the beautiful nun, but gruff and manly; also the
tapping was not tapping any more upon a casement, but was a vigorous
pounding against his own bolted door.

Dalrymple sat up suddenly and listened, wide awake at once. The square
of his window was faintly visible in the darkness, as though the dawn
were breaking. He called out, asking who was outside.

"Get up, Signore! Get up! You are wanted quickly!" It was Stefanone.

Dalrymple struck a light, for he had a supply of matches with him, a
convenience of modern life not at that time known in Subiaco, except as
an expensive toy, though already in use in Rome. As he was, he opened
the door. Stefanone came in, dressed in his shirt and breeches, pale
with excitement.

"You must dress yourself, Signore," he said briefly, as he glanced at
the Scotchman, and then set down the small tin and glass lantern he
carried.

"What is the matter?" inquired Dalrymple, yawning, and stretching his
great white arms over his head, till his knuckles struck the low
ceiling; for he was a tall man.

"The matter is that they have killed Sor Tommaso," answered the peasant.

Dalrymple uttered an exclamation of surprise and incredulity.

"It is as I say," continued Stefanone. "They found him lying across the
way, in the street, with knife-wounds in him, as many as you please."

"That is horrible!" exclaimed Dalrymple, turning, and calmly trimming
his lamp, which burned badly at first.

"Then dress yourself, Signore!" said Stefanone, impatiently. "You must
come!"

"Why? If he is dead, what can I do?" asked the northern man, coolly. "I
am sorry. What more can I say?"

"But he is not dead yet!" Stefanone was growing excited. "They have
taken him--"

"Oh! he is alive, is he?" interrupted the Scotchman, dashing at his
clothes, as though he were suddenly galvanized into life himself. "Then
why did you tell me they had killed him?" he asked, with a curious, dry
calmness of voice, as he instantly began to dress himself. "Get some
clean linen, Signor Stefano. Tear it up into strips as broad as your
hand, for bandages, and set the women to make a little lint of old
linen--cotton is not good. Where have they taken Sor Tommaso?"

"To his own house," answered the peasant.

"So much the better. Go and make the bandages."

Dalrymple pushed Stefanone towards the door with one hand, while he
continued to fasten his clothes with the other.

Stefanone was not without some experience of similar cases, so he
picked up his lantern and went off. In less than a quarter of an hour,
he and Dalrymple were on their way to Sor Tommaso's house, which was in
the piazza of Subiaco, not far from the principal church. Half a dozen
peasants, who had met the muleteers bringing the wounded doctor home
from the spot where he had been found, followed the two men, talking
excitedly in low voices and broken sentences. The dawn was grey above
the houses, and the autumn mists had floated up to the parapet on the
side where the little piazza looked down to the valley, and hung
motionless in the still air, like a stage sea in a theatre. In the
distance was heard the clattering of mules' shoes, and occasionally the
deep clanking of the goats' bells. Just as the little party reached the
small, dark green door of the doctor's house the distant convent bells
tolled one, then two quick strokes, then three again, and then five, and
then rang out the peal for the morning Angelus. The door of the dirty
little coffee shop in the piazza was already open, and a faint light
burned within. The air was damp, quiet and strangely resonant, as it
often is in mountain towns at early dawn. The gusty October wind had
gone down, after blowing almost all night.

The case was far from being as serious as Dalrymple had expected, and he
soon convinced himself that Sor Tommaso was not in any great danger. He
had fainted from fright and some loss of blood, but neither of the two
thrusts which had wounded him had penetrated to his lungs, and the third
was little more than a scratch. Doubtless he owed his safety in part to
the fact that the wind had blown his cloak in folds over his shoulders
and head. But it was also clear that his assailant had possessed no
experience in the use of the knife as a weapon. When the group of men at
the door were told that Sor Tommaso was not mortally wounded, they went
away somewhat disappointed at the insignificant ending of the affair,
though the doctor was not an unpopular man in the town.

"It is some woman," said one of them, contemptuously. "What can a woman
do with a knife? Worse than a cat--she scratches, and runs away."

"Some little jealousy," observed another. "Eh! Sor Tommaso--who knows
where he makes love? But meanwhile he is growing old, to be so gay."

"The old are the worst," replied the first speaker. "Since it is
nothing, let us have a baiocco's worth of acquavita, and let us go
away."

So they turned into the dirty little coffee shop to get their pennyworth
of spirits. Meanwhile Dalrymple was washing and binding up his friend's
wounds. Sor Tommaso groaned and winced under every touch, and the
Scotchman, with dry gentleness, did his best to reassure him. Stefanone
looked on in silence for some time, helping Dalrymple when he was
needed. The doctor's servant-woman, a somewhat grimy peasant, was
sitting on the stairs, sobbing loudly.

"It is useless," moaned Sor Tommaso. "I am dead."

"I may be mistaken," answered Dalrymple, "but I think not."

And he continued his operations with a sure hand, greatly to the
admiration of Stefanone, who had often seen knife-wounds dressed.
Gradually Sor Tommaso became more calm. His face, from having been
normally of a bright red, was now very pale, and his watery blue eyes
blinked at the light helplessly like a kitten's, as he lay still on his
pillow. Stefanone went away to his occupations at last, and Dalrymple,
having cleared away the litter of unused bandages and lint, and set
things in order, sat down by the bedside to keep his patient company for
a while. He was really somewhat anxious lest the wounds should have
taken cold.

"If I get well, it will be a miracle," said Sor Tommaso, feebly. "I must
think of my soul."

"By all means," answered the Scotchman. "It can do your soul no harm,
and contemplation rests the body."

"You Protestants have not human sentiment," observed the Italian, moving
his head slowly on the pillow. "But I also think of the abbess. I was
to have gone there early this morning. She will also die. We shall both
die."

Dalrymple crossed one leg over the other, and looked quietly at the
doctor.

"Sor Tommaso," he said, "there is no other physician in Subiaco. I am a
doctor, properly licensed to practise. It is evidently my duty to take
care of your patients while you are ill."

"Mercy!" cried Sor Tommaso, with sudden energy, and opening his eyes
very wide.

"Are you afraid that I shall kill them," asked Dalrymple, with a smile.

"Who knows? A foreigner! And the people say that you have converse with
the devil. But the common people are ignorant."

"Very."

"And as for the convent--a Protestant--for the abbess! They would rather
die. Figure to yourself what sort of a scandal there would be! A
Protestant in a convent, and then, in that convent, too! The abbess
would much rather die in peace."

"At all events, I will go and offer my services. If the abbess prefers
to die in peace, she can answer to that effect. I will ask her what she
thinks about it."

"Ask her!" repeated Sor Tommaso. "Do you imagine that you could see her?
But what can you know? I tell you that last night she was muffled up in
her chair, and her face covered. It needed the grace of Heaven, that I
might feel her pulse! As for her tongue, God knows what it is like! I
have not seen it. Not so much as the tip of it! Not even her eyes did I
see. And to-day I was not to be admitted at all, because the abbess
would be in bed. Imagine to yourself, with blisters and sinapisms, and a
hundred things. I was only to speak with Sister Maria Addolorata, who is
her niece, you know, in the anteroom of the abbess's apartment. They
would not let you in. They would give you a bath of holy water through
the loophole of the convent door and say, 'Go away, sinner; this is a
religious house!' You know them very little."

"You are talking too much," observed Dalrymple, who had listened
attentively. "It is not good for you. Besides, since you are able to
speak, it would be better if you told me who stabbed you last night,
that I may go to the police, and have the person arrested, if possible."

"You do not know what you are saying," answered Sor Tommaso, with sudden
gravity. "The woman has relations--who could handle a knife better than
she."

And he turned his face away.




CHAPTER VI.


THE sun was high when Dalrymple left Sor Tommaso in charge of the old
woman-servant and went back to Stefanone's house to dress himself with
more care than he had bestowed upon his hasty toilet at dawn. And now
that he had plenty of time, he was even more careful of his appearance
than usual; for he had fully determined to attempt to take Sor Tommaso's
place in attendance upon the abbess. He therefore put on a coat of a
sober colour and brushed his straight red hair smoothly back from his
forehead, giving himself easily that extremely grave and trust-inspiring
air which distinguishes many Scotchmen, and supports their solid
qualities, while it seems to deny the possibility of any adventurous and
romantic tendency.

At that hour nobody was about the house, and Dalrymple, stick in hand,
sallied forth upon his expedition, looking for all the world as though
he were going to church in Edinburgh instead of meditating an entrance
into an Italian convent. He had said nothing more to the doctor on the
subject. The people in the streets had most of them seen him often and
knew him by name, and it did not occur to any one to wonder why a
foreigner should wear one sort of coat rather than another, when he took
his walks abroad. He walked leisurely; for the sky had cleared, and the
sun was hot. Moreover, he followed the longer road in order to keep his
shoes clean, instead of climbing up the narrow and muddy lane in which
Sor Tommaso had been attacked. He reached the convent door at last,
brushed a few specks of dust from his coat, settled his high collar and
the broad black cravat which was then taking the place of the stock, and
rang the bell with one steady pull. There was, perhaps, no occasion for
nervousness. At all events, Dalrymple was as deliberate in his movements
and as calm in all respects as he had ever been in his life. Only, just
after he had pulled the weather-beaten bell-chain, a half-humorous smile
bent his even lips and was gone again in a moment.

There was the usual slapping and shuffling of slippers in the vaulted
archway within, but as it was now day, the loophole was opened
immediately, and the portress came alone. Dalrymple explained in
strangely accented but good Italian that Sor Tommaso had met with an
accident in the night; that he, Angus Dalrymple, was a friend of the
doctor's and a doctor himself, and had undertaken all of Sor Tommaso's
duties, and, finally, that he begged the portress to find Sister Maria
Addolorata, to repeat his story, and to offer his humble services in
the cause of the abbess's recovery. All of which the veiled nun within
heard patiently to the end.

"I will speak to Sister Maria Addolorata," she said. "Have the goodness
to wait."

"Outside?" inquired Dalrymple, as the little shutter of the loophole was
almost closed.

"Of course," answered the nun, opening it again, and shutting it as soon
as she had spoken.

Dalrymple waited a long time in the blazing sun. The main entrance of
the convent faced to the southeast, and it was not yet midday. He grew
hot, after his walk, and softly wiped his forehead, and carefully folded
his handkerchief again before returning it to his pocket. At last he
heard the sound of steps again, and in a few seconds the loophole was
once more opened.

"Sister Maria Addolorata will speak with you," said the portress's
voice, as he approached his face to the little grating.

He felt an odd little thrill of pleasant surprise. But so far as seeing
anything was concerned, he was disappointed. Instead of one veiled nun,
there were now two veiled nuns.

"Madam," he began, "my friend Doctor Tommaso Taddei has met with an
accident which prevents him from leaving his bed." And he went on to
repeat all that he had told the portress, with such further
explanations as he deemed necessary and persuasive.

While he spoke, Maria Addolorata drew back a little into the deeper
shadow away from the loophole. Her veil hung over her eyes, and the
folds were drawn across her mouth, but she gradually raised her head,
throwing it back until she could see Dalrymple's face from beneath the
edge of the black material. In so doing she unconsciously uncovered her
mouth. The Scotchman saw a good part of her features, and gazed intently
at what he saw, rightly judging that as the sun was behind him, she
could hardly be sure whether he were looking at her or not.

As for her, she was doubtless inspired by a natural curiosity, but at
the same time she understood the gravity of the case and wished to form
an opinion as to the advisability of admitting the stranger. A glance
told her that Dalrymple was a gentleman, and she was reassured by the
gravity of his voice and by the fact that he was evidently acquainted
with the abbess's condition, and must, therefore, be a friend of Sor
Tommaso. When he had finished speaking, she immediately looked down
again, and seemed to be hesitating.

"Open the door, Sister Filomena," she said at last.

The portress shook her head almost imperceptibly as she obeyed, but she
said nothing. The whole affair was in her eyes exceedingly irregular.
Maria Addolorata should have retired to the little room adjoining the
convent parlour, and separated from it by a double grating, and
Dalrymple should have been admitted to the parlour itself, and they
should have said what they had to say to one another through the bars,
in the presence of the portress. But Maria Addolorata was the abbess's
niece. The abbess was too ill to give orders--too ill even to speak, it
was rumoured. In a few days Maria Addolorata might be 'Her most Reverend
Excellency.' Meanwhile she was mistress of the situation, and it was
safer to obey her. Moreover, the portress was only a lay sister, an old
and ignorant creature, accustomed to do what she was told to do by the
ladies of the convent.

Dalrymple took off his hat and stooped low to enter through the small
side-door. As soon as he had passed the threshold, he stood up to his
height and then made a low bow to Maria Addolorata, whose veil now quite
covered her eyes and prevented her from seeing him,--a fact which he
realized immediately.

"Give warning to the sisters, Sister Filomena," said Maria Addolorata to
the portress, who nodded respectfully and walked away into the gloom
under the arches, leaving the nun and Dalrymple together by the door.

"It is necessary to give warning," she explained, "lest you should meet
any of the sisters unveiled in the corridors, and they should be
scandalized."

Dalrymple again bowed gravely and stood still, his eyes fixed upon Maria
Addolorata's veiled head, but wandering now and then to her heavy but
beautifully shaped white hands, which she held carelessly clasped before
her and holding the end of the great rosary of brown beads which hung
from her side. He thought he had never seen such hands before. They were
high-bred, and yet at the same time there was a strongly material
attraction about them.

He did not know what to say, and as nothing seemed to be expected of
him, he kept silence for some time. At last Maria Addolorata, as though
impatient at the long absence of the portress, tapped the pavement
softly with her sandal slipper, and turned her head in the direction of
the arches as though to listen for approaching footsteps.

"I hope that the abbess is no worse than when Doctor Taddei saw her last
night," observed Dalrymple.

"Her most reverend excellency," answered Maria Addolorata, with a little
emphasis, as though to teach him the proper mode of addressing the
abbess, "is suffering. She has had a bad night."

"I shall hope to be allowed to give some advice to her most reverend
excellency," said Dalrymple, to show that he had understood the hint.

"She will not allow you to see her. But you shall come with me to the
antechamber, and I will speak with her and tell you what she says."

"I shall be greatly obliged, and will do my best to give good advice
without seeing the patient."

Another pause followed, during which neither moved. Then Maria
Addolorata spoke again, further reassured, perhaps, by Dalrymple's quiet
and professional tone. She had too lately left the world to have lost
the habit of making conversation to break an awkward silence. Years of
seclusion, too, instead of making her shy and silent, had given her
something of the ease and coolness of a married woman. This was natural
enough, considering that she was born of worldly people and had acquired
the manners of the world in her own home, in childhood.

"You are an Englishman, I presume, Signor Doctor?" she observed, in a
tone of interrogation.

"A Scotchman, Madam," answered Dalrymple, correcting her and drawing
himself up a little. "My name is Angus Dalrymple."

"It is the same--an Englishman or a Scotchman," said the nun.

"Pardon me, Madam, we consider that there is a great difference. The
Scotch are chiefly Celts. Englishmen are Anglo-Saxons."

"But you are all Protestants. It is therefore the same for us."

Dalrymple feared a discussion of the question of religion. He did not
answer the nun's last remark, but bowed politely. She, of course, could
not see the inclination he made.

"You say nothing," she said presently. "Are you a Protestant?"

"Yes, Madam."

"It is a pity!" said Maria Addolorata. "May God send you light."

"Thank you, Madam."

Maria Addolorata smiled under her veil at the polite simplicity of the
reply. She had met Englishmen in Rome.

"It is no longer customary to address us as 'Madam,'" she answered, a
moment later. "It is more usual to speak to us as 'Sister' or 'Reverend
Sister'--or 'Sister Maria.' I am Sister Maria Addolorata. But you know
it, for you sent your message to me."

"Doctor Taddei told me."

At this point the portress appeared in the distance, and Maria
Addolorata, hearing footsteps, turned her head from Dalrymple, raising
her veil a little, so that she could recognize the lay sister without
showing her face to the young man.

"Let us go," she said, dropping her veil again, and beginning to walk
on. "The sisters are warned."

Dalrymple followed her in silence and at a respectful distance,
congratulating himself upon his extraordinary good fortune in having got
so far on the first attempt, and inwardly praying that Sor Tommaso's
wounds might take a considerable time in healing. It had all come about
so naturally that he had lost the sensation of doing something
adventurous which had at first taken possession of him, and he now
regarded everything as possible, even to being invited to a friendly cup
of tea in Sister Maria Addolorata's sitting-room; for he imagined her as
having a sitting-room and as drinking tea there in a semi-luxurious
privacy. The idea would have amused an Italian of those days, when tea
was looked upon as medicine.

They reached the end of the last corridor. Dalrymple, like Sor Tommaso,
was admitted to the antechamber, while the portress waited outside to
conduct him back again. But Maria did not take him into the abbess's
parlour, into which she went at once, closing the door behind her.
Dalrymple sat down upon a carved wooden box-bench, and waited. The nun
was gone a long time.

"I have kept you waiting," she said, as she entered the little room
again.

"My time is altogether at your service, Sister Maria Addolorata," he
answered, rising quickly. "How is her most reverend excellency?"

"Very ill. I do not know what to say. She will not hear of seeing you.
I fear she will not live long, for she can hardly breathe."

"Does she cough?"

"Not much. Not so much as last night. She complains that she cannot draw
her breath and that her lungs feel full of something."

The case was evidently serious, and Dalrymple, who was a physician by
nature, proceeded to extract as much information as he could from the
nun, who did her best to answer all his questions clearly. The long
conversation, with its little restraints and its many attempts at a
mutual understanding, did more to accustom Maria Addolorata to
Dalrymple's presence and personality than any number of polite speeches
on his part could have done. There is an unavoidable tendency to
intimacy between any two people who are together engaged in taking care
of a sick person.

"I can give you directions and good advice," said Dalrymple, at last.
"But it can never be the same as though I could see the patient myself.
Is there no possible means of obtaining her consent? She may die for the
want of just such advice as I can only give after seeing her. Would not
her brother, his Eminence the Cardinal, perhaps recommend her to let me
visit her once?"

"That is an idea," answered the nun, quickly. "My uncle is a man of
broad views. I have heard it said in Rome. I could write to him that
Doctor Taddei is unable to come, and that a celebrated foreign physician
is here--"

"Not celebrated," interrupted Dalrymple, with his literal Scotch
veracity.

"What difference can it make?" uttered Maria Addolorata, moving her
shoulders a little impatiently. "He will be the more ready to use his
influence, for he is much attached to my aunt. Then, if he can persuade
her, I can send down the gardener to the town for you this afternoon. It
may not be too late."

"I see that you have some confidence in me," said Dalrymple. "I am of a
newer school than Doctor Taddei. If you will follow my directions, I
will almost promise that her most reverend excellency shall not die
before to-morrow."

He smiled now, as he gave the abbess her full title, for he began to
feel as though he had known Maria Addolorata for a long time, though he
had only had one glimpse of her eyes, just when she had raised her head
to get a look at him through the loophole of the gate. But he had not
forgotten them, and he felt that he knew them.

"I will do all you tell me," she answered quietly.

Dalrymple had some English medicines with him on his travels, and not
knowing what might be required of him at the convent, he had brought
with him a couple of tiny bottles.

"This when she coughs--ten drops," he said, handing the bottles to the
nun. "And five drops of this once an hour, until her chest feels freer."

He gave her minute directions, as far as he could, about the general
treatment of the patient, which Maria repeated and got by heart.

"I will let you know before twenty-three o'clock what the cardinal says
to the plan," she said. "In this way you will be able to come up by
daylight."

As Dalrymple took his leave, he held out his hand, forgetting that he
was in Italy.

"It is not our custom," said Maria Addolorata, thrusting each of her own
hands into the opposite sleeve.

But there was nothing cold in her tone. On the contrary, Dalrymple
fancied that she was almost on the point of laughing at that moment, and
he blushed at his awkwardness. But she could not see his face.

"Your most humble servant," he said, bowing to her.

"Good day, Signor Doctor," she answered, through the open door, as the
portress jingled her keys and prepared to follow Dalrymple.

So he took his departure, not without much satisfaction at the result of
his first attempt.




CHAPTER VII.


SOR TOMMASO recovered but slowly, though his injuries were of themselves
not dangerous. His complexion was apoplectic and gouty, he was no longer
young, and before forty-eight hours had gone by his wounds were
decidedly inflamed and he had a little fever. At the same time he was by
no means a courageous man, and he was ready to cry out that he was dead,
whenever he felt himself worse. Besides this, he lost his temper several
times daily with Dalrymple, who resolutely refused to bleed him, and he
insisted upon eating and drinking more than was good for him, at a time
when if he had been his own patient he would have enforced starvation as
necessary to recovery.

Meanwhile the cardinal had exerted his influence with his sister, the
abbess, and had so far succeeded that Dalrymple, who went every day to
the convent, was now made to stand with his back to the abbess's open
door, in order that he might at least ask her questions and hear her own
answers. Many an old Italian doctor can tell of even stranger and more
absurd precautions observed by the nuns of those days. As soon as the
oral examination was over, Maria Addolorata shut the door and came out
into the parlour, where Dalrymple finished his visit, prolonging it in
conversation with her by every means he could devise.

Though encumbered with a little of the northern shyness, Dalrymple was
not diffident. There is a great difference between shyness and
diffidence. Diffidence distrusts itself; shyness distrusts the mere
outward impression made on others. At this time Dalrymple had no object
beyond enjoying the pleasure of talking with Maria Addolorata, and no
hope beyond that of some day seeing her face without the veil. As for
her voice, his present position as doctor to the convent made it foolish
for him to run the risk of being caught listening for her songs behind
the garden wall. But he had not forgotten what Annetta had told him, and
Maria Addolorata's soft intonations and liquid depths of tone in
speaking led him to believe that the peasant girl had not exaggerated
the nun's gift of singing.

One day, after he had seen her and talked with her more than half a
dozen times, he approached the subject, merely for the sake of
conversation, saying that he had been told of her beautiful voice by
people who had heard her across the garden.

"It is true," she answered simply. "I have a good voice. But it is
forbidden here to sing except in church," she added with a sigh. "And
now that my aunt is ill, I would not displease her for anything."

"That is natural," said Dalrymple. "But I would give anything in the
world to hear you."

"In church you can hear me. The church is open on Sundays at the
Benediction service. We are behind the altar in the choir, of course.
But perhaps you would know my voice from the rest because it is deeper."

"I should know it in a hundred thousand," asseverated the Scotchman,
with warmth.

"That would be a great many--a whole choir of angels!" And the nun
laughed softly, as she sometimes did, now that she knew him so much
better.

There was something warm and caressing in her laughter, short and low as
it was, that made Dalrymple look at those full white hands of hers and
wonder whether they might not be warm and caressing too.

"Will you sing a little louder than the rest next Sunday afternoon,
Sister Maria?" he asked. "I will be in the church."

"That would be a great sin," she answered, but not very gravely.

"Why?"

"Because I should have to be thinking about you instead of about the
holy service. Do you not know that? But nothing is sinful according to
you Protestants, I suppose. At all events, come to the church."

"Do you think we are all devils, Sister Maria?" asked Dalrymple, with a
smile.

"More or less." She laughed again. "They say in the town that you have a
compact with the devil."

"Do you hear what is said in the town?"

"Sometimes. The gardener brings the gossip and tells it to the cook. Or
Sora Nanna tells it to me when she brings the linen. There are a
thousand ways. The people think we know nothing because they never see
us. But we hear all that goes on."

Dalrymple said nothing in answer for some time. Then he spoke suddenly
and rather hoarsely.

"Shall I never see you, Sister Maria?" he asked.

"Me? But you see me every day--"

"Yes,--but your face, without the veil."

Maria Addolorata shook her head.

"It is against all rules," she answered.

"Is it not against all rules that we should sit here and make
conversation every day for half an hour?"

"Yes--I suppose it is. But you are here as a doctor to take care of my
aunt," she added quickly. "That makes it right. You are not a man. You
are a doctor."

"Oh,--I understand." Dalrymple laughed a little. "Then I am never to see
your beautiful face?"

"How do you know it is beautiful, since you have never seen it?"

"From your beautiful hands," answered the young man, promptly.

"Oh!" Maria Addolorata glanced at her hands and then, with a movement
which might have been quicker, concealed them in her sleeves.

"It is a sin to hide what God has made beautiful," said Dalrymple.

"If I have anything about me that is beautiful, it is for God's glory
that I hide it," answered Maria, with real gravity this time.

Dalrymple understood that he had gone a little too far, though he did
not exactly regret it, for the next words she spoke showed him that she
was not really offended. Nevertheless, in order to exhibit a proper
amount of contrition he took his leave with a little more formality than
usual on this particular occasion. Possibly she was willing to show that
she forgave him, for she hesitated a moment just before opening the
door, and then, to his great surprise, held out her hand to him.

"It is your custom," she said, just touching his eagerly outstretched
fingers. "But you must not look at it," she added, drawing it back
quickly and hiding it in her sleeve with another low laugh. And she
began to shut the door almost before he had quite gone through.

Dalrymple walked more slowly on that day, as he descended through the
steep and narrow streets, and though he was surefooted by nature and
habit, he almost stumbled once or twice on his way down, because,
somehow, though his eyes looked towards his feet, he did not see exactly
where he was going.

There is no necessity for analyzing his sensations. It is enough to say
at once that he was beginning to be really in love with Maria
Addolorata, and that he denied the fact to himself stoutly, though it
forced itself upon him with every step which took him further from the
convent. He felt on that day a strong premonitory symptom in the shape
of a logical objection, as it were, to his returning again to see the
nun. The objection was the evident and total futility of the almost
intimate intercourse into which the two were gliding. The day must soon
come when the abbess would no longer need his assistance. In all
probability she would recover, for the more alarming symptoms had
disappeared, and she showed signs of regaining her strength by slow
degrees. It was quite clear to Dalrymple that, after her ultimate
recovery, his chance of seeing and talking with Maria Addolorata would
be gone forever. Sor Tommaso, indeed, recovered but slowly. Of the two
his case was the worse, for fever had set in on the third day and had
not left him yet, so that he assured Dalrymple almost hourly that his
last moment was at hand. But he also was sure to get well, in the
Scotchman's opinion, and the latter knew well enough that his own
temporary privileges as physician to the convent would be withdrawn from
him as soon as the Subiaco doctor should be able to climb the hill.

It was all, therefore, but a brief incident in his life, which could not
possibly have any continuation hereafter. He tried in vain to form plans
and create reasons for seeing Maria Addolorata even once a month for
some time to come, but his ingenuity failed him altogether, and he grew
angry with himself for desiring what was manifestly impossible.

With true masculine inconsequence, so soon as he was displeased with
himself he visited his displeasure upon the object that attracted him,
and on the earliest possible occasion, on their very next meeting. He
assumed an air of coldness and reserve such as he had certainly not
thought necessary to put on at his first visit. Almost without any
preliminary words of courtesy, and without any attempt to prolong the
short conversation which always took place before he was made to stand
with his back to the abbess's open door, he coldly inquired about the
good lady's condition during the past night, and made one or two
observations thereon with a brevity almost amounting to curtness.

Maria Addolorata was surprised; but as her face was covered, and her
hands were quietly folded before her, Dalrymple could not see that his
behaviour had any effect upon her. She did not answer his last remark at
all, but quietly bowed her head.

Then followed the usual serio-comic scene, during which Dalrymple stood
turned away from the open door, asking questions of the sick woman, and
listening attentively for her low-spoken answers. To tell the truth, he
judged of her condition more from the sound of her voice than from
anything else. He had also taught Maria Addolorata how to feel the
pulse; and she counted the beats while he looked at his watch. His chief
anxiety was now for the action of the heart, which had been weakened by
a lifetime of unhealthy living, by food inadequate in quality, even when
sufficient in quantity, by confinement within doors, and lack of
life-giving sunshine, and by all those many causes which tend to reduce
the vitality of a cloistered nun.

When the comedy was over, Maria Addolorata shut the door as usual; and
she and Dalrymple were alone together in the abbess's parlour, as they
were every day. The abbess herself could hear that they were talking,
but she naturally supposed that they were discussing the details of her
condition; and as she felt that she was really recovering, so far as
she could judge, and as almost every day, after Dalrymple had gone,
Maria Addolorata had some new direction of his to carry out, the elder
lady's suspicions were not aroused. On the contrary, her confidence in
the Scotch doctor grew from day to day; and in the long hours during
which she lay thinking over her state and its circumstances, she made
plans for his conversion, in which her brother, the cardinal, bore a
principal part. She was grateful to Dalrymple, and it seemed to her that
the most proper way of showing her gratitude would be to save his soul,
a point of view unusual in the ordinary relations of life.

On this particular day, Maria Addolorata shut the door, and came forward
into the parlour as usual. As usual, too, she sat down in the abbess's
own big easy-chair, expecting that Dalrymple would seat himself opposite
to her. But he remained standing, with the evident intention of going
away in a few moments. He said a few words about the patient, gave one
or two directions, and then stood still in silence for a moment.

Maria Addolorata lifted her head a little, but not enough to show him
more than an inch of her face.

"Have I displeased you, Signor Doctor?" she asked, in her deep, warm
voice. "Have I not carried out your orders?"

"On the contrary," answered Dalrymple, with a stiffness which he
resented in himself. "It is impossible to be more conscientious than you
always are."

Seeing that he still remained standing, the nun rose to her feet, and
waited for him to go. She believed that she was far too proud to detain
him, if he wished to shorten the meeting. But something hurt her, which
she could not understand.

Dalrymple hesitated a moment, and his lips parted as though he were
about to speak. The silence was prolonged only for a moment or two.

"Good morning, Sister Maria Addolorata," he said suddenly, and bowed.

"Good morning, Signor Doctor," answered the nun.

She bent her head very slightly, but a keener observer than Dalrymple
was, just then, would have noticed that as she did so, her shoulders
moved forward a little, as though her breast were contracted by some
sudden little pain. Dalrymple did not see it. He bowed again, let
himself out, and closed the door softly behind him.

When he was gone, Maria Addolorata sat down in the big easy-chair again,
and uncovered her face, doubling her veil back upon her head, and
withdrawing the thick folds from her chin and mouth. Her features were
very pale, as she sat staring at the sky through the window, and her
eyes fixed themselves in that look which was peculiar to her. Her full
white hands strained upon each other a little, bringing the colour to
the tips of her fingers. During some minutes she did not move. Then she
heard her aunt's voice calling to her hoarsely. She rose at once, and
went into the bedroom. The abbess's pale face was very thin and yellow
now, as it lay upon the white pillow; the coverlet was drawn up to her
chin, and a grimly carved black crucifix hung directly above her head.

"The doctor did not stay long to-day," she said, in a hollow tone.

"No, mother," answered the young nun. "He thinks you are doing very
well. He wishes you to eat a wing of roast chicken."

"If I could have a little salad," said the abbess. "Maria," she added
suddenly, "you are careful to keep your face covered when you are in the
next room, are you not?"

"Always."

"You generally do not raise your veil until you come into this room,
after the doctor is gone," said the elder lady.

"He went so soon, to-day," answered Maria Addolorata, with perfectly
innocent truth. "I stayed a moment in the parlour, thinking over his
directions, and I lifted my veil when I was alone. It is close to-day."

"Go into the garden, and walk a little," said the abbess. "It will do
you good. You are pale."

If she had felt even a faint uneasiness about her niece's conduct, it
was removed by the latter's manner.




CHAPTER VIII.


ONCE more Dalrymple was sitting over his supper at the table in the
vaulted room on the ground floor which Stefanone used as a wine shop. To
tell the truth, it was very superior to the ordinary wine shops of
Subiaco and had an exceptional reputation. The common people never came
there, because Stefanone did not sell his cheap wine at retail, but sent
it all to Rome, or took it thither himself for the sake of getting a
higher price for it. He always said that he did not keep an inn, and
perhaps as much on account of his relations with Gigetto's family, he
assumed as far as possible the position of a wine-dealer rather than
that of a wine-seller. The distinction, in Italian mountain towns, is
very marked.

"They can have a measure of the best, if they care to pay for it," he
said. "If they wish a mouthful of food, there is what there is. But I am
not the village host, and Nanna is not a wine-shop cook, to fry tripe
and peel onions for Titius and Caius."

The old Roman expression, denoting generally the average public,
survives still in polite society, and Stefanone had caught it from Sor
Tommaso.

Dalrymple was sitting as usual over his supper, by the light of the
triple-beaked brass lamp, his measure of wine beside him, and a
beefsteak, which on this occasion was really of beef, before him.
Stefanone was absent in Rome, with a load of wine. Sora Nanna sat on
Dalrymple's right, industriously knitting in Italian fashion, one of the
needles stuck into and supported by a wooden sheath thrust into her
waist-band, while she worked off the stitches with the others. Annetta
sat opposite the Scotchman, but a little on one side of the lamp, so
that she could see his face.

"Mother," she said suddenly, without lifting her chin from the hand in
which it rested, "you do not know anything! This Signor Englishman is
making love with a nun in the convent! Eh--what do you think of it? Only
this was wanting. A little more and the lightning will fall upon the
convent! These Protestants! Oh, these blessed Protestants! They respect
nothing, not even the saints!"

"My daughter! what are you saying?"

Sora Nanna's fingers did not pause in their work, nor did her eyes look
up, but the deep furrow showed itself in her thick peasant's forehead,
and her coarse, hard lips twitched clumsily with the beginning of a
smile.

"What am I saying? The truth. Ask rather of the Signore whether it is
not true."

"It is silly," said Dalrymple, growing unnaturally red, and looking up
sharply at Annetta, before he took his next mouthful.

"Look at him, mother!" laughed the girl. "He is red, red--he seems to me
a boiled shrimp. Eh, this time I have guessed it! And as for Sister
Maria Addolorata, she no longer sees with her eyes! To-day, when you
were carrying in the baskets, you and the other women who went with us,
I asked her whether the abbess was satisfied with the new doctor, and
she answered that he was a very wise man, much wiser than Sor Tommaso.
So I told her that it was a pity, because Sor Tommaso was getting well
and would not allow the English doctor to come instead of him much
longer. Then she looked at me. By Bacchus, I was afraid. Certain eyes!
Not even a cat when you take away her kittens! A little more and she
would have eaten me. And then her face made itself of marble--like that
face of a woman that is built into the fountain in the piazza.
Arch-priest! What a face!"

The girl stared hard at Dalrymple, and her mouth laughed wickedly at his
evident embarrassment, while there was something very different from
laughter in her eyes. During the long speech, Sora Nanna had stopped
knitting, and she looked from her daughter to the Scotchman with a sort
of half-stupid, half-cunning curiosity.

"But these are sins!" she exclaimed at last.

"And what does it matter?" asked the girl. "Does he go to confession? So
what does it matter? He keeps the account himself, of his sins. I should
not like to have them on my shoulders. But as for Sister Maria
Addolorata--oh, she! I told you that she sinned in her throat. Well, the
sin is ready, now. What is she waiting for? For the abbess to die? Or
for Sor Tommaso to get well? Then she will not see the Signor Englishman
any more. It would be better for her. When she does not see him any
more, she will knead her pillow with tears, and make her bread of it, to
bite and eat. Good appetite, Sister Maria!"

"You talk, you talk, and you conclude nothing," observed Sora Nanna.
"You have certain thoughts in your head! And you do not let the Signore
say even a word."

"What can he say? He will say that it is not true. But then, who will
believe him? I should like to see them a little together. I am sure that
she shows him her face, and that it is 'Signor Doctor' here, and 'Dear
Signor Doctor' there, and a thousand gentlenesses. Tell the truth,
Signore. She shows you her face."

"No," said Dalrymple, who had regained his self-possession. "She never
shows me her face."

"What a shame for a Carmelite nun to show her face to a man!" cried the
girl.

"But I tell you she is always veiled to her chin," insisted Dalrymple,
with perfect truth.

"Eh! It is you who say so!" retorted Annetta. "But then, what can it
matter to me? Make love with a nun, if it goes, Signore. Youth is a
flower--when it is withered, it is hay, and the beasts eat it."

"This is true," said Sora Nanna, returning to her knitting. "But do not
pay attention to her, Signore. She is stupid. She does not know what she
says. Eat, drink, and manage your own affairs. It is better. What can a
child understand? It is like a little dog that sees and barks, without
understanding. But you are a much instructed man and have been round the
whole world. Therefore you know many things. It seems natural."

Though Dalrymple was not diffident, as has been said, he was far from
vain, on the whole, and in particular he had none of that contemptible
vanity which makes a man readily believe that every woman he meets is in
love with him. He had not the slightest idea at that time that Annetta,
the peasant girl, looked upon him with anything more than the curiosity
and vague interest usually bestowed on a foreigner in Italy.

He was annoyed, however, by what she said this evening, though he was
also secretly surprised and delighted. The contradiction is a common
one. The miser is half mad with joy on discovering that he has much
more than he supposed, and bitterly resents, at the same time, any
notice which may be taken of the fact by others.

Annetta did not enjoy his discomfiture and evident embarrassment, for
she was far more deeply hurt herself than she realized, and every word
she had spoken about Maria Addolorata had hurt her, though she had taken
a sort of vague delight in teasing Dalrymple. She relapsed into silence
now, alternately wishing that he loved her, and then, that she might
kill him. If she could not have his heart, she would be satisfied with
his blood. There was a passionate animal longing in the instinct to have
him for herself, even dead, rather than that any other woman should get
his love.

Dalrymple was aware only that the girl's words had annoyed him, while
inwardly conscious that if what she said were true, the truth would make
a difference in his life. He showed no inclination to talk any more, and
finished his supper in a rather morose silence, turning to his book as
soon as he had done. Then Gigetto came in with his guitar and sang and
talked with the two women.

But he was restless that night, and did not fall asleep until the moon
had set and his window grew dark. And even in his dreams he was restless
still, so that when he awoke in the morning he said to himself that he
had been foolish in his behaviour towards Maria Addolorata on the
previous day. He felt tired, too, and his colour was less brilliant
than usual. It was Sunday, and he remembered that if he chose he could
go in the afternoon to the Benediction in the convent church and hear
Maria's voice perhaps. But at the usual hour, just before noon, he went
to make his visit to the abbess.

It was his intention to forget his stiff manner, and to behave as he had
always behaved until yesterday. Strange to say, however, he felt a
constraint coming upon him as soon as he was in the nun's presence. She
received him as usual, there was the usual comic scene at the abbess's
door, and, as every day, the two were alone together after her door was
shut.

"Are you ill?" asked Maria Addolorata, after a moment's silence which,
short as it was, both felt to be awkward.

Dalrymple was taken by surprise. The tone in which she had spoken was
cold and distant rather than expressive of any concern for his welfare,
but he did not think of that. He only realized that his manner must seem
to her very unusual, since she asked such a question. An Italian would
have observed that his own face was pale, and would have told her that
he was dying of love.

"No, I am not ill," answered the Scotchman, simply, and in his most
natural tone of voice.

"Then what is the matter with you since yesterday?" asked Maria
Addolorata, less coldly, and as though she were secretly amused.

"There is nothing the matter--at least, nothing that I could explain to
you."

She sat down in the big easy-chair and, as formerly, he took his seat
opposite to her.

"There is something," she insisted, speaking thoughtfully. "You cannot
deceive a woman, Signor Doctor."

Dalrymple smiled and looked at her veiled head.

"You said the other day that I was not a man, but a doctor," he
answered. "I suppose I might answer that you are not a woman, but a
nun."

"And is not a nun a woman?" asked Maria Addolorata, and he knew that she
was smiling, too.

"You would not forgive me if I answered you," he said.

"Who knows? I might be obliged to, since I am obliged to meet you every
day. It may be a sin, but I am curious."

"Shall I tell you?"

As though instinctively, Maria was silent for a moment, and turned her
veiled face towards the abbess's door. But Dalrymple needed no such
warning to lower his voice.

"Tell me," she said, and under her veil she could feel that her eyes
were growing deep and the pupils wide and dark, and she knew that she
had done wrong.

"How should I know whether you are a saint or only a woman, since I have
never seen your face?" he asked. "I shall never know--for in a few days
Doctor Taddei will be well again, and you will not need my services."

He saw the quick tightening of one hand upon the other, and the slight
start of the head, and in a flash he knew that all Annetta had told him
was true. The silence that followed seemed longer than the awkward pause
which had preceded the conversation.

"It cannot be so soon," she said in a very low tone.

"It may be to-morrow," he answered, and to his own astonishment his
voice almost broke in his throat, and he felt that his own hands were
twisting each other, as though he were in pain. "I shall die without
seeing you," he added almost roughly.

Again there was a short silence in the still room.

Suddenly, with quick movements of both hands at once, Maria Addolorata
threw back the veil from her face, and drew away the folds that covered
her mouth.

"There, see me!" she exclaimed. "Look at me well this once!"

Her face was as white as marble, and her dark eyes had a wild and
startled look in them, as though she saw the world for the first time.
A ringlet of red-gold hair had escaped from the bands of white that
crossed her forehead in an even line and were drawn down straight on
either side, for in the quick movement she had made she had loosened the
pin that held them together under her chin, and had freed the dazzling
throat down to the high collar.

[Illustration: "She had covered her face with the veil."--Vol. I., p.
126.]

Dalrymple's pale, bright blue eyes caught fire, and he looked at her
with all his being, at her face, her throat, her eyes, the ringlet of
her hair. He breathed audibly, with parted lips, between his clenched
teeth.

Gradually, as he looked, he saw the red blush rise from the throat to
the cheeks, from the cheeks to the forehead, and the marble grew more
beautiful with womanly life. Then, all at once, he saw the hot tears
welling up in her eyes, and in an instant the vision was gone. With a
passionate movement she had covered her face with the veil, and throwing
herself sideways against the high back of the chair, she pressed the
dark stuff still closer to her eyes and mouth and cheeks. Her whole body
shook convulsively, and a moment later she was sobbing, not audibly, but
visibly, as though her heart were breaking.

Dalrymple was again taken by surprise. He had been so completely lost in
the utterly selfish contemplation of her beauty that he had been very
far from realizing what she herself must have felt as soon as she
appreciated what she had done. He at once accused himself of having
looked too rudely at her, but at the same time he was himself too much
disturbed to argue the matter. Quite instinctively he rose to his feet
and tried to take one of her hands from her veil, touching it
comfortingly. But she made a wild gesture, as though to drive him away.

"Go!" she cried in a low and broken voice, between her sobs. "Go! Go
quickly!"

She could not say more for her sobbing, but he did not obey her. He only
drew back a little and watched her, all his blood on fire from the touch
of her soft white hand.

She stifled her sobs in her veil, and gradually grew more calm. She even
arranged the veil itself a little better, her face still turned away
towards the back of the chair.

"Maria! Maria!" The abbess's voice was calling her, hoarsely and almost
desperately, from the next room.

She started and sat up straight, listening. Then the cry was heard
again, more desperate, less loud. With a quick skill which seemed
marvellous in Dalrymple's eyes, Maria adjusted her veil almost before
she had sprung to her feet.

"Wait!" she said. "Something is the matter!"

She was at the bedroom door in an instant, and in an instant more she
was at her aunt's bedside.

"Maria--I am dying," said the abbess's voice faintly, as she felt the
nun's arm under her head.

Dalrymple heard the words, and did not hesitate as he hastily felt for
something in his pocket.

"Come!" cried Maria Addolorata.

But he was already there, on the other side of the bed, pouring
something between the sick lady's lips.

It was fortunate that he was there at that moment. He had indeed
anticipated the possibility of a sudden failure in the action of the
heart, and he never came to the convent without a small supply of a
powerful stimulant of his own invention. The liquid, however, was of
such a nature that he did not like to leave the use of it to Maria
Addolorata's discretion, for he was aware that she might easily be
mistaken in the symptoms of the collapse which would really require its
use.

The abbess swallowed a sufficient quantity of it, and Dalrymple allowed
her head to lie again upon the pillow. She looked almost as though she
were dead. Her eyes were turned up, and her jaw had dropped. Maria
Addolorata believed that all was over.

"She is dead," she said. "Let us leave her in peace."

It is a very ancient custom among Italians to withdraw as soon as a
dying person is unconscious, if not even before the supreme moment.

"She will probably live through this," answered Dalrymple, shaking his
head.

Neither he nor the nun spoke again for a long time. Little by little,
the abbess revived under the influence of the stimulant, the heart beat
less faintly, and the mouth slowly closed, while the eyelids shut
themselves tightly over the upturned eyes. The normal regular breathing
began again, and the crisis was over.

"It is passed," said Dalrymple. "It will not come again to-day. We can
leave her now, for she will sleep."

"Yes," said the abbess herself. "Let me sleep." Her voice was faint, but
the words were distinctly articulated.

Then she opened her eyes and looked about her quite naturally. Her
glance rested on Dalrymple's face. Suddenly realizing that she was not
veiled, she drew the coverlet up over her face. It is a peculiarity of
such cases, that the patient returns almost immediately to ordinary
consciousness when the moment of danger is past.

"Go!" she said, with more energy than might have been expected. "This is
a religious house. You must not be here."

Dalrymple retired into the parlour again, shutting the door behind him,
and waited for Maria Addolorata, for it was now indispensable that he
should give her directions for the night. During the few minutes which
passed while he was alone, he stood looking out of the window. The
excitement of the last half-hour had cut off from his present state of
mind the emotion he had felt before the abbess's cry for help, but had
not decreased the impression it had left. While he was helping the sick
lady there had not been one instant in which he had not felt that there
was more than the life of a half-saintly old woman in the balance, and
that her death meant the end of his meetings with Maria Addolorata.
Annetta's words came back to him, 'she will knead her pillow with tears
and make her bread of it.'

Several minutes passed, and the door opened softly and closed again.
Maria Addolorata came up to him, where he stood by the window. She did
not speak for a moment, but he saw that her hand was pressed to her
side.

"I have spent a bad half-hour," she said at last, with something like a
gasp.

"It is the worst half-hour I ever spent in my life," answered Dalrymple.
"I thought it was all over," he added.

"Yes," she said, "I thought it was all over."

He could hear his heart beating in his ears. He could almost hear hers.
His hand went out toward her, cold and unsteady, but it fell to his side
again almost instantly. But for the heart-beats, it seemed to him that
there was an appalling stillness in the air of the quiet room. His
manly face grew very pale. He slowly bit his lip and looked out of the
window. An enormous temptation was upon him. He knew that if she moved
to leave his side he should take her and hold her. There was a tiny drop
of blood on his lip now. Something in him made him hope against himself
that she would speak, that she would say some insignificant dry words.
But every inch of his strong fibre and every ounce of his hot blood
hoped that she would move, instead of speaking.

She sighed, and the sigh was broken by a quick-drawn breath. Slowly
Dalrymple turned his white face and gleaming eyes to her veiled head.
Still she neither spoke nor moved. He, in memory, saw her face, her
mouth, and her eyes through the thick stuff that hid them. The silence
became awful to him. His hands opened and shut convulsively.

She heard his breath and she saw the uncertain shadow of his hand,
moving on the black and white squares of the pavement. She made a
slight, short movement towards him and then stepped suddenly back,
overcoming the temptation to go to him.

"No!"

He uttered the single word with a low, fierce cry. In an instant his
arms were around her, pressing her, lifting her, straining her, almost
bruising her. In an instant his lips were kissing a face whiter than his
own, eyes that flamed like summer lightning between his kisses, lips
crushed and hurt by his, but still not kissed enough, hands that were
raised to resist, but lingered to be kissed in turn, lest anything
should be lost.

A little splintering crash, the sound of a glass falling upon a stone
floor in the next room, broke the stillness. Dalrymple's arms relaxed,
and the two stood for one moment facing one another, pale, with fire in
their eyes and hearts beating more loudly than before. Dalrymple raised
his hand to his forehead, as though he were dazed, and made an uncertain
step in the direction of the door. Maria raised her white hands towards
him, and her eyelids drooped, even while she looked into his face.

He kissed her once more with a kiss in which all other kisses seemed to
meet and live and die a lingering, sweet death. She sank into the deep
old easy-chair, and when she looked up, he was gone.




CHAPTER IX.


IT rained during the afternoon, and Dalrymple sat in his small
laboratory, among his books and the simple apparatus he used for his
experiments. His little window was closed, and the southwest wind drove
the shower against the clouded panes of glass, so that the rain came
through the ill-fitted strips of lead which joined them, and ran down in
small streams to the channel in the stone sill, whence the water found
its way out through a hole running through the wall. He sat in his
rush-bottomed chair, sideways by the deal table, one long leg crossed
over the other. His hand lay on an open book, and his fingers
occasionally tapped the page impatiently, while his eyes were fixed on
the window, watching the driving rain.

He was not thinking, for he could not think. Over and over again the
scene of the morning came back to him and sent the hot blood rushing to
his throat. He tried to reflect, indeed, and to see whether what he had
done was to have any consequences for him, or was to be left behind in
his life, like a lovely view seen from a carriage window on a swift
journey, gone before it is half seen, and never to be seen again,
except in dreams. But he was utterly unable to look forward and reason
about the future. Everything dragged him back, up the steep ascent to
the convent, through the arched ways and vaulted corridors, to the room
in which he had passed the supreme moments of his life. The only
distinct impression of the future was the strong desire to feel again
what he had felt that day; to feel it again and again, and always, as
long as feeling could last; to stretch out his hands and take, to close
them and hold, to make his, indubitably, what had been but questionably
his for an instant, to get the one thing worth having, for himself, and
only for himself. For the passion of a strong man is loving and taking,
and the passion of a good woman is loving and giving. Dalrymple reasoned
well enough, later,--too well, perhaps,--but during those hours he spent
alone on that day, there was no power of reasoning in him. The world was
the woman he loved, and the world's orbit was but the circle of his
clasping arms. Beyond them was chaos, without form and void, clouded as
the rain-streaked panes of his little window.

He looked at his watch more than once. At last he rose, threw a cloak
over his shoulders and went out, locking the door of the little
laboratory behind him as he always did, and thrusting the unwieldy key
into his pocket.

He climbed the hill to the convent, taking the short cut through the
narrow lanes. The rain had almost ceased, and the wet mist that blew
round the corners of the dark houses was pleasant in his face. But he
scarcely knew what he saw and felt on his way. He reached the convent
church and went in, and stood by one of the pillars near the door.

It was a small church, built with a great choir for the nuns behind the
high altar; from each side of the latter a high wooden screen extended
to the walls, completely cutting off the space. It was dark, too,
especially in such weather, and almost deserted, save for a number of
old women who knelt on the damp marble pavement, some leaning against
the backs of chairs, some resting one arm upon the plastered bases of
the yellow marble columns. There were many lights on the high altar. Two
acolytes, rough-headed boys of Subiaco, knelt within the altar rail,
dressed in black cassocks and clean linen cottas. Two priests and a
young deacon sat side by side on the right of the altar, with small
black books in their hands. The nuns were chanting, unseen in the choir.
No one noticed Dalrymple, wrapped in his cloak, as he leaned against the
pillar near the door. His head was a little inclined, involuntarily
respectful to ceremonies he neither believed in nor understood, but
which had in them the imposing element of devout earnestness. Yet his
eyes were raised and looked up from under his brows, steadily and
watchfully, for he knew that Maria Addolorata was behind the screen, and
from the first moment of entering the church it seemed to him that he
could distinguish her voice from the rest.

He knew that it was hers, though he had never heard her sing. There was
in all those sweet, colourless tones one tone that made ringing
harmonies in his strong heart. Amongst all those mingling accents, there
was one accent that touched his soul. Amidst the echoes that died softly
away under the dim arches, there was one echo that died not, but rang on
and on in his ears. There was a voice not like other voices there, nor
like any he had ever heard. Many were strong and sweet; this one was not
sweet and strong only, but alive with a divine life, winged with divine
wings, essential of immortality, touching beyond tears, passionate as
the living, breathing, sighing, dying world, grand as a flood of light,
sad as the twilight of gods, full as a great water swinging to the tide
of the summer's moon, fine-drawn as star-rays--a voice of gold.

As Dalrymple stood there in the shadow, he heard it singing to him and
telling him all that he had not been told in words, all that he felt,
and more also. For there was in it the passion of the woman, and the
passionate remorse of the nun, the towering love of Maria Braccio,
woman and princess, and the deep despair of Maria Addolorata, nun and
sinner, unfaithful spouse of the Lord Christ, accused and self-accusing,
self-wronged, self-judged, but condemned of God and foretasting the
ultimate tragedy that is eternal--the tragedy of supreme hell.

The man who stood there knew that it was his doing, and the burden of
his deeds bowed him bodily as he stood. But still he listened, and, as
she sung, he watched her lips in the dark, inner mirror of sin's memory,
and they drew him on.

Little by little, he heard only her voice, and the others chanted but
faintly as from an infinite distance. And then, not in his thought, but
in deed, she was singing alone, and the words of 'O Salutaris Hostia,'
sounded in the dim church as they had never sounded before, nor could
ever sound again, the appeal of a lost soul's agony to God, the glory of
golden voice, the accent of transcendent genius, the passion, the
strength, the despair, of an ancient race.

In the dark church the coarse, sad peasant women bowed themselves upon
the pavement. One of them sobbed aloud and beat her breast. Angus
Dalrymple kneeled upon one knee and pressed his brow against the foot of
the pillar, kneeling neither to God, nor to the Sacred Host, nor to
man's belief in Heaven or Hell, neither praying nor blaspheming,
neither hoping nor dreading, but spell-bound upon a wrack of torture
that was heart-breaking delight, his senses torn and strained to the
utmost of his strong endurance, to the very scream of passion, his soul
crucified upon the exquisite loveliness of his sin.

Then all was still for an instant. Again there was a sound of voices, as
the nuns sang in chorus the 'Tantum Ergo.' But the voice of voices was
silent among them. The solemn Benediction blessed the just and the
unjust alike. The short verses and responses of the priests broke the
air that still seemed alive and trembling.

Dalrymple rose slowly, and wrapped his cloak about him. Above the
footsteps of the women going out of the church, he could hear the soft
sound of all the nuns moving together as they left the choir. He knew
that she was with them, and he stood motionless in his place till
silence descended as a curtain between him and what had been. Then, with
bent head, he went out into the rain that poured through the dim
twilight.




CHAPTER X.


THEY were together on the following day. The abbess was better, and as
yet there had been no return of the syncope which Dalrymple dreaded.

Contrary to her habit, Maria Addolorata sat on a high chair by the
table, her head veiled and turned away, her chin supported in her hand.
Dalrymple was seated not far from her, leaning forward, and trying to
see her face, silent, and in a dangerous mood. She had refused to let
him come near her, and even to raise her veil. When she spoke, her voice
was full of a profound sadness that irritated him instead of touching
him, for his nerves were strung to passion and out of tune with regret.

"The sin of it; the deadly sin!" she said.

"There is no sin in it," he answered; but she shook her veiled head.

And there was silence again, as on the day before, but the stillness was
of another kind. It was not the awful lull which goes before the
bursting of the storm, when the very air seems to start at the fall of a
leaf for fear lest it be already the thunder-clap. It was more like the
noiseless rising of the hungry flood that creeps up round the doomed
house, wherein is desperate, starving life, higher and higher, inch by
inch--the flood of rising fate.

"You say that there is no sin in it," she said, after a time. "You say
it, but you do not think it. You are a man--you have honour to lose--you
understand that, at least--"

"You are a woman, and you have humanity's right to be free. It is an
honourable right. You gave it up when you took that veil, not knowing
what it was that you gave up. You have done no wrong. You have done
nothing that any loving maiden need be ashamed of. I kissed you, for you
could not help yourself. That is the monstrous crime which you say is to
be punished with eternal damnation. It is monstrous that you should
think so. It is blasphemy to say that God made woman to lead a life of
suffering and daily misery, chained to a cross which it is agony to look
at, and shame to break from."

"Go--leave me. You are tempting me again." She spoke away from him, not
changing her position.

"If truth is temptation, I am tempting you, for I am showing you the
truth. The truth is this. When you were almost a child they began to
bend you and break you in the way they meant you to grow. You bent, but
you were not broken. Your nature is too strong. There is a life of your
own in you. It was against your will, and when you were just grown up,
they buried you, your beauty, your youth, your fresh young heart, your
voice and your genius--for it is nothing less. It was all done with
deliberate intention for the glory of your family, blasphemously
asserted to be the glory of God. It was pressed upon you, before you
knew what you were doing, and made pleasant to you before you knew what
it all meant. Your cross was cushioned for you and your crown of thorns
was gilded. They made the seat under the canopy seem a seat in heaven.
They even made you believe that the management of two or three score
suffering women was government and power. It seemed a great thing to be
abbess, did it not?"

Maria Addolorata bent her veiled head slowly twice or three times, in a
heavy-hearted way.

"They made you believe all that," continued Dalrymple, with cold
earnestness, "and much more besides--a great deal of which I know
little, I suppose--the life to come, and saintship, and the glories of
heaven. You have found out what it is all worth. We have found it out
together. And they frightened you with hell. Do you know what hell is? A
life without love, when one knows what love can mean. I am not eloquent;
I wish I were. But I am plain, and I can tell you the truth."

"It is not the truth," answered the nun, slowly. "You tell me it is, to
tempt me. I cannot drive you away by force. Will you not go? I cannot
cry out for help--it would ruin me and you. Will you not leave me? But
for God's grace, I am at your mercy, and there is little grace for me, a
sinner."

"No, I will not go away," said Dalrymple, and it seemed to Maria that
his voice was the voice of her fate.

"Then God have mercy!" she cried, in a low tone, and as her head sank
forward, it was her forehead that rested in her right hand, instead of
her chin.

"Love is more merciful than God," he answered.

There was a sudden softness in his voice which she had never heard, not
even yesterday. Rising, he stole near to her, and standing, bent down
and leaned upon the table by her side and spoke close to her ear. But he
did not touch her. She could feel his breath through her veil when he
spoke again. It was vital and fierce, and softly hot, like the breathing
of a powerful wild beast.

"You are my God," he said. "I worship you, and adore you. But I must
have you for mine always. I would rather kill you, and have no God, than
lose you alive. Come with me. You are free. You can get through the
garden at night--with good horses we can reach the sea to-morrow. There
is an English ship of war at anchor in Civita Vecchia. The officers are
my friends. Before to-morrow night we can be safe--married--happy. No
one will know--no one will follow us. Maria--come--come--come!"

His voice sank to a vibrating whisper as he repeated the word again and
again, closer and closer to her ear. Her hands had dropped from her
forehead and lay upon the table. With bent head she listened.

"Come, my darling," he continued, fast and low. "I have a beautiful
home, my father's home, my mother's--your laws and vows are nothing to
them. You shall be honoured, loved--ah, dear! adored, worshipped--you do
not know what we will do for you, to fill your life with sweet things.
All your life, Maria, from to-morrow. Instead of pain and penance and
everlasting suffering and weariness, you shall have all that the world
holds of love and peace and flowers. And you shall sing your whole heart
out when you will, and have music to play with from year's beginning to
year's end and year's end again. Sweet, let me tell you how I love
you--how you are alive in every drop of my blood, beating through me
like living fire, through heart and soul and head and hand--"

With a quick movement she pressed her palms against her veil upon her
ears to shut out the sound of his words. She rocked herself a little, as
though the pain were almost greater than she could bear. But his hands
moved too, stealthily, strongly, as a tiger's velvet feet, with a
vibration all through them, to the very ends of his fingers. For he was
in earnest. And the arm went softly round her, and closed gently upon
her as her figure swayed in her chair; and the other sought hers, and
found it cold as ice and trembling, and not strong to stop her hearing.
And again she listened.

Wild and incoherent words fell from his lips, hot and low, with no
reason in them but the overwhelming reason of love itself. For he was
not an eloquent man, and now he took no thought of what he said. He was
far too natural to be eloquent, and far too deeply stirred to care for
the shape his love took in speech. There was in his words the strong
rush of out-bursting truth which even the worst passion has when it is
real to the roots. Words terrible and gentle, blasphemous and devout,
wove themselves into a new language such as Maria Addolorata had never
heard, nor dared to think of hearing. But he dared everything, to tell
her, to hold her, against God and devil, heaven and earth, and all
mankind. And he promised all he had, and all that was not his to promise
nor to give, rending her beliefs to shreds, trampling on the broken
fragments of all she had worshipped, tearing her chains link from link
and scattering them like straw down the storm of passionate contempt.
And then, again, pouring out love, and more love, and love again, as a
stream of liquid fire let loose to flood all it meets with dazzling
destruction and hot death.

It is not every woman that knows what it is to be so loved and to listen
to such words, so spoken. Those who have heard and felt can understand,
but not the rest. Gradually as he spoke, her veiled face was drawn
toward his; gradually her hand raised the thick veil and drew it back;
and again a little, and the hand that had struggled long and silently
against his, lay still at last, and the face that had appealed in vain
to Heaven, hid itself against the heart of the strong man.

"The Lord have mercy upon my sinful soul!" she softly prayed.

"I love you!" whispered Dalrymple, folding her to him with both his
arms, and pressing his lips to her head. "That is all the world holds.
That is all the Heaven there is, and we have it for our own."

But presently she drew back from him, clinging to him with her hands as
though to hold him, and yet separating from him and looking up into his
face.

"And to-morrow?" she said, with a despairing question in her tone.

"We will go away to-night," he answered, "and to-morrow will be ours,
too, and all the to-morrows after that."

But she shook her head, and her hands loosened their hold upon his arms,
still lingering on his sleeves.

"And leave her to die?" she asked, with a quick glance at the abbess's
door.

Then she looked at him, with something of sudden fear as she met his
eyes again. And almost instantly she turned from him, and threw herself
forward upon the table as she sat.

"The sin, the deadly sin!" she moaned. "Oh, the horror of it all--the
sin, the shame, the disgrace! That is the worst to bear--the shame! The
undying shame of it!"

Dalrymple's brows bent themselves in a heavy frown, for he was in no
temper to be thwarted, desperate as the risk might be. For himself, he
knew that he was setting his life on the chances, if she consented, and
that life would not be worth having if she refused. He knew well enough
that they must almost certainly be pursued, and that there would be
little hesitation about shooting him or cutting his throat if they were
caught and if he resisted, as he knew that he should. He had been in
love with her for days. The last twenty-four hours had made him
desperate. And a desperate man is not to be played with, more especially
if he chance to have any Highland blood in his veins.

"What do you believe in most?" he asked suddenly and almost brutally.

She turned, startled, and looked him in the face.

"Because, if you believe in God, as I suppose you do, I take God to
witness that I shall be a dead man this night, unless you promise to go
with me."

She stared, and turned white to the lips, as he had never seen her turn
pale before. She leaned forward, gazing into his eyes and breathing
hard.

"You do not mean that," she said, as though trying hard to convince
herself.

"I mean it," he answered slowly, pale himself, and knowing what he said.

She leaned nearer to him and took his arms with her hands, for she could
not speak. The terrible question was in his eyes.

"You would kill yourself, if I refused--if I would not go with you?"
Still she could not believe him.

"Yes," he answered.

Once more the room was very still, as the two looked into one another's
eyes. But Maria Addolorata said nothing. The frown deepened on
Dalrymple's face, and his strong mouth was drawn, as a man draws in his
lips at the moment of meeting death.

"Good-bye," he said, gently loosening himself from her hold.

Her hands dropped and she turned half round, following him as he went
towards the door. His hand was almost on the latch. He did not turn.
But as he heard her swift feet behind him, he bent his head a little.
Her arms went round his throat, reaching up to his great height.

"No! No!" she cried, drawing his head down to her.

But he took her by the wrists and held her away from him at his arms'
length.

"Are you in earnest?" he asked fiercely. "If you play with me any more,
you shall die, too."

"But not to-day!" she answered imploringly. "Not to-night! Give me
time--a day--a little while--"

"To lose you? No. I have been near losing you. I know what it means.
Make up your mind. Yes, or no."

"To-night? But how? There is not time--these clothes I wear--"

She turned her head distractedly to one side and the other as she spoke,
while he held her wrists. Dalrymple saw that there was reason in the
objections she made. So dangerous a flight could not be undertaken
without some preparation. He loosed her hands and began to pace the
room, concentrating his mind upon the details. She watched him in
silence, leaning against the back of the easy-chair. Then he stopped
just before her.

"My cloak would come down to your feet," he said, measuring her height
with his eyes. "I have a plaid which would cover your head. Once on
horseback, no one would notice anything. Can you ride?"

"No. I never learned."

"That is unlucky. But we can manage it. The main thing would be to get a
long start if possible--that you should not be missed--to get away just
at the beginning of the longest time during which the nuns would not
expect to see you. Where is your own room? Is it near this?"

Maria Addolorata told him, and explained the position of the balcony
with the steps leading down into the garden. He asked her who kept the
key of the postern. It was in the possession of the gardener, who took
it away with him at night, but the lock was on the inside, and
uncovered, as old Italian locks are. By raising the curved spring one
could push back the bolt. There was a handle on the latter, for that
purpose. There would be no difficulty about getting out, nor about
letting Dalrymple in, provided that the night were dark.

"The moon is almost full," said Dalrymple, thoughtfully, and he began to
walk up and down again. "Never mind. It must be to-morrow night. In your
dark dress, when the sisters are asleep, if you keep in the shadow along
the wall, there is not the slightest risk. I will be waiting for you on
the other side of the gate with my cloak and plaid. I will have the
horses ready, a little higher up. There is a good mule path which goes
down into the valley on that side. You have only to reach the gate and
let yourself out. It is very easy. Tell me at what time to be waiting."

Maria leaned heavily upon the chair, with bent head.

"I cannot do it--oh, I cannot!" she said despairingly. "The shame of it!
To be the talk of Rome--the scandal of the day--a disgrace to my father
and mother!"

Dalrymple frowned, and biting his lip, he struck his clenched fist
softly with the palm of his hand, making a few quick steps backward and
forward. He stopped suddenly and looked at her with dangerous eyes.

"I have told you," he said. "I will not repeat it. You must choose."

"Oh, you cannot be in earnest--"

"You shall see. It is plain enough," he added, with an accent of scorn.
"You are more afraid of a little talk and gossip in Rome, than of being
told to-morrow morning that I died in the night. That is Italian
courage, I suppose."

She hung her head for a moment. Then, as she heard his footsteps, she
threw her veil back and saw that he was going towards the door without a
word.

"You are cruel," she said, half catching her breath. "You know that you
make me suffer--that I cannot live without you."

"I shall certainly not live without you," he answered. "I mean to have
you at any price, or I will die in the attempt to get you."

The words have a melodramatic look on paper. But he spoke them not only
with his lips, but with his whole self. They were not out of keeping
with his nature. There is no more desperate blood in the world's veins
than that of the Celt when he is driven to bay or exasperated by
passion. In him the reckless fatalism of the Asiatic is blended with the
cool daring of the northerner.

Maria Addolorata had little experience of the world or of men, but she
had the hereditary instincts of her sex, and as she looked at Dalrymple
she recognized in him the man who would do what he said, or forfeit his
life in trying to do it. There is no mistaking the truth about such men,
at such moments.

"I believe you would," she said, and she felt pride in saying it.

Her own life was in the balance. She bent her head again. Her temples
were throbbing, and it was hard to think at all connectedly.

"I want your answer," he said, still standing near the door. "Yes or
no--for to-morrow night?"

"I cannot live without you," she answered slowly, and still looking
down. "I must go."

But she did not meet his eyes, for she knew that she was wavering still,
and almost as uncertain as before. All at once Dalrymple's manner
changed. He came quietly to her side and took one of her hands, which
hung idly over the back of the chair, in both of his.

"You must be in earnest, as I am, my dear," he said, very calmly and
gently. "You must not play with a man's life and heart, as though they
were worth nothing but play. You called me cruel, dear, a moment ago.
But you are more cruel than I, for I do not hesitate."

"I must go," she repeated, still avoiding his look. "Yes, I must go. I
should die without you."

"But to-morrow when I come, you will hesitate again," he said, still
speaking very quietly. "I must be sure. You must give me some promise,
something more than you have given me yet."

She looked up with startled eyes.

"You do not believe me?" she asked. "What shall I do? I--I promise! You
yourself have never said that you promised."

"Does it need that?" He pressed the hand he held, with softly increasing
strength, between his palms.

"No," she answered, looking at him. "I can see it. You will do what you
say. I have promised, too."

He gazed incredulously into her face.

"Do you doubt me?" she asked.

"Have I not reason to doubt? You change your mind easily. I do not blame
you. But how am I to believe?"

She grew impatient of his unbelief. Yet as he pressed her hand, the
power he had over her increased with every second.

"But I will, I will!" she cried, in a low voice. "And still you doubt--I
see it in your eyes. Have I not promised? What more can I do?"

"I do not know," he answered. "But you must make me believe you." The
strength of his eyes seemed to be forcing something from her.

"I say it--I promise it--I swear it! Do I not love you? Am I not giving
my soul for you? Have I not given it already? What more can I do or
say?"

"I do not know," he answered a second time, holding her with his eyes.
"I must believe you before I go."

He spoke honestly and earnestly, not meaning to exasperate her,
searching in her look for what was unmistakably in his own. His hands
shook, not weakly, as they held hers. His piercing eyes seemed to see
through and through her. She trembled all over, and the colour rose to
her face, more in despair of convincing him than in a blush of shame.

"Believe me!" she said, imperiously, and her eyelids contracted with the
effort of her will.

But he said nothing. She felt that he was immeasurably stronger than
she. But just then, he was not more desperate. There was a short,
intense silence. Her face grew pale and was set with the fatal look she
sometimes had.

"I pledge you with my blood!" she said suddenly.

Her eyes did not waver from his, but she wrenched her right hand from
him, and before he could take it again, her even teeth had met in the
flesh. The bright scarlet drops rose high and broke, and trickled in
vivid stripes across her hand as she held it before his face. Her own
was very white, but without a trace of pain. Something in the fierce
action appealed strongly to the fiery Celtic nature of the man. His
features relaxed instantly.

"I believe you," he said, and she knew it as his arms went round her;
and the pain of the wound made his kisses sweeter.




CHAPTER XI.


WHEN Dalrymple left Maria on that day, he returned as usual to
Stefanone's house. Sora Nanna was alone, for Stefanone was still absent
in Rome, and Annetta had gone on the previous day with a number of women
to the fair at Civitella San Sisto, which took place on Sunday. She was
expected to return on Monday afternoon. It is usual enough for a party
of women, with two or three men, to go to the fairs in neighbouring
towns and to spend the night with the friends of some one of the
company. It was more common still, in those days.

Sora Nanna gave Dalrymple his dinner and kept him company for a while.
But he was gloomy and preoccupied, and before long she retired to the
regions of the laundry, which was installed in a long low building that
ran out into the vegetable garden at the back of the house. Monday was
generally the day for ironing the heavy linen of the convent, which was
taken up on Tuesdays in the huge baskets carried by four women, slung to
a pole which rested on their shoulders in the old primitive fashion,
just as litters are still carried in many parts of Asia. It had
occurred more than once to Dalrymple, during the last two days, that he
could hide almost anything he chose in one of these baskets, which were
always delivered directly to Maria Addolorata and which she was at
liberty to unpack in the privacy of the linen room if she chose.

He thought of this again as he sat over his dinner, and heard the
endless song of the women, far off, at their work. He knew the habits of
the house thoroughly and all the customs regarding the carrying up of
the baskets, and he remembered that several of them would surely be
taken to the convent on the morrow. He thought that if he could procure
some more suitable clothes for Maria to wear, this would be a safe means
of conveying them to her. She could put them on in her cell, just before
the hour at which she was to expect him, so that there would be no time
lost and the danger of detection during their flight would be greatly
diminished. But there were all sorts of difficulties in the way, and he
realized them one by one, until he almost abandoned the scheme in favour
of the cloak and plaid which he had first proposed.

He pushed back his chair and went upstairs to his own room. The
impression made upon him by Maria Addolorata, when she had bitten her
hand, had been a strong one, but the man's nature, though not exactly
distrustful, was melancholic and pessimistic. Two hours and more had
passed since they had been together, and things had a different look. He
realized more clearly the strength of the ties which bound Maria to her
convent life, and the effort it must be to her to break them. He
remembered the arguments he had used, and he saw that they had been
those of passion rather than of reason. Their effect could not be
lasting, when he himself was not there to lend them his words and the
persuasion of his strength. Maria would repent of her promise, and there
was nothing to bind her to it. Hitherto there had been no risk, no
common danger. By a chain of natural circumstances he had made his way
into a most extraordinary position, but it was in her power, in a moment
of repentance, to force him from it. While the abbess was ill, Maria was
virtually mistress of the convent. At a word from her the doors might be
shut in his face. She might promise again, and bite her hand again, but
when it came to his waiting outside the garden gate, she might be seized
by a fit of repentance, and he might wait till morning.

As he sat in his room he realized all this, and more, for he knew that
on calm reflexion he meant to do what he had that morning threatened in
his haste. He had never been attached to life for its own sake.
Melancholic men often are not. He had many times thought over the
subject of suicide with a sort of grim interest in it, which indicated
the direction his temper would take if he were ever absolutely defeated
in a matter which he had at heart.

Nothing he had ever felt in his life had taken hold of him as his love
for Maria Addolorata, for he had never really been in love before and he
had completely abandoned himself to it, as such a man was sure to do in
such surroundings. She was beautiful, but that was not all. Since he had
heard her sing, he knew that her voice and her rare talent together were
genius and nothing less. But that was far from being all. She was of his
own class, and he had been seeing her daily, when the peasant women
amongst whom he lived were little more than good-natured animals; but
even that was not all. He was at that time of life when a man's
character is apt to take a violent and sudden turn in its ultimate
direction, when the forces that have been growing show themselves all at
once, when passion, having appealed as yet but to the man, has climbed
and is within reach of his soul, to take hold of it and twist it, or to
be finally conquered, perhaps, in a holy life. But Dalrymple was very
far from being the kind of man who could have taken refuge against
himself in higher things. At a time when materialism was beginning to
seem a great thing, he was a strong materialist in scientific
questions. He grasped what he could see and held it, but what he could
not see had no existence for him. Nothing transcendental attracted him
beyond the sphere of mathematics. Yet he had not the materialist's
temperament, for the Highland blood in his veins brought strong fancies
and sudden passions to his head and heart, such as his chemistry could
not explain; and when the brain burned and the heart beat fast, it meant
doing or dying with him, as with many a Scotchman before and since. Life
had never seemed to be worth much in his eyes, compared with a thing he
wanted.

He sat still and thought the matter over, and considered the question of
death, for a few short minutes. There was not a trace of philosophical
speculation in his reflexions, or they would have lasted longer. He
merely desired to be sure, with that curious Scotch caution, of his own
intentions, in order not to be obliged to think the matter over again at
the last minute.

He had drunk a measure of strong wine with his dinner, as usual. To-day
it increased the gloom of his temper, and the pessimistic view he took.
In less than a quarter of an hour he had made up his mind that if Maria
Addolorata repented at a late hour and refused to leave the convent, he
would make an attempt to carry her away by force. If he failed, and
fou

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