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Sant' Ilario

by F. Marion Crawford · English · Gutenberg #5227 · 936,467 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Sant' Ilario

Author: F. Marion Crawford


        
Release date: March 1, 2004 [eBook #5227]
                Most recently updated: November 13, 2015

Language: English

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Credits: Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SANT' ILARIO ***




Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.









SANT' ILARIO

BY

F. MARION CRAWFORD


AUTHOR OF "MR. ISAACS," "DR. CLAUDIUS," "ZOROASTER," "A TALE OF A
LONELY PARISH," ETC.




TO

My Wife

THIS SECOND PART OF "SARACINESCA" IS LOVINGLY DEDICATED






CHAPTER I.


Two years of service in the Zouaves had wrought a change in Anastase
Gouache, the painter. He was still a light man, nervously built, with
small hands and feet, and a delicate face; but constant exposure to the
weather had browned his skin, and a life of unceasing activity had
strengthened his sinews and hardened his compact frame. The clustering
black curls were closely cropped, too, while the delicate dark
moustache had slightly thickened. He had grown to be a very soldierly
young fellow, straight and alert, quick of hand and eye, inured to that
perpetual readiness which is the first characteristic of the good
soldier, whether in peace or war. The dreamy look that was so often in
his face in the days when he sat upon a high stool painting the
portrait of Donna Tullia Mayer, had given place to an expression of
wide-awake curiosity in the world's doings.

Anastase was an artist by nature and no amount of military service
could crush the chief aspirations of his intelligence. He had not
abandoned work since he had joined the Zouaves, for his hours of
leisure from duty were passed in his studio. But the change in his
outward appearance was connected with a similar development in his
character. He himself sometimes wondered how he could have ever taken
any interest in the half-hearted political fumbling which Donna Tullia,
Ugo Del Ferice, and others of their set used to dignify by the name of
conspiracy. It seemed to him that his ideas must at that time have been
deplorably confused and lamentably unsettled. He sometimes took out the
old sketch of Madame Mayer's portrait, and setting it upon his easel,
tried to realise and bring back those times when she had sat for him.
He could recall Del Ferice's mock heroics, Donna Tullia's ill-expressed
invectives, and his own half-sarcastic sympathy in the liberal
movement; but the young fellow in an old velveteen jacket who used to
talk glibly about the guillotine, about stringing-up the clericals to
street-lamps and turning the churches into popular theatres, was surely
not the energetic, sunburnt Zouave who had been hunting down brigands
in the Samnite hills last summer, who spent three-fourths of his time
among soldiers like himself, and who had pledged his honour to follow
the gallant Charette and defend the Pope as long as he could carry a
musket.

There is a sharp dividing line between youth and manhood. Sometimes we
cross it early, and sometimes late, but we do not know that we are
passing from one life to another as we step across the boundary. The
world seems to us the same for a while, as we knew it yesterday and
shall know it to-morrow. Suddenly, we look back and start with
astonishment when we see the past, which we thought so near, already
vanishing in the distance, shapeless, confused, and estranged from our
present selves. Then, we know that we are men, and acknowledge, with
something like a sigh, that we have put away childish things.

When Gouache put on the gray jacket, the red sash and the yellow
gaiters, he became a man and speedily forgot Donna Tullia and her
errors, and for some time afterwards he did not care to recall them.
When he tried to remember the scenes at the studio in the Via San
Basilio, they seemed very far away. One thing alone constantly reminded
him disagreeably of the past, and that was his unfortunate failure to
catch Del Ferice when the latter had escaped from Rome in the disguise
of a mendicant friar. Anastase had never been able to understand how he
had missed the fugitive. It had soon become known that Del Ferice had
escaped by the very pass which Gouache was patrolling, and the young
Zouave had felt the bitterest mortification in losing so valuable and
so easy a prey. He often thought of it and promised himself that he
would visit his anger on Del Ferice if he ever got a chance; but Del
Ferice was out of reach of his vengeance, and Donna Tullia Mayer had
not returned to Rome since the previous year. It had been rumoured of
late that she had at last fulfilled the engagement contracted some time
earlier, and had consented to be called the Contessa Del Ferice; this
piece of news, however, was not yet fully confirmed. Gouache had heard
the gossip, and had immediately made a lively sketch on the back of a
half-finished picture, representing Donna Tullia, in her bridal dress,
leaning upon the arm of Del Ferice, who was arrayed in a capuchin's
cowl, and underneath, with his brush, he scrawled a legend, "Finis
coronat opus."

It was nearly six o'clock in the afternoon of the 23d of September. The
day had been rainy, but the sky had cleared an hour before sunset, and
there was a sweet damp freshness in the air, very grateful after the
long weeks of late summer. Anastase Gouache had been on duty at the
Serristori barracks in the Borgo Santo Spirito and walked briskly up to
the bridge of Sant' Angelo. There was not much movement in the streets,
and the carriages were few. A couple of officers were lounging at the
gate of the castle and returned Gouache's salute as he passed. In the
middle of the bridge he stopped and looked westward, down the short
reach of the river which caught a lurid reflection of the sunset on its
eddying yellow surface. He mused a moment, thinking more of the details
of his duty at the barracks than of the scene before him. Then he
thought of the first time he had crossed the bridge in his Zouave
uniform, and a faint smile flickered on his brown features. It happened
almost every day that he stopped at the same place, and as particular
spots often become associated with ideas that seem to belong to them,
the same thought almost always recurred to his mind as he stood there.
Then followed the same daily wondering as to how all these things were
to end; whether he should for years to come wear the red sash and the
yellow gaiters, a corporal of Zouaves, and whether for years he should
ask himself every day the same question. Presently, as the light faded
from the houses of the Borgo, he turned away with an imperceptible
shrug of the shoulders and continued his walk upon the narrow pavement
at the side of the bridge. As he descended the step at the end, to the
level of the square, a small bright object in a crevice of the stones
attracted his attention. He stooped and picked it up.

It was a little gold pin, some two inches long, the head beaten out and
twisted into the shape of the letter C. Gouache examined it
attentively, and saw that it must have been long used, for it was
slightly bent in more than one place as though it had often been thrust
through some thick material. It told no other tale of its possessor,
however, and the young man slipped it into his pocket and went on his
way, idly wondering to whom the thing belonged. He reflected that if he
had been bent on any important matter he would probably have considered
the finding of a bit of gold as a favourable omen; but he was merely
returning to his lodging as usual, and had no engagement for the
evening. Indeed, he expected no event in his life at that time, and
following the train of his meditation he smiled a little when he
thought that he was not even in love. For a Frenchman, nearly thirty
years of age, the position was an unusual one enough. In Gouache's case
it was especially remarkable. Women liked him, he liked them, and he
was constantly in the society of some of the most beautiful in the
world. Nevertheless, he turned from one to another and found a like
pleasure in the conversation of them all. What delighted him in the one
was not what charmed him most in the next, but the equilibrium of
satisfaction was well maintained between the dark and the fair, the
silent beauty and the pretty woman of intelligence. There was indeed
one whom he thought more noble in heart and grander in symmetry of form
and feature, and stronger in mind than the rest; but she was
immeasurably removed from the sphere of his possible devotion by her
devoted love of her husband, and he admired her from a distance, even
while speaking with her.

As he passed the Apollo theatre and ascended the Via di Tordinona the
lights were beginning to twinkle in the low doorways, and the
gas-lamps, then a very recent innovation in Rome, shone out one by one
in the distance. The street is narrow, and was full of traffic, even in
the evening. Pedestrians elbowed their way along in the dusk, every now
and then flattening themselves against the dingy walls to let a cab or
a carriage rush past them, not without real risk of accident. Before
the deep, arched gateway of the Orso, one of the most ancient inns in
the world, the empty wine-carts were getting ready for the return
journey by night across the Campagna, the great bunches of little bells
jingling loudly in the dark as the carters buckled the harness on their
horses' backs.

Just as Gouache reached this place, the darkest and most crowded
through which he had to pass, a tremendous clatter and rattle from the
Via dell' Orso made the hurrying people draw back to the shelter of the
doorsteps and arches. It was clear that a runaway horse was not far
off. One of the carters, the back of whose waggon was half-way across
the opening of the street, made desperate efforts to make his beast
advance and clear the way; but the frightened animal only backed
farther up. A moment later the runaway charged down past the tail of
the lumbering vehicle. The horse himself just cleared the projecting
timbers of the cart, but the cab he was furiously dragging caught upon
them while going at full speed and was shivered to pieces, throwing the
horse heavily upon the stones, so that he slid along several feet on
his head and knees with the fragments of the broken shafts and the
wreck of the harness about him. The first man to spring from the crowd
and seize the beast's head was Anastase. He did not see that the same
instant a large private carriage, drawn by a pair of powerful horses,
emerged quickly from the Vicolo dei Soldati, the third of the streets
which meet the Via di Tordinona at the Orso. The driver, who owing to
the darkness had not seen the disaster which had just taken place, did
his best to stop in time; but before the heavy equipage could be
brought to a stand Anastase had been thrown to the ground, between the
hoofs of the struggling cab-horse and the feet of the startled pair of
bays. The crowd closed in as near as was safe, while the confusion and
the shouts of the people and the carters increased every minute.

The coachman of the private carriage threw the reins to the footman and
sprang down to go to the horses' heads.

"You have run over a Zouave!" some one shouted from the crowd.

"Meno male! Thank goodness it was not one of us!" exclaimed another
voice.

"Where is he? Get him out, some of you!" cried the coachman as he
seized the reins close to the bit.

By this time a couple of stout gendarmes and two or three soldiers of
the Antibes legion had made their way to the front and were dragging
away the fallen cab-horse. A tall, thin, elderly gentleman, of a
somewhat sour countenance, descended from the carriage and stooped over
the injured soldier.

"It is only a Zouave, Excellency," said the coachman, with a sort of
sigh of relief.

The tall gentleman lifted Gouache's head a little so that the light
from the carriage-lamp fell upon his face. He was quite insensible, and
there was blood upon his pale forehead and white cheeks. One of the
gendarmes came forward.

"We will take care of him, Signore," he said, touching his
three-cornered hat. "But I must beg to know your revered name," he
added, in the stock Italian phrase. "Capira--I am very sorry--but they
say your horses--"

"Put him into my carriage," answered the elderly gentleman shortly. "I
am the Principe Montevarchi."

"But, Excellency--the Signorina---" protested the coachman. The prince
paid no attention to the objection and helped the gendarme to deposit
Anastase in the interior of the vehicle. Then he gave the man a silver
scudo.

"Send some one to the Serristori barracks to say that a Zouave has been
hurt and is at my house," he said. Therewith he entered the carriage
and ordered the coachman to drive home.

"In heaven's name, what has happened, papa?" asked a young voice in the
darkness, tremulous with excitement.

"My dear child, there has been an accident in the street, and this
young man has been wounded, or killed--"

"Killed! A dead man in the carriage!" cried the young girl in some
terror, and shrinking away into the corner.

"You should really control your nerves, Faustina," replied her father
in austere tones. "If the young man is dead, it is the will of Heaven.
If he is alive we shall soon find it out. Meanwhile I must beg you to
be calm--to be calm, do you understand?"

Donna Faustina Montevarchi made no answer to this parental injunction,
but withdrew as far as she could into the corner of the back seat,
while her father supported the inanimate body of the Zouave as the
carriage swung over the uneven pavement. In a few minutes they rolled
beneath a deep arch and stopped at the foot of a broad marble staircase.

"Bring him upstairs carefully, and send for a surgeon," said the prince
to the men who came forward. Then he offered his arm to his daughter to
ascend the steps, as though nothing had happened, and without bestowing
another look on the injured soldier.

Donna Faustina was just eighteen years old, and had only quitted the
convent of the Sacro Cuore a month earlier. It might have been said
that she was too young to be beautiful, for she evidently belonged to
that class of women who do not attain their full development until a
later period. Her figure was almost too slender, her face almost too
delicate and ethereal. There was about her a girlish look, an
atmosphere of half-saintly maidenhood, which was not so much the
expression of her real nature as the effect produced by her being at
once very thin and very fresh. There was indeed nothing particularly
angelic about her warm brown eyes, shaded by unusually long black
lashes; and little wayward locks of chestnut hair, curling from beneath
the small round hat of the period, just before the small pink ears,
softened as with a breath of worldliness the grave outlines of the
serious face. A keen student of women might have seen that the dim
religious halo of convent life which still clung to the young girl
would soon fade and give way to the brilliancy of the woman of the
world. She was not tall, though of fully average height, and although
the dress of that time was ill-adapted to show to advantage either the
figure or the movements, it was evident, as she stepped lightly from
the carriage, that she had a full share of ease and grace. She
possessed that unconscious certainty in motion which proceeds naturally
from the perfect proportion of all the parts, and which exercises a far
greater influence over men than a faultless profile or a dazzling skin.

Instead of taking her father's arm, Donna Faustina turned and looked at
the face of the wounded Zouave, whom three men had carefully taken from
the carriage and were preparing to carry upstairs. Poor Gouache was
hardly recognisable for the smart soldier who had crossed the bridge of
Sant' Angelo half an hour earlier. His uniform was all stained with
mud, there was blood upon his pale face, and his limbs hung down,
powerless and limp. But as the young girl looked at him, consciousness
returned, and with it came the sense of acute suffering. He opened his
eyes suddenly, as men often do when they revive after being stunned,
and a short groan escaped from his lips. Then, as he realised that he
was in the presence of a lady, he made an effort as though to release
himself from the hands of those who carried him, and to stand upon his
feet.

"Pardon me, Madame," he began to say, but Faustina checked him by a
gesture.

Meanwhile old Montevarchi had carefully scrutinised the young man's
face, and had recognised him, for they had often met in society.

"Monsieur Gouache!" he exclaimed in surprise. At the same time he made
the men move on with their burden.

"You know him, papa?" whispered Donna Faustina as they followed
together. "He is a gentleman? I was right?"

"Of course, of course," answered her father. "But really, Faustina, had
you nothing better to do than to go and look into his face? Imagine, if
he had known you! Dear me! If you begin like this, as soon as you are
out of the convent--"

Montevarchi left the rest of the sentence to his daughter's
imagination, merely turning up his eyes a little as though deprecating
the just vengeance of heaven upon his daughter's misconduct.

"Really, papa--" protested Faustina.

"Yes--really, my daughter--I am much surprised," returned her incensed
parent, still speaking in an undertone lest the injured man should
overhear what was said.

They reached the head of the stairs and the men carried Gouache rapidly
away; not so quickly, however, as to prevent Faustina from getting
another glimpse of his face. His eyes were open and met hers with an
expression of mingled interest and gratitude which she did not forget.
Then he was carried away and she did not see him again.

The Montevarchi household was conducted upon the patriarchal principle,
once general in Rome, and not quite abandoned even now, twenty years
later than the date of Gouache's accident. The palace was a huge square
building facing upon two streets, in front and behind, and opening
inwards upon two courtyards. Upon the lower floor were stables,
coach-houses, kitchens, and offices innumerable. Above these there was
built a half story, called a mezzanino--in French, entresol, containing
the quarters of the unmarried sons of the house, of the household
chaplain, and of two or three tutors employed in the education of the
Montevarchi grandchildren. Next above, came the "piano nobile," or
state apartments, comprising the rooms of the prince and princess, the
dining-room, and a vast suite of reception-rooms, each of which opened
into the next in such a manner that only the last was not necessarily a
passage. In the huge hall was the dais and canopy with the family arms
embroidered in colours once gaudy but now agreeably faded to a softer
tone. Above this floor was another, occupied by the married sons, their
wives and children; and high over all, above the cornice of the palace,
were the endless servants' quarters and the roomy garrets. At a rough
estimate the establishment comprised over a hundred persons, all living
under the absolute and despotic authority of the head of the house, Don
Lotario Montevarchi, Principe Montevarchi, and sole possessor of forty
or fifty other titles. From his will and upon his pleasure depended
every act of every member of his household, from his eldest son and
heir, the Duca di Bellegra, to that of Pietro Paolo, the under-cook's
scullion's boy. There were three sons and four daughters. Two of the
sons were married, to wit, Don Ascanio, to whom his father had given
his second title, and Don Onorato, who was allowed to call himself
Principe di Cantalupo, but who would have no legal claim to that
distinction after his father's death. Last of the three came Don Carlo,
a young fellow of twenty years, but not yet emancipated from the
supervision of his tutor. Of the daughters, the two eldest, Bianca and
Laura, were married and no longer lived in Rome, the one having been
matched with a Neapolitan and the other with a Florentine. There
remained still at home, therefore, the third, Donna Flavia, and the
youngest of all the family, Donna Faustina. Though Flavia was not yet
two and twenty years of age, her father and mother were already
beginning to despair of marrying her, and dropped frequent hints about
the advisability of making her enter religion, as they called it; that
is to say, they thought she had better take the veil and retire from
the world.

The old princess Montevarchi was English by birth and education, but
thirty-three years of life in Rome had almost obliterated all traces of
her nationality. That all-pervading influence, which so soon makes
Romans of foreigners who marry into Roman families, had done its work
effectually. The Roman nobility, by intermarriage with the principal
families of the rest of Europe, has lost many Italian characteristics;
but its members are more essentially Romans than the full-blooded
Italians of the other classes who dwell side by side with the
aristocracy in Rome.

When Lady Gwendoline Fontenoy married Don Lotario Montevarchi in the
year 1834, she, no doubt, believed that her children would grow up as
English as she herself, and that her husband's house would not differ
materially from an establishment of the same kind in England. She
laughed merrily at the provisions of the marriage contract, which even
went so far as to stipulate that she was to have at least two dishes of
meat at dinner, and an equivalent on fast-days, a drive every day--the
traditional trottata--two new gowns every year, and a woman to wait
upon her. After these and similar provisions had been agreed upon, her
dowry, which was a large one for those days, was handed over to the
keeping of her father-in-law and she was duly married to Don Lotario,
who at once assumed the title of Duca di Bellegra. The wedding journey
consisted of a fortnight's retirement in the Villa Montevarchi at
Frascati, and at the end of that time the young couple were installed
under the paternal roof in Rome. Before she had been in her new abode a
month the young Duchessa realised the utter hopelessness of attempting
to change the existing system of patriarchal government under which she
found herself living. She discovered, in the first place, that she
would never have five scudi of her own in her pocket, and that if she
needed a handkerchief or a pair of stockings it was necessary to obtain
from the head of the house not only the permission to buy such
necessaries, but the money with which to pay for them. She discovered,
furthermore, that if she wanted a cup of coffee or some bread and
butter out of hours, those things were charged to her daily account in
the steward's office, as though she had been in an inn, and were paid
for at the end of the year out of the income arising from her dowry.
Her husband's younger brother, who had no money of his own, could not
even get a lemonade in his father's house without his father's consent.

Moreover, the family life was of such a nature as almost to preclude
all privacy. The young Duchessa and her husband had their bedroom in
the upper story, but Don Lotario's request that his wife might have a
sitting-room of her own was looked upon as an attempt at a domestic
revolution, and the privilege was only obtained at last through the
formidable intervention of the Duke of Agincourt, the Duchessa's own
father. All the family meals, too, were eaten together in the solemn
old dining-hall, hung with tapestries and dingy with the dust of ages.
The order of precedence was always strictly observed, and though the
cooking was of a strange kind, no plate or dish was ever used which was
not of solid silver, battered indeed, and scratched, and cleaned only
after Italian ideas, but heavy and massive withal. The Duchessa soon
learned that the old Roman houses all used silver plates from motives
of economy, for the simple reason that metal did not break. But the
sensible English woman saw also that although the most rigid economy
was practised in many things, there was lavish expenditure in many
departments of the establishment. There were magnificent horses in the
stables, gorgeously gilt carriages in the coach-houses, scores of
domestics in bright liveries at every door. The pay of the servants did
not, indeed, exceed the average earnings of a shoe-black in London, but
the coats they wore were exceeding glorious with gold lace.

It was clear from the first that nothing was expected of Don Lotario's
wife but to live peaceably under the patriarchal rule, making no
observations and offering no suggestions. Her husband told her that he
was powerless to introduce any changes, and added, that since his
father and all his ancestors had always lived in the same way, that way
was quite good enough for him. Indeed, he rather looked forward to the
time when he should be master of the house, having children under him
whom he might rule as absolutely and despotically as he was ruled
himself.

In the course of years the Duchessa absorbed the traditions of her new
home, so that they became part of her, and as everything went on
unchanged from year to year she acquired unchanging habits which
corresponded with her surroundings. Then, when at last the old prince
and princess were laid side by side in the vault of the family chapel
and she was princess in her turn, she changed nothing, but let
everything go on in the same groove, educating her children and
managing them, as her husband had been educated and as she herself had
been managed by the old couple. Her husband grew more and more like his
father, punctilious, rigid; a strict observant in religious matters, a
pedant in little things, prejudiced against all change; too satisfied
to desire improvement, too scrupulously conscientious to permit any
retrogression from established rule, a model of the immutability of an
ancient aristocracy, a living paradigm of what always had been and a
stubborn barrier against all that might be.

Such was the home to which Donna Faustina Montevarchi returned to live
after spending eight years in the convent of the Sacro Cuore. During
that time she had acquired the French language, a slight knowledge of
music, a very limited acquaintance with the history of her own country,
a ready memory for prayers and litanies--and her manners. Manners among
the Italians are called education. What we mean by the latter word,
namely, the learning acquired, is called, more precisely, instruction.
An educated person means a person who has acquired the art of
politeness. An instructed person means some one who has learnt rather
more than the average of what is generally learnt by the class of
people to whom he belongs. Donna Faustina was extremely well educated,
according to Roman ideas, but her instruction was not, and was not
intended to be, any better than that imparted to the young girls with
whom she was to associate in the world.

As far as her character was concerned, she herself knew very little of
it, and would probably have found herself very much embarrassed if
called upon to explain what character meant. She was new and the world
was very old. The nuns had told her that she must never care for the
world, which was a very sinful place, full of thorns, ditches, pitfalls
and sinners, besides the devil and his angels. Her sister Flavia, on
the contrary, assured her that the world was very agreeable, when mamma
happened to go to sleep in a corner during a ball; that all men were
deceivers, but that when a man danced well it made no difference
whether he were a deceiver or not, since he danced with his legs and
not with his conscience; that there was no happiness equal to a good
cotillon, and that there were a number of these in every season; and,
finally, that provided one did not spoil one's complexion one might do
anything, so long as mamma was not looking.

To Donna Faustina, these views, held by the nuns on the one hand and by
Flavia on the other, seemed very conflicting. She would not, indeed,
have hesitated in choosing, even if she had been permitted any choice;
for it was clear that, since she had seen the convent side of the
question, it would be very interesting to see the other. But, having
been told so much about sinners, she was on the look-out for them, and
looked forward to making the acquaintance of one of them with a
pardonable excitement. Doubtless she would hate a sinner if she saw
one, as the nuns had taught her, although the sinner of her imagination
was not a very repulsive personage. Flavia probably knew a great many,
and Flavia said that society was very amusing. Faustina wished that the
autumn months would pass a little more quickly, so that the carnival
season might begin.

Prince Montevarchi, for his part, intended his youngest daughter to be
a model of prim propriety. He attributed to Flavia's frivolity of
behaviour the difficulty he experienced in finding her a husband, and
he had no intention of exposing himself to a second failure in the case
of Faustina. She should marry in her first season, and if she chose to
be gay after that, the responsibility thereof might fall upon her
husband, or her father-in-law, or upon whomsoever it should most
concern; he himself would have fulfilled his duty so soon as the
nuptial benediction was pronounced. He knew the fortune and reputation
of every marriageable young man in society, and was therefore eminently
fitted for the task he undertook. To tell the truth, Faustina herself
expected to be married before Easter, for it was eminently fitting that
a young girl should lose no time in such matters. But she meant to
choose a man after her own heart, if she found one; at all events, she
would not submit too readily to the paternal choice nor appear
satisfied with the first tolerable suitor who should be presented to
her.

Under these circumstances it seemed probable that Donna Faustina's
first season, which had begun with the unexpected adventure at the
corner of the old Orso, would not come to a close without some passage
of arms between herself and her father, even though the ultimate
conclusion should lead to the steps of the altar.

The men carried the wounded Zouave away to a distant room, and Faustina
entered the main apartments by the side of the old prince. She sighed a
little as she went.

"I hope the poor man will get well!" she exclaimed.

"Do not disturb your mind about the young man," answered her father.
"He will be attended by the proper persons, and the doctor will bleed
him and the will of Heaven will be done. It is not the duty of a
well-conducted young woman to be thinking of such things, and you may
dismiss the subject at once."

"Yes, papa," said Faustina submissively. But in spite of the dutiful
tone of voice in which she spoke, the dim light of the tall lamps in
the antechambers showed a strange expression of mingled amusement and
contrariety in the girl's ethereal face.




CHAPTER II.


"You know Gouache?" asked old Prince Saracinesca, in a tone which
implied that he had news to tell. He looked from his daughter-in-law to
his son as he put the question, and then went on with his breakfast.

"Very well," answered Giovanni. "What about him?"

"He was knocked down by a carriage last night. The carriage belonged to
Montevarchi, and Gouache is at his house, in danger of his life."

"Poor fellow!" exclaimed Corona in ready sympathy. "I am so sorry! I am
very fond of Gouache."

Giovanni Saracinesca, known to the world since his marriage as Prince
of Sant' Ilario, glanced quickly at his wife, so quickly that neither
she nor the old gentleman noticed the fact.

The three persons sat at their midday breakfast in the dining-room of
the Palazzo Saracinesca. After much planning and many discussions the
young couple had determined to take up their abode with Giovanni's
father. There were several reasons which had led them to this decision,
but the two chief ones were that they were both devotedly attached to
the old man; and secondly, that such a proceeding was strictly fitting
and in accordance with the customs of Romans. It was true that Corona,
while her old husband, the Duca d'Astrardente, was alive, had grown
used to having an establishment exclusively her own, and both the
Saracinesca had at first feared that she would be unwilling to live in
her father-in-law's house. Then, too, there was the Astrardente palace,
which, could not lie shut up and allowed to go to ruin; but this matter
was compromised advantageously by Corona's letting it to an American
millionaire who wished to spend the winter in Rome. The rent paid was
large, and Corona never could have too much money for her improvements
out at Astrardente. Old Saracinesca wished that the tenant might have
been at least a diplomatist, and cursed the American by his gods, but
Giovanni said that his wife had shown good sense in getting as much as
she could for the palace.

"We shall not need it till Orsino grows up--unless you marry again,"
said Sant' Ilario to his father, with a laugh.

Now, Orsino was Giovanni's son and heir, aged, at the time of this
tale, six months and a few days. In spite of his extreme youth,
however, Orsino played a great and important part in the doings of the
Saracinesca household. In the first place, he was the heir, and the old
prince had been found sitting by his cradle with an expression never
seen in his face since Giovanni had been a baby. Secondly, Orsino was a
very fine child, swarthy of skin, and hard as a tiger cub, yet having
already his mother's eyes, large, coal-black and bright, but deep and
soft withal. Thirdly, Orsino had a will of his own, admirably seconded
by an enormous lung power. Not that he cried, when he wanted anything.
His baby eyes had not yet been seen to shed tears. He merely shouted,
loud and long, and thumped the sides of his cradle with his little
clenched fists, or struck out straight at anybody who chanced to be
within reach. Corona rejoiced in the child, and used to say that he was
like his grandfather, his father and his mother all put together. The
old prince thought that if this were true the boy would do very well;
Corona was the most beautiful dark woman of her time; he himself was a
sturdy, tough old man, though his hair and beard were white as snow,
and Giovanni was his father's ideal of what a man of his race should
be. The arrival of the baby Orsino had been an additional argument in
favour of living together, for the child's grandfather could not have
been separated from him even by the quarter of a mile which lay between
the two palaces.

And so it came to pass that they all dwelt under the same roof, and
were sitting together at breakfast on the morning of the 24th of
September, when the old prince told them of the accident which had
happened to Gouache.

"How did you hear the news?" asked Giovanni.

"Montevarchi told me this morning. He was very much disturbed at the
idea of having an interesting young man in his house, with Flavia and
Faustina at home." Old Saracinesca smiled grimly.

"Why should that trouble him?" inquired Corona.

"He has the ancient ideas," replied her father-in-law.

"After all--Flavia--"

"Yes Flavia, after all--"

"I shall be curious to see how the other one turns out," remarked
Giovanni. "There seems to be a certain unanimity in our opinion of
Flavia. However, I daresay it is mere gossip, and Casa Montevarchi is
not a gay place for a girl of her age."

"Not gay? How do you know?" asked the old prince. "Does the girl want
Carnival to last till All Souls'? Did you ever dine there, Giovannino?"

"No--nor any one else who is not a member of the most Excellent Casa
Montevarchi."

"Then how do you know whether it is gay or not?"

"You should hear Ascanio Bellegra describe their life," retorted
Giovanni.

"And I suppose you describe your life to him, in exchange?" Prince
Saracinesca was beginning to lose his temper, as he invariably did
whenever he could induce his son to argue any question with him. "I
suppose you deplore each other's miserable condition. I tell you what I
think, Giovanni. You had better go and live in Corona's house if you
are not happy here."

"It is let," replied Giovanni with imperturbable calm, but his wife bit
her lip to control her rising laughter.

"You might travel," growled the old gentleman.

"But I am very happy here."

"Then what do you mean by talking like that about Casa Montevarchi?"

"I fail to see the connection between the two ideas," observed Giovanni.

"You live in precisely the same circumstances as Ascanio Bellegra. I
think the connection is clear enough. If his life is sad, so is yours."
"For downright good logic commend me to my beloved father!" cried
Giovanni, breaking into a laugh at last.

"A laughing-stock for my children! I have come to this!" exclaimed his
father gruffly. But his features relaxed into a good-humoured smile,
that was pleasant to see upon his strong dark face.

"But, really, I am very sorry to hear this of poor Gouache," said
Corona at last, returning to the original subject of their
conversation. "I hope it is nothing really dangerous."

"It is always dangerous to be run over by a carriage," answered
Giovanni. "I will go and see him, if they will let me in."

At this juncture Orsino was brought in by his nurse, a splendid
creature from Saracinesca, with bright blue eyes and hair as fair as
any Goth's, a contrast to the swarthy child she carried in her arms.
Immediately the daily ovation began, and each of the three persons
began to worship the baby in an especial way. There was no more
conversation, after that, for some time. The youngest of the
Saracinesca absorbed the attention of the family. Whether he clenched
his little fists, or opened his small fat fingers, whether he laughed
and crowed at his grandfather's attempts to amuse him, or struck his
nurse's rosy cheeks with his chubby hands, the result was always
applause and merriment from those who looked on. The scene recalled
Joseph's dream, in which the sheaves of his brethren bowed down to his
sheaf.

After a while, however, Orsino grew sleepy and had to be taken away.
Then the little party broke up and separated. The old prince went to
his rooms to read and doze for an hour. Corona was called away to see
one of the numberless dressmakers whose shadows darken the beginning of
a season in town, and Giovanni took his hat and went out.

In those days young men of society had very little to do. The other day
a German diplomatist was heard to say that Italian gentlemen seemed to
do nothing but smoke, spit, and criticise. Twenty years ago their
manners might have been described less coarsely, but there was even
more truth in the gist of the saying. Not only they did nothing. There
was nothing for them to do. They floated about in a peaceful millpool,
whose placid surface reflected nothing but their own idle selves,
little guessing that the dam whereby their mimic sea was confined,
would shortly break with a thundering crash and empty them all into the
stream of real life that flowed below. For the few who disliked
idleness there was no occupation but literature, and literature, to the
Roman mind of 1867, and in the Roman meaning of the word, was
scholarship. The introduction to a literary career was supposed to be
obtained only by a profound study of the classics, with a view to
avoiding everything classical, both in language and ideas, except
Cicero, the apostle of the ancient Roman Philistines; and the tendency
to clothe stale truisms and feeble sentiments in high-sounding language
is still found in Italian prose and is indirectly traceable to the same
source. As for the literature of the country since the Latins, it
consisted, and still consists, in the works of the four poets, Dante,
Tasso, Ariosto, and Petrarch. Leopardi is more read now than then, but
is too unhealthily melancholy to be read long by any one. There used to
be Roman princes who spent years in committing to memory the verses of
those four poets, just as the young Brahman of to-day learns to recite
the Rig Veda. That was called the pursuit of literature.

The Saracinesca were thought very original and different from other
men, because they gave some attention to their estates. It seemed very
like business to try and improve the possessions one had inherited or
acquired by marriage, and business was degradation. Nevertheless, the
Saracinesca were strong enough to laugh at other people's scruples, and
did what seemed best in their own eyes without troubling themselves to
ask what the world thought. But the care of such matters was not enough
to occupy Giovanni all day. He had much time on his hands, for he was
an active man, who slept little and rarely needed rest. Formerly he had
been used to disappear from Rome periodically, making long journeys,
generally ending in shooting expeditions in some half-explored country.
That was in the days before his marriage, and his wanderings had
assuredly done him no harm. He had seen much of the world not usually
seen by men of his class and prejudices, and the acquaintance he had
thus got with things and people was a source of great satisfaction to
him. But the time had come to give up all this. He was now not only
married and settled in his own home, but moreover he loved his wife
with his whole heart, and these facts were serious obstacles against
roughing it in Norway, Canada, or Transylvania. To travel with Corona
and little Orsino seemed a very different matter from travelling with
Corona alone. Then there was his father's growing affection for the
child, which had to be taken into account in all things. The four had
become inseparable, old Saracinesca, Giovanni, Corona, and the baby.

Now Giovanni did not regret his old liberty. He knew that he was far
happier than he had ever been in his life before. But there were days
when the time hung heavily on his hands and his restless nature craved
some kind of action which should bring with it a generous excitement.
This was precisely what he could not find during the months spent in
Rome, and so it fell out that he did very much what most young men of
his birth found quite sufficient as an employment; he spent a deal of
time in strolling where others strolled, in lounging at the club, and
in making visits which filled the hours between sunset and dinner. To
him this life was new, and not altogether tasteful; but his friends did
not fail to say that Giovanni had been civilised by his marriage with
the Astrardente, and was much less reserved than he had formerly been.

When Corona went to see the dressmaker, Giovanni very naturally took
his hat and went out of the house. The September day was warm and
bright, and in such weather it was a satisfaction merely to pace the
old Roman streets in the autumn sun. It was too early to meet any of
his acquaintance, and too soon in the season for any regular visiting.
He did not know what to do, but allowed himself to enjoy the sunshine
and the sweet air. Presently, the sight of a couple of Zouaves, talking
together at the corner of a street, recalled to his mind the accident
which had happened to Gouache. It would be kind to go and see the poor
fellow, or, at least, to ask after him. He had known him for some time
and had gradually learned to like him, as most people did who met the
gifted artist day after day throughout the gaiety of the winter.

At the Palazzo Montevarchi Giovanni learned that the princess had just
finished breakfast. He could hardly ask for Gouache without making a
short visit in the drawing-room, and he accordingly submitted,
regretting after all that he had come. The old princess bored him, he
did not know Faustina, who was just out of the convent, and Flavia, who
amused many people, did not amuse him in the least. He inwardly
rejoiced that he was married, and that his visit could not be
interpreted as a preliminary step towards asking for Flavia's hand.

The princess looked up with an expression of inquiry in her prominent
blue eyes, as Sant' Ilario entered. She was stout, florid, and not well
dressed. Her yellow hair, already half gray, for she was more than
fifty years old, was of the unruly kind, and had never looked neat even
in her best days. Her bright, clear complexion saved her, however, as
it saves hundreds of middle-aged Englishwomen, from that look of
peculiar untidiness which belongs to dark-skinned persons who take no
trouble about their appearance or personal adornment. In spite of
thirty-three years of residence in Rome, she spoke Italian with a
foreign accent, though otherwise correctly enough. But she was
nevertheless a great lady, and no one would have thought of doubting
the fact. Fat, awkwardly dressed, of no imposing stature, with
unmanageable hair and prominent teeth, she was not a person to be
laughed at. She had what many a beautiful woman lacks and
envies--natural dignity of character and manner, combined with a
self-possession which is not always found in exalted personages. That
repose of manner which is commonly believed to be the heirloom of noble
birth is seen quite as often in the low-born adventurer, who regards it
as part of his stock-in-trade; and there are many women, and men too,
whose position might be expected to place them beyond the reach of what
we call shyness, but who nevertheless suffer daily agonies of social
timidity and would rather face alone a charge of cavalry than make a
new acquaintance. The Princess Montevarchi was made of braver stuff,
however, and if her daughters had not inherited all her unaffected
dignity they had at least received their fair share of self-possession.
When Sant' Ilario entered, these two young ladies, Donna Flavia and
Donna Faustina, were seated one on each side of their mother. The
princess extended her hand, the two daughters held theirs demurely
crossed upon their knees. Faustina looked at the carpet, as she had
been taught to do in the convent. Flavia looked up boldly at Giovanni,
knowing by experience that her mother could not see her while greeting
the visitor. Sant' Ilario muttered some sort of civil inquiry, bowed to
the two young ladies and sat down.

"How is Monsieur Gouache?" he asked, going straight to the point. He
had seen the look of surprise on the princess's face as he entered, and
thought it best to explain himself at once.

"Ah, you have heard? Poor man! He is badly hurt, I fear. Would you like
to see him?"

"Presently, if I may," answered Giovanni. "We are all fond of Gouache.
How did the accident happen?"

"Faustina ran over him," said Flavia, fixing her dark eyes on Giovanni
and allowing her pretty face to assume an expression of sympathy--for
the sufferer. "Faustina and papa," she added.

"Flavia! How can you say such things!" exclaimed the princess, who
spent a great part of her life in repressing her daughter's manner of
speech.

"Well, mamma--it was the carriage of course. But papa and Faustina were
in it. It is the same thing."

Giovanni looked at Faustina, but her thin fresh face expressed nothing,
nor did she show any intention of commenting on her sister's
explanation. It was the first time he had seen her near enough to
notice her, and his attention was arrested by something in her looks
which surprised and interested him. It was something almost impossible
to describe, and yet so really present that it struck Sant' Ilario at
once, and found a place in his memory. In the superstitions of the far
north, as in the half material spiritualism of Polynesia, that look has
a meaning and an interpretation. With us, the interpretation is lost,
but the instinctive persuasion that the thing itself is not wholly
meaningless remains ineradicable. We say, with a smile at our own
credulity, "That man looks as though he had a story," or, "That woman
looks as though something odd might happen to her." It is an expression
in the eyes, a delicate shade in the features, which speak of many
things which we do not understand; things which, if they exist at all,
we feel must be inevitable, fatal, and beyond human control. Giovanni
looked and was surprised, but Faustina said nothing.

"It was very good of the prince to bring him here," remarked Sant'
Ilario.

"It was very unlike papa," exclaimed Flavia, before her mother could
answer. "But very kind, of course, as you say," she added, with a
little smile. Flavia had a habit of making rather startling remarks,
and of then adding something in explanation or comment, before her
hearers had recovered breath. The addition did not always mend matters
very much.

"Do not interrupt me, Flavia," said her mother, severely.

"I beg your pardon, were you speaking, mamma?" asked the young girl,
innocently.

Giovanni was not amused by Flavia's manners, and waited calmly for the
princess to speak.

"Indeed," said she, "there was nothing else to be done. As we had run
over the poor man--"

"The carriage--" suggested Flavia. But her mother took no notice of her.

"The least we could do, of course, was to bring him here. My husband
would not have allowed him to be taken to the hospital."

Flavia again fixed her eyes on Giovanni with a look of sympathy, which,
however, did not convey any very profound belief in her father's
charitable intentions.

"I quite understand," said Giovanni. "And how has he been since you
brought him here? Is he in any danger?"

"You shall see him at once," answered the princess, who rose and rang
the bell, and then, as the servant's footsteps were heard outside,
crossed the room to meet him at the door.

"Mamma likes to run about," said Flavia, sweetly, in explanation.
Giovanni had risen and made as though he would have been of some
assistance.

The action was characteristic of the Princess Montevarchi. An Italian
woman would neither have rung the bell herself, nor have committed such
an imprudence as to turn her back upon her two daughters when there was
a man in the room. But she was English, and a whole lifetime spent
among Italians could not extinguish her activity; so she went to the
door herself. Faustina's deep eyes followed her mother as though she
were interested to know the news of Gouache.

"I hope he is better," she said, quietly.

"Of course," echoed Flavia, "So do I. But mamma amuses me so much! She
is always in a hurry."

Faustina made no answer, but she looked at Sant' Ilario, as though she
wondered what he thought of her sister. He returned her gaze, trying to
explain to himself the strange attraction of her expression, watching
her critically as he would have watched any new person or sight. She
did not blush nor avoid his bold eyes, as he would have expected had he
realised that he was staring at her.

A few minutes later Giovanni found himself in a narrow, high room,
lighted by one window, which showed the enormous thickness of the walls
in the deep embrasure. The vaulted ceiling was painted in fresco with a
representation of Apollo in the act of drawing his bow, arrayed for the
time being in his quiver, while his other garments, of yellow and blue,
floated everywhere save over his body. The floor of the room was of red
bricks, which had once been waxed, and the furniture was scanty,
massive and very old. Anastase Gouache lay in one corner in a
queer-looking bed covered with a yellow damask quilt the worse for a
century or two of wear, upon which faded embroideries showed the
Montevarchi arms surmounted by a cardinal's hat. Upon a chair beside
the patient lay the little heap of small belongings he had carried in
his pocket when hurt, his watch and purse, his cigarettes, his
handkerchief and a few other trifles, among which, half concealed by
the rest, was the gold pin he had picked up by the bridge on the
previous evening. There was a mingled smell of dampness and of stale
tobacco in the comfortless room, for the windows were closely shut, in
spite of the bright sunshine that flooded the opposite side of the
street.

Gouache lay on his back, his head tied up in a bandage and supported by
a white pillow, which somehow conveyed the impression of one of those
marble cushions upon which in old-fashioned monuments the effigies of
the dead are made to lean in eternal prayer, if not in eternal ease. He
moved impatiently as the door opened, and then recognising Giovanni, he
hailed him in a voice much more lively and sonorous than might have
been expected.

"You, prince!" he cried, in evident delight. "What saint has brought
you?"

"I heard of your accident, and so I came to see if I could do anything
for you. How are you?"

"As you see," replied Gouache. "In a hospitable tomb, with my head tied
up like an imperfectly-resurrected Lazarus. For the rest there is
nothing the matter with me, except that they have taken away my
clothes, which is something of an obstacle to my leaving the house at
once. I feel as if I had been in a revolution and had found myself on
the wrong side of the barricade--nothing worse than that."

"You are in good spirits, at all events. But are you not seriously
hurt?"

"Oh, nothing--a broken collar-bone somewhere, I believe, and some part
of my head gone--I am not quite sure which, and a bad headache, and
nothing to eat, and a general sensation as though somebody had made an
ineffectual effort to turn me into a sausage."

"What does the doctor say?"

"Nothing. He is a man of action. He bled me because I had not the
strength to strangle him, and poured decoctions of boiled grass down my
throat because I could not speak. He has fantastic ideas about the
human body."

"But you will have to stay here several days," said Giovanni,
considerably amused by Gouache's view of his own case.

"Several days! Not even several hours, if I can help it."

"Things do not go so quickly in Rome. You must be patient."

"In order to starve, when there is food as near as the Corso?" inquired
the artist. "To be butchered by a Roman phlebotomist, and drenched with
infusions of hay by the Principessa Montevarchi, when I might be
devising means of being presented to her daughter? What do you take me
for? I suppose the young lady with the divine eyes is her daughter, is
she not?"

"You mean Donna Faustina, I suppose. Yes. She is the youngest, just out
of the Sacro Cuore. She was in the drawing-room when I called just now.
How did you see her?"

"Last night, as they brought me upstairs, I was lucky enough to wake up
just as she was looking at me. What eyes! I can think of nothing else.
Seriously, can you not help me to get out of here?"

"So that you may fall in love with Donna Faustina as soon as possible,
I suppose," answered Giovanni with a laugh. "It seems to me that there
is but one thing to do, if you are really strong enough. Send for your
clothes, get up, go into the drawing-room and thank the princess for
her hospitality."

"That is easily said. Nothing is done in this house without the written
permission of the old prince, unless I am much mistaken. Besides, there
is no bell. I might as well be under arrest in the guard-room of the
barracks. Presently the doctor will come and bleed me again and the
princess will send me some more boiled grass. I am not very fat, as it
is, but another day of this diet will make me diaphanous--I shall cast
no shadow. A nice thing, to be caught without a shadow on parade!"

"I will see what I can do," said Giovanni, rising. "Probably, the best
thing would be to send your military surgeon. He will not be so tender
as the other leech, but he will get you away at once. My wife wished me
to say that she sympathised, and hoped you might soon be well."

"My homage and best thanks to the princess," answered Gouache, with a
slight change of tone, presumably to be referred to his sense of
courtesy in speaking of the absent lady.

So Giovanni went away, promising to send the surgeon at once. The
latter soon arrived, saw Gouache, and was easily persuaded to order him
home without further delay. The artist-soldier would not leave the
house without thanking his hostess. His uniform had been cleansed from
the stains it had got in the accident, and his left arm was in a sling.
The wound on his head was more of a bruise than a cut, and was
concealed by his thick black hair. Considering the circumstances he
presented a very good appearance. The princess received him in the
drawing-room, and Flavia and Faustina were with her, but all three were
now dressed to go out, so that the interview was necessarily a short
one.

Gouache made a little speech of thanks and tried to forget the
decoction of mallows he had swallowed, fearing lest the recollection
should impart a tone of insincerity to his expression of gratitude. He
succeeded very well, and afterwards attributed the fact to Donna
Faustina's brown eyes, which were not cast down as they had been when
Sant' Ilario had called, but appeared on the contrary to contemplate
the new visitor with singular interest.

"I am sure my husband will not approve of your going so soon," said the
princess in somewhat anxious tones. It was almost the first time she
had ever known any step of importance to be taken in her house without
her husband's express authority.

"Madame," answered Gouache, glancing from Donna Faustina to his
hostess, "I am in despair at having thus unwillingly trespassed upon
your hospitality, although I need not tell you that I would gladly
prolong so charming an experience, provided I were not confined to
solitude in a distant chamber. However, since our regimental surgeon
pronounces me fit to go home, I have no choice but to obey orders.
Believe me, Madame, I am deeply grateful to yourself as well as to the
Principe Montevarchi for your manifold kindnesses, and shall cherish a
remembrance of your goodness so long as I live."

With these words Gouache bowed as though he would be gone and stood
waiting for the princess's last word. But before her mother could
speak, Faustina's voice was heard.

"I cannot tell you how dreadfully we feel--papa and I--at having been
the cause of such a horrible accident! Is there nothing we can do to
make you forget it?"

The princess stared at her daughter in the utmost astonishment at her
forwardness. She would not have been surprised if Flavia had been
guilty of such imprudence, but that Faustina should thus boldly address
a young man who had not spoken to her, was such a shock to her belief
in the girl's manners that she did not recover for several seconds.
Anastase appreciated the situation, for as he answered, he looked
steadily at the mother, although his words were plainly addressed to
the brown-eyed beauty.

"Mademoiselle is too kind. She exaggerates. And yet, since she has put
the question, I will say that I should forget my broken bones very soon
if I might be permitted to paint Mademoiselle's portrait. I am a
painter," he added, in modest explanation.

"Yes," said the princess, "I know. But, really--this is a matter which
would require great consideration--and my husband's consent--and, for
the present---"

She paused significantly, intending to convey a polite refusal, but
Gouache completed the sentence.

"For the present, until my bones are mended, we will not speak of it.
When I am well again I will do myself the honour of asking the prince's
consent myself."

Flavia leaned towards her mother and whispered into her ear. The words
were quite audible, and the girl's dark eyes turned to Gouache with a
wicked laugh in them while she was speaking.

"Oh, mamma, if you tell papa it is for nothing he will be quite
delighted!"

Gouache's lip trembled as he suppressed a smile, and the elderly
princess's florid cheeks flushed with annoyance.

"For the present," she said, holding out her hand rather coldly, "we
will not speak of it. Pray let us know of your speedy recovery,
Monsieur Gouache."

As the artist took his leave he glanced once more at Donna Faustina.
Her face was pale and her eyes flashed angrily. She, too, had heard
Flavia's stage whisper and was even more annoyed than her mother.
Gouache went his way toward his lodging in the company of the surgeon,
pondering on the inscrutable mysteries of the Roman household of which
he had been vouchsafed a glimpse. He was in pain from his head and
shoulder, but insisted that the walk would do him good and refused the
cab which his companion had brought. A broken collar-bone is not a
dangerous matter, but it can be very troublesome for a while, and the
artist was glad to get back to his lodgings and to find himself
comfortably installed in an easy chair with something to eat before
him, of a more substantial nature than the Principessa Montevarchi's
infusions of camomile and mallows.




CHAPTER III.


While Giovanni was at the Palazzo Montevarchi, and while Corona was
busy with her dressmakers, Prince Saracinesca was dozing over the
Osservatore Romano in his study. To tell the truth the paper was less
dull than usual, for there was war and rumour of war in its columns.
Garibaldi had raised a force of volunteers and was in the neighbourhood
of Arezzo, beginning to skirmish with the outlying posts of the
pontifical army along the frontier. The old gentleman did not know, of
course, that on that very day the Italian Government was issuing its
proclamation against the great agitator, and possibly if he had been
aware of the incident it would not have produced any very strong
impression upon his convictions. Garibaldi was a fact, and Saracinesca
did not believe that any proclamations would interfere with his march
unless backed by some more tangible force. Even had he known that the
guerilla general had been arrested at Sinalunga and put in confinement
as soon as the proclamation had appeared, the prince would have
foreseen clearly enough that the prisoner's escape would be only a
question of a few days, since there were manifold evidences that an
understanding existed between Ratazzi and Garibaldi of much the same
nature as that which in 1860 had been maintained between Garibaldi and
Cavour during the advance upon Naples. The Italian Government kept men
under arms to be ready to take advantage of any successes obtained by
the Garibaldian volunteers, and at the same time to suppress the
republican tendencies of the latter, which broke out afresh with every
new advance, and disappeared, as by magic, under the depressing
influence of a forced retreat.

The prince knew all these things, and had reflected upon them so often
that they no longer afforded enough interest to keep him awake. The
warm September sun streamed into the study and fell upon the paper as
it slowly slipped over the old gentleman's knees, while his head sank
lower and lower on his breast. The old enamelled clock upon the
chimney-piece ticked more loudly, as clocks seem to do when people are
asleep and they are left to their own devices, and a few belated flies
chased each other in the sunbeams.

The silence was broken by the entrance of a servant, who would have
withdrawn again when he saw that his master was napping, had not the
latter stirred and raised his head before the man had time to get away.
Then the fellow came forward with an apology and presented a
visiting-card. The prince stared at the bit of pasteboard, rubbed his
eyes, stared again, and then laid it upon the table beside him, his
eyes still resting on the name, which seemed so much to surprise him.
Then he told the footman to introduce the visitor, and a few moments
later a very tall man entered the room, hat in hand, and advanced
slowly towards him with the air of a person who has a perfect right to
present himself but wishes to give his host time to recognise him.

The prince remembered the newcomer very well. The closely-buttoned
frock-coat showed the man's imposing figure to greater advantage than
the dress in which Saracinesca had last seen him, but there was no
mistaking the personality. There was the same lean but massive face,
broadened by the high cheekbones and the prominent square jaw; there
were the same piercing black eyes, set near together under eyebrows
that met in the midst of the forehead, the same thin and cruel lips,
and the same strongly-marked nose, set broadly on at the nostrils,
though pointed and keen. Had the prince had any doubts as to his
visitor's identity they would have been dispelled by the man's great
height and immense breadth of shoulder, which would have made it hard
indeed for him to disguise himself had he wished to do so. But though
very much surprised, Saracinesca had no doubts whatever. The only
points that were new to him in the figure before him were the outward
manner and appearance, and the dress of a gentleman.

"I trust I am not disturbing you, prince?" The words were spoken in a
deep, clear voice, and with a notable southern accent.

"Not at all. I confess I am astonished at seeing you in Rome. Is there
anything I can do for you? I shall always be grateful to you for having
been alive to testify to the falsehood of that accusation made against
my son. Pray sit down. How is your Signora? And the children? All well,
I hope?"

"My wife is dead," returned the other, and the grave tones of his bass
voice lent solemnity to the simple statement.

"I am sincerely sorry--" began the prince, but his visitor interrupted
him.

"The children are well. They are in Aquila for the present. I have come
to establish myself in Rome, and my first visit is naturally to
yourself, since I have the advantage of being your cousin."

"Naturally," ejaculated Saracinesca, though his face expressed
considerable surprise.

"Do not imagine that I am going to impose myself upon you as a poor
relation," continued the other with a faint smile. "Fortune has been
kind to me since we met, perhaps as a compensation for the loss I
suffered in the death of my poor wife. I have a sufficient independence
and can hold my own."

"I never supposed--"

"You might naturally have supposed that I had come to solicit your
favour, though it is not the case. When we parted I was an innkeeper in
Aquila. I have no cause to be ashamed of my past profession. I only
wish to let you know that it is altogether past, and that I intend to
resume the position which my great-grandfather foolishly forfeited. As
you are the present head of the family I judged that it was my duty to
inform you of the fact immediately."

"By all means. I imagined this must be the case from your card. You are
entirely in your rights, and I shall take great pleasure in informing
every one of the fact. You are the Marchese di San Giacinto, and the
inn at Aquila no longer exists."

"As these things must be done, once and for always, I have brought my
papers to Rome," answered the Marchese. "They are at your disposal, for
you certainly have a right to see them, if you like. I will recall to
your memory the facts of our history, in case you have forgotten them."

"I know the story well enough," said Saracinesca. "Our
great-grandfathers were brothers. Yours went to live in Naples. His son
grew up and joined the French against the King. His lands were
forfeited, he married and died in obscurity, leaving your father, his
only son. Your father died young and you again are his only son. You
married the Signora Felice--"

"Baldi," said the Marchese, nodding in confirmation of the various
statements.

"The Signora Felice Baldi, by whom you have two children--"

"Boys."

"Two boys. And the Signora Marchesa, I grieve to hear, is dead. Is that
accurate?"

"Perfectly. There is one circumstance, connected with our
great-grandfathers, which you have not mentioned, but which I am sure
you remember."

"What is that?" asked the prince, fixing his keen eyes on his
companion's face.

"It is only this," replied San Giacinto, calmly. "My great-grandfather
was two years older than yours. You know he never meant to marry, and
resigned the title to his younger brother, who had children already. He
took a wife in his old age, and my grandfather was the son born to him.
That is why you are so much older than I, though we are of the same
generation in the order of descent."

"Yes," assented the prince. "That accounts for it. Will you smoke?"

Giovanni Saracinesca, Marchese di San Giacinto, looked curiously at his
cousin as he took the proffered cigar. There was something abrupt in
the answer which attracted his attention and roused his quick
suspicions. He wondered whether that former exchange of titles, and
consequent exchange of positions were an unpleasant subject of
conversation to the prince. But the latter, as though anticipating such
a doubt in his companion's mind, at once returned to the question with
the boldness which was natural to him.

"There was a friendly agreement," he said, striking a match and
offering it to the Marchese. "I have all the documents, and have
studied them with interest. It might amuse you to see them, some day."

"I should like to see them, indeed," answered San Giacinto. "They must
be very curious. As I was saying, I am going to establish myself in
Rome. It seems strange to me to be playing the gentleman--it must seem
even more odd to you."

"It would be truer to say that you have been playing the innkeeper,"
observed the prince, courteously. "No one would suspect it," he added,
glancing at his companion's correct attire.

"I have an adaptable nature," said the Marchese, calmly. "Besides, I
have always looked forward to again taking my place in the world. I
have acquired a little instruction--not much, you will say, but it is
sufficient as the times go; and as for education, it is the same for
every one, innkeeper or prince. One takes off one's hat, one speaks
quietly, one says what is agreeable to hear--is it not enough?"

"Quite enough," replied the prince. He was tempted to smile at his
cousin's definition of manners, though he could see that the man was
quite able to maintain his position. "Quite enough, indeed, and as for
instruction, I am afraid most of us have forgotten our Latin. You need
have no anxiety on that score. But, tell me, how comes it that, having
been bred in the south, you prefer to establish yourself in Rome rather
than in Naples? They say that you Neapolitans do not like us."

"I am a Roman by descent, and I wish to become one in fact," returned
the Marchese. "Besides," he added, in a peculiarly grave tone of voice,
"I do not like the new order of things. Indeed, I have but one favour
to ask of you, and that is a great one."

"Anything in my power--"

"To present me to the Holy Father as one who desires to become his
faithful subject. Could you do so, do you think, without any great
inconvenience?"

"Eh! I shall be delighted! Magari!" answered the prince, heartily. "To
tell the truth, I was afraid you meant to keep your Italian
convictions, and that, in Rome, would be against you, especially in
these stormy days. But if you will join us heart and soul you will be
received with open arms. I shall take great pleasure in seeing you make
the acquaintance of my son and his wife. Come and dine this evening."

"Thank you," said the Marchese. "I will not fail."

After a few more words San Giacinto took his leave, and the prince
could not but admire the way in which this man, who had been brought up
among peasants, or at best among the small farmers of an outlying
district, assumed at once an air of perfect equality while allowing
just so much of respect to appear in his manner as might properly be
shown by a younger member to the head of a great house. When he was
gone Saracinesca rang the bell.

"Pasquale," he said, addressing the old butler who answered the
summons, "that gentleman who is just gone is my cousin, Don Giovanni
Saracinesca, who is called Marchese di San Giacinto. He will dine here
this evening. You will call him Eccellenza, and treat him as a member
of the family. Go and ask the princess if she will receive me."

Pasquale opened his mental eyes very wide as he bowed and left the
room. He had never heard of this other Saracinesca, and the appearance
of a new member of the family upon the scene, who must, from his
appearance, have been in existence between thirty and forty years,
struck him as astonishing in the extreme; for the old servant had been
bred up in the house from a boy and imagined himself master of all the
secrets connected with the Saracinesca household.

He was, indeed, scarcely less surprised than his master who, although
he had been aware for some time past that Giovanni Saracinesca existed
and was his cousin, had never anticipated the event of his coming to
Rome, and had expected still less that the innkeeper would ever assume
the title to which he had a right and play the part of a gentleman, as
he himself had expressed it. There was a strange mixture of boldness
and foresight in the way the old prince had received his new relation.
He knew the strength of his own position in society, and that the
introduction of a humble cousin could not possibly do him harm. At the
worst, people might laugh a little among themselves and remark that the
Marchese must be a nuisance to the Saracinesca. On the other hand, the
prince was struck from the first with the air of self-possession which
he discerned in San Giacinto, and foresaw that the man would very
probably play a part in Roman life. He was a man who might be disliked,
but who could not be despised; and since his claims to consideration
were undeniably genuine, it seemed wiser to accept him from the first
as a member of the family and unhesitatingly to treat him as such.
After all, he demanded nothing to which he had not a clear right from
the moment he announced his intention of taking his place in the world,
and it was certainly far wiser to receive him cordially at once, than
to draw back from acknowledging the relationship because he had been
brought up in another sphere.

This was the substance of what Prince Saracinesca communicated to his
daughter-in-law a few minutes later. She listened patiently to all he
had to say, only asking a question now and then in order to understand
more clearly what had happened. She was curious to see the man whose
name had once been so strangely confounded with her husband's by the
machinations of the Conte Del Ferice and Donna Tullia Mayer, and she
frankly confessed her curiosity and her satisfaction at the prospect of
meeting San Giacinto that evening. While she was talking with the
prince, Giovanni unexpectedly returned from his walk. He had turned
homewards as soon as he had sent the military surgeon to Gouache.
"Well, Giovannino," cried the old gentleman, "the prodigal innkeeper
has returned to the bosom of the family."

"What innkeeper?"

"Your worthy namesake, and cousin, Giovanni Saracinesca, formerly of
Aquila."

"Does Madame Mayer want to prove that it is he who has married Corona?"
inquired Sant 'Ilario with a laugh.

"No, though I suppose he is a candidate for marriage. I never was more
surprised in my life. His wife is dead. He is rich, or says he is. He
has his card printed in full, 'Giovanni Saracinesca, Marchese di San
Giacinto,' in the most correct manner. He wears an excellent coat, and
announces his intention of being presented to the Pope and introduced
to Roman society."

Sant' Ilario stared incredulously at his father, and then looked
inquiringly at his wife as though to ask if it were not all a jest.
When he was assured that the facts were true he looked grave and slowly
stroked his pointed black beard, a gesture which was very unusual with
him, and always accompanied the deepest meditation.

"There is nothing to be done but to receive him into the family," he
said at last. "But I do not wholly believe in his good intentions. We
shall see. I shall be glad to make his acquaintance."

"He is coming to dinner."

The conversation continued for some time and the arrival of San
Giacinto was discussed in all its bearings. Corona took a very
practical view of the question, and said that it was certainly best to
treat him well, thereby relieving her father-in-law of a considerable
anxiety. He had indeed feared lest she should resent the introduction
of a man who might reasonably be supposed to have retained a certain
coarseness of manner from his early surroundings, and he knew that her
consent was all-important in such a case, since she was virtually the
mistress of the house. But Corona regarded the matter in much the same
light as the old gentleman himself, feeling that nothing of such a
nature could possibly injure the imposing position of her husband's
family, and taking it for granted that no one who had good blood in his
veins could ever behave outrageously. Of all the three, Sant' Ilario
was the most silent and thoughtful, for he feared certain consequences
from the arrival of this new relation which did not present themselves
to the minds of the others, and was resolved to be cautious
accordingly, even while appearing to receive San Giacinto with all due
cordiality. Later in the day he was alone with his father for a few
minutes.

"Do you like this fellow?" he asked, abruptly.

"No," answered the prince.

"Neither do I, though I have not seen him."

"We shall see," was the old gentleman's answer.

The evening came, and at the appointed hour San Giacinto was announced.
Both Corona and her husband were surprised at his imposing appearance,
as well as at the dignity and self-possession he displayed. His
southern accent was not more noticeable than that of many Neapolitan
gentlemen, and his conversation, if neither very brilliant nor very
fluent, was not devoid of interest. He talked of the agricultural
condition of the new Italy, and old Saracinesca and his son were both
interested in the subject. They noticed, too, that during dinner no
word escaped him which could give any clue to his former occupation or
position, though afterwards, when the servants were not present, he
alluded more than once with a frank smile to his experiences as an
innkeeper. On the whole, he seemed modest and reserved, yet perfectly
self-possessed and conscious of his right to be where he was.

Such conduct on the part of such a man did not appear so surprising to
the Saracinesca household, as it would have seemed to foreigners. San
Giacinto had said that he had an adaptable character, and that
adaptability is one of the most noticeable features of the Italian
race. It is not necessary to discuss the causes of this peculiarity.
They would be incomprehensible to the foreigner at large, who never has
any real understanding of Italians. I do not hesitate to say that,
without a single exception, every foreigner, poet or prose-writer, who
has treated of these people has more or less grossly misunderstood
them. That is a sweeping statement, when it is considered that few men
of the highest genius in our century have not at one time or another
set down upon paper their several estimates of the Italian race. The
requisite for accurately describing people, however, is not genius, but
knowledge of the subject. The poet commonly sees himself in others, and
the modern writer upon Italy is apt to believe that he can see others
in himself. The reflection of an Italian upon the mental retina of the
foreigner is as deceptive as his own outward image is when seen upon
the polished surface of a concave mirror; and indeed the character
studies of many great men, when the subject is taken from a race not
their own, remind one very forcibly of what may be seen by
contemplating oneself in the bowl of a bright silver spoon. To
understand Italians a man must have been born and bred among them; and
even then the harder, fiercer instinct, which dwells in northern blood,
may deceive the student and lead him far astray. The Italian is an
exceedingly simple creature, and is apt to share the opinion of the
ostrich, who ducks his head and believes his whole body is hidden.
Foreigners use strong language concerning the Italian lie; but this
only proves how extremely transparent the deception is. It is indeed a
singular fact, but one which may often be observed, that two Italians
who lie systematically will frequently believe each other, to their own
ruin, with a childlike faith rarely found north of the Alps. This seems
to me to prove that their dishonesty has outgrown their indolent
intelligence; and indeed they deceive themselves nearly as often as
they succeed in deceiving their neighbours. In a country where a lie
easily finds credence, lying is not likely to be elevated to the rank
of a fine art. I have often wondered how such men as Cesare Borgia
succeeded in entrapping their enemies by snares which a modern
northerner would detect from the first and laugh to scorn as mere
child's play.

There is an extraordinary readiness in Italians to fit themselves and
their lives to circumstances whenever they can save themselves trouble
by doing so. Their constitutions are convenient to this end, for they
are temperate in most things and do not easily fall into habits which
they cannot change at will. The desire to avoid trouble makes them the
most courteous among nations; and they are singularly obliging to
strangers when, by conferring an obligation, they are able to make an
acquaintance who will help them to pass an idle hour in agreeable
conversation. They are equally surprised, whether a stranger suspects
them of making advances for the sake of extracting money from him, or
expresses resentment at having been fraudulently induced to part with
any cash. The beggar in the street howls like a madman if you refuse an
alms, and calls you an idiot to his fellow-mendicant if you give him
five centimes. The servant says in his heart that his foreign employer
is a fool, and sheds tears of rage and mortification when his shallow
devices for petty cheating are discovered. And yet the servant, the
beggar, the shopkeeper, and the gentleman, are obliging sometimes
almost to philanthropy, and are ever ready to make themselves agreeable.

The Marchese di San Giacinto differed from his relations, the
Saracinesca princes, in that he was a full-blooded Italian, and not the
result of a cosmopolitan race-fusion, like so many of the Roman nobles.
He had not the Roman traditions, but, on the other hand, he had his
full share of the national characteristics, together with something
individual which lifted him above the common herd in point of
intelligence and in strength. He was a noticeable man; all the more so
because, with many pleasant qualities, his countrymen rarely possess
that physical and mental combination of size, energy, and reserve,
which inspires the sort of respect enjoyed by imposing personages.

As he sat talking with the family after dinner on the evening of his
first introduction to the household what passed in his mind and in the
minds of his hosts can be easily stated.

Sant' Ilario, whose ideas were more clear upon most subjects than those
of his father or his wife, said to himself that he did not like the
man; that he suspected him, and believed he had some hidden intention
in coming to Rome; that it would be wise to watch him perpetually and
to question everything he did; but that he was undeniably a relation,
possessing every right to consideration, and entitled to be treated
with a certain familiarity; that, finally and on the whole, he was a
nuisance, to be borne with a good grace and a sufficient show of
cordiality.

San Giacinto, for his part, was deeply engaged in maintaining the exact
standard of manners which he knew to be necessary for the occasion, and
his thoughts concerning his relatives were not yet altogether defined.
It was his intention to take his place among them, and he was doing his
best to accomplish this object as speedily and quietly as possible. He
had not supposed that princes and princesses were in any way different
from other human beings except by the accidents of wealth and social
position. Master of these two requisites there was no reason why he
should not feel as much at home with the Saracinesca as he had felt in
the society of the mayor and municipal council of Aquila, who possessed
those qualifications also, though in a less degree. The Saracinesca
probably thought about most questions very much as he himself did, or
if there were any difference in their mode of thinking it was due to
Roman prejudice and tradition rather than to any peculiarity inherent
in the organisation of the members of the higher aristocracy. If he
should find himself in any dilemma owing to his ignorance of social
details he would not hesitate to apply to the prince for information,
since it was by no means his fault if he had been brought up an
innkeeper and was now to be a nobleman. His immediate object was to
place himself among his equals, and his next purpose was to marry
again, in his new rank, a woman of good position and fortune. Of this
matter he intended to speak to the prince in due time, when he should
have secured the first requisite to his marriage by establishing
himself firmly in society. He meant to apply to the prince, ostensibly
as to the head of the family, thereby showing a deference to that
dignity, which he supposed would be pleasing to the old gentleman; but
he had not forgotten in his calculations the pride which old
Saracinesca must naturally feel in his race, and which would probably
induce him to take very great pains in finding a suitable wife for San
Giacinto rather than permit the latter to contract a discreditable
alliance.

San Giacinto left the house at half-past nine o'clock, under the
pretext of another engagement, for he did not mean to weary his
relations with too much of his company in the first instance. When he
was gone the three looked at each other in silence for some moments.

"He has surprisingly good manners, for an innkeeper," said Corona at
last. "No one will ever suspect his former life. But I do not like him."

"Nor I," said the prince.

"He wants something," said Sant' Ilario. "And he will probably get it,"
he added, after a short pause. "He has a determined face."




CHAPTER IV.


Anastase Gouache recovered rapidly from his injuries, but not so
quickly as he wished. There was trouble in the air, and many of his
comrades were already gone to the frontier where the skirmishing with
the irregular volunteers of Garibaldi's guerilla force had now begun in
earnest. To be confined to the city at such a time was inexpressibly
irksome to the gallant young Frenchman, who had a genuine love of
fighting in him, and longed for the first sensation of danger and the
first shower of whistling bullets. But his inactivity was inevitable,
and he was obliged to submit with the best grace he could, hoping only
that all might not be over before he was well enough to tramp out and
see some service with his companions-in-arms.

The situation was indeed urgent. The first article of the famous
convention between France and Italy, ratified in September, 1864, read
as follows:--

"Italy engages not to attack the actual territory of the Holy Father,
and to prevent, even by force, all attack coming from outside against
such territory."

Relying upon the observance of this chief clause, France had
conscientiously executed the condition imposed by the second article,
which provided that all French troops should be withdrawn from the
States of the Church. The promise of Italy to prevent invasion by force
applied to Garibaldi and his volunteers. Accordingly, on the 24th of
September, 1867, the Italian Government issued a proclamation against
the band and its proceedings, and arrested Garibaldi at Sinalunga, in
the neighbourhood of Arezzo. This was the only force employed, and it
may be believed that the Italian Government firmly expected that the
volunteers would disperse as soon as they found themselves without a
leader; and had proper measures been taken for keeping the general in
custody this would in all probability have followed very shortly, as
his sons, who were left at large, did not possess any of their father's
qualifications for leadership. Garibaldi, however, escaped eighteen
days later, and again joined his band, which had meanwhile been
defeated by the Pope's troops in a few small engagements, and had
gained one or two equally insignificant advantages over the latter. As
soon as it was known that Garibaldi was again at large, a simultaneous
movement began, the numerous Garibaldian emissaries who had arrived in
Rome stirring up an attempt at insurrection within the city, while
Garibaldi himself made a bold dash and seized Monte Rotondo, another
force at the same time striking at Sutbiaco, which, by a strange
ignorance of the mountains, Garibaldi appears to have believed to be
the southern key to the Campagna. In consequence of the protestations
of the French minister to the court of Italy, and perhaps, too, in
consequence of the approach of a large body of French troops by sea,
the Italian Government again issued a proclamation against Garibaldi,
who, however, remained in his strong position at Monte Rotondo.
Finally, on the 30th of October, the day on which the French troops
re-entered Rome, the Italians made a show of interfering in the Pope's
favour, General Menatiea authorising the Italian forces to enter the
Papal States in order to maintain order. They did not, however, do more
than make a short advance, and no active measures were taken, but
Garibaldi was routed on the 3d and 4th of November by the Papal forces,
and his band being dispersed the incident was at an end. But for the
armed intervention of France the result would have been that which
actually came about in 1870, when, the same Convention being still
valid, the French were prevented by their own disasters from sending a
force to the assistance of the Pope.

It is not yet time to discuss the question of the annexation of the
States of the Church to the kingdom of Italy. It is sufficient to have
shown that the movement of 1867 took place without any actual violation
of the letter of the Convention. The spirit in which the Italian
Government acted might be criticised at length. It is sufficient
however to notice that the Italian Government was, as it still is, a
parliamentary one; and to add that parliamentary government, in
general, exhibits its weakest side in the emergency of war, as its
greatest advantages are best appreciated in times of peace. In the
Italian Parliament of that day, as in that of the present time, there
was a preponderance of representatives who considered Rome to be the
natural capital of the country, and who were as ready to trample upon
treaties for the accomplishment of what they believed a righteous end,
as most parliaments have everywhere shown themselves in similar
circumstances. That majority differed widely, indeed, in opinion from
Garibaldi and Mazzini, but they conceived that they had a right to take
full advantage of any revolution the latter chanced to bring about, and
that it was their duty to their country to direct the stream of
disorder into channel which should lead to the aggrandisement of Italy,
by making use of Italy's standing army. The defenders of the Papal
States found themselves face to face, not with any organised and
disciplined force, but with a horde of brutal ruffians and half-grown
lads, desperate in that delight of unbridled license which has such
attractions for the mob in all countries; and all alike, Zouaves,
native troops and Frenchmen, were incensed to the highest degree by the
conduct of their enemies. It would be absurd to make the Italian
Government responsible for the atrocious defiling of churches, the
pillage and the shocking crimes of all sorts, which marked the advance
or retreat of the Garibaldians; but it is equally absurd to deny that a
majority of the Italians regarded these doings as a means to a very
desirable end, and, if they had not been hindered by the French, would
have marched a couple of army corps in excellent order to the gates of
Rome through the channel opened by a mob of lawless insurgents.

Anastase Gouache was disgusted with his state of forced inaction as he
paced the crowded pavement of the Corso every afternoon for three weeks
after his accident, smoking endless cigarettes, and cursing the fate
which kept him an invalid at home when his fellow-soldiers were
enjoying themselves amidst the smell of gunpowder and the adventures of
frontier skirmishing. It was indeed bad luck, he thought, to have worn
the uniform during nearly two years of perfect health and then to be
disabled just when the fighting began. He had one consolation, however,
in the midst of his annoyance, and he made the most of it. He had been
fascinated by Donna Faustina Montevarchi's brown eyes, and for lack of
any other interest upon which to expend his energy he had so well
employed his time that he was now very seriously in love with that
young lady. Among her numerous attractions was one which had a powerful
influence on the young artist, namely, the fact that she was, according
to all human calculations, absolutely beyond his reach. Nothing had
more charm for Gouache, as for many gifted and energetic young men,
than that which it must require a desperate effort to get, if it could
be got at all. Frenchmen, as well as Italians, consider marriage so
much in the light of a mere contract which must be settled between
notaries and ratified by parental assent, that to love a young girl
seems to them like an episode out of a fairy tale, enchantingly novel
and altogether delightful. To us, who consider love as a usual if not
an absolutely necessary preliminary to marriage, this point of view is
hardly conceivable; but it is enough to tell a Frenchman that you have
married your wife because you loved her, and not because your parents
or your circumstances arranged the match for you, to hear him utter the
loudest exclamations of genuine surprise and admiration, declaring that
his ideal of happiness, which he considers of course as quite
unattainable, would be to marry the woman of his affections. The
immediate result of a state in which that sort of bliss is considered
to be generally beyond the grasp of humanity has been to produce the
moral peculiarities of the French novel, of the French play, and of the
French household, as it is usually exhibited in books and on the stage.

The artist-Zouave was made of determined stuff. It was not for nothing
that he had won the great prize which brought him to the Academy in
Rome, nor was it out of mere romantic idleness that he had thrown over
the feeble conspiracies of Madame Mayer and her set in order to wear a
uniform. He had profound convictions, though he was not troubled with
any great number of them. Each new one which took hold of him marked an
epoch in his young life, and generally proved tenacious in proportion
as he had formerly regarded it as absurd; and it was a proof of the
sound balance of his mind that the three or four real convictions which
he had accumulated during his short life were in no way contradictory
to each other. On the contrary, each one seemed closely bound up with
the rest, and appeared to bring a fresh energy to that direct action
which, with Anastase, was the only possible result of any belief
whatsoever.

There was therefore a goodly store of logic in his madness, and though,
like Childe Harold, he had sighed to many, and at present loved but
one, yet he was determined, if it were possible, that this loved one
should be his; seeing that to sigh for anything, and not to take it if
it could be taken, was the part of a boy and not of a strong man.
Moreover, although the social difficulties which lay in his way were an
obstacle which would have seemed insurmountable to many, there were two
considerations which gave Anastase some hope of ultimate success. In
the first place Donna Faustina herself was not indifferent; and,
secondly, Anastase was no longer the humble student who had come to
Rome some years earlier with nothing but his pension in his pocket and
his talent in his fingers. He was certainly not of ancient lineage, but
since he had attained that position which enabled him to be received as
an equal in the great world, and had by his skill accumulated a portion
of that filthy lucre which is the platform whereon society moves and
has its exclusive being, he had the advantage of talking to Donna
Faustina, wherever he met her, in spite of her father's sixty-four
quarterings. Nor did those meetings take place only under the auspices
of so much heraldry and blazon, as will presently appear.

At that period of the year, and especially during such a time of
disturbance, there was no such thing as gaiety possible in Rome. People
met quietly in little knots at each other's houses and talked over the
state of the country, or walked and drove as usual in the villas and on
the Pincio. When society cannot be gay it is very much inclined to grow
confidential, to pull a long face, and to say things which, if uttered
above a whisper, would be considered extremely shocking, but which,
being communicated, augmented, criticised, and passed about quickly
without much noise, are considered exceedingly interesting. When every
one is supposed to be talking of politics it is very easy for every one
to talk scandal, and to construct neighbourly biography of an imaginary
character which shall presently become a part of contemporary history.
On the whole, society would almost as gladly do this as dance. In those
days of which I am speaking, therefore, there were many places where
two or three, and sometimes as many as ten, were gathered together in
council, ostensibly for the purpose of devising means whereby the Holy
Father might overcome his enemies, though they were very often engaged
in criticising the indecent haste exhibited by their best friends in
yielding to the wiles of Satan.

There were several of these rallying points, among which may be chiefly
noticed the Palazzo Valdarno, the Palazzo Saracinesca, and the Palazzo
Montevarchi. In the first of these three it may be observed in passing
that there was a division of opinion, the old people being the most
rigid of conservatives, while the children declared as loudly as they
dared that they were for Victor Emmanuel and United Italy. The
Saracinesca, on the other hand, were firmly united and determined to
stand by the existing order of things. Lastly, the Montevarchi all took
their opinions from the head of the house, and knew very well that they
would submit like sheep to be led whichever way was most agreeable to
the old prince. The friends who frequented those various gatherings
were of course careful to say whatever was most sure to please their
hosts, and after the set speeches were made most of them fell to their
usual occupation of talking about each other.

Gouache was an old friend of the Saracinesca, and came whenever he
pleased; since his accident, too, he had become better acquainted with
the Montevarchi, and was always a welcome guest, as he generally
brought the latest news of the fighting, as well as the last accounts
from France, which he easily got through his friendship with the young
attaches of his embassy. It is not surprising therefore that he should
have found so many opportunities of meeting Donna Faustina, especially
as Corona di Sant' Ilario had taken a great fancy to the young girl and
invited her constantly to the house.

On the very first occasion when Gouache called upon the Princess
Montevarchi in order to express again his thanks for the kindness he
had received, he found the room half full of people. Faustina was
sitting alone, turning over the pages of a book, and no one seemed to
pay any attention to her. After the usual speeches to the hostess
Gouache sat down beside her. She raised her brown eyes, recognised him,
and smiled faintly.

"What a wonderful contrast you are enjoying, Donna Faustina," said the
Zouave.

"How so? I confess it seems monotonous enough."

"I mean that it is a great change for you, from the choir of the Sacro
Cuore, from the peace of a convent, to this atmosphere of war."

"Yes; I wish I were back again."

"You do not like what you have seen of the world, Mademoiselle? It is
very natural. If the world were always like this its attraction would
not be dangerous. It is the pomps and vanities that are delightful."

"I wish they would begin then," answered Donna Faustina with more
natural frankness than is generally found in young girls of her
education.

"But were you not taught by the good sisters that those things are of
the devil?" asked Gouache with a smile.

"Of course. But Flavia says they are very nice."

Gouache imagined that Flavia ought to know, but he thought fit to
conceal his conviction.

"You mean Donna Flavia, your sister, Mademoiselle?"

"Yes."

"I suppose you are very fond of her, are you not? It must be very
pleasant to have a sister so nearly of one's own age in the world."

"She is much older than I, but I think we shall be very good friends."

"Your family must be almost as much strangers to you as the rest of the
world," observed Gouache. "Of course you have only seen them
occasionally for a long time past. You are fond of reading, I see."

He made this remark to change the subject, and glanced at the book the
young girl still held in her hand.

"It is a new book," she said, opening the volume at the title-page. "It
is Manon Lescaut. Flavia has read it--it is by the Abbe Prevost. Do you
know him?"

Gouache did not know whether to laugh or to look grave.

"Did your mother give it to you?" he asked.

"No, but she says that as it is by an abbe, she supposes it must be
very moral. It is true that it has not the imprimatur, but being by a
priest it cannot possibly be on the Index."

"I do not know," replied Gouache, "Prevost was certainly in holy
orders, but I do not know him, as he died rather more than a hundred
years ago. You see the book is not new."

"Oh!" exclaimed Donna Faustina, "I thought it was. Why do you laugh? Am
I very ignorant not to know all about it?"

"No, indeed. Only, you will pardon me, Mademoiselle, if I offer a
suggestion. You see I am French and know a little about these matters.
You will permit me?"

Faustina opened her brown eyes very wide, and nodded gravely.

"If I were you, I would not read that book yet. You are too young."

"You seem to forget that I am eighteen years old, Monsieur Gouache."

"No, not at all. But five and twenty is a better age to read such
books. Believe me," he added seriously, "that story is not meant for
you."

Faustina looked at him for a few seconds and then laid the volume on
the table, pushing it away from her with a puzzled air. Gouache was
inwardly much amused at the idea of finding himself the moral preceptor
of a young girl he scarcely knew, in the house of her parents, who
passed for the most strait-laced of their kind. A feeling of deep
resentment against Flavia, however, began to rise beneath his first
sensation of surprise.

"What are books for?" asked Donna Faustina, with a little sigh. "The
good ones are dreadfully dull, and it is wrong to read the amusing
ones--until one is married. I wonder why?"

Gouache did not find any immediate answer and might have been seriously
embarrassed had not Giovanni Sant' Ilario come up just then. Gouache
rose to relinquish his seat to the newcomer, and as he passed before
the table deftly turned over the book with his finger so that the title
should not be visible. It jarred disagreeably on his sensibilities to
think that Giovanni might see a copy of Manon Lescaut lying by the
elbow of Donna Faustina Montevarchi. Sant' Ilario did not see the
action and probably would not have noticed it if he had.

Anastase pondered all that afternoon and part of the next morning over
his short conversation, and the only conclusion at which he arrived was
that Faustina was the most fascinating girl he had ever met. When he
compared the result produced in his mind with his accurate recollection
of what had passed between them, he laughed at his haste and called
himself a fool for yielding to such nonsensical ideas. The conversation
of a young girl, he argued, could only be amusing for a short time. He
wondered what he should say at their next meeting, since all such talk,
according to his notions, must inevitably consist of commonplaces. And
yet at the end of a quarter of an hour of such meditation he found that
he was constructing an interview which was anything but dull, at least
in his own anticipatory opinion.

Meanwhile the first ten days of October passed in comparative quiet.
The news of Garibaldi's arrest produced temporary lull in the
excitement felt in Rome, although the real struggle was yet to come.
People observed to each other that strange faces were to be seen in the
streets, but as no one could enter without a proper passport, very
little anxiety gained the public mind.

Gouache saw Faustina very often during the month that followed his
accident. Such good fortune would have been impossible under any other
circumstances, but, as has been explained, there were numerous little
social confabulations on foot, for people were drawn together by a
vague sense of common danger, and the frequent meetings of the handsome
Zouave with the youngest of the Montevarchi passed unnoticed in the
general stir. The old princess indeed often saw the two together, but
partly owing to her English breeding, and partly because Gouache was
not in the least eligible or possible as a husband for her daughter,
she attached no importance to the acquaintance. The news that Garibaldi
was again at large caused great excitement, and every day brought fresh
news of small engagements along the frontier. Gouache was not yet quite
recovered, though he felt as strong as ever, and applied every day for
leave to go to the front. At last, on the 22d of October, the surgeon
pronounced him to be completely recovered, and Anastase was ordered to
leave the city on the following morning at daybreak.

As he mounted the sombre staircase of the Palazzo Saracinesca on the
afternoon previous to his departure, the predominant feeling in his
breast was great satisfaction and joy at being on the eve of seeing
active service, and he himself was surprised at the sharp pang he
suffered in the anticipation of bidding farewell to his friends. He
knew what friend it was whom he dreaded to leave, and how bitter that
parting would be, for which three weeks earlier he could have summoned
a neat speech expressing just so much of feeling as should be
calculated to raise an interest in the hearer, and prompted by just so
much delicate regret as should impart a savour of romance to his march
on the next day. It was different now.

Donna Faustina was in the room, as he had reason to expect, but it was
several minutes before Anastase could summon the determination
necessary to go to her side. She was standing near the piano, which
faced outwards towards the body of the room, but was screened by a
semicircular arrangement of plants, a novel idea lately introduced by
Corona, who was weary of the stiff old-fashioned way of setting all the
furniture against the wall. Faustina was standing at this point
therefore, when Gouache made towards her, having done homage to Corona
and to the other ladies in the room. His attention was arrested for a
moment by the sight of San Giacinto's gigantic figure. The cousin of
the house was standing before Flavia Montevarchi, bending slightly
towards her and talking in low tones. His magnificent proportions made
him by far the most noticeable person in the room, and it is no wonder
that Gouache paused and looked at him, mentally observing that the two
would make a fine couple.

As he stood still he became aware that Corona herself was at his side.
He glanced at her with something of inquiry in his eyes, and was about
to speak when she made him a sign to follow her. They sat down together
in a deserted corner at the opposite end of the room.

"I have something to say to you, Monsieur Gouache," she said, in a low
voice, as she settled herself against the cushions. "I do not know that
I have any right to speak, except that of a good friend--and of a
woman."

"I am at your orders, princess."

"No, I have no orders to give you. I have only a suggestion to make. I
have watched you often during the last month. My advice begins with a
question. Do you love her?"

Gouache's first instinct was to express the annoyance he felt at this
interrogation. He moved quickly and glanced sharply at Corona's velvet
eyes. Before the words that were on his lips could be spoken he
remembered all the secret reverence and respect he had felt for this
woman since he had first known her, he remembered how he had always
regarded her as a sort of goddess, a superior being, at once woman and
angel, placed far beyond the reach of mortals like himself. His
irritation vanished as quickly as it had arisen. But Corona had seen it.

"Are you angry?" she asked.

"If you knew how I worship you, you would know that I am not," answered
Gouache with a strange simplicity.

For an instant the princess's deep eyes flashed and a dark blush
mounted through her olive skin. She drew back, rather proudly. A
delicate, gentle smile played round the soldier's mouth.

"Perhaps it is your turn to be angry, Madame," he said, quietly. "But
you need not be. I would say it to your husband, as I would say it to
you in his presence. I worship you. You are the most beautiful woman in
the world, the most nobly good. Everybody knows it, why should I not
say it? I wish I were a little child, and that you were my mother. Are
you angry still?"

Corona was silent, and her eyes grew soft again as she looked kindly at
the man beside her. She did not understand him, but she knew that he
meant to express something which was not bad. Gouache waited for her to
speak.

"It was not for that I asked you to come with me," she said at last.

"I am glad I said it," replied Gouache. "I am going away to-morrow, and
it might never have been said. You asked me if I loved her. I trust
you. I say, yes, I do. I am going to say good-bye this afternoon."

"I am sorry you love her. Is it serious?"

"Absolutely, on my part. Why are you sorry? Is there anything unnatural
in it?"

"No, on the contrary, it is too natural. Our lives are unnatural. You
cannot marry her. It seems brutal to tell you so, but you must know it
already."

"There was once a little boy in Paris, Madame, who did not have enough
to eat every day, nor enough clothes when the north wind blew. But he
had a good heart. His name was Anastase Gouache."

"My dear friend," said Corona, kindly, "the atmosphere of Casa
Montevarchi is colder than the north wind. A man may overcome almost
anything more easily than the old-fashioned prejudices of a Roman
prince."

"You do not forbid me to try?"

"Would the prohibition make any difference?"

"I am not sure." Gouache paused and looked long at the princess. "No,"
he said at last, "I am afraid not."

"In that case I can only say one thing. You are a man of honour. Do
your best not to make her uselessly unhappy. Win her if you can, by any
fair means. But she has a heart, and I am very fond of the child. If
any harm comes to her I shall hold you responsible. If you love her,
think what it would be should she love you and be married to another
man."

A shade of sadness darkened Corona's brow, as she remembered those
terrible months of her own life. Gouache knew what she meant and was
silent for a few moments.

"I trust you," said she, at last. "And since you are going to-morrow,
God bless you. You are going in a good cause."

She held out her hand as she rose to leave him, and he bent over it and
touched it with his lips, as he would have kissed the hand of his
mother. Then, skirting the little assembly of people, Anastase went
back towards the piano, in search of Donna Faustina. He found her
alone, as young girls are generally to be found in Roman drawing-rooms,
unless there are two of them present to sit together.

"What have you been talking about with the princess?" asked Donna
Faustina when Gouache was seated beside her.

"Could you see from here?" asked Gouache instead of answering. "I
thought the plants would have hindered you."

"I saw you kiss her hand when you got up, and so I supposed that the
conversation had been serious."

"Less serious than ours must be," replied Anastase, sadly. "I was
saying good-bye to her, and now--"

"Good-bye? Why--?" Faustina checked herself and looked away to hide her
pallor. She felt cold, and a slight shiver passed over her slender
figure.

"I am going to the front to-morrow morning."

There was a long silence, during which the two looked at each other
from time to time, neither finding courage to speak. Since Gouache had
been in the room it had grown dark, and as yet but one lamp had been
brought. The young man's eyes sought those he loved in the dusk, and as
his hand stole out it met another, a tender, nervous hand, trembling
with emotion. They did not heed what was passing near them.

As though their silence were contagious, the conversation died away,
and there was a general lull, such as sometimes falls upon an
assemblage of people who have been talking for some time. Then, through
the deep windows there came up a sound of distant uproar, mingled with
occasional sharp detonations, few indeed, but the more noticeable for
their rarity. Suddenly the door of the drawing-room burst open, and a
servant's voice was heard speaking in a loud key, the coarse accents
and terrified tone contrasting strangely with the sounds generally
heard in such a place.

"Excellency! Excellency! The revolution! Garibaldi is at the gates! The
Italians are coming! Madonna! Madonna! The revolution, Eccellenza mia!"

The man was mad with fear. Every one spoke at once. Some laughed,
thinking the man crazy. Others, who had heard the distant noise from
the streets, drew back and looked nervously towards the door. Then
Sant' Ilario's clear, strong voice, rang like a clarion through the
room.

"Bar the gates. Shut the blinds all over the house--it is of no use to
let them break good windows. Don't stand there shivering like a fool.
It is only a mob."

Before he had finished speaking, San Giacinto was calmly bolting the
blinds of the drawing-room windows, fastening each one as steadily and
securely as he had been wont to put up the shutters of his inn at
Aquila in the old days.

In the dusky corner by the piano Gouache and Faustina were overlooked
in the general confusion. There was no time for reflection, for at the
first words of the servant Anastase knew that he must go instantly to
his post. Faustina's little hand was still clasped in his, as they both
sprang to their feet. Then with a sudden movement he clasped her in his
arms and kissed her passionately.

"Good-bye--my beloved!"

The girl's arms were twined closely about him, and her eyes looked up
to his with a wild entreaty.

"You are safe here, my darling--good-bye!"

"Where are you going?"

"To the Serristori barracks. God keep you safe till I come
back--good-bye!"

"I will go with you," said Faustina, with a strange look of
determination in her angelic face.

Gouache smiled, even then, at the mad thought which presented itself to
the girl's mind. Once more he kissed her, and then, she knew not how,
he was gone. Other persons had come near them, shutting the windows
rapidly, one after the other, in anticipation of danger from without.
With instinctive modesty Faustina withdrew her arms from the young
man's neck and shrank back. In that moment he disappeared in the crowd.

Faustina stared wildly about her for a few seconds, confused and
stunned by the suddenness of what had passed, above all by the thought
that the man she loved was gone from her side to meet his death. Then
without hesitation she left the room. No one hindered her, for the
Saracinesca men were gone to see to the defences of the house, and
Corona was already by the cradle of her child. No one noticed the
slight figure as it slipped through the door and was gone in the
darkness of the unlighted halls. All was confusion and noise and
flashing of passing lights as the servants hurried about, trying to
obey orders in spite of their terror. Faustina glided like a shadow
down the vast staircase, slipped through one of the gates just as the
bewildered porter was about to close it, and in a moment was out in the
midst of the multitude that thronged the dim streets--a mere child and
alone, facing a revolution in the dark.




CHAPTER V.


Gouache made his way as fast as he could to the bridge of Sant' Angelo,
but his progress was constantly impeded by moving crowds--bodies of
men, women, and children rushing frantically together at the corners of
the streets and then surging onward in the direction of the resultant
produced by their combined forces in the shock. There was loud and
incoherent screaming of women and shouting of men, out of which
occasionally a few words could be distinguished, more often "Viva Pio
Nono!" or "Viva la Repubblica!" than anything else. The scene of
confusion baffled description. A company of infantry was filing out of
the castle of Sant' Angelo on to the bridge, where it was met by a
dense multitude of people coming from the opposite direction. A
squadron of mounted gendarmes came up from the Borgo Nuovo at the same
moment, and half a dozen cabs were jammed in between the opposing
masses of the soldiers and the people. The officer at the head of the
column of foot-soldiers loudly urged the crowd to make way, and the
latter, consisting chiefly of peaceable but terrified citizens,
attempted to draw back, while the weight of those behind pushed them
on. Gouache, who was in the front of the throng, was allowed to enter
the file of infantry, in virtue of his uniform, and attempted to get
through and make his way to the opposite bank. But with the best
efforts he soon found himself unable to move, the soldiers being wedged
together as tightly as the people. Presently the crowd in the piazza
seemed to give way and the column began to advance again, bearing
Gouache backwards in the direction he had come. He managed to get to
the parapet, however, by edging sideways through the packed ranks.

"Give me your shoulder, comrade!" he shouted to the man next to him.
The fellow braced himself, and in an instant the agile Zouave was on
the narrow parapet, running along as nimbly as a cat, and winding
himself past the huge statues at every half-dozen steps. He jumped down
at the other end and ran for the Borgo Santo Spirito at the top of his
speed. The broad space was almost deserted and in three minutes he was
before the gates of the barracks, which were situated on the right-hand
side of the street, just beyond the College of the Penitentiaries and
opposite the church of San Spirito in Sassia.

Meanwhile Donna Faustina Montevarchi was alone in the streets. In
desperate emergencies young and nervously-organised people most
commonly act in accordance with the dictates of the predominant passion
by which they are influenced. Very generally that passion is terror,
but when it is not, it is almost impossible to calculate the
consequences which may follow. When the whole being is dominated by
love and by the greatest anxiety for the safety of the person loved,
the weakest woman will do deeds which might make a brave man blush for
his courage. This was precisely Faustina's case.

If any man says that he understands women he is convicted of folly by
his own speech, seeing that they are altogether incomprehensible. Of
men, it may be sufficient for general purposes to say with David that
they are all liars, even though we allow that they may be all curable
of the vice of falsehood. Of women, however, there is no general
statement which is true. The one is brave to heroism, the next cowardly
in a degree fantastically comic. The one is honest, the other
faithless; the one contemptible in her narrowness of soul, the next
supremely noble in broad truth as the angels in heaven; the one
trustful, the other suspicious; this one gentle as a dove, that one
grasping and venomous as a strong serpent. The hearts of women are as
the streets of a great town--some broad and straight and clean; some
dim and narrow and winding; or as the edifices and buildings of that
same city, wherein there are holy temples, at which men worship in calm
and peace, and dens where men gamble away the souls given them by God
against the living death they call pleasure, which is doled out to them
by the devil; in which there are quiet dwellings, and noisy places of
public gathering, fair palaces and loathsome charnel-houses, where the
dead are heaped together, even as our dead sins lie ghastly and
unburied in that dark chamber of the soul, whose gates open of their
own selves and shall not be sealed while there is life in us to suffer.
Dost thou boast that thou knowest the heart of woman? Go to, thou more
than fool! The heart of woman containeth all things, good and evil; and
knowest thou then all that is?

Donna Faustina was no angel. She had not that lofty calmness which we
attribute to the angelic character. She was very young, utterly
inexperienced and ignorant of the world. The idea which over-towers all
other ideas was the first which had taken hold upon her, and under its
strength she was like a flower before the wind. She was not naturally
of the heroic type either, as Corona d'Astrardente had been, and
perhaps was still, capable of sacrifice for the ideal of duty, able to
suffer torment rather than debase herself by yielding, strong to stem
the torrent of a great passion until she had the right to abandon
herself to its mighty flood. Faustina was a younger and a gentler
woman, not knowing what she did from the moment her heart began to
dictate her actions, willing, above all, to take the suggestion of her
soul as a command, and, because she knew no evil, rejoicing in an
abandonment which might well have terrified one who knew the world.

She already loved Anastase intensely. Under the circumstances of his
farewell, the startling effect of the announcement of a revolution, the
necessity under which, as a soldier, he found himself of leaving her
instantly in order to face a real danger, with his first kiss warm upon
her lips, and with the frightful conviction that if he left her it
might be the last--under all the emotions brought about by these
things, half mad with love and anxiety, it was not altogether wonderful
that she acted as she did. She could not have explained it, for the
impulse was so instinctive that she did not comprehend it, and the deed
followed so quickly upon the thought that there was no time for
reflection. She fled from the room and from the palace, out into the
street, wholly unconscious of danger, like a creature in a dream.

The crowd which had impeded Gouache's progress was already thinning
when Faustina reached the pavement. She was born and bred in Rome, and
as a child, before the convent days, had been taken to walk many a time
in the neighbourhood of Saint Peter's. She knew well enough where the
Serristori barracks were situated, and turned at once towards Sant'
Angelo. There were still many people about, most of them either
hurrying in the direction whence the departing uproar still proceeded,
or running homewards to get out of danger. Few noticed her, and for
some time no one hindered her progress, though it was a strange sight
to see a fair young girl, dressed in the fashion of the time which so
completely distinguished her from Roman women of lower station, running
at breathless speed through the dusky streets.

Suddenly she lost her way. Coming down the Via de' Coronari she turned
too soon to the right and found herself in the confusing byways which
form a small labyrinth around the church of San Salvatore in Lauro. She
had entered a blind alley on the left when she ran against two men, who
unexpectedly emerged from one of those underground wine-shops which are
numerous in that neighbourhood. They were talking in low and earnest
tones, and one of them staggered backward as the young girl rushed upon
him in the dark. Instinctively the man grasped her and held her tightly
by the arms.

"Where are you running to, my beauty?" he asked, as she struggled to
get away.

"Oh, let me go! let me go!" she cried in agonised tones, twisting her
slender wrists in his firm grip. The other man stood by, watching the
scene.

"Better let her go, Peppino," he said. "Don't you see she is a lady?"

"A lady, eh?" echoed the other. "Where are you going to, with that
angel's face?"

"To the Serristori barrack," answered Faustina, still struggling with
all her might.

At this announcement both men laughed loudly and glanced quickly at
each other. They seemed to think the answer a very good joke.

"If that is all, you may go, and the devil accompany you. What say you,
Gaetano?" Then they laughed again.

"Take that chain and brooch as a ricordo--just for a souvenir," said
Gaetano, who then himself tore off the ornaments while the other held
Faustina's hands.

"You are a pretty girl indeed!" he cried, looking at her pale face in
the light of the filthy little red lamp that hung over the low door of
the wine-shop. "I never kissed a lady in my life."

With that he grasped her delicate chin in his foul hand and bent down,
bringing his grimy face close to hers. But this was too much. Though
Faustina had hitherto fought with all her natural strength against the
ruffians, there was a reserved force, almost superhuman, in her slight
frame, which was suddenly roused by the threatened outrage. With a
piercing shriek she sprang backwards and dashed herself free, sending
the two blackguards reeling into the darkness. Then, like a flash she
was gone. By chance she took the right turning and in a moment more
found herself in the Via di Tordinona, just opposite the entrance of
the Apollo theatre. The torn white handbills on the wall, and the
projecting shed over the doors told her where she was.

By this time the soldiers who had intercepted Gouache's passage across
the bridge, as well as the dense crowd, had disappeared, and Faustina
ran like the wind along the pavement it had taken the soldier so long
to traverse. Like a flitting bird she sped over the broad space beyond
and up the Borgo Nuovo, past the long low hospital, wherein the sick
and dying lay in their silence, tended by the patient Sisters of Mercy,
while all was in excitement without. The young girl ran past the
corner. A Zouave was running before her towards the gate of the barrack
where a sentinel stood motionless under the lamp, his gray hood drawn
over his head and his rifle erect by his shoulder.

At that instant a terrific explosion rent the air, followed a moment
later by the dull crash of falling fragments of masonry, and then by a
long thundering, rumbling sound, dreadful to hear, which lasted several
minutes, as the ruins continued to fall in, heaps upon heaps, sending
immense clouds of thick dust up into the night air. Then all was still.

The little piazza before San Spirito in Sassia was half filled with
masses of stone and brickwork and crumbling mortar. A young girl lay
motionless upon her face at the corner of the hospital, her white hands
stretched out towards the man who lay dead but a few feet before her,
crushed under a great irregular mound of stones and rubbish. Beneath
the central heap where the barracks had stood lay the bodies of the
poor Zouaves, deep buried in wreck of the main building, the greater
part of which had fallen across the side street that passes between the
Penitenzieri and the Serristori. All was still for many minutes, while
the soft light streamed from the high windows of the hospital and
faintly illuminated some portion of the hideous scene.

Very slowly a few stragglers came in sight, then more, and then by
degrees a great dark crowd of awestruck people were collected together
and stood afar off, fearing to come near, lest the ruins should still
continue falling. Presently the door of the hospital opened and a party
of men in gray blouses, headed by three or four gentlemen in black
coats--one indeed was in his shirt sleeves--emerged into the silent
street and went straight towards the scene of the disaster. They
carried lanterns and a couple of stretchers such as are used for
bearing the wounded. It chanced that the straight line they followed
from the door did not lead them to where the girl was lying, and it was
not until after a long and nearly fruitless search that they turned
back. Two soldiers only, and both dead, could they find to bring back.
The rest were buried far beneath, and it would be the work of many
hours to extricate the bodies, even with a large force of men.

As the little procession turned sadly back, they found that the crowd
had advanced cautiously forward and now filled the street. In the
foremost rank a little circle stood about a dark object that lay on the
ground, curious, but too timid to touch it.

"Signor Professore," said one man in a low voice, "there is a dead
woman."

The physicians came forward and bent over the body. One of them shook
his head, as the bright light of the lantern fell on her face while he
raised the girl from the ground.

"She is a lady," said one of the others in a low voice.

The men brought a stretcher and lifted the girl's body gently from the
ground, scarcely daring to touch her, and gazing anxiously but yet in
wonder at the white face.

When she was laid upon the coarse canvas there was a moment's pause.
The crowd pressed closely about the hospital men, and the yellow light
of the lanterns was reflected on many strange faces, all bent eagerly
forward and down to get a last sight of the dead girl's features.

"Andiamo," said one of the physicians in a quiet sad voice. The bearers
took up the dead Zouaves again, the procession of death entered the
gates of the hospital, and the heavy doors closed behind like the
portals of a tomb.

The crowd closed again and pressed forward to the ruins. A few
gendarmes had come up, and very soon a party of labourers was at work
clearing away the lighter rubbish under the lurid glare of pitch
torches stuck into the crevices and cracks of the rent walls. The
devilish deed was done, but by a providential accident its consequences
had been less awful than might have been anticipated. Only one-third of
the mine had actually exploded, and only thirty Zouaves were at the
time within the building.

"Did you see her face, Gaetano?" asked a rough fellow of his companion.
They stood together in a dark corner a little aloof from the throng of
people.

"No, but it must have been she. I am glad I have not that sin on my
soul."

"You are a fool, Gaetano. What is a girl to a couple of hundred
soldiers? Besides, if you had held her tight she would not have got
here in time to be killed."

"Eh--but a girl! The other vagabonds at least, we have despatched in a
good cause. Viva la liberta!"

"Hush! There are the gendarmes! This way!"

So they disappeared into the darkness whence they had come.

It was not only in the Borgo Nuovo that there was confusion and
consternation. The first signal for the outbreak had been given in the
Piazza Colonna, where bombs had been exploded. Attacks were made upon
the prisons by bands of those sinister-looking, unknown men, who for
several days had been noticed in various parts of the city. A compact
mob invaded the capitol, armed with better weapons than mobs generally
find ready to their hands. At the Porta San Paolo, which was rightly
judged to be one of the weakest points of the city, a furious attack
was made from without by a band of Garibaldians who had crept up near
the walls in various disguises during the last two days. More than one
of the barracks within the city were assaulted simultaneously, and for
a short time companies of men paraded the streets, shouting their cries
of "Viva Garibaldi, Viva la liberta!" A few cried "Viva Vittorio!" and
"Viva l'Italia!" But a calm observer--and there were many such in Rome
that night--could easily see that the demonstration was rather in
favour of an anarchic republic than of the Italian monarchy. On the
whole, the population showed no sympathy with the insurrection. It is
enough to say that this tiny revolution broke out at dusk and was
entirely quelled before nine o'clock of the same evening. The attempts
made were bold and desperate in many cases, but were supported by a
small body of men only, the populace taking no active part in what was
done. Had a real sympathy existed between the lower classes of Romans
and the Garibaldians the result could not have been doubtful, for the
vigour and energy displayed by the rioters would inevitably have
attracted any similarly disposed crowd to join in a fray, when the
weight of a few hundreds more would have turned the scale at any point.
There was not a French soldier in the city at the time, and of the
Zouaves and native troops a very large part were employed upon the
frontier. Rome was saved and restored to order by a handful of
soldiers, who were obliged to act at many points simultaneously, and
the insignificance of the original movement may be determined from this
fact.

It is true that of the two infernal schemes, plotted at once to destroy
the troops in a body and to strike terror into the inhabitants, one
failed in part and the other altogether. If the whole of the gunpowder
which Giuseppe Monti and Gaetano Tognetti had placed in the mine under
the Serristori barracks had exploded, instead of only one-third of the
quantity, a considerable part of the Borgo Nuovo would have been
destroyed; and even the disaster which actually occurred would have
killed many hundreds of Zouaves if these had chanced to be indoors at
the time. But it is impossible to calculate the damage and loss of life
which would have been recorded had the castle of Sant' Angelo and the
adjacent fortifications been blown into the air. A huge mine had been
laid and arranged for firing in the vaults of one of the bastions, but
the plot was betrayed at the very last moment by one of the
conspirators. I may add that these men, who were tried, and condemned
only to penal servitude, were liberated in 1870, three years later, by
the Italian Government, on the ground that they were merely political
prisoners. The attempt in which they had been engaged would, however,
even in time of declared war, have been regarded as a crime against the
law of nations.

Rome was immediately declared under a state of siege, and patrols of
troops began to parade the streets, sending all stragglers whom they
met to their homes, on the admirable principle that it is the duty of
every man who finds himself in a riotous crowd to leave it instantly
unless he can do something towards restoring order. Persons who found
themselves in other people's houses, however, had some difficulty in at
once returning to their own, and as it has been seen that the
disturbance began precisely at the time selected by society for holding
its confabulations, there were many who found themselves in that
awkward situation.

As the sounds in the street subsided, the excitement in the
drawing-room at the Palazzo Saracinesca diminished likewise. Several of
those present announced their intention of departing at once, but to
this the old prince made serious objections. The city was not safe, he
said. Carriages might be stopped at any moment, and even if that did
not occur, all sorts of accidents might arise from the horses shying at
the noises, or running over people in the crowds. He had his own views,
and as he was in his own house it was not easy to dispute them.

"The gates are shut," he said, with a cheerful laugh, "and none of you
can get out at present. As it is nearly dinner-time you must all dine
with me. It will not be a banquet, but I can give you something to eat.
I hope nobody is gone already."

Every one, at these words, looked at everybody else, as though to see
whether any one were missing.

"I saw Monsieur Gouache go out," said Flavia Montevarchi.

"Poor fellow!" exclaimed the princess, her mother. "I hope nothing will
happen to him!" She paused a moment and looked anxiously round the
room. "Good Heavens!" she cried suddenly, "where is Faustina?"

"She must have gone out of the room with my wife," said Sant' Ilario,
quietly. "I will go and see."

The princess thought this explanation perfectly natural and waited till
he should return. He did not come back, however, so soon as might have
been expected. He found his wife just leaving the nursery. Her first
impulse had been to go to the child, and having satisfied herself that
he had not been carried off by a band of Garibaldians but was sound
asleep in his cradle, she was about to rejoin her guests.

"Where is Faustina Montevarchi?" asked Giovanni, as though it were the
most natural question in the world.

"Faustina?" repeated Corona. "In the drawing-room, to be sure. I have
not seen her."

"She is not there," said Sant' Ilario, in a more anxious tone. "I
thought she had come here with you."

"She must be with the rest. You have overlooked her in the crowd. Come
back with me and see your son--he does not seem to mind revolution in
the least!"

Giovanni, who had no real doubt but that Faustina was in the house,
entered the nursery with his wife, and they stood together by the
child's cradle.

"Is he not beautiful?" exclaimed Corona, passing her arm affectionately
through her husband's, and leaning her cheek on his shoulder.

"He is a fine baby," replied Giovanni, his voice expressing more
satisfaction than his words. "He will look like my father when he grows
up."

"I would rather he should look like you," said Corona.

"If he could look like you, dear, there would be some use in wishing."

Then they both gazed for some seconds at the swarthy little boy, who
lay on his pillows, his arms thrown back above his head and his two
little fists tightly clenched. The rich blood softly coloured the
child's dark cheeks, and the black lashes, already long, like his
mother's, gave a singularly expressive look to the small face.

Giovanni tenderly kissed his wife and then they softly left the room.
As soon as they were outside Sant' Ilario's thoughts returned to
Faustina.

"She was certainly not in the drawing-room," he said, "I am quite sure.
It was her mother who asked for her and everybody heard the question. I
dare not go back without her."

They stopped together in the corridor, looking at each other with grave
faces.

"This is very serious," said Corona. "We must search the house. Send
the men. I will tell the women. We will meet at the head of the stairs."

Five minutes later, Giovanni returned in pursuit of his wife.

"She has left the house," he said, breathlessly. "The porter saw her go
out."

"Good Heavens! Why did he not stop her?" cried Corona.

"Because he is a fool!" answered Sant' Ilario, very pale in his
anxiety. "She must have lost her head and gone home. I will tell her
mother."

When it was known in the drawing-room that Donna Faustina Montevarchi
had left the palace alone and on foot every one was horrorstruck. The
princess turned as white as death, though she was usually very red in
the face. She was a brave woman, however, and did not waste words.

"I must go home at once," said she. "Please order my carriage and have
the gates opened."

Giovanni obeyed silently, and a few minutes later the princess was
descending the stairs, accompanied by Flavia, who was silent, a
phenomenon seldom to be recorded in connection with that vivacious
young lady. Giovanni went also, and his cousin, San Giacinto.

"If you will permit me, princess, I will go with you," said the latter
as they all reached the carriage. "I may be of some use."

Just as they rolled out of the deep archway, the explosion of the
barracks rent the air, the tremendous crash thundering and echoing
through the city. The panes of the carriage-windows rattled as though
they would break, and all Rome was silent while one might count a
score. Then the horses plunged wildly in the traces and the vehicle
struck heavily against one of the stone pillars which stood before the
entrance of the palace. The four persons inside could hear the coachman
shouting.

"Drive on!" cried San Giacinto, thrusting his head out of the window.

"Eccellenza--" began the man in a tone of expostulation.

"Drive on!" shouted San Giacinto, in a voice that made the fellow obey
in spite of his terror. He had never heard such a voice before, so
deep, so strong and so savage.

They reached the Palazzo Montevarchi without encountering any serious
obstacle. In a few minutes they were convinced that Donna Faustina had
not been heard of there, and a council was held upon the stairs. Whilst
they were deliberating, Prince Montevarchi came out, and with him his
eldest son, Bellegra, a handsome man about thirty years old, with blue
eyes and a perfectly smooth fair beard. He was more calm than his
father, who spoke excitedly, with many gesticulations.

"You have lost Faustina!" cried the old man in wild tones. "You have
lost Faustina! And in such times as these! Why do you stand there? Oh,
my daughter! my daughter! I have so often told you to be careful,
Guendalina--move, in the name of God--the child is lost, lost, I tell
you! Have you no heart? no feeling? Are you a mother? Signori miei, I
am desperate!"

And indeed he seemed to be, as he stood wringing his hands, stamping
his feet, and vociferating incoherently, while the tears began to flow
down his cheeks.

"We are going in search of your daughter," said Sant' Ilario. "Pray
calm yourself. She will certainly be found."

"Perhaps I had better go too," suggested Ascanio Bellegra, rather
timidly. But his father threw his arms round him and held him tightly.

"Do you think I will lose another child?" he cried. "No, no, no--figlio
mio--you shall never go out into the midst of a revolution."

Sant' Ilario looked on gravely, though he inwardly despised the poor
old man for his weakness. San Giacinto stood against the wall, waiting,
with, a grim smile of amusement on his face. He was measuring Ascanio
Bellegra with his eye and thought he would not care for his assistance.
The princess looked scornfully at her husband and son.

"We are losing time," said Sant' Ilario at last to his cousin. "I
promise you to bring you your daughter," he added gravely, turning to
the princess. Then the two went away together, leaving Prince
Montevarchi still lamenting himself to his wife and son. Flavia had
taken no part in the conversation, having entered the hall and gone to
her room at once.

The cousins left the palace together and walked a little way down the
street, before either spoke. Then Sant' Ilario stopped short.

"Does it strike you that we have undertaken rather a difficult
mission?" he asked.

"A very difficult one," answered San Giacinto.

"Rome is not the largest city in the world, but I have not the
slightest idea where to look for that child. She certainly left our
house. She certainly has not returned to her own. Between the two,
practically, there lies the whole of Rome. I think the best thing to
do, will be to go to the police, if any of them can be found."

"Or to the Zouaves," said San Giacinto.

"Why to the Zouaves? I do not understand you."

"You are all so accustomed to being princes that you do not watch each,
other. I have done nothing but watch, you all the time. That young lady
is in love with Monsieur Gouache."

"Really!" exclaimed Sant' Ilario, to whom the idea was as novel and
incredible as it could have been to old Montevarchi himself, "really,
you must be mistaken. The thing is impossible."

"Not at all. That young man took Donna Faustina's hand and held it for
some time there by the piano while I was shutting the windows in your
drawing-room." San Giacinto did not tell all he had seen.

"What?" cried Sant' Ilario. "You are mad--it is impossible!"

"On the contrary, I saw it. A moment later Gouache left the room. Donna
Faustina must have gone just after him. It is my opinion that she
followed him."

Before Sant' Ilario could answer, a small patrol of foot-gendarmes came
up, and peremptorily ordered the two gentlemen to go home. Sant' Ilario
addressed the corporal in charge. He stated his name and that of his
cousin.

"A lady has been lost," he then said. "She is Donna Faustina
Montevarchi--a young lady, very fair and beautiful. She left the
Palazzo Saracinesca alone and on foot half an hour ago and has not been
heard of. Be good enough to inform the police you meet of this fact and
to say that a large reward will be paid to any one who brings her to
her father's house--to this palace here."

After a few more words the patrol passed on, leaving the two cousins to
their own devices. Sant' Ilario was utterly annoyed at the view just
presented to him, and could not believe the thing true, though he had
no other explanation to offer.

"It is of no use to stand here doing nothing," said San Giacinto rather
impatiently. "There is another crowd coming, too, and we shall be
delayed again. I think we had better separate. I will go one way, and
you take the other."

"Where will you go?" asked Sant' Ilario. "You do not know your way
about---"

"As she may be anywhere, we may find her anywhere, so that it is of no
importance whether I know the names of the streets or not. You had best
think of all the houses to which she might have gone, among her
friends. You know them better than I do. I will beat up all the streets
between here and your house. When I am tired I will go to your palace."

"I am afraid you will not find her," replied Sant' Ilario. "But we must
try for the sake of her poor mother."

"It is a question of luck," said the other, and they separated at once.

San Giacinto turned in the direction of the crowd which was pouring
into the street at some distance farther on. As he approached, he heard
the name "Serristori" spoken frequently in the hum of voices.

"What about the Serristori?" he asked of the first he met.

"Have you not heard?" cried the fellow. "It is blown up with gunpowder!
There are at least a thousand dead. Half the Borgo Nuovo is destroyed,
and they say that the Vatican will go next---"

The man would have run on for any length of time, but San Giacinto had
heard enough and dived into the first byway he found, intending to
escape the throng and make straight for the barracks. He had to ask his
way several times, and it was fully a quarter of an hour before he
reached the bridge. Thence he easily found the scene of the disaster,
and came up to the hospital of Santo Spirito just after the gates had
closed behind the bearers of the dead. He mixed with the crowd and
asked questions, learning very soon that the first search, made by the
people from the hospital, had only brought to light the bodies of two
Zouaves and one woman.

"And I did not see her," said the man who was speaking, "but they say
she was a lady and beautiful as an angel," "Rubbish!" exclaimed
another. "She was a little sewing woman who lived in the Borgo Vecchio.
And I know it is true because her innamorato was one of the dead
Zouaves they picked up."

"I don't believe there was any woman at all," said a third. "What
should a woman be doing at the barracks?"

"She was killed outside," observed the first speaker, a timid old man.
"At least, I was told so, but I did not see her."

"It was a woman bringing a baby to put into the Rota," [Footnote: The
Rota was a revolving box in which foundlings were formerly placed. The
box turned round and the infant was taken inside and cared for. It
stands at the gate of the Santo Spirito Hospital, and is still visible,
though no longer in use.] cried a shrill-voiced washerwoman. "She got
the child in and was running away, when the place blew up, and the
devil carried her off. And serve her right, for throwing away her baby,
poor little thing!"

In the light of these various opinions, most of which supported the
story that some woman had been carried into the hospital, San Giacinto
determined to find out the truth, and boldly rang the bell. A panel was
opened in the door, and the porter looked out at the surging crowd.

"What do you want?" he inquired roughly, on seeing that admittance had
not been asked for a sick or wounded person.

"I want to speak with the surgeon in charge," replied San Giacinto.

"He is busy," said the man rather doubtfully. "Who are you?"

"A friend of one of the persons just killed."

"They are dead. You had better wait till morning and come again,"
suggested the porter.

"But I want to be sure that it is my friend who is dead."

"Then why do you not give your name? Perhaps you are a Garibaldian. Why
should I open?"

"I will tell the surgeon my name, if you will call him. There is
something for yourself. Tell him I am a Roman prince and must see him
for a moment."

"I will see if he will come," said the man, shutting the panel in San
Giacinto's face. His footsteps echoed along the pavement of the wide
hall within. It was long before he came back, and San Giacinto had
leisure to reflect upon the situation.

He had very little doubt but that the dead woman was no other than
Donna Faustina. By a rare chance, or rather in obedience to an
irresistible instinct, he had found the object of his search in half an
hour, while his cousin was fruitlessly inquiring for the missing girl
in the opposite direction. He had been led to the conclusion that she
had followed Gouache by what he had seen in the Saracinesca's
drawing-room, and by a process of reasoning too simple to suggest
itself to an ordinary member of Roman society. What disturbed him most
was the thought of the consequences of his discovery, and he resolved
to conceal the girl's name and his own if possible. If she were indeed
dead, it would be wiser to convey her body to her father's house
privately; if she were still alive, secrecy was doubly necessary. In
either case it would be utterly impossible to account to the world for
the fact that Faustina Montevarchi had been alone in the Borgo Nuovo at
such an hour; and San Giacinto had a lively interest in preserving the
good reputation of Casa Montevarchi, since he had been meditating for
some time past a union with Donna Flavia.

At last the panel opened again, and when the porter had satisfied
himself that the gentleman was still without, a little door in the
heavy gate was cautiously unfastened and San Giacinto went in, bending
nearly double to pass under the low entrance. In the great vestibule he
was immediately confronted by the surgeon in charge, who was in his
shirt sleeves, but had thrown his coat over his shoulders and held it
together at the neck to protect himself from the night air. San
Giacinto begged him to retire out of hearing of the porter, and the two
walked away together.

"There was a lady killed just now by the explosion, was there not?"
inquired San Giacinto.

"She is not dead," replied the surgeon. "Do you know her?"

"I think so. Had she anything about her to prove her identity?"

"The letter M embroidered on her handkerchief. That is all I know. She
has not been here a quarter of an hour. I thought she was dead myself,
when we took her up."

"She was not under the ruins?"

"No. She was struck by some small stone, I fancy. The two Zouaves were
half buried, and are quite dead."

"May I see them? I know many in the corps. They might be acquaintances."

"Certainly. They are close by in the mortuary chamber, unless they have
been put in the chapel."

The two men entered the grim place, which was dimly lighted by a
lantern hanging overhead. It is unnecessary to dwell upon the ghastly
details. San Giacinto bent down curiously and looked at the dead men's
faces. He knew neither of them, and told the surgeon so.

"Will you allow me to see the lady?" he asked.

"Pardon me, if I ask a question," said the surgeon, who was a man of
middle age, with a red beard and keen grey eyes. "To whom have I the
advantage of speaking?"

"Signor Professore," replied San Giacinto, "I must tell you that if
this is the lady I suppose your patient to be, the honour of one of the
greatest families in Rome is concerned, and it is important that strict
secrecy should be preserved."

"The porter told me that you were a Roman prince," returned the surgeon
rather bluntly. "But you speak like a southerner."

"I was brought up in Naples. As I was saying, secrecy is very
important, and I can assure you that you will earn the gratitude of
many by assisting me."

"Do you wish to take this lady away at once?"

"Heaven forbid! Her mother and sister shall come for her in half an
hour."

The surgeon thrust his hands into his pockets, and stood staring for a
moment or two at the bodies of the Zouaves.

"I cannot do it," he said, suddenly looking up at San. Giacinto. "I am
master here, and I am responsible. The secret is professional, of
course. If I knew you, even by sight, I should not hesitate. As it is,
I must ask your name."

San Giacinto did not hesitate long, as the surgeon was evidently master
of the situation. He took a card from his case and silently handed it
to the doctor. The latter took it and read the name, "Don Giovanni
Saracinesca, Marchese di San Giacinto." His face betrayed no emotion,
but the belief flashed through his mind that there was no such person
in existence. He was one of the leading men in his profession, and knew
Prince Saracinesca and Sant' Ilario, but he had never heard of this
other Don Giovanni. He knew also that the city was in a state of
revolution and that many suspicious persons were likely to gain access
to public buildings on false pretences.

"Very well," he said quietly. "You are not afraid of dead men, I see.
Be good enough to wait a moment here--no one will see you, and you will
not be recognised. I will go and see that there is nobody in the way,
and you shall have a sight of the young lady."

His companion nodded in assent and the surgeon went out through the
narrow door. San Giacinto was surprised to hear the heavy key turned in
the lock and withdrawn, but immediately accounted for the fact on the
theory that the surgeon wished to prevent any one from finding his
visitor lest the secret should be divulged. He was not a nervous man,
and had no especial horror of being left alone in a mortuary chamber
for a few minutes. He looked about him, and saw that the room was high
and vaulted. One window alone gave air, and this was ten feet from the
floor and heavily ironed. He reflected with a smile that if it pleased
the surgeon to leave him there he could not possibly get out. Neither
his size nor his phenomenal strength could assist him in the least.
There was no furniture in the place. Half a dozen slabs of slate for
the bodies were built against the wall, solid and immovable, and the
door was of the heaviest oak, thickly studded with huge iron nails. If
the dead men had been living prisoners their place of confinement could
not have been more strongly contrived.

San Giacinto waited a quarter of an hour, and at last, as the surgeon
did not return, he sat down upon one of the marble slabs and, being
very hungry, consoled himself by lighting a cigar, while he meditated
upon the surest means of conveying Donna Faustina to her father's
house. At last he began to wonder how long he was to wait.

"I should not wonder," he said to himself, "if that long-eared
professor had taken me for a revolutionist."

He was not far wrong, indeed. The surgeon had despatched a messenger
for a couple of gendarmes and had gone about his business in the
hospital, knowing very well that it would take some time to find the
police while the riot lasted, and congratulating himself upon having
caught a prisoner who, if not a revolutionist, was at all events an
impostor, since he had a card printed with a false name.




CHAPTER VI.


The improvised banquet at the Palazzo Saracinesca was not a merry one,
but the probable dangers to the city and the disappearance of Faustina
Montevarchi furnished matter for plenty of conversation. The majority
inclined to the belief that the girl had lost her head and had run
home, but as neither Sant' Ilario nor his cousin returned, there was
much speculation. The prince said he believed that they had found
Faustina at her father's house and had stayed to dinner, whereupon some
malicious person remarked that it needed a revolution in Rome to
produce hospitality in such a quarter.

Dinner was nearly ended when Pasquale, the butler, whispered to the
prince that a gendarme wanted to speak with him on very important
business.

"Bring him here," answered old Saracinesca, aloud. "There is a gendarme
outside," he added, addressing his guests, "he will tell us all the
news. Shall we have him here?"

Every one assented enthusiastically to the proposition, for most of
those present were anxious about their houses, not knowing what had
taken place during the last two hours. The man was ushered in, and
stood at a distance holding his three-cornered hat in his hand, and
looking rather sheepish and uncomfortable.

"Well?" asked the prince. "What is the matter? We all wish to hear the
news."

"Excellency," began the soldier, "I must ask many pardons for appearing
thus---" Indeed his uniform was more or less disarranged and he looked
pale and fatigued.

"Never mind your appearance. Speak up," answered old Saracinesca in
encouraging tones.

"Excellency," said the man, "I must apologise, but there is a gentleman
who calls himself Don Giovanni, of your revered name---"

"I know there is. He is my son. What about him?"

"He is not the Senior Principe di Sant' Ilario, Excellency--he calls
himself by another name--Marchese di--di--here is his card, Excellency."

"My cousin, San Giacinto, then. What about him, I say?"

"Your Excellency has a cousin---" stammered the gendarme.

"Well? Is it against the law to have cousins?" cried the prince. "What
is the matter with my cousin?"

"Dio mio!" exclaimed the soldier in great agitation. "What a
combination! Your Excellency's cousin is in the mortuary chamber at
Santo Spirito!"

"Is he dead?" asked Saracinesca in a lower voice, but starting from his
chair.

"No," cried the man, "questo e il male! That is the trouble! He is
alive and very well!"

"Then what the devil is he doing in the mortuary chamber?" roared the
prince.

"Excellency, I beseech your pardon, I had nothing to do with locking up
the Signor Marchese. It was the surgeon, Excellency, who took him for a
Garibaldian. He shall be liberated at once---"

"I should think so!" answered Saracinesca, savagely. "And what business
have your asses of surgeons with gentlemen? My hat, Pasquale. And how
on earth came my cousin to be in Santo Spirito?"

"Excellency, I know nothing, but I had to do my duty."

"And if you know nothing how the devil do you expect to do your duty! I
will have you and the surgeon and the whole of Santo Spirito and all
the patients, in the Carceri Nuove, safe in prison before morning! My
hat, Pasquale, I say!"

Some confusion followed, during which the gendarme, who was anxious to
escape all responsibility in the matter of San Giacinto's confinement,
left the room and descended the grand staircase three steps at a time.
Mounting his horse he galloped back through the now deserted streets to
the hospital.

Within two minutes after his arrival San Giacinto heard the bolt of the
heavy lock run back in the socket and the surgeon entered the mortuary
chamber. San Giacinto had nearly finished his cigar and was growing
impatient, but the doctor made many apologies for his long absence.

"An unexpected relapse in a dangerous case, Signor Marchese," he said
in explanation. "What would you have? We doctors are at the mercy of
nature! Pray forgive my neglect, but I could send no one, as you did
not wish to be seen. I locked the door, so that nobody might find you
here. Pray come with me, and you shall see the young lady at once."

"By all means," replied San Giacinto. "Dead men are poor company, and I
am in a hurry."

The surgeon led the way to the accident ward and introduced his
companion to a small clean room in which a shaded lamp was burning. A
Sister of Mercy stood by the white bed, upon which lay a young girl,
stretched out at her full length.

"You are too late," said the nun very quietly. "She is dead, poor
child."

San Giacinto uttered a deep exclamation of horror and was at the
bedside even before the surgeon. He lifted the fair young creature in
his arms and stared at the cold face, holding it to the light. Then
with a loud cry of astonishment he laid down his burden.

"It is not she, Signor Professore," he said. "I must apologise for the
trouble I have given you. Pray accept my best thanks. There is a
resemblance, but it is not she."

The doctor was somewhat relieved to find himself freed from the
responsibility which, as San Giacinto had told him, involved the honour
of one of the greatest families in Rome. Before speaking, he satisfied
himself that the young woman was really dead.

"Death often makes faces look alike which have no resemblance to each
other in life," he remarked as he turned away. Then they both left the
room, followed at a little distance by the sister who was going to
summon the bearers to carry away her late charge.

As the two men descended the steps, the sound of loud voices in
altercation reached their ears, and as they emerged into the vestibule,
they saw old Prince Saracinesca flourishing his stick in dangerous
proximity to the head of the porter. The latter had retreated until he
stood with his back against the wall.

"I will have none of this lying," shouted the irate nobleman. "The
Marchese is here--the gendarme told me he was in the mortuary
chamber--if he is not produced at once I will break your rascally
neck---" The man was protesting as fast and as loud as his assailant
threatened him.

"Eh! My good cousin!" cried San Giacinto, whose unmistakable voice at
once made the prince desist from his attack and turn round. "Do not
kill the fellow! I am alive and well, as you see."

A short explanation ensued, during which the surgeon was obliged to
admit that as San Giacinto had no means of proving any identity he, the
doctor in charge, had thought it best to send for the police, in view
of the unquiet state of the city.

"But what brought you here?" asked old Saracinesca, who was puzzled to
account for his cousin's presence in the hospital.

San Giacinto had satisfied his curiosity and did not care a pin for the
annoyance to which he had been subjected. He was anxious, too, to get
away, and having half guessed the surgeon's suspicions was not at all
surprised by the revelation concerning the gendarme.

"Allow me to thank you again," he said politely, turning to the doctor.
"I have no doubt you acted quite rightly. Let us go," he added,
addressing the prince.

The porter received a coin as consolation money for the abuse he had
sustained, and the two cousins found themselves in the street.
Saracinesca again asked for an explanation.

"Very simple," replied San Giacinto. "Donna Faustina was not at her
father's house, so your son and I separated to continue our search.
Chancing to find myself here--for I do not know my way about the
city--I learnt the news of the explosion, and was told that two Zouaves
had been found dead and had been taken into the hospital. Fearing lest
one of them might have been Gouache, I succeeded in getting in, when I
was locked up with the dead bodies, as you have heard. Gouache, by the
bye, was not one of them."

"It is outrageous---" began Saracinesca, but his companion did not
allow him to proceed.

"It is no matter," he said, quickly. "The important thing is to find
Donna Faustina. I suppose you have no news of her."

"None. Giovanni had not come home when the gendarme appeared."

"Then we must continue the search as best we can," said San Giacinto.
Thereupon they both got into the prince's cab and drove away.

It was nearly midnight when a small detachment of Zouaves crossed the
bridge of Sant' Angelo. There had been some sharp fighting at the Porta
San Paolo, at the other extremity of Rome, and the men were weary. But
rest was not to be expected that night, and the tired soldiers were led
back to do sentry duty in the neighbourhood of their quarters. The
officer halted the little body in the broad space beyond.

"Monsieur Gouache," said the lieutenant, "you will take a corporal's
guard and maintain order in the neighbourhood of the barracks--if there
is anything left of them," he added with a mournful laugh.

Gouache stepped forward and half a dozen men formed themselves behind
him. The officer was a good friend of his.

"I suppose you have not dined any more than I, Monsieur Gouache?"

"Not I, mon lieutenant. It is no matter."

"Pick up something to eat if you can, at such an hour. I will see that
you are relieved before morning. Shoulder arms! March!"

So Anastase Gouache trudged away down the Borgo Nuovo with his men at
his heels. Among the number there was the son of a French duke, an
English gentleman whose forefathers had marched with the Conqueror as
their descendant now marched behind the Parisian artist, a young Swiss
doctor of law, a couple of red-headed Irish peasants, and two or three
others. When they reached the scene of the late catastrophe the place
was deserted. The men who had been set to work at clearing away the
rubbish had soon found what a hopeless task they had undertaken; and
the news having soon spread that only the regimental musicians were in
the barracks at the time, and that these few had been in all
probability in the lower story of the building, where the band-room was
situated, all attempts at finding the bodies were abandoned until the
next day.

Gouache and many others had escaped death almost miraculously, for five
minutes had not elapsed after they had started at the double-quick for
the Porta San Paolo, when the building was blown up. The news had of
course been brought to them while they were repulsing the attack upon
the gate, but it was not until many hours afterwards that a small
detachment could safely be spared to return to their devastated
quarters. Gouache himself had been just in time to join his comrades,
and with them had seen most of the fighting. He now placed his men at
proper distances along the street, and found leisure to reflect upon
what had occurred. He was hungry and thirsty, and grimy with gunpowder,
but there was evidently no prospect of getting any refreshment. The
night, too, was growing cold, and he found it necessary to walk briskly
about to keep himself warm. At first he tramped backwards and forwards,
some fifty paces each way, but growing weary of the monotonous
exercise, he began to scramble about among the heaps of ruins. His
quick imagination called up the scene as it must have looked at the
moment of the explosion, and then reverted with a sharp pang to the
thought of his poor comrades-in-arms who lay crushed to death many feet
below the stones on which he trod.

Suddenly, as he leaned against a huge block, absorbed in his thoughts,
the low wailing of a woman's voice reached his ears. The sound
proceeded apparently from no great distance, but the tone was very soft
and low. Gradually, as he listened, he thought he distinguished words,
but such words as he had not expected to hear, though they expressed
his own feeling well enough.

"Requiem eternam dona eis!"

It was quite distinct, and the accents sounded strangely familiar. He
held his breath and strained every faculty to catch the sounds.

"Requiem sempiternam--sempiternam--sempiternam!" The despairing tones
trembled at the third repetition, and then the voice broke into
passionate sobbing.

Anastase did not wait for more. At first he had half believed that what
he heard was due to his imagination, but the sudden weeping left no
doubt that it was real. Cautiously he made his way amongst the ruins,
until he stopped short in amazement not unmingled with horror.

In an angle where a part of the walls was still standing, a woman was
on her knees, her hands stretched wildly out before her, her
darkly-clad figure faintly revealed by the beams of the waning moon.
The covering had fallen back from her head upon her shoulders, and the
struggling rays fell upon her beautiful features, marking their angelic
outline with delicate light. Still Anastase remained motionless,
scarcely believing his eyes, and yet knowing that lovely face too well
not to believe. It was Donna Faustina Montevarchi who knelt there at
midnight, alone, repeating the solemn words from the mass for the dead;
it was for him that she wept, and he knew it.

Standing there upon the common grave of his comrades, a wild joy filled
the young man's heart, a joy such as must be felt to be known, for it
passes the power of earthly words to tell it. In that dim and ghastly
place the sun seemed suddenly to shine as at noonday in a fair country;
the crumbling masonry and blocks of broken stone grew more lovely than
the loveliest flowers, and from the dark figure of that lonely
heart-broken woman the man who loved her saw a radiance proceeding
which overflowed and made bright at once his eyes and his heart. In the
intensity of his emotion, the hand which lay upon the fallen stone
contracted suddenly and broke off a fragment of the loosened mortar.

At the slight noise, Faustina turned her head. Her eyes were wide and
wild, and as she started to her feet she uttered a short, sharp cry,
and staggered backward against the wall. In a moment Anastase was at
her side, supporting her and looking into her face.

"Faustina!"

During a few seconds she gazed horrorstruck and silent upon him,
stiffening herself and holding her face away from his. It was as though
his ghost had risen out of the earth and embraced her. Then the wild
look shivered like a mask and vanished, her features softened and the
colour rose to her cheeks for an instant. Very slowly she drew him
towards her, her eyes fixed on his; their lips met in a long, sweet
kiss--then her strength forsook her and she swooned away in his arms.

Gouache supported her tenderly until she sat leaning against the wall,
and then knelt down by her side. He did not know what to do, and had he
known, it would have availed him little. His instinct told him that she
would presently recover consciousness and his emotions had so wholly
overcome him that he could only look at her lovely face as her head
rested upon his arm. But while he waited a great fear began to steal
into his heart. He asked himself how Faustina had come to such a place,
and how her coming was to be accounted for. It was long past midnight,
now, and he guessed what trouble and anxiety there would be in her
father's house until she was found. He represented to himself in quick
succession the scenes which would follow his appearance at the Palazzo
Montevarchi with the youngest daughter of the family in his arms--or in
a cab, and he confessed to himself that never lover had been in such
straits.

Faustina opened her eyes and sighed, nestled her head softly on his
breast, sighing again, in the happy consciousness that he was safe, and
then at last she sat up and looked him in the face.

"I was so sure you were killed," said she, in her soft voice.

"My darling!" he exclaimed, pressing her to his side.

"Are you not glad to be alive?" she asked. "For my sake, at least! You
do not know what I have suffered."

Again he held her close to him, in silence, forgetting all the
unheard-of difficulties of his situation in the happiness of holding
her in his arms. His silence, indeed, was more eloquent than any words
could have been. "My beloved!" he said at last, "how could you run such
risks for me? Do you think I am worthy of so much love? And yet, if
loving you can make me worthy of you, I am the most deserving man that
ever lived--and I live only for you. But for you I might as well be
buried under our feet here with my poor comrades. But tell me,
Faustina, were you not afraid to come? How long have you been here? It
is very late--it is almost morning."

"Is it? What does it matter, since you are safe? You ask how I came?
Did I not tell you I would follow you? Why did you run on without me? I
ran here very quickly, and just as I saw the gates of the barracks
there was a terrible noise and I was thrown down, I cannot tell how.
Soon I got to my feet and crept under a doorway. I suppose I must have
fainted, for I thought you were killed. I saw a soldier before me, just
when it happened, and he must have been struck. I took him for you.
When I came to myself there were so many people in the street that I
could not move from where I was. Then they went away, and I came here
while the workmen tried to move the stones, and I watched them and
begged them to go on, but they would not, and I had nothing to give
them, so they went away too, and I knew that I should have to wait
until to-morrow to find you--for I would have waited--no one should
have dragged me away--ah! my darling--my beloved! What does anything
matter now that you are safe!"

For fully half an hour they sat talking in this wise, both knowing that
the situation could not last, but neither willing to speak the word
which must end it. Gouache, indeed, was in a twofold difficulty. Not
only was he wholly at a loss for a means of introducing Faustina into
her father's house unobserved at such an hour; he was in command of the
men stationed in the neighbourhood, and to leave his post under any
circumstances whatever would be a very grave breach of duty. He could
neither allow Faustina to return alone, nor could he accompany her. He
could not send one of his men for a friend to help him, since to take
any one into his confidence was to ruin the girl's reputation in the
eyes of all Rome. To find a cab at that time of night was almost out of
the question. The position seemed desperate. Faustina, too, was a mere
child, and it was impossible to explain to her the social consequences
of her being discovered with him.

"I think, perhaps," said she after a happy silence, and in rather a
timid voice--"I think, perhaps, you had better take me home now. They
will be anxious, you know," she added, as though fearing that he should
suspect her of wishing to leave him.

"Yes, I must take you home," answered Gouache, somewhat absently. To
her his tone sounded cold.

"Are you angry, because I want to go?" asked the young girl, looking
lovingly into his face.

"Angry? No indeed, darling! I ought to have taken you home at once--but
I was too happy to think of it. Of course your people must be terribly
anxious, and the question is how to manage your entrance. Can you get
into the house unseen? Is there any way? Any small door that is open?"

"We can wake the porter," said Faustina, simply. "He will let us in."

"It would not do. How can I go to your father and tell him that I found
you here? Besides, the porter knows me."

"Well, if he does, what does it matter?"

"He would talk about it to other servants, and all Rome would know it
to-morrow. You must go home with a woman, and to do that we must find
some one you know. It would be a terrible injury to you to have such a
story repeated abroad."

"Why?"

To this innocent question Gouache did not find a ready answer. He
smiled quietly and pressed her to his side more closely.

"The world is a very bad place, dearest. I am a man and know it. You
must trust me to do what is best. Will you?"

"How can you ask? I will always trust you."

"Then I will tell you what we will do. You must go home with the
Princess Sant' Ilario."

"With Corona? But--"

"She knows that I love you, and she is the only woman in Rome whom I
would trust. Do not be surprised. She asked me if it was true, and I
said it was. I am on duty here, and you must wait for me while I make
the rounds of my sentries--it will not take five minutes. Then I will
take you to the Palazzo Saracinesca. I shall not be missed here for an
hour."

"I will do whatever you wish," said Faustina. "Perhaps that is best.
But I am afraid everybody will be asleep. Is it not very late?"

"I will wake them up if they are sleeping."

He left her to make his round and soon assured himself that his men
were not napping. Then before he returned he stopped at the corner of a
street and by the feeble moonlight scratched a few words on a leaf from
his notebook.

"Madame," he wrote, "I have found Donna Faustina Montevarchi, who had
lost her way. It is absolutely necessary that you should accompany her
to her father's house. You are the only person whom I can trust. I am
at your gate. Bring something in the way of a cloak to disguise her
with."

He signed his initials and folded the paper, slipping it into his
pocket where he could readily find it. Then he went back to the place
where Faustina was waiting. He helped her out of the ruins, and passing
through a side street so as to avoid the sentinels, they made their way
rapidly to the bridge. The sentry challenged Gouache who gave the word
at once and was allowed to pass on with his charge. In less than a
quarter of an hour they were at the Palazzo Saracinesca. Gouache made
Faustina stand in the shadow of a doorway on the opposite side of the
street and advanced to the great doors. A ray of light which passed
through the crack of a shutter behind the heavy iron grating on one
side of the arch showed that the porter was up. Anastase drew his
bayonet from his side and tapped with its point against the high window.

"Who is there?" asked the porter, thrusting his head out.

"Is the Principe di Sant' Ilario still awake?" asked Gouache.

"He is not at home. Heaven knows where he is. What do you want? The
princess is sitting up to wait for the prince."

"That will do as well," replied Anastase. "I am sent with this note
from the Vatican. It needs an immediate answer. Be good enough to say
that I was ordered to wait."

The explanation satisfied the porter, to whom the sight of a Zouave was
just then more agreeable than usual. He put his arm out through the
grating and took the paper.

"It does not look as though it came from the Vatican," he remarked
doubtfully, as he turned the scrap to the light of his lamp.

"The cardinal is waiting--make haste!" said Gouache. It struck him that
even if the man could read a little, which was not improbable, the
initials A. G., being those of Cardinal Antonelli in reversed order
would be enough to frighten the fellow and make him move quickly. This,
indeed was precisely what occurred.

In five minutes the small door in the gate was opened and Gouache saw
Corona's tall figure step out into the street. She hesitated a moment
when she saw the Zouave alone, and then closed the door with a snap
behind her. Gouache bowed quickly and gave her his arm.

"Let us be quick," he said, "or the porter will see us. Donna Faustina
is under that doorway. You know how grateful I am--there is no time to
say it."

Corona said nothing but hastened to Faustina's side. The latter put her
arms about her friend's neck and kissed her. The princess threw a wide
cloak over the young girl's shoulders and drew the hood over her head.

"Let us be quick," said Corona, repeating Gouache's words. They walked
quickly away in silence, and no one spoke until they leached the
Palazzo Montevarchi. Explanations were impossible, and every one was
too much absorbed by the danger of the situation to speak of anything
else. When they were a few steps from the gate Corona stopped.

"You may leave us here," she said coldly, addressing Gouache.

"But, princess, I will see you home," protested the latter, somewhat
surprised by her tone.

"No--I will take a servant back with me. Will you be good enough to
leave us?" she asked almost haughtily, as Gouache still lingered.

He had no choice but to obey her commands, though for some time he
could not explain to himself the cause of the princess's behaviour.

"Goodnight, Madame. Good-night, Mademoiselle," he said, quietly. Then
with a low bow he turned away and disappeared in the darkness. In five
minutes he had reached the bridge, running at the top of his speed, and
he regained his post without his absence having been observed.

When the two women were alone, Corona laid her hand upon Faustina's
shoulder and looked down into the girl's face.

"Faustina, my child," she said, "how could you be led into such a wild
scrape?"

"Why did you treat him so unkindly?" asked the young girl with flashing
eyes. "It was cruel and unkind--"

"Because he deserved it," answered Corona, with rising anger. "How
could he dare--from my house--a mere child like you---"

"I do not know what you imagine," said Faustina in a tone of deep
resentment. "I followed him to the Serristori barracks, and I fainted
when they were blown up. He found me and brought me to you, because he
said I could not go back to my father's house with him. If I love him
what is that to you?"

"It is a great deal to me that he should have got you into this
trouble."

"He did not. If it is trouble, I got myself into it. Do you love him
yourself that you are so angry?"

"I!" cried Corona in amazement at the girl's audacity. "Poor Gouache!"
she added with a half-scornful, half-pitying laugh. "Come, child! Let
us go in. We cannot stand here all night talking. I will tell your
mother that you lost your way in our house and were found asleep in a
distant room. The lock was jammed, and you could not get out."

"I think I will simply tell the truth," answered Faustina.

"You will do nothing of the kind," said Corona, sternly. "Do you know
what would happen? You would be shut up in a convent by your father for
several years, and the world would say that I had favoured your
meetings with Monsieur Gouache. This is no trifling matter. You need
say nothing. I will give the whole explanation myself, and take the
responsibility of the falsehood upon my own shoulders."

"I promised him to do as he bid me," replied Faustina. "I suppose he
would have me follow your advice, and so I will. Are you still angry,
Corona?"

"I will try not to be, if you will be sensible."

They knocked at the gate and were soon admitted. The whole household
was on foot, though it was past one o'clock. It is unnecessary to
describe the emotions of Faustina's relations, nor their gratitude to
Corona, whose explanation they accepted at once, with a delight which
may easily be imagined.

"But your porter said he had seen her leave your house," said the
Princess Montevarchi, recollecting the detail and anxious to have it
explained.

"He was mistaken, in his fright," returned Corona, calmly. "It was only
my maid, who ran out to see what was the matter and returned soon
afterwards."

There was nothing more to be said. The old prince and Ascanio Bellegra
walked home with Corona, who refused to wait until a carriage could be
got ready, on the ground that her husband might have returned from the
search and might be anxious at her absence. She left her escort at her
door and mounted the steps alone. As she was going up the porter came
running after her.

"Excellency," he said in low tones, "the Signor Principe came back
while you were gone, and I told him that you had received a note from
the Vatican and had gone away with the Zouave who brought it. I hope I
did right---"

"Of course you did," replied Corona. She was a calm woman and not
easily thrown off her guard, but as she made her answer she was
conscious of an unpleasant sensation wholly new to her. She had never
done anything concerning which she had reason to ask herself what
Giovanni would think of it. For the first time since her marriage with
him she knew that she had something to conceal. How, indeed, was it
possible to tell him the story of Faustina's wild doings? Giovanni was
a man who knew the world, and had no great belief in its virtues. To
tell him what had occurred would be to do Faustina an irreparable
injury in his eyes. He would believe his wife, no doubt, but he would
tell her that Faustina had deceived her. She cared little what he might
think of Gouache, for she herself was incensed against him, believing
that he must certainly have used some persuasion to induce Faustina to
follow him, mad as the idea seemed.

Corona had little time for reflection, however. She could not stand
upon the stairs, and as soon as she entered the house she must meet her
husband. She made up her mind hurriedly to do what in most cases is
extremely dangerous. Giovanni was in her boudoir, pale and anxious. He
had forgotten that he had not dined that evening and was smoking a
cigarette with short sharp puffs.

"Thank God!" he cried, as his wife entered the room. "Where have you
been, my darling?"

"Giovanni," said Corona, gravely, laying her two hands on his
shoulders, "you know you can trust me--do you not?"

"As I trust Heaven," he answered, tenderly.

"You must trust me now, then," said she. "I cannot tell you where I
have been. I will tell you some day, you have my solemn promise.
Faustina Montevarchi is with her mother. I took her back, and told them
she had followed me from the room, had lost her way in the house, and
had accidentally fastened a door which she could not open. You must
support the story. You need only say that I told you so, because you
were out at the time. I will not lie to you, so I tell you that I
invented the story."

Sant' Ilario was silent for a few minutes, during which he looked
steadily into his wife's eyes, which met his without flinching.

"You shall do as you please, Corona," he said at last, returning the
cigarette to his lips and still looking at her. "Will you answer me one
question?"

"If I can without explaining."

"That Zouave who brought the message from the Vatican--was he Gouache?"

Corona turned her eyes away, annoyed at the demand. To refuse to answer
was tantamount to admitting the truth, and she would not lie to her
husband.

"It was Gouache," she said, after a moment's hesitation.

"I thought so," answered Sant' Ilario in a low voice. He moved away,
throwing his cigarette into the fireplace. "Very well," he continued,
"I will remember to tell the story as you told it to me, and I am sure
you will tell me the truth some day."

"Of course," said Corona. "And I thank you, Giovanni, with my whole
heart! There is no one like you, dear."

She sat down in a chair beside him as he stood, and taking his hand she
pressed it to her lips. She knew well enough what a strange thing she
had asked, and she was indeed grateful to him. He stooped down and
kissed her forehead.

"I will always trust you," he said, softly. "Tell me, dear one, has
this matter given you pain? Is it a secret that will trouble you?"

"Not now," she answered, frankly.

Giovanni was in earnest when he promised to trust his wife. He knew,
better than any living man, how well worthy she was of his utmost
confidence, and he meant what he said. It must be confessed that the
situation was a trying one to a man of his temper, and the depth of his
love for Corona can be judged from the readiness with which he
consented to her concealing anything from him. Every circumstance
connected with what had happened that evening was strange, and the
conclusion, instead of elucidating the mystery, only made it more
mysterious still. His cousin's point-blank declaration that Faustina
and Gouache were in love was startling to all his ideas and prejudices.
He had seen Gouache kiss Corona's hand in a corner of the drawing-room,
a proceeding which he did not wholly approve, though it was common
enough. Then Gouache and Faustina had disappeared. Then Faustina had
been found, and to facilitate the finding it had been necessary that
Corona and Gouache should leave the palace together at one o'clock in
the morning. Finally, Corona had appealed to his confidence in her and
had taken advantage of it to refuse any present explanation whatever of
her proceedings. Corona was a very noble and true woman, and he had
promised to trust her. How far he kept his word will appear hereafter.




CHAPTER VII.


When San Giacinto heard Corona's explanation of Faustina's
disappearance, he said nothing. He did not believe the story in the
least, but if every one was satisfied there was no reason why he should
not be satisfied also. Though he saw well enough that the tale was a
pure invention, and that there was something behind it which was not to
be known, the result was, on the whole, exactly what he desired. He
received the thanks of the Montevarchi household for his fruitless
exertions with a smile of gratification, and congratulated the princess
upon the happy issue of the adventure. He made no present attempt to
ascertain the real truth by asking questions which would have been hard
to answer, for he was delighted that the incident should be explained
away and forgotten at once. Donna Faustina's disappearance was of
course freely discussed and variously commented, but the general
verdict of the world was contrary to San Giacinto's private
conclusions. People said that the account given by the family must be
true, since it was absurd to suppose that a child just out of the
convent could be either so foolish or so courageous as to go out alone
at such a moment. No other hypothesis was in the least tenable, and the
demonstration offered must be accepted as giving the only solution of
the problem. San Giacinto told no one that he thought differently.

It was before all things his intention to establish himself firmly in
Roman society, and his natural tact told him that the best way to
accomplish this was to offend no one, and to endorse without question
the opinion of the majority. Moreover, as a part of his plan for
assuring his position consisted in marrying Faustina's sister, his
interest lay manifestly in protecting the good name of her family by
every means in his power. He knew that old Montevarchi passed for being
one of the most rigid amongst the stiff company of the strait-laced,
and that the prince was as careful of the conduct of his children, as
his father had formerly been in regard to his own doings. Ascanio
Bellegra was the result of this home education, and already bid fair to
follow in his parent's footsteps. Christian virtues are certainly not
incompatible with manliness, but the practice of them as maintained by
Prince Montevarchi had made his son Ascanio a colourless creature,
rather non-bad than good, clothed in a garment of righteousness that
fitted him only because his harmless soul had no salient bosses of
goodness, any more than it was disfigured by any reprehensible
depressions capable of harbouring evil.

There is a class of men in certain states of society who are manly, but
not masculine. There is nothing paradoxical in the statement, nor is it
a mere play upon the meanings of words. There are men of all ages,
young, middle-aged, and old, who possess many estimable virtues, who
show physical courage wherever it is necessary, who are honourable,
strong, industrious, and tenacious of purpose, but who undeniably lack
something which belongs to the ideal man, and which, for want of a
better word, we call the masculine element. When we shall have
microscopes so large and powerful that a human being shall be as
transparent under the concentrated light of the lenses as the tiniest
insect when placed in one of our modern instruments, then, perhaps, the
scientist of the future may discover the causes of this difference. I
believe, however, that it does not depend upon the fact of one man
having a few ounces more of blood in his veins than another. The fact
lies deeper hidden than that, and may puzzle the psychologist as well
as the professor of anthropology. For us it exists, and we cannot
explain it, but must content ourselves with comparing the phenomena
which proceed from these differences of organisation. At the present
day the society of the English-speaking races seems to favour the
growth of the creature who is only manly but not masculine, whereas
outside the pale of that strange little family which calls itself
"society" the masculinity of man is more striking than among other
races. Not long ago a French journalist said that many of the
peculiarities of the English-speaking peoples proceeded from the
omnipresence of the young girl, who reads every novel that appears,
goes to every theatre, and regulates the tone of conversation and
literature by her never-absent innocence. Cynics, if there are still
representatives of a school which has grown ridiculous, may believe
this if they please; the fact remains that it is precisely the most
masculine class of men who show the strongest predilection for the
society of the most refined women, and who on the whole show the
greatest respect for all women in general. The masculine man prefers
the company of the other sex by natural attraction, and would perhaps
rather fight with other men, or at least strive to outdo them in the
struggle for notoriety, power, or fame, than spend his time in friendly
conversation with them, no matter how interesting the topic selected.
This point of view may be regarded as uncivilised, but it may be
pointed out that it is only in the most civilised countries that the
society of women is accessible to all men of their own social position.
No one familiar with Eastern countries will pretend that Orientals shut
up their women because they enjoy their company so much as to be
unwilling to share the privilege with their friends.

San Giacinto was pre-eminently a masculine man, as indeed were all the
Saracinesca, in a greater or less degree. He understood women
instinctively, and, with a very limited experience of the world, knew
well enough the strength of their influence. It was characteristic of
him that he had determined to marry almost as soon as he had got a
footing in Roman society. He saw clearly that if he could unite himself
with a powerful family he could exercise a directing power over the
women which must ultimately give him all that he needed. Through his
cousins he had very soon made the acquaintance of the Montevarchi
household, and seeing that there were two marriageable daughters, he
profited by the introduction. He would have preferred Faustina,
perhaps, but he foresaw that he should find fewer difficulties in
obtaining her sister for his wife. The old prince and princess were in
despair at seeing her still unmarried, and it was clear that they were
not likely to find a better match for her than the Marchese di San
Giacinto. He, on his part, knew that his past occupation was a
disadvantage to him in the eyes of the world, although he was the
undoubted and acknowledged cousin of the Saracinesca, and the only man
of the family besides old Leone and his son Sant' Ilario. His two boys,
also, were a drawback, since his second wife's children could not
inherit the whole of the property he expected to leave. But his
position was good, and Flavia was not generally considered to be likely
to marry, so that he had good hopes of winning her.

It was clear to him from the first that there must be some reason why
she had not married, and the somewhat disparaging remarks concerning
her which he heard from time to time excited his curiosity. As he had
always intended to consult the head of his family upon the matter he
now determined to do so at once. He was not willing, indeed, to let
matters go any further until he had ascertained the truth concerning
her, and he was sure that Prince Saracinesca would tell him everything
at the first mention of a proposal to marry her. The old gentleman had
too much pride to allow his cousin to make an unfitting match.
Accordingly, on the day following the events last narrated San Giacinto
called after breakfast and found the prince, as usual, alone in his
study. He was not dozing, however, for the accounts of the last night's
doings in the Osservatore Romano were very interesting.

"I suppose you have heard all about Montevarchi's daughter?" asked
Saracinesca, laying his paper aside and giving his hand to San Giacinto.

"Yes, and I am delighted at the conclusion of the adventure, especially
as I have something to ask you about another member of the family."

"I hope Flavia has not disappeared now," remarked the prince.

"I trust not," answered San Giacinto with a laugh. "I was going to ask
you whether I should have your approval if I proposed to marry her."

"This is a very sudden announcement," said Saracinesca with some
surprise. "I must think about it. I appreciate your friendly
disposition vastly, my dear cousin, in asking my opinion, and I will
give the matter my best consideration."

"I shall be very grateful," replied the younger man, gravely. "In my
position I feel bound to consult you. I should do so in any case for
the mere benefit of your advice, which is very needful to one who, like
myself, is but a novice in the ways of Rome."

Saracinesca looked keenly at his cousin, as though expecting to
discover some touch of irony in his tone or expression. He remembered
the fierce altercations he had engaged in with Giovanni when he had
wished the latter to marry Tullia Mayer, and was astonished to find San
Giacinto, over whom he had no real authority at all, so docile and
anxious for his counsel.

"I suppose you would like to know something about her fortune," he said
at last. "Montevarchi is rich, but miserly. He could give her anything
he liked."

"Of course it is important to know what he would like to give," replied
San Giacinto with a smile.

"Of course. Very well. There are two daughters already married. They
each had a hundred thousand scudi. It is not so bad, after all, when
you think what a large family he has--but he could have given more. As
for Flavia, he might do something generous for the sake of---"

The old gentleman was going to say, for the sake of getting rid of her,
and perhaps his cousin thought as much. The prince checked himself,
however, and ended his sentence rather awkwardly.

"For the sake of getting such a fine fellow for a husband," he said.

"Why is she not already married?" inquired San Giacinto with a very
slight inclination of his head, as an acknowledgment of the flattering
speech whereby the prince had helped himself out of his difficulty.

"Who knows!" ejaculated the latter enigmatically.

"Is there any story about her? Was she ever engaged to be married? It
is rather strange when one thinks of it, for she is a handsome girl.
Pray be quite frank--I have taken no steps in the matter."

"The fact is that I do not know. She is not like other girls, and as
she gives her father and mother some trouble in society, I suppose that
young men's fathers have been afraid to ask for her. No. I can assure
you that there is no story connected with her. She has a way of stating
disagreeable truths that terrifies Montevarchi. She was delicate as a
child and was brought up at home, so of course she has no manners."

"I should have thought she should have better manners for that,"
remarked San Giacinto. The prince stared at him in surprise.

"We do not think so here," he answered after a moment's pause. "On the
whole, I should say that for a hundred and twenty thousand you might
marry her, if you are so inclined--and if you can manage her. But that
is a matter for you to judge."

"The Montevarchi are, I be

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