Chapter Thirty Three.

Chapter Thirty Three.Mrs Fitzroy’s Governess.Mrs Charles Fitzroy was delighted with her new Italian governess.She had contemplated engaging a Frenchwoman or a Swiss to teach little Bertha, but most fortunately, General Borselli, whom she had met during a season spent with her husband in Rome, came to her aid and recommended the daughter of the deceased Colonel Nodari. She came, and her slight, rather tall figure in neat black, her well-cut, handsome features, and her plainly dressed hair, almost black, had attracted her mistress from the first. She was refined, unobtrusive, merry-eyed, and just the kind of bright companion and governess she required for her child. She noticed that although her dresses were well made there were tokens, in more ways than one, that since her father’s death she and her mother had fallen upon evil days.Fitzroy himself liked her. There was something interesting in her quaint broken English and in her foreign gestures that commended itself to him in preference to the angular blue-stocking Miss Gardener, who had recently left his wife’s service. So “Mademoiselle,” as they called her in preference to the rather ugly word “Signorina,” quickly became as one of the family, and within a week of her arrival she met that pompous millionaire of eggs and bacon, Mr Morgan-Mason.The latter became as much attracted by her as were the others, but she exerted no effort to captivate or to gain admiration, merely acting her part modestly as became the humble governess in a wealthy family. Nevertheless she recollected the general’s instructions, and more than once, in the secrecy of her room, wrote to that address in Genoa reporting her progress.Mrs Charles Fitzroy, a pretty and rather extravagant woman, still on the right side of forty, moved in a very good set, and entertained a good deal at her house in Brook Street. Her husband was a magnate in the city, and the fact that Morgan-Mason was her brother gave her theentréeto houses which would have otherwise been closed to her. Fitzroy, a rather short, grey-bearded man with a florid countenance, had risen from a clerk’s stool to be what he was, and differed in little particular from thousands of well-off city men who live in the West End and enter the anteroom of society.Nevertheless, through the influence of the white-waistcoated Member for South-West Norfolk, a good many well-known people dined at Brook Street from time to time, while to Morgan-Mason’s smart gatherings at his house or his dinners at the Carlton his sister and her husband were always invited.It was pleasant enough to mix with such people as surrounded her employers, but, truth to tell, Filoména Nodari quickly found the post of governess monotonous and irksome. First of all, it was difficult for her to preserve her unassuming character as a paid menial; secondly, she hated children; thirdly, Bertha was a spoilt child, with no leaning towards lessons; and fourthly, the small bare schoolroom at the top of the house was a gloomy place in which to spend those bright spring days. Still, she never complained. She was well paid by the Minister of War, and with a woman’s love of intrigue, she had set herself to carefully accomplish the difficult task which Borselli had given her.She was fortunate, inasmuch as Mrs Fitzroy treated her with such consideration. Indeed, sometimes when there were no visitors, she would invite her in to lunch with her, when they would generally talk French, a language with which her mistress was well acquainted.So well did she act her part that the governess was quickly voted a treasure, and as Bertha was a particular favourite of her Uncle Morgan-Mason, the latter became gradually interested in her. Sometimes, indeed, he would come up to the schoolroom while lessons were in progress with an excuse to leave a packet of sweetmeats for his niece; but Filoména, with her woman’s shrewd intuition, knew that he came to have a little chat with her.He was inquisitive—always inquisitive.One day as he sat with Bertha upon his knee in the schoolroom he asked about her parentage.“You are a native of Bologna—where the sausages come from?” he laughed.Perhaps he sold that comestible at his many shops, she reflected, but she answered in her broken English—“Yes. But just as none of straw hats are made in Leghorn, so there are none of Bologna sausages made in Bologna.”“You must be already tired of life here in London after your beautiful Italy?” he remarked.“Ah! non,” she assured him. “I like your London—what leetle I have seen of it. But that is not very much. I take Bertha for one walk in the park, or down to what you call Kensington, every day. And many times we ascend to the roof of an omnibus. But omnibuses are so puzzling,” she added, with a laugh. “You never know where one goes. We always ascend and seet there till we come to the end of the voyage. But we make some amusing errors many times. Only the day before to-day we ascended on a ’bus outside the Gallery Nationale, where are the fountains, paid twenty centimes—I mean two pennies—eh bien! the next street-corner past a church they turned us off—the omnibus went no farther!”The millionaire laughed aloud, saying—“It must have been a Royal Oak or Cricklewood ’bus coming home. They go no farther than Charing Cross.”“But oh!” she continued, “we go many time a long, long way—out into the country—away from London. Once we went on and on till I thought we would never arrest—right on till we came to a small town down by the river—Tweet-ham—Tweek-ham—the conductor called it, or something like that. Your English names are so very difficult. There was an island in the river, and an old church close by.”“Twickenham! You mean Twickenham!” he exclaimed. “Fancy your going so far on an omnibus! Your adventures, mademoiselle, must have been amusing.”“Ah yes. But poor madame! We did not return till seven of the clock, and she was fearing something had happened.”“Naturally,” he said. “But let me give you a word of advice, mademoiselle. Be very careful where you go. London is not at all safe for a foreign lady like yourself, more especially if her face is as attractive as yours.”“Oh!” she laughed. “Mine has no attraction, surely. And I tell you, m’sieur, that I am not in the least afraid.”He had expected her to be impressed by his flattery, but she was not. On the contrary, she passed his remark as though it had never been uttered, and continued to relate to him her impressions of London and London life, some of which were distinctly humorous, for the streets of our metropolis always strike the foreigner as full of quaint incongruities, from the balancing of the hansom cab to the kilt of the Highland soldier.He found her conversation amusing and interesting. She was somehow different from the wide circle of women of his acquaintance, those society dames who borrowed his money, ate his dinners, and gave tone to his entertainments. And this was exactly how she desired to impress him.As the weeks went on, the society swallows returned from wintering in the South, and the London season began in earnest. The millionaire, a frequent visitor at his sister’s house, often met the pleasant-faced governess, who very cleverly succeeded in increasing her popularity until she was well-known to Mrs Fitzroy’s lady friends, and declared by them all to be “a perfect treasure.”None knew, however, save little Bertha—who feared to speak lest mademoiselle should punish her—of a rather curious incident which occurred one morning as she was sitting with her charge in Kensington Gardens. A tall, dark-faced, middle-aged man with black moustache, well-dressed in frock coat and silk hat, a fine diamond pin in his scarf, approached, raised his hat, uttered some mysterious words in Italian, and then took a seat at her side.At first mademoiselle regarded the stranger with distrust, until he drew a paper from his pocket and allowed her to read it. Then, apparently satisfied, she listened to all he told her. But as it was in Italian, the child could not understand. She only noticed that mademoiselle turned rather pale, and seemed to be expressing deep regret.The dark-faced man spoke slowly and calmly, while, on her part, she shrugged her shoulders and showed her palms, and responded with quick volubility, while the child sat at her side regarding the stranger in open-eyed wonder.Presently, after a long argument, the man took from his pocket a small tin box of matches which he gave to her. Without examining it, she transferred it quickly to her coat-pocket, and then, after a few parting words, the man rose, raised his hat, and strode away towards Queen’s Gate, swinging his cane airily as he walked.“Who was that?” inquired the child after he had gone. “What did he give you, mademoiselle?”“Nothing that concerns you, dearest,” was her governess’s reply. “Remember you must say nothing of that m’sieur—nothing, you recollect. You must never mention him to your mother or to anyone, because if you do I shall punish you very severely, and I shall never, never take you out with me again. You understand—eh?”The child’s face fell, and her eyes were fixed straight before her as she answered, “Very well, mademoiselle. I won’t say anything.”“That’s a good girl,” her governess responded. “Some day you shall have a watch like your uncle’s if you are very good,” she added, for Bertha was very fond of watches, and especially of Morgan-Mason’s gold repeater. She liked to hear it chime upon its musical bell.One afternoon a few days later Filoména watched from her window the millionaire descend from his motor and enter the house. First she hurried into the schoolroom, where Bertha was sitting with the maid, and then she leisurely descended to the drawing-room, where she found Mrs Fitzroy and her brother talking together.“Oh, m’sieur,” laughed the governess, “Mademoiselle Bertha saw you arrive, and has sent me to ask a favour.”“A favour!” he exclaimed. “Of course, I always grant the young lady’s requests when she asks nicely.”“Mademoiselle wants to know if you will let her hear your watch. Since you showed it to her a fortnight ago she has allowed me no peace. So I promised I would come and ask of you.”“Certainly,” was the millionaire’s reply, taking his repeater and the gold albert from his pocket. “You know how to make it strike. I showed you the other day,” he laughed as he handed it to her.“I will be ve-ry careful of it, m’sieur, and will bring it back when mademoiselle is satisfied. She desires greatly one like it.”“Some day I’ll give her one, when she’s older,” laughed Morgan-Mason good-humouredly.And then, when the door had closed behind her, his sister remarked—“Mademoiselle is most devoted to Bertha. So very different to Miss Gardener. She humours her in every way, and at the same time is a very good teacher. It is really wonderful how the child is improving.”“I quite agree, Maud. She’s an excellent girl—and I hope you pay her well. She deserves it.”And then they fell to discussing plans for a big dinner-party at the Carlton on the following Friday.Meanwhile, mademoiselle ran upstairs with the watch in her hand, first to her own room, where she remained five minutes or so, and then took it to the schoolroom, where she delighted her little pupil by making the watch strike.“Make it go again, mademoiselle,” exclaimed little Bertha, delighted at being allowed to hold it in her hand. And again and again the governess pressed the ring and caused it to chime, until at last she was compelled to take it forcibly from the child’s hand and carry it back again to the grey-whiskered man in the drawing-room, returning a word of thanks as she handed it back to him.That same evening, after her charge had been put to bed, and during Mrs Fitzroy’s absence at Lady Claridge’s dance, she went out and dropped into the pillar-box at the corner of Grosvenor Square a small packet in a strong linen-lined envelope addressed to “Giuseppe Gallo, Esq., care of H. Bird, Newsagent, 386 Westminster Bridge Road, S.E.”And then she returned to the little sitting-room set apart for her, and smiled confidently to herself as she settled to read theTribuna, which her mother sent her regularly each day.A week later the household at Brook Street was thrown into a state of agitation and surprise when the vulgarian dashed round in a cab and informed his sister of a most audacious entry made by thieves into his splendid flat at Queen Anne’s Mansions, and how they had turned it topsy-turvy. He had, it appeared, been absent, speaking for a parliamentary candidate up at Leicester, and his valet had slept in the flat alone, the other servants being on holiday, when during the night burglars had entered by a window from some leads adjoining, and had opened everything, even to his safe, and had apparently made a minute examination of every private paper he possessed.He had missed nothing, except a few cigars; but what puzzled the detectives most was the manner in which safe, writing-table, and two chests of drawers, which he always kept locked, had been opened. Either the thieves possessed all the keys—and this did not appear possible, as they were all in the trusted valet’s room—or else they possessed a master-key to everything, the same as that which the Member of Parliament wore upon his watch-chain.The millionaire was furious. He even spoke to the Home Secretary about it when he met him in the lobby of the House. But the manner in which the safe had been opened was a complete mystery—a mystery to all except to mademoiselle.The vulgarian little suspected, when he so innocently lent his watch to his niece, that the handsome governess had taken an impression in wax of the small master-key upon the other end of his chain, or that she had that very same evening posted the wax impression in the tin matchbox to the clever secret agent of the Italian War Office—the man who with two colleagues had come over from Paris specially, who had met Mademoiselle in Kensington Gardens, and who was known at the newsagent’s in the Westminster Bridge Road as Giuseppe Gallo, a civil engineer, seeking employment.

Mrs Charles Fitzroy was delighted with her new Italian governess.

She had contemplated engaging a Frenchwoman or a Swiss to teach little Bertha, but most fortunately, General Borselli, whom she had met during a season spent with her husband in Rome, came to her aid and recommended the daughter of the deceased Colonel Nodari. She came, and her slight, rather tall figure in neat black, her well-cut, handsome features, and her plainly dressed hair, almost black, had attracted her mistress from the first. She was refined, unobtrusive, merry-eyed, and just the kind of bright companion and governess she required for her child. She noticed that although her dresses were well made there were tokens, in more ways than one, that since her father’s death she and her mother had fallen upon evil days.

Fitzroy himself liked her. There was something interesting in her quaint broken English and in her foreign gestures that commended itself to him in preference to the angular blue-stocking Miss Gardener, who had recently left his wife’s service. So “Mademoiselle,” as they called her in preference to the rather ugly word “Signorina,” quickly became as one of the family, and within a week of her arrival she met that pompous millionaire of eggs and bacon, Mr Morgan-Mason.

The latter became as much attracted by her as were the others, but she exerted no effort to captivate or to gain admiration, merely acting her part modestly as became the humble governess in a wealthy family. Nevertheless she recollected the general’s instructions, and more than once, in the secrecy of her room, wrote to that address in Genoa reporting her progress.

Mrs Charles Fitzroy, a pretty and rather extravagant woman, still on the right side of forty, moved in a very good set, and entertained a good deal at her house in Brook Street. Her husband was a magnate in the city, and the fact that Morgan-Mason was her brother gave her theentréeto houses which would have otherwise been closed to her. Fitzroy, a rather short, grey-bearded man with a florid countenance, had risen from a clerk’s stool to be what he was, and differed in little particular from thousands of well-off city men who live in the West End and enter the anteroom of society.

Nevertheless, through the influence of the white-waistcoated Member for South-West Norfolk, a good many well-known people dined at Brook Street from time to time, while to Morgan-Mason’s smart gatherings at his house or his dinners at the Carlton his sister and her husband were always invited.

It was pleasant enough to mix with such people as surrounded her employers, but, truth to tell, Filoména Nodari quickly found the post of governess monotonous and irksome. First of all, it was difficult for her to preserve her unassuming character as a paid menial; secondly, she hated children; thirdly, Bertha was a spoilt child, with no leaning towards lessons; and fourthly, the small bare schoolroom at the top of the house was a gloomy place in which to spend those bright spring days. Still, she never complained. She was well paid by the Minister of War, and with a woman’s love of intrigue, she had set herself to carefully accomplish the difficult task which Borselli had given her.

She was fortunate, inasmuch as Mrs Fitzroy treated her with such consideration. Indeed, sometimes when there were no visitors, she would invite her in to lunch with her, when they would generally talk French, a language with which her mistress was well acquainted.

So well did she act her part that the governess was quickly voted a treasure, and as Bertha was a particular favourite of her Uncle Morgan-Mason, the latter became gradually interested in her. Sometimes, indeed, he would come up to the schoolroom while lessons were in progress with an excuse to leave a packet of sweetmeats for his niece; but Filoména, with her woman’s shrewd intuition, knew that he came to have a little chat with her.

He was inquisitive—always inquisitive.

One day as he sat with Bertha upon his knee in the schoolroom he asked about her parentage.

“You are a native of Bologna—where the sausages come from?” he laughed.

Perhaps he sold that comestible at his many shops, she reflected, but she answered in her broken English—

“Yes. But just as none of straw hats are made in Leghorn, so there are none of Bologna sausages made in Bologna.”

“You must be already tired of life here in London after your beautiful Italy?” he remarked.

“Ah! non,” she assured him. “I like your London—what leetle I have seen of it. But that is not very much. I take Bertha for one walk in the park, or down to what you call Kensington, every day. And many times we ascend to the roof of an omnibus. But omnibuses are so puzzling,” she added, with a laugh. “You never know where one goes. We always ascend and seet there till we come to the end of the voyage. But we make some amusing errors many times. Only the day before to-day we ascended on a ’bus outside the Gallery Nationale, where are the fountains, paid twenty centimes—I mean two pennies—eh bien! the next street-corner past a church they turned us off—the omnibus went no farther!”

The millionaire laughed aloud, saying—

“It must have been a Royal Oak or Cricklewood ’bus coming home. They go no farther than Charing Cross.”

“But oh!” she continued, “we go many time a long, long way—out into the country—away from London. Once we went on and on till I thought we would never arrest—right on till we came to a small town down by the river—Tweet-ham—Tweek-ham—the conductor called it, or something like that. Your English names are so very difficult. There was an island in the river, and an old church close by.”

“Twickenham! You mean Twickenham!” he exclaimed. “Fancy your going so far on an omnibus! Your adventures, mademoiselle, must have been amusing.”

“Ah yes. But poor madame! We did not return till seven of the clock, and she was fearing something had happened.”

“Naturally,” he said. “But let me give you a word of advice, mademoiselle. Be very careful where you go. London is not at all safe for a foreign lady like yourself, more especially if her face is as attractive as yours.”

“Oh!” she laughed. “Mine has no attraction, surely. And I tell you, m’sieur, that I am not in the least afraid.”

He had expected her to be impressed by his flattery, but she was not. On the contrary, she passed his remark as though it had never been uttered, and continued to relate to him her impressions of London and London life, some of which were distinctly humorous, for the streets of our metropolis always strike the foreigner as full of quaint incongruities, from the balancing of the hansom cab to the kilt of the Highland soldier.

He found her conversation amusing and interesting. She was somehow different from the wide circle of women of his acquaintance, those society dames who borrowed his money, ate his dinners, and gave tone to his entertainments. And this was exactly how she desired to impress him.

As the weeks went on, the society swallows returned from wintering in the South, and the London season began in earnest. The millionaire, a frequent visitor at his sister’s house, often met the pleasant-faced governess, who very cleverly succeeded in increasing her popularity until she was well-known to Mrs Fitzroy’s lady friends, and declared by them all to be “a perfect treasure.”

None knew, however, save little Bertha—who feared to speak lest mademoiselle should punish her—of a rather curious incident which occurred one morning as she was sitting with her charge in Kensington Gardens. A tall, dark-faced, middle-aged man with black moustache, well-dressed in frock coat and silk hat, a fine diamond pin in his scarf, approached, raised his hat, uttered some mysterious words in Italian, and then took a seat at her side.

At first mademoiselle regarded the stranger with distrust, until he drew a paper from his pocket and allowed her to read it. Then, apparently satisfied, she listened to all he told her. But as it was in Italian, the child could not understand. She only noticed that mademoiselle turned rather pale, and seemed to be expressing deep regret.

The dark-faced man spoke slowly and calmly, while, on her part, she shrugged her shoulders and showed her palms, and responded with quick volubility, while the child sat at her side regarding the stranger in open-eyed wonder.

Presently, after a long argument, the man took from his pocket a small tin box of matches which he gave to her. Without examining it, she transferred it quickly to her coat-pocket, and then, after a few parting words, the man rose, raised his hat, and strode away towards Queen’s Gate, swinging his cane airily as he walked.

“Who was that?” inquired the child after he had gone. “What did he give you, mademoiselle?”

“Nothing that concerns you, dearest,” was her governess’s reply. “Remember you must say nothing of that m’sieur—nothing, you recollect. You must never mention him to your mother or to anyone, because if you do I shall punish you very severely, and I shall never, never take you out with me again. You understand—eh?”

The child’s face fell, and her eyes were fixed straight before her as she answered, “Very well, mademoiselle. I won’t say anything.”

“That’s a good girl,” her governess responded. “Some day you shall have a watch like your uncle’s if you are very good,” she added, for Bertha was very fond of watches, and especially of Morgan-Mason’s gold repeater. She liked to hear it chime upon its musical bell.

One afternoon a few days later Filoména watched from her window the millionaire descend from his motor and enter the house. First she hurried into the schoolroom, where Bertha was sitting with the maid, and then she leisurely descended to the drawing-room, where she found Mrs Fitzroy and her brother talking together.

“Oh, m’sieur,” laughed the governess, “Mademoiselle Bertha saw you arrive, and has sent me to ask a favour.”

“A favour!” he exclaimed. “Of course, I always grant the young lady’s requests when she asks nicely.”

“Mademoiselle wants to know if you will let her hear your watch. Since you showed it to her a fortnight ago she has allowed me no peace. So I promised I would come and ask of you.”

“Certainly,” was the millionaire’s reply, taking his repeater and the gold albert from his pocket. “You know how to make it strike. I showed you the other day,” he laughed as he handed it to her.

“I will be ve-ry careful of it, m’sieur, and will bring it back when mademoiselle is satisfied. She desires greatly one like it.”

“Some day I’ll give her one, when she’s older,” laughed Morgan-Mason good-humouredly.

And then, when the door had closed behind her, his sister remarked—

“Mademoiselle is most devoted to Bertha. So very different to Miss Gardener. She humours her in every way, and at the same time is a very good teacher. It is really wonderful how the child is improving.”

“I quite agree, Maud. She’s an excellent girl—and I hope you pay her well. She deserves it.”

And then they fell to discussing plans for a big dinner-party at the Carlton on the following Friday.

Meanwhile, mademoiselle ran upstairs with the watch in her hand, first to her own room, where she remained five minutes or so, and then took it to the schoolroom, where she delighted her little pupil by making the watch strike.

“Make it go again, mademoiselle,” exclaimed little Bertha, delighted at being allowed to hold it in her hand. And again and again the governess pressed the ring and caused it to chime, until at last she was compelled to take it forcibly from the child’s hand and carry it back again to the grey-whiskered man in the drawing-room, returning a word of thanks as she handed it back to him.

That same evening, after her charge had been put to bed, and during Mrs Fitzroy’s absence at Lady Claridge’s dance, she went out and dropped into the pillar-box at the corner of Grosvenor Square a small packet in a strong linen-lined envelope addressed to “Giuseppe Gallo, Esq., care of H. Bird, Newsagent, 386 Westminster Bridge Road, S.E.”

And then she returned to the little sitting-room set apart for her, and smiled confidently to herself as she settled to read theTribuna, which her mother sent her regularly each day.

A week later the household at Brook Street was thrown into a state of agitation and surprise when the vulgarian dashed round in a cab and informed his sister of a most audacious entry made by thieves into his splendid flat at Queen Anne’s Mansions, and how they had turned it topsy-turvy. He had, it appeared, been absent, speaking for a parliamentary candidate up at Leicester, and his valet had slept in the flat alone, the other servants being on holiday, when during the night burglars had entered by a window from some leads adjoining, and had opened everything, even to his safe, and had apparently made a minute examination of every private paper he possessed.

He had missed nothing, except a few cigars; but what puzzled the detectives most was the manner in which safe, writing-table, and two chests of drawers, which he always kept locked, had been opened. Either the thieves possessed all the keys—and this did not appear possible, as they were all in the trusted valet’s room—or else they possessed a master-key to everything, the same as that which the Member of Parliament wore upon his watch-chain.

The millionaire was furious. He even spoke to the Home Secretary about it when he met him in the lobby of the House. But the manner in which the safe had been opened was a complete mystery—a mystery to all except to mademoiselle.

The vulgarian little suspected, when he so innocently lent his watch to his niece, that the handsome governess had taken an impression in wax of the small master-key upon the other end of his chain, or that she had that very same evening posted the wax impression in the tin matchbox to the clever secret agent of the Italian War Office—the man who with two colleagues had come over from Paris specially, who had met Mademoiselle in Kensington Gardens, and who was known at the newsagent’s in the Westminster Bridge Road as Giuseppe Gallo, a civil engineer, seeking employment.

Chapter Thirty Four.In Confidence.General Arturo Valentini, commanding the Italian forces on the Alpine frontier of France, sprang nimbly from an open cab, and helped out his companion—a young lady in deep mourning, with her long crape veil down, as is the custom in Italy.The sentries at the big arched gateway of the military prison of Turin, recognising the commanding officer, stood at the salute, and in response, the short, dapper little man in his uniform and row of ribbons on his breast raised his hand to his peaked cap quickly in acknowledgment, and passed at once into the great bare courtyard surrounded by the high, white, inartistic outer offices of the prison.The soldiers off duty, who were lounging and gossiping, quickly drew themselves up to attention as he crossed the courtyard to the office of the governor, walking with his firm military gait and spurs clinking, and his sword trailing over the stones. He was one of the smartest and best soldiers Italy possessed, a man who had shown an iron nerve in those turbulent days of the struggle for unity, a man of rigid discipline and yet of kindly heart. The loss of his only son in the reverses in Abyssinia two years before had left him without kith or kin, and although he commanded a military district as large as England, and was also in possession of a private income, he led a simple life at his headquarters there in Turin, going into society as little as possible, and ever working to improve the condition of his command. His district was the most important of any in Italy, for in case of hostilities it would be the first point attacked; and as triumph usually lies with those who strike the first blow, it was his object to enter France effectively and on the instant, if the dogs of war were ever let loose.With this end in view, he was untiring in his efforts to perfect the defences of those many valleys and Alpine passes by which the enemy might gain admittance if not perfectly secure. In both summer and winter his troops were ever manoeuvring in those high misty mountains, skirmishing, throwing bridges over the deep gorges, and executing evolutions always in secret, always fearing that the French might learn their intentions in case of war.That enormous army on the Italian frontier which one never sees, those regiments upon regiments which dwell far up in the remote heights of the Alps, away from the civilisation of the towns, are kept a mystery by the Ministry of War. They are there, ever ready, one knows, but where all the hidden fortresses are situated, or where the death-dealing mines are laid, are secrets which only the War Office and the commander know.And it is those secrets which French spies are ever endeavouring to discover. Indeed, one of General Valentini’s chief anxieties was the ingenuity displayed by the emissaries of France, who crossed the frontier in all kinds of disguises in the endeavour to learn the military secrets. Not a year went past but two or three of these spies were arrested and condemned—and, be it said, the same state of things existed on French territory, where the secret service of Italy, the men from the bureau at headquarters there in Turin, boldly took their liberty in their hands and went forth to gain the secrets of their friends in the opposite valleys.It required an officer of clear foresight, great tact, and wide experience to control such a command, and in Arturo Valentini, the short, stout, red-faced little man, Italy certainly had one in whom she could repose the most absolute confidence.In the office of the prison governor the pair stood for a few minutes, until the dark-bearded, spectacled official entered, saluted the commander, invited both him and his companion to seats, and settled himself at his table.“I wish to have an interview with Felice Solaro,” the general explained. “He is still here, I suppose?”“Until Thursday next, when he is to be transferred to Gorgona.”“To Gorgona!” exclaimed the general in surprise; for the name of that lonely penal island in the Mediterranean opposite Leghorn was sufficient to cause him to shudder. “Then it is fortunate we came to-day,” he added.“But,” hesitated the grave-faced man, looking inquiringly at his company, “but of course this lady cannot see him. It is against the regulations, you know, general. No prisoner can be seen by anyone except yourself, save by order of the Minister of War.”“I know,” was the old officer’s reply. “But this lady happens to be the daughter of the Minister Morini.” Whereupon the governor bowed politely at the figure, whose face he could not well distinguish through her veil.“You therefore need have no hesitation in allowing the interview,” added the general. “If you wish, I’ll sign an order for it now.”“No, certainly not. If the lady is the Minister’s daughter, it is of course different.”“But this fact is confidential, recollect. It must not appear in any report that she has visited here.”The governor nodded. It was not the first time that ladies, high born and well-dressed some of them, had, on presenting orders from Camillo Morini, had interviews with officers and men undergoing imprisonment for various offences.Solaro’s crime was, however, the most serious of that of any prisoner who had been incarcerated there since he had held the post of governor—the unpardonable crime of treason, of selling his country into the hands of its enemy! He only knew that the court-martial had found the charges proved, and therefore he was guilty. It surprised him that the daughter of the Minister should wish to see the man condemned of such an offence, but he made no comment. He only touched his bell and gave instructions for the prisoner Solaro to be brought from his cell to theparlatorio, or speaking-room.“You of course wish, general, to see the prisoner in private,” remarked the governor, when the chief warder had gone.“If you please,” responded the old officer, in his sharp habit of speech.“Then I will not accompany you. But I may tell you that the prisoner has become much changed since his sentence. He declares his innocence, and sits pondering all day in idleness.”The general sighed, without replying. They discussed the matter until the chief warder returning they rose and followed him out across the courtyard, through a small iron-bound door before which a sentry stood at the salute, into the inner courtyard of the prison itself, the small, dismal, bare stone place which formed the exercise-yard, while all around were the small, barred, high-up windows of the cells.They passed through a door, and walking along a short corridor entered a small room divided in half by long iron bars from floor to ceiling, like the cage of some ferocious animal in captivity. Behind those bars stood the bent, pale-faced figure of Felice Solaro, different indeed from the straight, well-set-up man who had stood before the Minister of War and defiantly broken his sword across his knee. Dressed in an ill-made suit of coarse canvas, the beard he had grown gave him an unkempt and neglected appearance, the aspect of one in whom all hope was dead.On recognising his visitors, he sprang forward to the bars.“Ah! my general?” he cried. “How good of you to come to me!” And he put out his thin white hand through the iron cage to greet the man who had stood his friend and endeavoured to get his verdict reversed. Then, as the gallant old officer took his hand, he turned inquiringly towards the figure in black.She threw her long veil aside, and when he saw her face revealed he gasped—“Signorina Mary! You—you have come here—to see me!”Tears rose to her eyes and almost blinded her. Recollections of the past crowded upon her in that moment, and her heart was overburdened by pity for him.“The signorina has done her best to induce her father to sign the order for your release, captain, but, alas!”—And the general sighed without concluding his sentence.“The Minister refuses!” said the unfortunate man behind the bars. “And yet I tell you I am innocent—innocent.”“I believe you are, captain. If I did not, I should not interest myself on your behalf. But, unfortunately, the powers in Rome are greater than mine. They are sending you out to Gorgona, it seems.”“To Gorgona!” he gasped hoarsely, all the light dying from his pale, emaciated face. “Ah! then they mean to drive me mad by solitary confinement. My enemies have, indeed, triumphed!”“But have courage, Felice,” exclaimed Mary, speaking to him for the first time and taking his thin hand. “Surely one day you will have justice done to you. I cannot understand why my father so steadily refuses to release you.”“Because he fears to do so,” declared the condemned man. “I am victim of a foul intrigue in which that woman Filoména was one who conspired against me.”“And yet you loved her,” remarked the girl reproachfully.“Ah! I believe I did. I know that to you I ought not to mention her, signorina. But forgive me. Do you recollect that night in Rome—at the ball at the Colonna Palace—when I asked you a question?”“I do,” she responded, now very pale. “I was younger, and did not know my own mind then. I thought—I thought I loved you. It was our flirtation that has brought you to this. I am to blame for everything.”“No, no,” he declared. “It is I who committed the indiscretion of falling in love with you when I knew that I, a poor captain, could never hope to marry the daughter of the Minister of War.”She sighed, and tears welled again in her dark brown eyes. The general at her side was no woman’s man, but even he became affected at this meeting.“They allege that you sold to France a copy of the mobilisation scheme,” she went on. “They say that I purposely locked you in my father’s library at Rome for three hours in order that you might have access to the secret documents which were in a drawer in his writing-table.”The prisoner, smiling bitterly, answered—“Let them allege whatever it pleases them; they cannot make my unjust punishment greater than it is. You yourself know that the charge is an unjust one—and my general knows that I would never betray Italy!”“But to whom do you attribute this ingenious plot by which you have been made the scapegoat of someone else’s offence?” asked Mary, looking straight into his deep-sunken eyes. “That the plans of the Tresenta as well as the copy of the mobilisation scheme have reached the French Intelligence Department is proved beyond doubt. Our secret service in Paris has ascertained that.”“I have enemies—bitter ones,” he answered in a strange tone, his eyes fixed upon her. “They fear me, and have taken this course in order to close my mouth—in order to prevent me making certain revelations that would effect their ruin.”“But who are they?” she demanded. “The general has brought me here on purpose to put this question to you. If we are aware of all the facts, we may be able, after all, to rescue you from the horrors of Gorgona.”The pale-faced man shook his unkempt head sorrowfully, his lips pressed together, his eyes upon hers.“No. You can never secure my release,” he declared, with despair. “They dare not give me my liberty for their own sakes. Jules Dubard and that Englishman George Macbean will take good care that I never come forth to denounce them.”“George Macbean?” she gasped open-mouthed, all the colour fading from her cheeks. “Do you know him? Is he actually one of those who is responsible for this?”For answer, the man behind the bars clenched his teeth and nodded in the affirmative.

General Arturo Valentini, commanding the Italian forces on the Alpine frontier of France, sprang nimbly from an open cab, and helped out his companion—a young lady in deep mourning, with her long crape veil down, as is the custom in Italy.

The sentries at the big arched gateway of the military prison of Turin, recognising the commanding officer, stood at the salute, and in response, the short, dapper little man in his uniform and row of ribbons on his breast raised his hand to his peaked cap quickly in acknowledgment, and passed at once into the great bare courtyard surrounded by the high, white, inartistic outer offices of the prison.

The soldiers off duty, who were lounging and gossiping, quickly drew themselves up to attention as he crossed the courtyard to the office of the governor, walking with his firm military gait and spurs clinking, and his sword trailing over the stones. He was one of the smartest and best soldiers Italy possessed, a man who had shown an iron nerve in those turbulent days of the struggle for unity, a man of rigid discipline and yet of kindly heart. The loss of his only son in the reverses in Abyssinia two years before had left him without kith or kin, and although he commanded a military district as large as England, and was also in possession of a private income, he led a simple life at his headquarters there in Turin, going into society as little as possible, and ever working to improve the condition of his command. His district was the most important of any in Italy, for in case of hostilities it would be the first point attacked; and as triumph usually lies with those who strike the first blow, it was his object to enter France effectively and on the instant, if the dogs of war were ever let loose.

With this end in view, he was untiring in his efforts to perfect the defences of those many valleys and Alpine passes by which the enemy might gain admittance if not perfectly secure. In both summer and winter his troops were ever manoeuvring in those high misty mountains, skirmishing, throwing bridges over the deep gorges, and executing evolutions always in secret, always fearing that the French might learn their intentions in case of war.

That enormous army on the Italian frontier which one never sees, those regiments upon regiments which dwell far up in the remote heights of the Alps, away from the civilisation of the towns, are kept a mystery by the Ministry of War. They are there, ever ready, one knows, but where all the hidden fortresses are situated, or where the death-dealing mines are laid, are secrets which only the War Office and the commander know.

And it is those secrets which French spies are ever endeavouring to discover. Indeed, one of General Valentini’s chief anxieties was the ingenuity displayed by the emissaries of France, who crossed the frontier in all kinds of disguises in the endeavour to learn the military secrets. Not a year went past but two or three of these spies were arrested and condemned—and, be it said, the same state of things existed on French territory, where the secret service of Italy, the men from the bureau at headquarters there in Turin, boldly took their liberty in their hands and went forth to gain the secrets of their friends in the opposite valleys.

It required an officer of clear foresight, great tact, and wide experience to control such a command, and in Arturo Valentini, the short, stout, red-faced little man, Italy certainly had one in whom she could repose the most absolute confidence.

In the office of the prison governor the pair stood for a few minutes, until the dark-bearded, spectacled official entered, saluted the commander, invited both him and his companion to seats, and settled himself at his table.

“I wish to have an interview with Felice Solaro,” the general explained. “He is still here, I suppose?”

“Until Thursday next, when he is to be transferred to Gorgona.”

“To Gorgona!” exclaimed the general in surprise; for the name of that lonely penal island in the Mediterranean opposite Leghorn was sufficient to cause him to shudder. “Then it is fortunate we came to-day,” he added.

“But,” hesitated the grave-faced man, looking inquiringly at his company, “but of course this lady cannot see him. It is against the regulations, you know, general. No prisoner can be seen by anyone except yourself, save by order of the Minister of War.”

“I know,” was the old officer’s reply. “But this lady happens to be the daughter of the Minister Morini.” Whereupon the governor bowed politely at the figure, whose face he could not well distinguish through her veil.

“You therefore need have no hesitation in allowing the interview,” added the general. “If you wish, I’ll sign an order for it now.”

“No, certainly not. If the lady is the Minister’s daughter, it is of course different.”

“But this fact is confidential, recollect. It must not appear in any report that she has visited here.”

The governor nodded. It was not the first time that ladies, high born and well-dressed some of them, had, on presenting orders from Camillo Morini, had interviews with officers and men undergoing imprisonment for various offences.

Solaro’s crime was, however, the most serious of that of any prisoner who had been incarcerated there since he had held the post of governor—the unpardonable crime of treason, of selling his country into the hands of its enemy! He only knew that the court-martial had found the charges proved, and therefore he was guilty. It surprised him that the daughter of the Minister should wish to see the man condemned of such an offence, but he made no comment. He only touched his bell and gave instructions for the prisoner Solaro to be brought from his cell to theparlatorio, or speaking-room.

“You of course wish, general, to see the prisoner in private,” remarked the governor, when the chief warder had gone.

“If you please,” responded the old officer, in his sharp habit of speech.

“Then I will not accompany you. But I may tell you that the prisoner has become much changed since his sentence. He declares his innocence, and sits pondering all day in idleness.”

The general sighed, without replying. They discussed the matter until the chief warder returning they rose and followed him out across the courtyard, through a small iron-bound door before which a sentry stood at the salute, into the inner courtyard of the prison itself, the small, dismal, bare stone place which formed the exercise-yard, while all around were the small, barred, high-up windows of the cells.

They passed through a door, and walking along a short corridor entered a small room divided in half by long iron bars from floor to ceiling, like the cage of some ferocious animal in captivity. Behind those bars stood the bent, pale-faced figure of Felice Solaro, different indeed from the straight, well-set-up man who had stood before the Minister of War and defiantly broken his sword across his knee. Dressed in an ill-made suit of coarse canvas, the beard he had grown gave him an unkempt and neglected appearance, the aspect of one in whom all hope was dead.

On recognising his visitors, he sprang forward to the bars.

“Ah! my general?” he cried. “How good of you to come to me!” And he put out his thin white hand through the iron cage to greet the man who had stood his friend and endeavoured to get his verdict reversed. Then, as the gallant old officer took his hand, he turned inquiringly towards the figure in black.

She threw her long veil aside, and when he saw her face revealed he gasped—

“Signorina Mary! You—you have come here—to see me!”

Tears rose to her eyes and almost blinded her. Recollections of the past crowded upon her in that moment, and her heart was overburdened by pity for him.

“The signorina has done her best to induce her father to sign the order for your release, captain, but, alas!”—And the general sighed without concluding his sentence.

“The Minister refuses!” said the unfortunate man behind the bars. “And yet I tell you I am innocent—innocent.”

“I believe you are, captain. If I did not, I should not interest myself on your behalf. But, unfortunately, the powers in Rome are greater than mine. They are sending you out to Gorgona, it seems.”

“To Gorgona!” he gasped hoarsely, all the light dying from his pale, emaciated face. “Ah! then they mean to drive me mad by solitary confinement. My enemies have, indeed, triumphed!”

“But have courage, Felice,” exclaimed Mary, speaking to him for the first time and taking his thin hand. “Surely one day you will have justice done to you. I cannot understand why my father so steadily refuses to release you.”

“Because he fears to do so,” declared the condemned man. “I am victim of a foul intrigue in which that woman Filoména was one who conspired against me.”

“And yet you loved her,” remarked the girl reproachfully.

“Ah! I believe I did. I know that to you I ought not to mention her, signorina. But forgive me. Do you recollect that night in Rome—at the ball at the Colonna Palace—when I asked you a question?”

“I do,” she responded, now very pale. “I was younger, and did not know my own mind then. I thought—I thought I loved you. It was our flirtation that has brought you to this. I am to blame for everything.”

“No, no,” he declared. “It is I who committed the indiscretion of falling in love with you when I knew that I, a poor captain, could never hope to marry the daughter of the Minister of War.”

She sighed, and tears welled again in her dark brown eyes. The general at her side was no woman’s man, but even he became affected at this meeting.

“They allege that you sold to France a copy of the mobilisation scheme,” she went on. “They say that I purposely locked you in my father’s library at Rome for three hours in order that you might have access to the secret documents which were in a drawer in his writing-table.”

The prisoner, smiling bitterly, answered—

“Let them allege whatever it pleases them; they cannot make my unjust punishment greater than it is. You yourself know that the charge is an unjust one—and my general knows that I would never betray Italy!”

“But to whom do you attribute this ingenious plot by which you have been made the scapegoat of someone else’s offence?” asked Mary, looking straight into his deep-sunken eyes. “That the plans of the Tresenta as well as the copy of the mobilisation scheme have reached the French Intelligence Department is proved beyond doubt. Our secret service in Paris has ascertained that.”

“I have enemies—bitter ones,” he answered in a strange tone, his eyes fixed upon her. “They fear me, and have taken this course in order to close my mouth—in order to prevent me making certain revelations that would effect their ruin.”

“But who are they?” she demanded. “The general has brought me here on purpose to put this question to you. If we are aware of all the facts, we may be able, after all, to rescue you from the horrors of Gorgona.”

The pale-faced man shook his unkempt head sorrowfully, his lips pressed together, his eyes upon hers.

“No. You can never secure my release,” he declared, with despair. “They dare not give me my liberty for their own sakes. Jules Dubard and that Englishman George Macbean will take good care that I never come forth to denounce them.”

“George Macbean?” she gasped open-mouthed, all the colour fading from her cheeks. “Do you know him? Is he actually one of those who is responsible for this?”

For answer, the man behind the bars clenched his teeth and nodded in the affirmative.

Chapter Thirty Five.The Captain is Outspoken.“But tell me,” cried Mary, utterly amazed at the unhappy man’s startling allegations, “do you actually declare that Dubard and Mr Macbean have conspired in order to throw the opprobrium upon you?”“I do,” he answered in a low, hard tone. “I am convinced of it. Macbean is an Englishman living in London—secretary to an English deputy named Morgan-Mason.”“He is a friend of mine,” she remarked quietly. “I know him quite well.”“Then do not trust him,” Solaro urged. “He is the—” But he hesitated, as though fearing to make any direct charge against one who was her friend.“The what?” she inquired eagerly.For a few moments he remained silent.“He is the man who, with Dubard, was the cause of my downfall,” he responded, although from his hesitating tone she felt assured that those words were not what he had first intended to utter.“And Dubard?” she asked, her face now very grave.“What use is it to discuss either of them?” he said bitterly. “I am their victim—that is all.”“But with what motive?” she asked, bewildered at this revelation. “What connection can Mr Macbean possibly have with these false scandalous charges against you?”“Ah! the motive is more than I can tell,” he declared. “I can only surmise it.”“But there surely must be some motive!” she remarked, at the same time recollecting what she had learnt, that the information furnished by Dubard formed the basis of the charges intended to be levelled by the Socialists against her father.“I have never had an opportunity of ascertaining it,” he said. “I would, however, desire to warn you most strongly against that man Macbean.”Mary remained silent. What he had said puzzled and mystified her. His words were not prompted by motives of jealousy. That was impossible, for he was unaware of Macbean’s presence in Rome. As far as she knew, the two men had never been acquainted—the one an officer in garrison in the Alps, and the other living in far-off London. She endeavoured to induce him to speak more plainly, but it was evident that her acknowledgment that Macbean was her friend prevented him from opening his mind concerning him.All her sympathies being with the imprisoned man, she felt a distinct suspicion arising within her concerning the young Englishman.—She wondered whether after all he had really schemed to obtain an appointment in the Ministry; if his present position was only in furtherance of some sinister object?She spoke of Dubard, but the prisoner was equally silent concerning him.“What I can tell you about either of them amounts to nothing without proof, and without my liberty I cannot obtain that. They know it!” he said angrily. “They know that while I am here, in prison, my lips are sealed!”“But it is infamous!” exclaimed the red-faced old general. “If you were the victim of a plot laid by these two fellows, whoever they are, the matter ought to be sifted to the bottom. I don’t believe you are guilty, Solaro! I told His Excellency the Minister so!”“Ah, my dear general, you have been my best friend,” declared the man now clothed in sacking in lieu of a uniform. “But your efforts must all be unavailing. They are sending me to the loneliness of Gorgona, that place where many a better man than myself has been driven insane by solitude. They know that on Gorgona I shall not live very long—indeed, they will take very good care of that.”“They—who are they?” inquired Mary quickly.“My enemies.”“Mr Macbean and Dubard, you mean?”“No, others—others I need not name,” he responded vaguely, with a careless shrug of his shoulders.“But if you are the victim of a plot it must have been a most elaborate one, for the mass of evidence against you seems overwhelming. What object could the conspirators have had in view? Were they friends of yours?”“Yes—once. Their object was probably not of their own—but that of others,” he added.His words left the impression upon her that his conviction was part of the elaborate scheme of Angelo Borselli. And yet was not that very man now urging her to secure his release!The affair was increased in mystery a thousandfold.“Then if Mr Macbean was only slightly known to you why should he have plotted to secure your ruin and imprisonment?” she queried in eagerness.“As I have already said, they were both in peril as long as I was at liberty. It was to their own interests—indeed for their own safety—that I should be sent here.”“What do they fear?”“They fear what I could reveal—the facts that I could prove if I were not held here a prisoner,” he said bitterly.“And would those facts be strange ones?”“They would be startling—they would create a sensation throughout Italy. They would throw a new light on certain affairs connected with the Ministry of War that would come as a thunderclap upon the people.”“You defied the Minister, remember,” his general remarked gravely.“I know. I lost my head. I broke my sword and threw the pieces at his feet in defiance. I was foolish—ah! very foolish. Only I was angry at his refusal to order a revision of my trial.”“Yes,” the general admitted. “You have prejudiced yourself in His Excellency’s eyes, I fear. Your indignation was but natural, but it was ill-advised at that moment. The Minister Morini is not the man to brook defiance in that manner.”“But I do defy him still!” cried the desperate man, turning to the tragic figure in black. “Although he is your father, signorina, I repeat that he has done me an injustice—and that injustice is because he, like the others, fears to give me my liberty!”“But if you were released—if I could manage to obtain for you a pardon—would you make the revelations of which you have spoken?”For some minutes he was silent, thinking deeply, apparently reflecting upon the consequences of speaking the truth. Then he answered—“No. I think not.”“Why not?”“Because—well, because there are one or two facts of which I have no absolute proof.”“But you are certain of Dubard’s connection with the false charges against you?”“Positive. He arranged with Filoména Nodari formybetrayal.”“But why? I cannot see the motive, and yet he must have had one!”“In his own interests, as well as those of the Englishman.”“You mean Macbean?”“Yes—the betrayer!”Mary’s heart beat quickly. She could not grasp his meaning, yet he refused to tell her plainly the whole of the strange circumstances, apparently fearing to give her pain because she had declared herself to be a friend of the Englishman. He was, of course, in ignorance of their friendship, just as he was in ignorance of her engagement to Jules Dubard.She was in a dilemma—a dilemma absolute and complete. What Borselli had declared—namely, that the unfortunate captain was in possession of some facts which he would prove if he regained his liberty—seemed to be the truth. Yet if she secured his liberty by pressing her father to pardon him, she would only be deliberately giving to his political enemies a weapon whereby they might hound him from office. While, further, he refused to make her a direct promise to tell the truth, or make the revelations—even if liberated.What could she do? How could she act? His allegations held her amazed, speechless. He had declared himself to be the victim of the ingenious conspiracy formed by the Frenchman and by George Macbean—the latter, of all men! The whole affair was an enigma that was inexplicable.That Macbean had entered into a plot against him was utterly beyond her comprehension. He was essentially a Londoner, and had surely no interest whatsoever in the Alpine defences of Italy! Dubard was certainly his friend. Had he not, indeed, told her so? He had, only a fortnight before, expressed a hope that Dubard would soon return from the Pyrenees.And yet that broken, desperate man—the man with whom she had had that pleasant flirtation during one Roman season—had fallen their victim!But if so, why was Borselli now anxious that he should be freed in order to make his revelations against the very man Dubard who was his intimate friend—the man who it was said had furnished the Opposition with facts—most of them false—regarding her father’s political shortcomings?She tried to reason it all out, but became the more and more utterly bewildered.The reason of the captain’s denunciation of George Macbean was a mystery. When he mentioned the Englishman’s name she had noticed a flash in his deep-set eyes betokening a deadly, deep-rooted hatred. And yet it was upon this very man that all her thoughts and reflections had of late been centred.As they were alone in that grim, gloomy room with its barred partition—the governor having granted them a private conference—she explained how the Socialists had endeavoured to make capital out of the charges against him with a view to obtaining her father’s dismissal from office. She made no mention of her compact with Dubard or her engagement to him, but merely explained how at the eleventh hour, while Montebruno was on his feet in the Chamber of Deputies, the mysterious note had been placed in his hand which had had the effect of arresting the charges he was about to pour forth.Solaro listened to her in silence while she gave a description of the scene in the Chamber, and related certain details of the conspiracy which she had learned through her father, the details gathered in secret by Vito Ricci.“Ah?” he sighed at last, having listened open-mouthed. “It is exactly as I expected. Your father’s enemies are mine. Having drawn me safely into their net, they intend to use my condemnation as proof of the insecurity of the frontier and the culpability of the Minister of War.”“But if they attack the Minister they must attack me personally?” exclaimed the general in surprise; for he had been in ignorance of the widespread intrigue to hold the Ministry of War up to public ridicule and condemnation. “As the frontier is under my command, I am personally responsible for its security?”“Exactly,” Solaro said in a somewhat quieter tone. “If His Excellency had ordered a revision of my trial, I should most certainly have been proved innocent, and that being so, the Socialists would have had no direct charge which they could level against the Ministry. But as it is, I stand here condemned, imprisoned as a traitor, and therefore my general is culpable, and above him the Minister himself.”“My father should have pardoned you long ago. It is infamous!” Mary declared, with rising anger. “By refusing your appeal for a new trial he placed himself in this position of peril!”“Had I been released I would have given into his hands certain information by which he could have crushed the infamous intrigue against him,” said the man behind the bars in a low, desperate tone. “But now it is too late for a revision of my sentence. Our enemies have triumphed. I am to be sent to Gorgona, sent to my death, while the plot against His Excellency still exists, and thecoupwill be made against him at the very moment when he feels himself the most secure.” Then, watching the pale face, he added suddenly, “Forgive me, signorina, for speaking frankly like this; he is, I recollect, your father. But he has done me a grave injustice; he could have saved me—saved himself—if he had cared to do so.”“But you have said that my father fears to give you your liberty?” She remarked. “If that is so, it is fear, and not disinclination, that has prevented him granting you a pardon?”“It is both,” he declared hoarsely.“But is there no one else who could assist you—who would expose these enemies and their plot?” she asked.“No one,” he answered. “The most elaborate preparations were made to set the trap into which I unfortunately fell. I was watched in Paris, in Bologna, in Turin—in garrison and out of it. My every movement was noted, in order that it might be misconstrued. That Frenchman who struck up an acquaintance with me in Paris, and who afterwards lent me money, was in the pay of my enemies; and from that all the damning evidence against me was constructed with an ingenuity that was fiendish. I, an innocent man, was condemned without being given any opportunity of proving my defence! Ask Dubard, or the Englishman. Ask them to tell the truth—if they dare!”“But tell me more of Mr Macbean,” she cried eagerly. “What do you allege against him?”“I make no allegations,” he answered in a low, changed voice. “I can suffer in silence. Only when you meet that man tell him that Felice Solaro, from his prison, sends him his warmest remembrances. Then watch his face—that is all. His countenance will tell you the truth.”

“But tell me,” cried Mary, utterly amazed at the unhappy man’s startling allegations, “do you actually declare that Dubard and Mr Macbean have conspired in order to throw the opprobrium upon you?”

“I do,” he answered in a low, hard tone. “I am convinced of it. Macbean is an Englishman living in London—secretary to an English deputy named Morgan-Mason.”

“He is a friend of mine,” she remarked quietly. “I know him quite well.”

“Then do not trust him,” Solaro urged. “He is the—” But he hesitated, as though fearing to make any direct charge against one who was her friend.

“The what?” she inquired eagerly.

For a few moments he remained silent.

“He is the man who, with Dubard, was the cause of my downfall,” he responded, although from his hesitating tone she felt assured that those words were not what he had first intended to utter.

“And Dubard?” she asked, her face now very grave.

“What use is it to discuss either of them?” he said bitterly. “I am their victim—that is all.”

“But with what motive?” she asked, bewildered at this revelation. “What connection can Mr Macbean possibly have with these false scandalous charges against you?”

“Ah! the motive is more than I can tell,” he declared. “I can only surmise it.”

“But there surely must be some motive!” she remarked, at the same time recollecting what she had learnt, that the information furnished by Dubard formed the basis of the charges intended to be levelled by the Socialists against her father.

“I have never had an opportunity of ascertaining it,” he said. “I would, however, desire to warn you most strongly against that man Macbean.”

Mary remained silent. What he had said puzzled and mystified her. His words were not prompted by motives of jealousy. That was impossible, for he was unaware of Macbean’s presence in Rome. As far as she knew, the two men had never been acquainted—the one an officer in garrison in the Alps, and the other living in far-off London. She endeavoured to induce him to speak more plainly, but it was evident that her acknowledgment that Macbean was her friend prevented him from opening his mind concerning him.

All her sympathies being with the imprisoned man, she felt a distinct suspicion arising within her concerning the young Englishman.—She wondered whether after all he had really schemed to obtain an appointment in the Ministry; if his present position was only in furtherance of some sinister object?

She spoke of Dubard, but the prisoner was equally silent concerning him.

“What I can tell you about either of them amounts to nothing without proof, and without my liberty I cannot obtain that. They know it!” he said angrily. “They know that while I am here, in prison, my lips are sealed!”

“But it is infamous!” exclaimed the red-faced old general. “If you were the victim of a plot laid by these two fellows, whoever they are, the matter ought to be sifted to the bottom. I don’t believe you are guilty, Solaro! I told His Excellency the Minister so!”

“Ah, my dear general, you have been my best friend,” declared the man now clothed in sacking in lieu of a uniform. “But your efforts must all be unavailing. They are sending me to the loneliness of Gorgona, that place where many a better man than myself has been driven insane by solitude. They know that on Gorgona I shall not live very long—indeed, they will take very good care of that.”

“They—who are they?” inquired Mary quickly.

“My enemies.”

“Mr Macbean and Dubard, you mean?”

“No, others—others I need not name,” he responded vaguely, with a careless shrug of his shoulders.

“But if you are the victim of a plot it must have been a most elaborate one, for the mass of evidence against you seems overwhelming. What object could the conspirators have had in view? Were they friends of yours?”

“Yes—once. Their object was probably not of their own—but that of others,” he added.

His words left the impression upon her that his conviction was part of the elaborate scheme of Angelo Borselli. And yet was not that very man now urging her to secure his release!

The affair was increased in mystery a thousandfold.

“Then if Mr Macbean was only slightly known to you why should he have plotted to secure your ruin and imprisonment?” she queried in eagerness.

“As I have already said, they were both in peril as long as I was at liberty. It was to their own interests—indeed for their own safety—that I should be sent here.”

“What do they fear?”

“They fear what I could reveal—the facts that I could prove if I were not held here a prisoner,” he said bitterly.

“And would those facts be strange ones?”

“They would be startling—they would create a sensation throughout Italy. They would throw a new light on certain affairs connected with the Ministry of War that would come as a thunderclap upon the people.”

“You defied the Minister, remember,” his general remarked gravely.

“I know. I lost my head. I broke my sword and threw the pieces at his feet in defiance. I was foolish—ah! very foolish. Only I was angry at his refusal to order a revision of my trial.”

“Yes,” the general admitted. “You have prejudiced yourself in His Excellency’s eyes, I fear. Your indignation was but natural, but it was ill-advised at that moment. The Minister Morini is not the man to brook defiance in that manner.”

“But I do defy him still!” cried the desperate man, turning to the tragic figure in black. “Although he is your father, signorina, I repeat that he has done me an injustice—and that injustice is because he, like the others, fears to give me my liberty!”

“But if you were released—if I could manage to obtain for you a pardon—would you make the revelations of which you have spoken?”

For some minutes he was silent, thinking deeply, apparently reflecting upon the consequences of speaking the truth. Then he answered—

“No. I think not.”

“Why not?”

“Because—well, because there are one or two facts of which I have no absolute proof.”

“But you are certain of Dubard’s connection with the false charges against you?”

“Positive. He arranged with Filoména Nodari formybetrayal.”

“But why? I cannot see the motive, and yet he must have had one!”

“In his own interests, as well as those of the Englishman.”

“You mean Macbean?”

“Yes—the betrayer!”

Mary’s heart beat quickly. She could not grasp his meaning, yet he refused to tell her plainly the whole of the strange circumstances, apparently fearing to give her pain because she had declared herself to be a friend of the Englishman. He was, of course, in ignorance of their friendship, just as he was in ignorance of her engagement to Jules Dubard.

She was in a dilemma—a dilemma absolute and complete. What Borselli had declared—namely, that the unfortunate captain was in possession of some facts which he would prove if he regained his liberty—seemed to be the truth. Yet if she secured his liberty by pressing her father to pardon him, she would only be deliberately giving to his political enemies a weapon whereby they might hound him from office. While, further, he refused to make her a direct promise to tell the truth, or make the revelations—even if liberated.

What could she do? How could she act? His allegations held her amazed, speechless. He had declared himself to be the victim of the ingenious conspiracy formed by the Frenchman and by George Macbean—the latter, of all men! The whole affair was an enigma that was inexplicable.

That Macbean had entered into a plot against him was utterly beyond her comprehension. He was essentially a Londoner, and had surely no interest whatsoever in the Alpine defences of Italy! Dubard was certainly his friend. Had he not, indeed, told her so? He had, only a fortnight before, expressed a hope that Dubard would soon return from the Pyrenees.

And yet that broken, desperate man—the man with whom she had had that pleasant flirtation during one Roman season—had fallen their victim!

But if so, why was Borselli now anxious that he should be freed in order to make his revelations against the very man Dubard who was his intimate friend—the man who it was said had furnished the Opposition with facts—most of them false—regarding her father’s political shortcomings?

She tried to reason it all out, but became the more and more utterly bewildered.

The reason of the captain’s denunciation of George Macbean was a mystery. When he mentioned the Englishman’s name she had noticed a flash in his deep-set eyes betokening a deadly, deep-rooted hatred. And yet it was upon this very man that all her thoughts and reflections had of late been centred.

As they were alone in that grim, gloomy room with its barred partition—the governor having granted them a private conference—she explained how the Socialists had endeavoured to make capital out of the charges against him with a view to obtaining her father’s dismissal from office. She made no mention of her compact with Dubard or her engagement to him, but merely explained how at the eleventh hour, while Montebruno was on his feet in the Chamber of Deputies, the mysterious note had been placed in his hand which had had the effect of arresting the charges he was about to pour forth.

Solaro listened to her in silence while she gave a description of the scene in the Chamber, and related certain details of the conspiracy which she had learned through her father, the details gathered in secret by Vito Ricci.

“Ah?” he sighed at last, having listened open-mouthed. “It is exactly as I expected. Your father’s enemies are mine. Having drawn me safely into their net, they intend to use my condemnation as proof of the insecurity of the frontier and the culpability of the Minister of War.”

“But if they attack the Minister they must attack me personally?” exclaimed the general in surprise; for he had been in ignorance of the widespread intrigue to hold the Ministry of War up to public ridicule and condemnation. “As the frontier is under my command, I am personally responsible for its security?”

“Exactly,” Solaro said in a somewhat quieter tone. “If His Excellency had ordered a revision of my trial, I should most certainly have been proved innocent, and that being so, the Socialists would have had no direct charge which they could level against the Ministry. But as it is, I stand here condemned, imprisoned as a traitor, and therefore my general is culpable, and above him the Minister himself.”

“My father should have pardoned you long ago. It is infamous!” Mary declared, with rising anger. “By refusing your appeal for a new trial he placed himself in this position of peril!”

“Had I been released I would have given into his hands certain information by which he could have crushed the infamous intrigue against him,” said the man behind the bars in a low, desperate tone. “But now it is too late for a revision of my sentence. Our enemies have triumphed. I am to be sent to Gorgona, sent to my death, while the plot against His Excellency still exists, and thecoupwill be made against him at the very moment when he feels himself the most secure.” Then, watching the pale face, he added suddenly, “Forgive me, signorina, for speaking frankly like this; he is, I recollect, your father. But he has done me a grave injustice; he could have saved me—saved himself—if he had cared to do so.”

“But you have said that my father fears to give you your liberty?” She remarked. “If that is so, it is fear, and not disinclination, that has prevented him granting you a pardon?”

“It is both,” he declared hoarsely.

“But is there no one else who could assist you—who would expose these enemies and their plot?” she asked.

“No one,” he answered. “The most elaborate preparations were made to set the trap into which I unfortunately fell. I was watched in Paris, in Bologna, in Turin—in garrison and out of it. My every movement was noted, in order that it might be misconstrued. That Frenchman who struck up an acquaintance with me in Paris, and who afterwards lent me money, was in the pay of my enemies; and from that all the damning evidence against me was constructed with an ingenuity that was fiendish. I, an innocent man, was condemned without being given any opportunity of proving my defence! Ask Dubard, or the Englishman. Ask them to tell the truth—if they dare!”

“But tell me more of Mr Macbean,” she cried eagerly. “What do you allege against him?”

“I make no allegations,” he answered in a low, changed voice. “I can suffer in silence. Only when you meet that man tell him that Felice Solaro, from his prison, sends him his warmest remembrances. Then watch his face—that is all. His countenance will tell you the truth.”

Chapter Thirty Six.In the Twilight Hour.For Mary Morini the world was full of base intrigue and uncharitableness, of untruth and false friendship. Four years ago she had returned to Italy from that quiet school at Broadstairs to find herself plunged suddenly into a circle of society, torn by all the conflicting failings of the human heart. The world which she had believed to be so full of beauty was only a wild, stormy waste, whereon each traveller was compelled to fight and battle for reputation and for life. Already world-weary before her time, she was nauseated by the hollow shams about her, tired of the glare of those gilded salons, and appalled by the intrigues on every hand—the intrigues which had for their object her father’s ruin and the sacrifice of all her love, her youth, and happiness.Often she asked herself if there could be any element of good remaining in such a world as hers. She tried it by the test of her religious principle and found it selfish, indolent, and vain, attracting and swallowing up all who lived within the sphere of its contaminating influence. She had believed herself adapted to the exercise of her affections, that she might love, and trust, and hope to the utmost of her wishes; but, alas! hers had been a rude awakening, and the stern realities of life were to her a cruel and bitter revelation.In her Christian meekness she constantly sought Divine guidance, even though compelled to live amid that gay whirl of Rome; for the date of her marriage was rapidly approaching, the day when the man to whom she had bartered herself in exchange for her father’s life would come forward and claim her.The season, as society knew it, was far advanced, and although her mind was filled by those grave suspicions conjured up by Solaro’s allegations, she frequently met and talked with George Macbean. His duties as her father’s secretary took him to the palace a great deal, and sometimes of an evening they met at various official functions to which the young Englishman had also been bidden.Out of the very poverty and the feebleness of her life, out of sheer desperation, she became drawn towards him, and the bond of friendship became still more closely cemented, even though those suspicions ever arose within her. He was Dubard’s friend—he had admitted that to her—and as Dubard’s friend she mistrusted him.She had no friend in whom she could confide, or of whom she might ask advice. She exchanged few such confidences with her mother, while she was unable to reveal to her father her secret visit to Solaro’s prison for fear of his displeasure. It was at this crisis of her young life that she felt the absolute want of a participator in her joys, a recipient of her secrets, and a soother of her sorrows, and it was this sense of utter loneliness which rendered the young Englishman’s society so welcome to her.Weeks had passed since her painful interview with poor Solaro. The dull burden of accumulated sorrows hung heavily upon her. She had begun afresh. She had made a fresh dedication of her heart to God. She had commenced her patient work of unravelling the mystery of the great intrigue by which to save her father, and to escape herself from the fate to which she was consigned—she had commenced the work as though it had never been undertaken before, supported by Christian faith, and ever striving not to prejudge the man whose friendship had now become so necessary to her existence.What the unfortunate prisoner had told her, however, had opened her eyes to many plain facts, the chief of them being that Borselli had, by his suggestion that she should secure the captain’s release, endeavoured to induce her to bring ruin upon her own father. For the Minister to sign a decree of pardon now was impossible. Such an action must inevitably cause his downfall; therefore it was necessary that the captain should remain in prison, although innocent.In Rome a sudden tranquillity had fallen upon the face of that ever-changing political world around the throne. Mary, who was seen at every ball and at every official dinner, still retained her golden and exuberant youth, her joyous step, her sweet smile, and the world believed her very happy. She was to marry Jules Dubard. But at home, in the hours of loneliness in her own room, there fell upon her the grim tragedy of it all, and she shed tears, bitter tears, because she was still fettered, still unable to discover the truth.Two years ago she had possessed all the freshness of unwearied nature, the glow of health, that life-spring of all the energies of thought and action—the power to believe as well as to hope—the earnestness of zeal unchilled by disappointment, the first awakening of joy, the clear perception of a mind unbiassed in its search of truth, the fervour of an untroubled soul. But alas! the world had now disappointed her. Like Felice Solaro, like her father, she too had fallen a victim of those unscrupulous persons whose base craft and low cunning were alike mysterious and unfathomable.George Macbean, watching her as closely as he did, realised the gradual change in her, and was much puzzled. True, she wore the same magnificent Paris-made gowns, was as humorous and irresponsible, and laughed as gaily as she had done in those summer days in England. Yet sometimes, as they sat alone, he detected that burden of grief and sadness that oppressed her mind. Soon she was to marry Dubard, yet her attitude was by no means that of the self-satisfied bride. Ignorant of the bitter reflections within her, he was, of course, much mystified at those gloomy, despairing words that sometimes involuntarily fell from her lips. He did not know, as she so vividly realised, that the day she married Jules Dubard her beloved father would again be at the mercy of those who sought his downfall.Her Excellency had suggested a visit to Paris for the trousseau, but this she had declined. She had no desire for the gaiety which a visit to the French capital would entail. Therefore all the dresses andlingeriewere being made in Florence and Rome; a magnificent trousseau, which a princess of the blood might have envied, for Camillo Morini never spared any expense where his daughter was concerned.Yet she scarcely looked at the rich and costly things as they arrived in huge boxfuls, but ordered Teresa to put them aside, sighing within herself that the world was so soon to make merry over the great tragedy of her life.Dubard was still at Bayonne, detained on business connected with his estate. He wrote frequently, and, much against her own inclination, she was compelled to reply to his letters. More than one person in her own set remarked upon the prolonged absence of the popular young Frenchman who had become so well known in the Eternal City, but only one person guessed the true reason—and that person was George Macbean.Late one afternoon she had been driving on the Pincio, as was her habit each day. She was alone, her mother being too unwell to go out, and just as thepasseggiata, or fashionable promenade, was over, she passed the young Englishman walking alone. She bowed and drove on, but presently stopped her victoria, alighted, and telling the coachman that she would walk home, dismissed him.Most of the carriages had already left that beautiful hill-garden from the terraces of which one obtains such wonderful panoramas of the ancient city, and it being nearly six o’clock, the promenaders were now mostly Cookites, the women bloused and tweed-skirted, and the men in various costumes of England, from the inevitable blue serge suit to the breeches and golf-cap of “the seaside,”—people with whom she was unacquainted. In a few moments they met, and he turned happily and walked in her direction.“I’m cramped,” she declared. “I’ve been in the carriage nearly three mortal hours, first paying calls with father, and then here alone. I saw you, so it was a good opportunity of getting a walk. You go to the Princess Palmieri’s to-night, I suppose?”“Yes, Her Highness has sent me a card,” he answered—“thanks to your father, I suppose.” As she walked beside him, in a beautiful gown of pale dove grey with a large black hat, he glanced at her admiringly and added, “I saw in to-day’sTribunathat the count is expected back in two or three days. Have you had news of him?”“I received a letter yesterday—from Biarritz. He is with his aunt, who is very unwell, and is paying a dutiful visit before coming here.”In silence they walked on, passing the water-clock and descending the hill until they came to that small piazza with the stone balustrade that affords such a magnificent vista of the ancient city. Here they halted to enjoy the view, as the tourists were enjoying it. The wonderful Eternal City with its hundred towers lay below them in the calm golden mist of evening. It was a scene she had looked upon hundreds of times, yet at that moment she was attracted by the crowd of “personally conducted” who stood at the stone balustrade and gazed away in the direction of where the huge dome of St. Peter’s loomed up through the haze. Like many a cosmopolitan, she took a mischievous delight in mingling with a crowd of English tourists and hearing their comments upon things Italian—remarks that were often drily humorous. She stood at her companion’s side, chatting with him while the light faded, the glorious afterglow died away, and the tourists, recollecting the hour of their respectivetables d’hôte, descended the hill to the city. And then, when they were alone, he turned to her and, with a touch of bitterness in his voice, said—“I suppose very soon you will leave Rome and live in Paris. Has the count made any plans?”“We live this summer at the château,” was her answer. “The winter he intends to spend on the Riviera.”“And Rome will lose you!” he exclaimed in regret. “At the Countess Bardi’s last night they were discussing it, and everyone expressed sorrow that you should leave them.”She sighed deeply, and in her eyes he thought he detected the light of tears.“For many things I shall really not be sorry to leave Rome,” she answered blankly. “Only I wish I were going to live in dear old England. I have no love for Paris, and the artificiality of the Riviera I detest. It is the plague-spot of Europe. What people can really see in it beyond the attraction of gambling I never can understand. The very atmosphere is hateful to anyone with a spark of self-respect.”They were leaning on the old grey stonework, their faces turned to the darkening valley where wound the Tiber, the centre of the civilisation of all the ages, the great misty void wherein the lights were already beginning to twinkle.Furtively he glanced at her countenance, and saw upon her white brow a look of deep, resigned despair. He loved her—this beautiful woman who was to sacrifice herself to the man who he knew had entrapped her, and yet whom he dare not denounce for fear of incriminating himself. He, who worshipped her—who loved her in truth and in silence as no man had ever loved a woman—was compelled to stand by and witness the tragedy! Night after night, when he thought of it as he paced his room, he clenched his hands in sheer despair and cried to himself in agony.Dubard was to be her husband—Jules Dubard, the man who, knowing of his presence in Rome, feared to return to claim her as his wife!“You are very silent, Miss Mary!” he managed to say at last, watching her pale, beautiful face set away towards the dark valley.“I was thinking,” she answered, turning slowly, facing him, and looking straight into his eyes.“Of what?”“Shall I tell you frankly?”“Certainly,” he said, smiling. “You are always frank with me, are you not?”“Well, I was thinking of a man who was once my friend—a man whom I believe you have cause to remember,” she replied in a meaning tone—“a man named Felice Solaro!”“Felice Solaro!” he gasped, quickly starting back, his cheeks blanching as he repeated the name. “If Felice Solaro is a friend of yours, Miss Mary, then he has probably told you the truth—the ghastly truth?” he cried hoarsely, as his face fell. “He has revealed to you the mystery concerning General Sazarac! Tell me—tell me what allegation has he made against me?”

For Mary Morini the world was full of base intrigue and uncharitableness, of untruth and false friendship. Four years ago she had returned to Italy from that quiet school at Broadstairs to find herself plunged suddenly into a circle of society, torn by all the conflicting failings of the human heart. The world which she had believed to be so full of beauty was only a wild, stormy waste, whereon each traveller was compelled to fight and battle for reputation and for life. Already world-weary before her time, she was nauseated by the hollow shams about her, tired of the glare of those gilded salons, and appalled by the intrigues on every hand—the intrigues which had for their object her father’s ruin and the sacrifice of all her love, her youth, and happiness.

Often she asked herself if there could be any element of good remaining in such a world as hers. She tried it by the test of her religious principle and found it selfish, indolent, and vain, attracting and swallowing up all who lived within the sphere of its contaminating influence. She had believed herself adapted to the exercise of her affections, that she might love, and trust, and hope to the utmost of her wishes; but, alas! hers had been a rude awakening, and the stern realities of life were to her a cruel and bitter revelation.

In her Christian meekness she constantly sought Divine guidance, even though compelled to live amid that gay whirl of Rome; for the date of her marriage was rapidly approaching, the day when the man to whom she had bartered herself in exchange for her father’s life would come forward and claim her.

The season, as society knew it, was far advanced, and although her mind was filled by those grave suspicions conjured up by Solaro’s allegations, she frequently met and talked with George Macbean. His duties as her father’s secretary took him to the palace a great deal, and sometimes of an evening they met at various official functions to which the young Englishman had also been bidden.

Out of the very poverty and the feebleness of her life, out of sheer desperation, she became drawn towards him, and the bond of friendship became still more closely cemented, even though those suspicions ever arose within her. He was Dubard’s friend—he had admitted that to her—and as Dubard’s friend she mistrusted him.

She had no friend in whom she could confide, or of whom she might ask advice. She exchanged few such confidences with her mother, while she was unable to reveal to her father her secret visit to Solaro’s prison for fear of his displeasure. It was at this crisis of her young life that she felt the absolute want of a participator in her joys, a recipient of her secrets, and a soother of her sorrows, and it was this sense of utter loneliness which rendered the young Englishman’s society so welcome to her.

Weeks had passed since her painful interview with poor Solaro. The dull burden of accumulated sorrows hung heavily upon her. She had begun afresh. She had made a fresh dedication of her heart to God. She had commenced her patient work of unravelling the mystery of the great intrigue by which to save her father, and to escape herself from the fate to which she was consigned—she had commenced the work as though it had never been undertaken before, supported by Christian faith, and ever striving not to prejudge the man whose friendship had now become so necessary to her existence.

What the unfortunate prisoner had told her, however, had opened her eyes to many plain facts, the chief of them being that Borselli had, by his suggestion that she should secure the captain’s release, endeavoured to induce her to bring ruin upon her own father. For the Minister to sign a decree of pardon now was impossible. Such an action must inevitably cause his downfall; therefore it was necessary that the captain should remain in prison, although innocent.

In Rome a sudden tranquillity had fallen upon the face of that ever-changing political world around the throne. Mary, who was seen at every ball and at every official dinner, still retained her golden and exuberant youth, her joyous step, her sweet smile, and the world believed her very happy. She was to marry Jules Dubard. But at home, in the hours of loneliness in her own room, there fell upon her the grim tragedy of it all, and she shed tears, bitter tears, because she was still fettered, still unable to discover the truth.

Two years ago she had possessed all the freshness of unwearied nature, the glow of health, that life-spring of all the energies of thought and action—the power to believe as well as to hope—the earnestness of zeal unchilled by disappointment, the first awakening of joy, the clear perception of a mind unbiassed in its search of truth, the fervour of an untroubled soul. But alas! the world had now disappointed her. Like Felice Solaro, like her father, she too had fallen a victim of those unscrupulous persons whose base craft and low cunning were alike mysterious and unfathomable.

George Macbean, watching her as closely as he did, realised the gradual change in her, and was much puzzled. True, she wore the same magnificent Paris-made gowns, was as humorous and irresponsible, and laughed as gaily as she had done in those summer days in England. Yet sometimes, as they sat alone, he detected that burden of grief and sadness that oppressed her mind. Soon she was to marry Dubard, yet her attitude was by no means that of the self-satisfied bride. Ignorant of the bitter reflections within her, he was, of course, much mystified at those gloomy, despairing words that sometimes involuntarily fell from her lips. He did not know, as she so vividly realised, that the day she married Jules Dubard her beloved father would again be at the mercy of those who sought his downfall.

Her Excellency had suggested a visit to Paris for the trousseau, but this she had declined. She had no desire for the gaiety which a visit to the French capital would entail. Therefore all the dresses andlingeriewere being made in Florence and Rome; a magnificent trousseau, which a princess of the blood might have envied, for Camillo Morini never spared any expense where his daughter was concerned.

Yet she scarcely looked at the rich and costly things as they arrived in huge boxfuls, but ordered Teresa to put them aside, sighing within herself that the world was so soon to make merry over the great tragedy of her life.

Dubard was still at Bayonne, detained on business connected with his estate. He wrote frequently, and, much against her own inclination, she was compelled to reply to his letters. More than one person in her own set remarked upon the prolonged absence of the popular young Frenchman who had become so well known in the Eternal City, but only one person guessed the true reason—and that person was George Macbean.

Late one afternoon she had been driving on the Pincio, as was her habit each day. She was alone, her mother being too unwell to go out, and just as thepasseggiata, or fashionable promenade, was over, she passed the young Englishman walking alone. She bowed and drove on, but presently stopped her victoria, alighted, and telling the coachman that she would walk home, dismissed him.

Most of the carriages had already left that beautiful hill-garden from the terraces of which one obtains such wonderful panoramas of the ancient city, and it being nearly six o’clock, the promenaders were now mostly Cookites, the women bloused and tweed-skirted, and the men in various costumes of England, from the inevitable blue serge suit to the breeches and golf-cap of “the seaside,”—people with whom she was unacquainted. In a few moments they met, and he turned happily and walked in her direction.

“I’m cramped,” she declared. “I’ve been in the carriage nearly three mortal hours, first paying calls with father, and then here alone. I saw you, so it was a good opportunity of getting a walk. You go to the Princess Palmieri’s to-night, I suppose?”

“Yes, Her Highness has sent me a card,” he answered—“thanks to your father, I suppose.” As she walked beside him, in a beautiful gown of pale dove grey with a large black hat, he glanced at her admiringly and added, “I saw in to-day’sTribunathat the count is expected back in two or three days. Have you had news of him?”

“I received a letter yesterday—from Biarritz. He is with his aunt, who is very unwell, and is paying a dutiful visit before coming here.”

In silence they walked on, passing the water-clock and descending the hill until they came to that small piazza with the stone balustrade that affords such a magnificent vista of the ancient city. Here they halted to enjoy the view, as the tourists were enjoying it. The wonderful Eternal City with its hundred towers lay below them in the calm golden mist of evening. It was a scene she had looked upon hundreds of times, yet at that moment she was attracted by the crowd of “personally conducted” who stood at the stone balustrade and gazed away in the direction of where the huge dome of St. Peter’s loomed up through the haze. Like many a cosmopolitan, she took a mischievous delight in mingling with a crowd of English tourists and hearing their comments upon things Italian—remarks that were often drily humorous. She stood at her companion’s side, chatting with him while the light faded, the glorious afterglow died away, and the tourists, recollecting the hour of their respectivetables d’hôte, descended the hill to the city. And then, when they were alone, he turned to her and, with a touch of bitterness in his voice, said—

“I suppose very soon you will leave Rome and live in Paris. Has the count made any plans?”

“We live this summer at the château,” was her answer. “The winter he intends to spend on the Riviera.”

“And Rome will lose you!” he exclaimed in regret. “At the Countess Bardi’s last night they were discussing it, and everyone expressed sorrow that you should leave them.”

She sighed deeply, and in her eyes he thought he detected the light of tears.

“For many things I shall really not be sorry to leave Rome,” she answered blankly. “Only I wish I were going to live in dear old England. I have no love for Paris, and the artificiality of the Riviera I detest. It is the plague-spot of Europe. What people can really see in it beyond the attraction of gambling I never can understand. The very atmosphere is hateful to anyone with a spark of self-respect.”

They were leaning on the old grey stonework, their faces turned to the darkening valley where wound the Tiber, the centre of the civilisation of all the ages, the great misty void wherein the lights were already beginning to twinkle.

Furtively he glanced at her countenance, and saw upon her white brow a look of deep, resigned despair. He loved her—this beautiful woman who was to sacrifice herself to the man who he knew had entrapped her, and yet whom he dare not denounce for fear of incriminating himself. He, who worshipped her—who loved her in truth and in silence as no man had ever loved a woman—was compelled to stand by and witness the tragedy! Night after night, when he thought of it as he paced his room, he clenched his hands in sheer despair and cried to himself in agony.

Dubard was to be her husband—Jules Dubard, the man who, knowing of his presence in Rome, feared to return to claim her as his wife!

“You are very silent, Miss Mary!” he managed to say at last, watching her pale, beautiful face set away towards the dark valley.

“I was thinking,” she answered, turning slowly, facing him, and looking straight into his eyes.

“Of what?”

“Shall I tell you frankly?”

“Certainly,” he said, smiling. “You are always frank with me, are you not?”

“Well, I was thinking of a man who was once my friend—a man whom I believe you have cause to remember,” she replied in a meaning tone—“a man named Felice Solaro!”

“Felice Solaro!” he gasped, quickly starting back, his cheeks blanching as he repeated the name. “If Felice Solaro is a friend of yours, Miss Mary, then he has probably told you the truth—the ghastly truth?” he cried hoarsely, as his face fell. “He has revealed to you the mystery concerning General Sazarac! Tell me—tell me what allegation has he made against me?”

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