"Most Excellent Princess, I have to inform you that I have just received, registered, and evidently addressed by your most excellent hand, an envelope bearing the Gerano postmark, but containing only four blank sheets of ordinary writing paper. As I cannot suppose that your Excellency has designed to make me the object of a jest, and as it is to be feared that the blank paper has been substituted for a writing of importance, by some malicious person, I have immediately informed your Excellency of what has occurred. Awaiting any instruction or enlightenment with regard to this subject which it may please you, most Excellent Princess, to communicate, I write myself"Your Excellency's most humble, obedient servant,"Bonaventura, R.R. P.P.O. Min."
"Most Excellent Princess, I have to inform you that I have just received, registered, and evidently addressed by your most excellent hand, an envelope bearing the Gerano postmark, but containing only four blank sheets of ordinary writing paper. As I cannot suppose that your Excellency has designed to make me the object of a jest, and as it is to be feared that the blank paper has been substituted for a writing of importance, by some malicious person, I have immediately informed your Excellency of what has occurred. Awaiting any instruction or enlightenment with regard to this subject which it may please you, most Excellent Princess, to communicate, I write myself
"Your Excellency's most humble, obedient servant,
"Bonaventura, R.R. P.P.O. Min."
Now Padre Bonaventura of the Minor Order of St. Francis was Adele's confessor in Rome. After the long struggle which Lucia had watched through the door, Adele's conscience had got the upper hand, aided by the belief that in following its dictates she would be doing the best she could towards recovering her peace of mind. Not being willing to go to the parish priest of Gerano, who had known her and all her family from her childhood, and who was by no means a man able to give very wise advice in difficult cases, and being, moreover, afraid of rousing her husband's suspicions if she insisted upon going to Rome merely to confess, she had written out a most careful confession of those sins of which she accused herself, and, as is allowable in extreme cases, had sent it by post to Padre Bonaventura.
The news that such a document had never reached its destination would have been enough to disturb most people.
Laura Arden's plans for the summer were not by any means settled, but she was anxious to leave Rome soon, both because travelling in the heat would be bad for little Herbert, and because she wished to quit the ratherexpensive apartment in which she had continued to live after her husband's death. A far smaller and less pretentious dwelling would be amply sufficient for her next winter, and in the meantime she intended to go to some quiet town either in Switzerland or by the seaside, and to keep as much alone as possible. Her mother might be willing to spend a month or two with her, and Laura would be very glad of her company, but there was no one else whose society she desired. She could, of course, go to England and stay at her brother-in-law's house in solemn and solitary state, but she feared the long journey for her child, and she cared little for the sort of existence she must lead in the magnificent country-seat, in the absence of the Lulworths themselves. It would be pleasant to lead a very simple and quiet life somewhere out of the world, and as far as possible from the scene of all her sufferings. If Adele and Francesco had not appeared while Ghisleri was making his first visit, she would probably have asked his advice. He had been almost everywhere, and being himself fond of solitude, would in all likelihood have told her of some beautiful and secluded spot where she could live in the way she desired. But in the presence of her step-sister she had not cared to speak on the subject.
After they had left her she thought a long time of Ghisleri and his story, and, for the first time in her life, she wished she might see him again before long. He had shown her a side of himself which she had neither seen nor guessed at before, and she began to understand, dimly at first and then more clearly, the strong liking her husband had always shown for him. He was capable of deep and earnest beliefs and of high and generous impulses, in spite of his contempt for himself and of the irregular life he led. His present existence, so far as she knew anything of it, she condemned as unworthy. She was not, however, a woman so easily shocked at the spectacle of evil in the lives of others as might have been expected. There was a great deal of sound good sense in the composition of her character, and she had seen enough of the world to have learnt that perfection is a word used to define what is a little better than the average. What she had disliked in Ghisleri from her first acquaintance with him was not connected with his reputation, of which, at that time, she had known very little. Besides, though people called him fast and wild and more or less heartless, he was liked, on the whole, as much as any unmarried man in society. He was known to be honourable, courageous, and very discreet, and the latter quality almost invariably brings its reward in the end. That he should have been entangled in more than one love affair was only what was to be expected of such a man, at two or three and thirty years of age, and no one really considered him any the worse on that account, while the great majority of women thought him vastly more interesting for that very reason. Laura was not, perhaps, so entirely different from the rest of her sex as Ghisleri was fond of believing. Her education had not been that of young Roman girls, it is true, and the singular circumstances of her short married life had not developed her character in the same direction as theirs generally was by matrimony. But in real womanliness she was as much a woman as any of them, liable to the same influences and to the same class of enthusiasms. Because she had loved and married Herbert Arden, it did not follow that she could not and did not admire all that was brave and generous and strong, independently of moral weakness and faults.
Arden himself, indeed, though he had excited her pity by his physical defects, had commanded her respect by the manly courage he showed under all his sufferings. She had been able to forget his deformity in the superior gifts of intelligence and heart which had unquestionably been his, and, after all, she had loved him most because she had felt that but for an accident he would have been pre-eminently a manly man. Cripple as he was, she had always known that she could rely on him, and her instinct had always told her that he could protect her.
But she had never trusted Ghisleri. He had the misfortune to show his worst side to most people, and he had shown it to her. She had seen more than once that he was ready to undertake and carry out almost anything for his friend's sake, and she had been honestly grateful to him for all he had done. But she had not been able, until now, to shake off that feeling of distrust and timid dislike she had always felt in his presence. She had, indeed, succeeded tolerably well in hiding it from him, but it had always made her cold in conversation and somewhat formal in manner, and he, being outwardly a rather formal and cold man had, so to say, put himself in harmony with her key. For the first time in their acquaintance, and under pressure of what he considered necessity, he had suddenly unbent, and had told her the principal story of his life with a frankness and simplicity that had charmed her. From that hour she judged him differently. After that first visit, he went often to see her, and on each occasion he felt drawn more closely to her than before.
"You are very much changed," he said to her one day. "Do you mind my saying it?"
"Not in the least," Laura answered, with a smile. "But in what way am I different?"
"In one great thing, I think. You used to be very imposingly calm with me. You never seemed quite willing to speak freely about anything. Now, it is almost always you who make me talk by making me feel that you will talk yourself. That is not very clearly put, is it? I do not know whether you ever disliked me—if you did, you never showed it. But I really begin to think that you almost like me. Is there any truth in that?"
"Yes—a great deal." She smiled again. "More truth than you guess—for I do not mind saying it since it is all over. I did not like you, and I used to try and hide it. But I like you now, and I am quite willing that you should know it."
"That is good of you—good as everything you do is.But I would really like to know why you have changed your mind. May I?"
"Because I have found out that you are not what I took you for."
"Most discoveries of that kind are disappointments," observed Ghisleri, with a dry laugh.
"That is just the sort of remark I used to dislike you for," said Laura. "The world is not all bad, and you know it. Yet out of ten observations you make, nine, at least, would lead one to believe that you think it is."
"Excepting yourself, we are all as bad as we can be. What is the use of denying it?"
"We are not all bad, and I do not choose to be made an exception of. I am just like other people, or I should be if I were placed as they are. I not only am sure that you are not a bad man, but I am quite convinced that in some ways you are a very good one."
"What an odd mistake!"
"Why do you persistently try to make yourself out worse than you are, and to show your worst side to the world?"
"I suppose that is the side most apparent to myself," answered Ghisleri. "I cannot help seeing it."
"Because you are not Launcelot, you take yourself for Cæsar Borgia—"
"That would be flattering myself too much. Borgia was by far the more intelligent of the two. Say Thersites."
"I know nothing about Thersites."
"Then say Judas. There seems to be very little difference of opinion as to that personage's moral obliquity," Ghisleri laughed.
"Very well," said Laura, gravely. "I suppose you have no doubt, then, that Judas would have acted as you did in your affair with Don Gianforte. He would, of course, have submitted to insult rather than break a promise, and would have allowed—"
"Will you please stop, Lady Herbert?" Ghisleri fixed his blue eyes on her.
"No, I will not," answered Laura, with decision. "What I like about you is precisely what you try the most to hide, and I mean to see it and to make you see it, if possible. You would be much happier if you could. I suppose that if the majority of people could hear us talking now, they would think our conversation utterly absurd. They would say that you were posing, in order to make yourself interesting, and that I was enough attracted by you to be deceived by the comedy. Is not that the way the world would look at it?"
"Probably," assented Ghisleri. "Perhaps I am really posing. I do not pretend to know."
"I am willing to believe that you are not, if you will let me, and I would much rather. In the first place, you are, at all events, not any worse than most men one knows. That is evident enough from your actions. Secondly,—you see I am arguing the case like a lawyer,—if you had not a high ideal of what you wish to be, you would not have such a poor opinion of what you are. Is that clear?"
"If there were no right, there could not possibly be any wrong. But black would be black, even if you could only compare it with blue, green, and yellow, instead of with white."
"I am not talking of chromolithographs," said Laura. "What I say is simple enough. If you did not wish to be good, and know what good means, and if you had not a certain amount of goodness in you, you would not think yourself so bad. And you are unhappy, as you have told me before now, because you think all your motives are insincere, or vain, or defective in some way. I suppose you wish to be happy, and if you do, you must learn to find some satisfaction in having done your best. I have said precisely what I mean, and you must not pretend to misunderstand me."
"Think yourself good, and you will be happy," observed Ghisleri. "That is the modern form of the proverb."
"Of course it is, and the better reason you really havefor thinking yourself good, the more real and lasting your happiness will be."
Ghisleri laughed to himself, and at himself, as he went away, for being so much impressed as he was by what Laura said. But he could not deny that the impression had been made and remained for some time after he had left her. There was a healthy common-sense about her mind which was beginning to act upon the tortuous and often morbid complications of his own. She seemed to know the straight paths and the short cuts to simple goodness, and never to have guessed at the labyrinthine ways by which he seemed to himself to be always trying to escape from the bugbear sent to pursue him by the demon of self-mistrust. He laughed at himself, for he realised how utterly impossible it would always be for him to think as she did, or to look upon the world as she saw it. There had been a time when he had thought more plainly, when a woman had exerted a strong influence over him, and when a few good things and a few bad ones had made up the sum of his life. But she was dead, and he had changed. Worse than that, he had fallen. As he sat in his room and glanced from time to time at the only likeness he had of Bianca Corleone, he thought of Beatrice's reproach to Dante in the thirty-first canto of the "Purgatory":
"And yet, because thou'rt shamed of me in allThy sin, and that in later days to comeThou mayst be brave, hearing the Siren's voiceSow deep the seed of tears and hear me speak.So shalt thou know how thou should'st have been movedBy my dead body in ways opposite.Nor art nor nature had the power to tempt theeWith such delight as that fair body couldIn which I lived—which now is scattered earth—And if the highest joy was lost to theeBy my young death, what mortal living thingShould have had strength to drag thee down with it?"
"And yet, because thou'rt shamed of me in allThy sin, and that in later days to comeThou mayst be brave, hearing the Siren's voiceSow deep the seed of tears and hear me speak.So shalt thou know how thou should'st have been movedBy my dead body in ways opposite.Nor art nor nature had the power to tempt theeWith such delight as that fair body couldIn which I lived—which now is scattered earth—And if the highest joy was lost to theeBy my young death, what mortal living thingShould have had strength to drag thee down with it?"
As he repeated the last words he started for they reminded him with painful force of Gianforte Campodonico's insulting speech, and he detested himself for even allowing the thought to cross his mind—for allowing himself to repeat Beatrice's words up to that point. It was he who had dragged down Maddalena dell' Armi to his level, not she who had made him sink to hers. And yet Campodonico had said almost the same thing as Beatrice, and certainly without knowing it. In his heart he knew that Bianca might have reproached him so, but then, deeper still, he knew that the reproach, from her lips, would have fallen on himself alone, and would never have been meant for Maddalena.
Ghisleri fell to thinking over his own life and the lives of others, in one of those black moods which sometimes seized him and in which he believed in no one's motives, from his own upward. In the course of his lonely and bitter meditations, he came across an idea which at first seemed wild and improbable enough, but which, little by little, took shape as he concentrated his attention upon it, and at last chased every other memory away. He was not naturally an over-suspicious man, but when his suspicions were once roused he was apt to go far in pursuit of the truth, if the matter interested him. He rose and got a book from the shelves which lined one side of the wall, and began to turn over the pages rapidly, until he stopped at the place he was looking for. He read three or four pages very carefully twice over and returned the volume to its place. Then he sat down to think, and did not move for another quarter of an hour. At the end of that time he called his servant, a quiet, hard-working fellow from the Abbruzzi, who rejoiced in the name of Bonifazio.
"Do you happen to know," he asked, "if there was much scarlet fever in the city last winter? I have always wondered how poor Lord Herbert caught it."
Bonifazio had known Lord Herbert for years, just as Donald had known Ghisleri, for the two friends had often made short journeys together, taking their servants with them. The Italian thought a long time before he gave an answer.
"No, Signore. I do not remember hearing that there were many cases. But then, I am not in the way of knowing. It may have been."
"You are a very discreet man, Bonifazio," said Ghisleri. "Lord Herbert fell ill on the day after he had dined in Casa Savelli. Do you think you could find out for me whether any one of the servants had the scarlet fever at that time?"
"Perhaps, signore. I will try. I know Giuseppe, the butler, who is a very good person, but who is not fond of talking. When there is such an illness they either send the servants to the hospital, in the Roman houses, or else they put them in an attic and try not to let any one know. For the rest, I will do what I can. You say well, Signore, for it is possible that the blessed soul of the Milord caught the fever at the dinner in Casa Savelli."
"That is what I think," said Ghisleri. And he thought a good deal more also, which he did not communicate to his man.
Bonifazio, as his master said, was discreet. He was also very patient and very uncommunicative, as the men of the Abbruzzi often are. They make the best servants when they can be got, for, in addition to the good qualities most of them possess in a greater or less degree, they are almost always physically very strong men, though rarely above middle height, and often extremely pale. Ghisleri knew that so soon as Bonifazio had anything to tell, he would tell it without further question or reminder.
Several days passed, during which Ghisleri, who gained strength rapidly, began to resume his former mode of life, went to the club, saw his friends, and made a few visits. He went more than once to Maddalena's house and stayed some time with her when he found her alone. Little by little he fancied that her look was changing and growing more indifferent. He was glad of it. He wished that he might be to her exactly what she was to him. That, indeed, could never be, but he wished it were possible. He knew that when she ceased to lovehim altogether, she could never feel friendly devotion, gratitude, or respect for him, and he felt all three for her in a far greater degree than she could imagine. On the whole, during that time their relations were peaceable, and altogether undisturbed by the frequent differences that had so often nearly estranged them from one another in earlier days. There was, of course, an air of constraint about their meetings, more evident in Maddalena's manner than in Ghisleri's, and the latter hardly hoped that this could ever quite wear off and leave at last a sincere and true friendship behind it. That was, indeed, the best that could be hoped for either of them, and he had no right to expect the best, nor anything approaching to it.
One evening as he was dressing for dinner, Bonifazio gave him the news he desired. It had not been easy to extract any communication on the subject from old Giuseppe, the Savelli's butler, but such as he had at last given was clear, concise, and to the point. There had been a case of scarlet fever in the house. Donna Adele's maid had taken it, and was just convalescent at the time when the Ardens dined with Adele and her husband. The woman's name was Lucia, and on falling ill she had been at once removed to a distant room in the upper part of the palace. The case had been rather a severe one, Giuseppe believed, and it was only within the last few weeks that Lucia seemed to have regained her strength. She was at present at Gerano with her mistress, but had written to the wife of the Savelli's porter saying that she had been dismissed, and was to leave at the end of the month, and asking for assistance in finding a new place. Ghisleri was satisfied for the present. It was quite clear that Arden must have caught the fever that killed him so suddenly in Casa Savelli. Whether Donna Adele had in any way communicated the contagion was another matter, and not easily decided. Her inexplicable nervousness, beginning about the time that Arden died, might be accounted for on the ground that she was aware ofhaving been the unintentional cause of his illness, and felt that by a little precaution she might have averted the catastrophe. The idea was constantly present in Ghisleri's mind, but it lacked detail and clearness, and constituted at most a rather strong suspicion. Of course it was quite possible, and, considering Adele's character, more than likely, that she had never been near the maid during her illness. If she had never had the scarlet fever herself, it was quite certain. But that was a point easily settled, and was a very important one.
On the following day, Ghisleri called at the Palazzo Braccio. The Princess received him, as she always did, without any signs of satisfaction, but without marked coldness. To her he was always "that wild Ghisleri," and she thoroughly disapproved of him, wishing that he would not visit her daughter so often. He was quite aware of the feeling she entertained towards him, and was always especially careful in his conversation with her. In spite of her long residence in Rome, as a Roman, and among Romans, she had remained altogether English in nature. Laura, English on both sides by her birth, had far less of prejudice than her mother, and was altogether more of a cosmopolitan in every way. On the present occasion, Ghisleri led the conversation so as to speak of her. He began by asking the Princess where she herself meant to spend the summer, and whether she intended to be with her daughter.
"I hope to be with her a great part of the time," she answered. "I do not like to think of her as travelling about the world alone. Indeed, I do not at all approve of her living without a companion, as she insists upon doing. She is far too young, and people are far too ready to talk about her."
"She has such wonderful dignity," answered Ghisleri, "that she could do with impunity what most women could not do at all. Besides, her mourning protects her for the present, and her child. She is looking wonderfully well—do you not think so?"
"Yes. When one thinks of all she has suffered, it is amazing. But she was always strong."
"I should suppose so. Any one else would have caught the scarlet fever."
"As for that," said the Princess, unsuspiciously, "people rarely have it twice."
"She has had it, then."
"Oh, yes. Both the girls had it at the same time, when they were little things. Let me see—Laura must have been six years old then. They had it rather badly, and I remember being terribly anxious about them."
"I see," answered Ghisleri, carelessly. "That accounts for it. But to go back to what we were speaking of, I wonder that Lady Herbert does not spend the summer with you at Gerano, if you go there as usual."
"I do not think she will consent to that," said the Princess, rather coldly. "She says she prefers the north for the baby. It is quite true that it is often very hot at Gerano."
"Donna Adele was good enough to ask me to go out and spend a day or two while she is there. It must be very pleasant just now, in the spring weather."
"Why do you not go?" asked the Princess, with more warmth, for she preferred that Ghisleri should be where he could not see Laura every day, as she believed he now did. "You would be doing them both a kindness. Poor Adele was obliged to go to the country against her will—she is in such a terribly nervous state. I really do not know what to make of it."
"What news have you of her?" inquired Ghisleri, in a tone of polite solicitude. "Is she at all better?"
"She was better after the first few days. Then it appears that she had a fright—I do not quite understand how it was from what Francesco wrote to my husband—but it seems to have been one of those odd accidents—optical illusions, I suppose—which sometimes terrify people."
"How very unfortunate! What did she fancy she saw?"
"It was absurd, of course!" answered the Princess, who had no special reason for being reticent on the subject. "It seems that there was a blue cloak of hers hanging somewhere in her dressing-room,—at a window, I believe,—and she went in suddenly very early in the morning before it was quite broad daylight, and took the cloak for a man. In fact she thought it was poor dear Arden. You know he always used to wear blue serge clothes. Francesco saw it himself afterwards and says that it was extraordinarily like. But I cannot understand how any one in their senses could be deceived in that way. Adele is dreadfully overwrought and imaginative. She has danced too much this winter, I suppose."
When Ghisleri went away he was almost quite persuaded that Adele was conscious of having communicated the fever to Arden. Of course, it might all be mere coincidence, but to him the evidence seemed strong. He wrote a note to Adele, asking whether he might avail himself of her invitation, and spend a day at Gerano. Her answer came by return of post, begging him to come at once, and to stay as long as possible. The handwriting was so illegible that he had some difficulty in reading it. To judge from that, at least, Adele was no better.
Before leaving Rome, he thought it best to inform Laura of his intended visit. He had never spoken of her step-sister in a way to make her suppose that he disliked her, but Laura knew very well what part he had played at the time when Adele was spreading slanderous reports, for her mother had repeated the story precisely as the Prince had told it to her. Ghisleri, of course, was not aware of this, for Arden had not mentioned the matter to him, unless his reference to the enemies he and Laura had in Rome, during the last conversation he had with his friend, could be taken as implying that Ghisleri knew as much as he himself. But in any case, he was sure that Laura would be surprised at his going to Gerano, even for a day, and it was better to warn her beforehand, and ifpossible give her some reasonable explanation of his conduct. He chose to refer his visit at once to motives of curiosity, together with a natural desire to breathe the purer air of the country, now that he was able to make the short journey without fatigue or danger.
"I have never been to Gerano," he added. "It is said to be a wonderful place—one of the finest mediæval castles in this part of the world. I really wish to see it—they say the air is good—and since Donna Adele is so kind as to ask me, I shall go."
"You would see it better if you went when my mother and step-father are there. He would show you everything and give you all sorts of historical details which Adele has forgotten and which Francesco never knew."
"No doubt, but there is one objection," answered Ghisleri. "They have never asked me. I am not a favourite with the Princess. I am sure you know that."
"She thinks you are very wild," said Laura, with a smile. "She disapproves of you on moral grounds—not at all in the way I used to—and still do, sometimes," she added, incautiously.
"Still?"
"Oh, it is very foolish! Do not talk about it. When are you going out?"
Laura had undeniably felt a sudden return of her old distrust in him, when she had heard of the visit. It was natural enough that she should, considering what she knew. She suspected some new and tortuous development of his character, and would have instinctively drawn back from the intimacy she felt was growing up between him and herself, had she not by experience found out that she might be quite wrong about him after all. She tried, at the present juncture, to shake off the sensation which was now far more distasteful to her than it had formerly been, in proportion as she had fancied that she understood him better. But she could not altogether succeed. It was too strange, in her opinion, that he should willingly be Adele's guest, and put himself under even aslight obligation to her. It showed, she thought, how individual views could differ in regard to friendship. She was even rather surprised to find that she was asking herself whether, if Gianforte and Christina Campodonico possessed a habitable castle and invited her to stop with them, she would accept, considering that Gianforte had almost killed her husband's best friend. She unhesitatingly decided that she would not, and resented Ghisleri's willingness to receive hospitality from one who, as he well knew, had foully slandered both Arden and herself. Her doubts were certainly justifiable to a certain extent. But there was no immediate probability that they would be cleared away for the present. Ghisleri understood her perfectly, and wondered whether he were not risking too much in endangering a friendship so precious to him for the sake of following out a suspicion which might, in the end, prove to have been altogether without foundation. On the other hand, his natural obstinacy of purpose when once called into play was such as not to leave the smallest hesitation in his mind between doing what he had determined to do, or not doing it, when he had once made up his mind, irrespective of consequences. Having lost sight of the virtue of constancy, he clung to a vicious obstinacy as a substitute.
When Adele had read Padre Bonaventura's letter twice over and had realised its meaning, she behaved like a person stunned by an actual blow. She sank into the nearest chair, utterly overcome. She had barely the presence of mind to tear up the sheet of paper into minute shreds, which she gathered all in one hand, until she could find strength to scatter them out of the window. The position was a terrible one indeed, and for along time she was unable to think connectedly about it, or of anything else. But for the two nights of sound sleep she had got by taking the chloral, she must inevitably have broken down. As it was, her strong constitution had asserted itself so soon as she had been able to rest, and she was better able to meet this new and real trouble than she had been to face the imaginary horror of Herbert Arden's presence in her dressing-room. But even so, half an hour elapsed before she was able to rise from her seat. She tossed the scraps of paper out of the window and watched them as the wind chased them in all directions, upwards and downwards, upon the castle wall. Then, all at once, she began to think, and her brain seemed to act with an accuracy and directness it had never had before.
Either the letter had been opened in the house or at the post-office. It could not have been opened in Rome, or at least, the probabilities were enormously against such an hypothesis. It was scarcely more like that the man at the Gerano post-office should have ventured to tamper with a sealed envelope coming from the castle, and for which he had given a receipt before taking charge of it. He could not have the smallest interest in reading Donna Adele's correspondence, and he had everything to lose if he were caught. He would certainly not have supposed that she or her husband, having but lately left the city, were sending back a sum of money in notes large enough to make it worth his while to incur such a risk. In other words, the theft had been committed in the house, and no one but Lucia could have been the thief. Lucia had been summarily dismissed; Lucia was the only servant in the establishment who had serious cause for discontent; Lucia had guessed from the address that the letter contained something at least of the nature of a confession, and had resolved to hold her mistress in her power. Moreover, it was possible—barely possible—that Lucia knew something else. In any case, she had read every word Adele had written with her own hand, and Adeleknew very well why the woman had not returned the sheets to the envelope after mastering their contents. She was utterly, hopelessly, and entirely in Lucia's power. The maid would go from her to a new situation, and wherever she might be would always be able to control Donna Adele's life by merely threatening to betray what she knew to the person or persons concerned.
Adele felt that her courage was almost failing her in this extremity, at a time when she needed more than she had ever possessed. And yet it was necessary to act promptly, for the maid might even now be engaging herself with some one else. Come what might, she must never leave Casa Savelli, if it cost Adele all the money she could beg of her husband or borrow of her father to keep the woman with her. First of all, however, she must regain some sort of composure, lest Lucia should suspect that the post had brought her news of the loss of the document. She looked at herself in the glass and scrutinised every feature attentively. She was very pale, but otherwise was looking better than two days earlier. Any kind of stimulant, as she knew, sent the blood to her face in a few minutes, and she saw that what she needed was a little colour. A teaspoonful of Benedictine cordial, of which she had a small flask in her dressing-case, was enough to produce the desired effect. The doctor had formerly recommended her to take it before going to sleep, but she did not like such things, and the flask was almost full. She saw in the mirror that the result was perfectly satisfactory, and when she at last met her husband he remarked that her appearance was very much improved.
"I feel so much better!" she exclaimed, knowing that she was speaking the first words of a comedy which would in all probability have to be played during the rest of her life. "I always said that if they would only give me something to make me sleep I should get well at once."
She walked again on that day, and by an almost superhuman effort kept up appearances until bedtime, even succeeding in eating a moderately abundant dinner. That night she told Lucia that, on the whole, she would prefer to keep her, that she had always been more than satisfied with her services, and that if she had suddenly felt an aversion to her, it was the result of the extreme nervousness she had suffered of late. Now that she could sleep, she realised how unkind she had been. Lucia humbly thanked her, and said that she hoped to live and die in the service of the most excellent Casa Savelli. Thereupon Adele thanked her too, said very sweetly that she was a good girl and would some day be rewarded by finding a good husband, and ended by giving her five francs. She reflected that to give her more might look like the beginning of a course of bribery, and that to give nothing might be construed as proceeding from the fear of seeming to bribe.
The second day could not be harder than the first, she said to herself, as she swallowed her chloral and laid her head upon the pillow, to be read to sleep by the nurse. She slept, indeed, that night, but not so well as before, and she awoke twice, each time with a start, and with the impression that Lucia was reciting the contents of the lost letter to Laura Arden and a whole roomful of the latter's friends.
Under the circumstances, she behaved with a courage and determination admirable in themselves. Few women could have borne the constant strain upon the faculties at all, still fewer after such illness as she had suffered. But she was really very strong, though everything which affected her feelings and thoughts reacted upon her physical nature as such things never can in less nervously organised constitutions. She bore the excruciating anxiety about the lost confession better than the shadowy fear of the supernatural which still haunted her in the hours of the night. On the third day she begged her husband to increase the dose of chloral by a very small quantity, saying that if only she could sleep well for a whole weekshe would then be so much better as to be able to give it up altogether. Savelli hesitated, and at last consented. Since she had seemed so much more quiet he dreaded a return of her former state, for he was a man who loved his ease and hated everything which disturbed it.
The doctor had particularly cautioned him to keep the chloral put away in a safe place, warning Francesco that the majority of persons who took it soon began to feel a craving for it in larger quantities, which must be checked to avoid the risk of considerable damage to the health in the event of its becoming a habit. It was, after all, only a palliative, he said, and could never be expected to work a cure on the nerves except as an indirect means to a good result. Francesco kept the bottle in his dressing-bag, which remained in his own room and was fitted with a patent lock. He yielded to Adele's request on the first occasion, and she went with him as he took the glass back to strengthen the dose. "Why do you keep it locked up?" she said. "Do you suppose I would go and take it without consulting you?"
"The doctor told me to be careful of it," he answered. "The servants might try a dose of it out of curiosity." He took what he considered necessary and locked the bag again, returning the key to his pocket.
Two or three days passed in this way. Adele began to feel that she longed for the night and the soothing influence of the chloral, as she had formerly longed for daylight to end the misery of the dark hours. The days were now made almost intolerable for her by the certainty that her maid knew her secret, and by the necessity for treating the woman with consideration. Yet she could do nothing, and she knew that she never could do anything to lessen her own anxiety, as long as she lived. She was much alone, too, during the day. She walked or drove with her husband during two or three hours in the afternoon, but the rest of the time hung idly on her hands. It is true that his society was not very congenial, and under ordinary conditions she would rather have beenleft alone than have been obliged to talk with him. At present, however, she thought less when she was with him, and that was a gain not to be despised. She had quite forgotten that she had asked Ghisleri to come out and spend a day or two, when his note came, reminding her of the invitation, and asking if he still might accept it. Francesco liked him, as most men did, and was glad that any one should appear to vary the monotony of the dull country life with a little city talk. He bade her write to Pietro to come and stay as long as he pleased, if she herself cared to have him. She concealed her satisfaction well enough to make Francesco suppose that she wished the guest to come for his sake rather than her own.
Ghisleri started early, taking his servant with him, and reached Gerano in time for the midday breakfast. Francesco Savelli received him with considerable enthusiasm, and Adele's habitually rather forced smile became more natural. Both felt in different ways that the presence of a third person was a relief, and would have been delighted to receive a far less agreeable man than their present guest. They overwhelmed him with questions about Rome and their friends.
"Of course you have seen everybody and heard everything, now that you are so much better," said Adele, as they sat down to breakfast in the vaulted dining-room. "You must tell us everything you know. We are buried alive out here, and only know a little of what happens through the papers. How are they all? Have you seen Laura again, and how is the baby? My step-mother writes that she is going to spend the summer with them in some place or places unknown. I never thought of her as a grandmother when my own children were born—of course she is not my mother, but it used to seem just the same. What is Bompierre doing? And Maria Boccapaduli? I am dying to hear all about it."
Ghisleri laughed at the multitude of questions which followed each other almost without a breathing-space between them.
"Donna Maria would have sent you her love if she had known that I was coming to Gerano," he answered. "As for Bompierre, he is an inscrutable mixture of devotion and fickleness. He attaches himself to the new without detaching himself from the old. He worships both the earthly and the Olympian Venus. He is a good fellow, little Bompierre, and I like him, but it is impossible for any man to adore women at the rate of six at a time. I begin to think that he must be a very deep character."
"That is the last thing I should say of him," observed Savelli, who was deficient in the sense of humour.
"How literal you are, Francesco," laughed his wife. "And yourself, Ghisleri—tell us about yourself. Are you quite well again? You still look dreadfully thin, but you look better than when I saw you last. What does your doctor say?"
"He says that if I do not happen to catch cold, or have a choking fit, or a cough, or any of fifty things he names, and if I do not chance to get shot in the same place again, in the course of a year or two I may be as good a man as ever. It appears that I have a good constitution. I always supposed so, because I never had anything the matter with me, so far as I knew."
"No one will ever forgive Gianforte!" exclaimed Adele. "If you had died, he would have had to go away for ever. Everybody says he was utterly in the wrong."
"The matter is settled," said Ghisleri, "and I do not think either of us need have anything to say about the other's conduct in the affair. I suppose you have heard that the ministry has fallen," he continued, turning to Savelli. "Yesterday afternoon—the old story, of course—finance."
"For Heaven's sake do not begin to talk politics at this hour," protested Adele. "To-night, when I am asleep, you can smoke all the cigars in the house, and reconstitute a dozen ministries if you like. I want to hear all about my friends. You have not told me half enough yet."
"Where shall I begin? Ah, by the bye, there is an engagement, I hear. I have not left cards because it is not official. Pietrasanta and Donna Guendalina Frangipani—rather an odd match, is it not?"
"Pietrasanta!" exclaimed Adele. "Who would have thought that! And Guendalina, of all people! But they will starve, my dear Ghisleri; they will positively not have twenty thousand francs a year between them."
"No," said Savelli, "you are quite right, my dear—twelve—seventeen—eighteen thousand five hundred, almost exactly."
Savelli was intimately acquainted with the affairs of his friends, and both parties were related to him in the present case. He prided himself upon his extreme exactness about all questions of money.
So they talked and gossiped throughout the meal. Ghisleri knew just what sort of news most amused his hostess, and as usual he succeeded in telling her the truth about things and people without saying anything spiteful of any one. He had resolved, too, that he would make himself especially agreeable to the couple in their voluntary exile. He had come with a set purpose, and he meant to execute it if possible. As he was evidently not yet strong, Savelli proposed that they should drive instead of walking. Ghisleri acceded readily, though he would have preferred to stay at home after having travelled nearly thirty miles in a jolting carriage during the morning. The sensation of physical fatigue which he constantly experienced since he had been wounded was new to him and not at all pleasant.
Nothing of any importance occurred during the afternoon. The conversation continued in much the same way as it had begun at breakfast, interspersed with remarks about agriculture and the probabilities of crops. Savelli understood the financial side of farming better than Ghisleri, but the latter had a much more practical acquaintance with the capabilities of different sorts of land.
After they had returned to the castle, Francesco left Ghisleri with his wife in the drawing-room, and went off to his own quarters to talk with the steward of the estate. Tea was brought, but Pietro noticed that Adele did not take any.
"I suppose you are afraid that it would keep you awake at night," he remarked. "How is your insomnia? Do you sleep at all?"
"I am getting quite well again," Adele answered. "You know I always told you that I needed something really strong to make me sleep. The doctor has given me chloral, and I never wake up before eight or nine o'clock. It is a wonderful medicine."
"Insomnia is one of the most unaccountable things," said Ghisleri, in a meditative tone. "I knew a man in Constantinople who told me that at one time he never slept at all. For three months he literally could not lose consciousness for a moment. I believe he suffered horribly. But then, he had something on his mind at the time which accounted for it to a certain extent."
"I suppose he had lost money or something of that kind," conjectured Adele, stirring two lumps of sugar in a glass of water.
"No, it was much worse than that. He had accidentally killed his most intimate friend on a shooting expedition in the Belgrad forest."
Ghisleri heard the spoon rattle sharply against the glass, as Adele's hand shook, and he saw that she bent down her head quickly, pretending to watch the lumps of sugar as they slowly dissolved.
"How terrible!" she exclaimed, in a low voice.
"Yes," answered Ghisleri, in the same indifferent tone. "But if you will believe it, he had the courage to refuse chloral, or any sort of sleeping-draught, though he often sat up reading all night. He had been told, you see, that the habit of such things was much more dangerous than insomnia itself, and he was ultimately cured by taking a great deal of exercise. He had an extraordinary forceof will. I believe he has never felt any bad effect from what he endured. You know one can get used to anything. Look at the people who starve in public for forty days and do not die."
"We shall see Pietrasanta and his wife doing that for the next forty years," said Adele, with a tolerably natural laugh. "They ought to go into training as soon as possible if they mean to be happy. They say nothing spoils the temper like hunger. Were you ever near being starved to death on any of your travels, Ghisleri?"
"No; I never got further than being obliged to live on nothing but beans and bad water for nine days. That was quite far enough, though. I got thin, and I have never eaten beans since."
"I do not wonder. Fancy eating beans for nearly a fortnight. I should have died. And where was it? Were you imprisoned for a spy in South America? One never knows what may or may not have happened to you—you are such an unaccountable man!"
"That never happened to me. It was at sea. I took it into my head to go to Sardinia in a small vessel that was sailing from Amalfi with a cargo of beans to bring back Sardinian wine. We were becalmed, and got short of provisions, so that we fell back on the beans. They kept us alive, but I would rather not try it again."
"What endless adventures you have had! How tame this society life of ours must seem to you after what you have been accustomed to! How can you endure it?"
"It is never very hard to put up with what one likes," answered Ghisleri, "nor even to endure what one dislikes for the sake of somebody to whom one is attached."
"If any one else said that, it would sound like a platitude. But with you, it is quite different. One feels that you mean all you say."
Adele was evidently determined to be complimentary, and even more than complimentary, to-day. She was never cold or at all unfriendly with Ghisleri, whom she liked and admired, and whom she always hoped to seeultimately established as a permanent member of her own immediate circle, but he did not remember that she had ever talked exactly as she was talking now, and he attributed her manner to her nervousness. He laughed carelessly at her last remark.
"I am not used to such good treatment," he said, "though I never can understand why people take the trouble to doubt one's word. It is so much easier to believe everything—so much less trouble."
"I should not have thought that you were a very credulous person," answered Adele. "You have had too much experience for that."
"Experience does not always mean disillusionment. One may find out that there are honest people as well as dishonest in the world."
If Laura Arden had been present she would have been more than ever inclined to distrust Ghisleri just then. She would have wondered what possessed him to make him say things so very different from those he generally said to her. As a matter of fact, he wished Adele to trust him, for especial reasons, and he knew her well enough to judge how his speeches would affect her. She had betrayed herself to him a few minutes earlier and he desired to efface the impression in her mind before leading her into another trap.
"Do you think the world is such a very good place?" she asked. "Have you found it so?"
"It is often very unjustly abused by those who live in it—as they are themselves by their friends. Belief on the one side must mean disbelief on the other."
This time Adele gave no sign of being touched by the thrust. She was too much accustomed to whatever sensations she experienced when accidental or intentional reference was made to her astonishing talent for gossip.
"As for that," she said quite naturally, "every one talks about every one else, and some things are true just as some are not. If we did not talk of people how should we make conversation? It would be quite impossible, I am sure!"
"Oh, of course. But if there is to be that sort of conversation, it can always take the form of a discussion, and one can put oneself on the right side from the beginning just as easily as not. It saves so much trouble afterwards. The person who is always on the wrong side is generally the one about whom the others are talking. If we could hear a tenth of what is said about ourselves I fancy we should be very uncomfortable."
"Yes, indeed. Even our servants—think how they must abuse us!"
"No doubt. But they have a practical advantage over us in that way. When they really know anything particularly scandalous about us they can convert it into ready money."
Ghisleri had not the least intention of conveying any hidden meaning by his words, for he was of course completely ignorant of the occurrence which had disturbed Adele's whole life more than any other hitherto. But he noticed that she again bent over her glass and looked into it, though the sugar was by this time quite dissolved. Her hand shook a little as she moved the spoon about in the sweetened water. Then she drank a little, and drew a long breath.
"That is always a most disagreeable position," she said boldly. "We were talking about it the other day. I wish you had been there. Gouache was telling a foreigner—Prince Durakoff, I think it was—the old story of how Prince Montevarchi was murdered by his own librarian because he would not pay the man a sum of money in the way of blackmail. You know it, of course. The two families, the Montevarchi and the Saracinesca, kept it very quiet and no one ever knew all the details. Some people say that San Giacinto killed the librarian, and some say that the librarian killed himself. That is no matter. What would you have done? That is the question. Would you have paid the money in the hope of silencing the man? Or would you have refused as the old Prince did? Gouache said that it was always a mistake to yield, and that Montevarchi did quite right."
Ghisleri considered the matter a few moments before he gave an answer. He was almost sure by this time that she actually found herself in some such position as she described, and that she really needed advice. It was characteristic of the man who had been trying to make her betray herself and had succeeded beyond his expectation, that he was unwilling to give her such counsel as might lead to her own destruction. In his complicated code, that would have savoured of treachery. He suddenly withdrew into himself as it were, and tried to look at the matter objectively, as an outsider.
"It is a most difficult question to answer," he said at last. "I have often heard it discussed. If you care for my own personal opinion, I will give it to you. It seems to me that in such cases one should be guided by circumstances as they arise, but that one can follow very safely a sort of general rule. If the blackmailer, as I call the person in possession of the secret, has any positive proof, such as a written document, or any other object of the kind, without which he or she could not prove the accusation, and if the accusation is really of a serious nature, then I think it would be wiser to buy the thing, whatever it is, at any price, and destroy it at once. But if, as in most of such affairs, the secret is merely one of words which the blackmailers may speak or not at will, and at any time, I believe it is a mistake to bribe him or her, because the demand for hush-money can be renewed indefinitely so long as the person concerned lives, or has any money left with which to pay."
Adele had listened with the greatest attention throughout, and the direct good sense of his answer disarmed any suspicion she might have entertained in regard to the remark which had led to her asking his advice. She reasoned naturally enough that if he knew anything of her position, and had come to Gerano to gather information, he would have suggested some course of action which would throw the advantage into his own hands. But she did not know the man. Moreover, in her extreme fear ofdiscovery, she had for a moment been willing to admit that he might know far more than was in any way possible, if he knew anything at all; whereas in truth he was but making the most vague guesses at the actual facts. It was startling to realise how nearly she had taken him for an enemy, after inviting him as a friend, and in perfectly good faith, but as she thought over the conversation she saw how naturally the remarks which had frightened her had presented themselves. There was her own insomnia—he had an instance of a man who had suffered in the same way. A remark about unjust abuse of other people—that was quite natural, and meant nothing. Blackmail extorted by servants—she had herself led directly to it, by speculating upon what servants said of their masters. It was all very natural. She made up her mind that she had been wrong in mistrusting his sincerity. Besides, she liked him, and her judgment instinctively inclined to favour him.
"I think you are quite right," she said, after a few moments' thought. "I never heard it put so directly before, and your view seems to be the only sensible one. If the secret can be kept by buying an object and destroying it, then buy it. If not, deny it boldly, and refuse to pay. Yes, that is the wisest solution I have ever heard offered."
Ghisleri saw that he had produced a good effect and was well-satisfied. He turned back to a former point in order to change the subject of the conversation.
"That old story of the Montevarchi has interested me," he said. "I wish I knew it all. Without being at all of an historical genius, I am fond of all sorts of family histories. Lady Herbert was saying yesterday that there are many strange legends and stories connected with this old place, and that your father knows them all. You must know a great deal about Gerano yourself, I should think."
"Oh, of course I do," answered Adele, with alacrity. "I will show you all over the castle to-morrow morning.It is an enormous building, and bigger than you would ever suppose from the outside. I will show you where they used to cut off heads—it is delightful! The head fell through a hole in the floor into a heap of sawdust, they say. And then there is another place, where they threw criminals out of the window, with four seats in it, two for the executioners, one for the confessor, and one in the middle for the condemned man. They did those things so coolly and systematically in those good old days. You shall see it all; there are the dungeons, and the trap-doors through which people were made to tumble into them; there is every sort of appliance—belonging to family life in the middle ages."
"I shall be very glad to see it all if you will be my guide," said Ghisleri.
They continued to talk upon indifferent subjects. At dinner Pietro took much pains to be agreeable, and succeeded admirably, for he was well able to converse pleasantly when he chose. Though extremely tired, he sat up till nearly midnight talking politics with Savelli, as Adele had foreseen, and when he was at last shown to his distant room by Bonifazio, who had spent most of his day in studying the topography of the castle, he was very nearly exhausted.
Pietro Ghisleri slept soundly that night. Of late, indeed, he had become less restless than he had formerly been, and he attributed the change to the weakness which was the consequence of his wound. There were probably other causes at work at that time of which he was hardly conscious himself, but which ultimately produced a change in him, and in his way of looking at the world.
He stood at his open window early in the morning, and gazed out at the fresh, bright country. The delicatehand of spring had already touched the world with colour, and the breath of the coming warmth had waked the life in all those things which die yearly, and are yearly raised again. Ghisleri felt the morning sun upon his thin, pale face, and he realised that he also had been very near to death during the dark months, and he remembered how he had wished that he might be not near only to dying, but dead altogether, never to take up again the play that had grown so wearisome and empty in his eyes.
But now a change had come. For the first time in years, he knew that if the choice were suddenly offered him at the present moment he would choose to live out all the days allotted to him, and would wish that they might be many rather than few. There was, indeed, a dark spot on the page last turned, of which he could never efface the memory, nor, in his own estimation, outlive the shame. In his day-dreams Maddalena dell' Armi's coldly perfect face was often before him with an expression upon it which he feared to see, knowing too well why it was there—and out of a deeper depth of memory dead Bianca Corleone's eyes looked at him with reproach and sometimes with scorn. There was much pain in store for him yet, of the kind at which the world never guessed, nor ever could. But he would not try to escape from it. He would not again so act or think as to call himself coward in his own heart's tribunal.
He looked out at the distant hills, and down at the broad battlements and massive outworks of the ancient fortress, and fell to thinking rather idly about the people who had lived, and fought, and quarrelled, and slain each other, within and around those enormous walls, and then he thought all at once of Adele Savelli, and of his suspicions regarding her. He was in a particularly charitable frame of mind on that morning, and he suddenly felt that what he had almost believed on the previous night was utterly beyond the bounds of probability. It seemed to him that he had no manner of right to accuse any one ofthe crime he had imputed to her, on the most shadowy grounds, and absolutely without proof, unless the coincidence of her uneasy behaviour, with certain vague remarks of his own, could be taken as evidence. He sat down to think it all over, drinking his coffee by the open window, and enjoying the sunshine and the sweet morning air. The whole world looked so good and innocent and fresh as he gazed out upon it, that the possibilities of evil seemed to shrink away into nothing.
But as he systematically reviewed the events of the past months, his suspicion returned almost with the force of conviction. The coincidences were too numerous to be attributed to chance alone. Adele's distress of mind was too evident to be denied. Altogether there was no escaping from the conclusion that willingly or unwillingly she had been consciously instrumental in bringing about Arden's illness and death. Her questions about the wisest course to pursue in cases of blackmail, pointed to the probability if not the certainty that some third person was acquainted with what had happened, and this person was in all likelihood the maid Lucia. So far his reasoning took him quickly and plausibly enough, but no further. How the scarlet fever had been communicated from Lucia to Herbert Arden was more than Ghisleri could guess, but if Adele was really in the serving woman's power, it must have been done in such a way as to make what had happened quite clear to the latter. After thinking over all the possibilities, and vainly attempting to solve the hard problem, Ghisleri found himself as much at sea as ever, and was driven to acknowledge that he must trust to chance for obtaining any further evidence in the matter.
Meanwhile Adele had determined to follow his advice. Her anxiety was becoming unbearable, and she felt that she could not endure such suspense much longer. To accuse Lucia directly of having opened the letter and committed the theft would be rash and dangerous. There was a bare possibility that some one else might have done the deed. She must in any case be cautious.
"Lucia," she said that morning, while the woman was doing her hair, "do you remember that some days ago I gave you a letter to be registered, and that you brought back the receipt for it from the post-office?"
"Yes, Excellency, I remember very well." Lucia had been expecting for a long time that her mistress would question her and she was quite prepared. She had good nerves, and the certainty that the great lady was altogether in her power made her cool and collected.
"A very extraordinary thing happened to that letter," said Adele, looking up at her own face in the glass, to give herself courage. "It was rather important. I had written to Padre Bonaventura, asking spiritual guidance, and I particularly desired an answer. But he wrote to me by return of post, saying that when he opened the envelope he found only four sheets of blank paper without a word written on them. You see somebody must have thought there was money in the letter."
"They are such thieves at the post-office!" exclaimed Lucia. "But this is a terrible affair, Excellency! What is to be done? The post-master must be sent to the galleys immediately!"
In Lucia's conception of the law such a summary course seemed quite practicable.
"I am afraid that would be very unjust, and could do no good at all," said Adele. "I am quite sure that the post-master would not have dared to open a letter already registered, and for which he had given a receipt. As for any one in the house having done it, I cannot believe it either. I gave it into your hands myself and you brought me back the stamped bit of paper—it is there in my jewel case. I only wish you to find out for me, very quietly and without exciting suspicion, who took that letter to the post. If I could get it back I would give the person who brought it to me a handsome reward. You understand, Lucia, how disagreeable it is to feel that a letter concerning one's most sacred feelings is lost, and has perhaps been read by more than one person."
"I cannot imagine anything more dreadful! But be easy, Excellency. I will do all I can, and none of the servants shall suspect that I am questioning them."
"I shall be very much obliged to you, Lucia," said Adele. "Very much obliged," she repeated, with some emphasis.
"It is only my duty to serve your Excellency, who has always been so good to me," answered Lucia, humbly.
Adele knew that there was nothing more to be said for the present, and she congratulated herself on having been diplomatic in her way of offering the bribe. Lucia would now in all likelihood take some time to decide, but for the present she would certainly not part with the precious document. Adele felt sure that it had neither been destroyed nor sent out of the castle. Lucia probably kept it concealed in a safe corner of her own room, under lock and key, and to attempt to get possession of it by force would be out of the question. As in most Italian houses, the servants all locked their own rooms and carried the keys about with them. Lucia, of course, did like the rest.
But Lucia, on her side, distrusted her mistress. Knowing what she now knew of Adele, she believed her capable of almost anything, including the picking of a lock and the skilful abstraction of the letter from its secret hiding-place. As soon as she was at liberty she went and got the paper and concealed it in her bosom, intending to keep it there until she could select some safe spot in a remote part of the castle, where she might put it away in greater safety. To carry it about with her until Adele took her back to Rome would be rash, she thought. Adele might suspect where it was at any moment, and force her to give it up. Or it might be lost, which would be even worse.
Adele herself felt singularly relieved. She had very little doubt but that Lucia would come to terms. She might, indeed, ask a very large sum, and it might be very inconvenient to be obliged to find it at short notice. But the sole heiress to an enormous estate would certainly beable to get money in some way or other. In the meantime Lucia would not offer it to any one else, since of all people her mistress would be willing to make the greatest sacrifice to obtain possession of it. On the whole, therefore, Adele's anxiety diminished on that day, and she seemed better when she met her husband and Ghisleri in the great court-yard where they were sunning themselves and continuing their talk about politics.
"I promised that I would show you the castle," she said to Pietro. "Would it amuse you to go with me now? Francesco does not care to come, of course, and he always has his business with the steward to attend to before breakfast."
Pietro expressed his readiness to follow her from the deepest dungeon to the topmost turret of the castle.
"Have you slept well?" he asked, as they moved away together. "You are looking much better this morning."
"Yes. I feel better," she answered. "Do you know I think your coming has had something to do with it. You have cheered us with your talk and your news. We were fast falling into the vegetable stage, Francesco and I."
Ghisleri smiled, partly out of politeness and partly at his own thoughts.
"I am glad to have been of any use," he said. "I will do my best to be amusing as long as you will have me."
"You need not take it as such an enormous compliment," Adele laughed. "Of course, you are very agreeable,—at least, you can be when you choose,—but the great thing is to have somebody, anybody one knows and likes a little, in this dreary place. Shall we begin at the top or the bottom? The prisons or the towers? Which shall it be?"
"If there is a choice, let us begin in the lower regions," answered Ghisleri. "Do you like me a little, Donna Adele?" he asked, as she led the way along the curved and smoothly paved descent which led downwards to the subterranean part of the fortress.
She laughed lightly, and glanced at him. She had always wished to make a conquest of Pietro Ghisleri, but she had found few opportunities of being alone with him, for he had never been among the assiduous at her shrine. She knew also how much he admired Laura Arden, and she suspected him of being incipiently in love. It would be delightful to detach him from that allegiance.
"Yes," she said, "I like you a little. Did you expect me to like you very much? You have never done anything to deserve it."
"I wish I could," answered Ghisleri, with complete insincerity. "But I am afraid I should never get so far as that."
"Why not?"
"When a woman loves her husband—" He did not finish the sentence, for it seemed unnecessary.
"I do not want you to make love to me," Adele answered, "though I believe you know how to do it to perfection. It is often a very long way from liking very much to loving a very little. This is the place where old Gianluca kept his brother Paolo in prison for eighteen years. Then Gianluca died suddenly one fine morning, and Paolo was let out by the soldiers and immediately threw Gianluca's wife out of the window of the east tower, and cut off the heads of his two sons on the same afternoon. I will show you where that was done when we go up stairs. Paolo was an extremely energetic person."
"Decidedly so, I should say," assented Ghisleri. "You are all descended from him, I suppose."
"Yes, he took care that we should be, by killing all the other branches of the family. Those hollows in the stone are supposed to have been made by his footsteps. Think what a walk! It lasted eighteen years. But it is an airy place and not damp. Those windows were there then, they say. Do you see that deep channel in the wall? It leads straight up through the castle to the floor of the little passage between the old guard-roomand one of the towers. There used to be a trap-door—it was still there when I was a little girl, but my father has had a slab of stone put down instead. They used to entice their dearest and most familiar enemies up there, and just as the man set foot on the board a soldier in the tower pulled a bolt in the wall and the trap-door fell. It is two hundred feet, they say. It was so cleverly managed! They say that the last person who came to grief there was a Monsignor Boccapaduli in the year sixteen hundred and something, but no one ever knew what had become of him until the next generation."
Familiar from her childhood with every corner of the vast building, she led Ghisleri through one portion after another, telling such of the tales of horror as she remembered. Little by little they worked their way to the upper regions. In the guard-room, a vast hall which would have made a good-sized church, she showed him the great slab of stone the Prince had substituted for the wooden trap-door of former days, and which had merely been placed over the yawning chasm without plaster or cement, its own weight being enough to keep it in position. They passed over it and ascended the stairs in the tower, emerging at last into the bright sunshine upon one of the highest battlements. They sat down side by side on a stone bench.