L'on fait plus souvent des trahisons par faiblesse que par un dessein formé de trahir.—La Rochefoucauld.
L'on fait plus souvent des trahisons par faiblesse que par un dessein formé de trahir.
—La Rochefoucauld.
Fay's evening-party was a success. Her parties generally were. It was a small gathering, for as it was May but few of the residents had come down to the villas. Some of the guests had motored out from Rome. My impression is that Fay enjoyed the evening. She certainly enjoyed the brilliancy which excitement had momentarily added to her beauty.
All the time she was saying to herself, "If people only knew. What a contrast between what these people think and what I really am. Perhaps this is the last time I shall have a party here. Perhaps I shall not be here to-morrow. Perhaps Michael will insist on taking me away with him, from this death in life, this hell on earth."
What large imposing words! How well they sounded! Yes, in a way Fay was enjoying herself.
Often during the evening she saw the grave, kindly eyes of the duke upon her. Once he came up to her, and paid her a little exquisite compliment. Her disgust and hatred of him were immediately forgotten. She smiled back at him. She did not love him of course. A man like that did not know what love was. But Fay had never yet felt harshly towards any man who admired her. The husband who did not understand her watched her with something of the indulgent, protectingexpression which we see on the face of the owner of an enchanting puppy, which is ready to gallop on india rubber legs after any pair of boots which appears on its low horizon.
The guests had ebbed away by degrees. Lord John Alington, a tall, bald, boring Englishman, and one or two others, remained behind, arranging some expedition with the duke.
Michael's chief had long since gone. Michael did not depart with him, but took his leave a few moments later. Michael's departure from Rome the following day on urgent affairs was generally known. The duke had watched him bid Fay a mechanical farewell, and had then expressed an urbane regret at his departure. The thin, pinched face of the young man appealed to the elder one. The duke had liked him from the first.
"It is time he went," he said to himself as he watched Michael leave the room. As Michael left it Fay's excitement dropped from her, and she became conscious of an enormous fatigue. A few minutes later she dragged herself up the great pictured staircase to her little boudoir overlooking the garden, and sank down exhausted on a couch. Her pretty Italian maid was waiting for her in the adjoining bedroom, and came to her, and began to unfasten her jewels.
Fay dismissed her for the night, saying she was not going to bed yet. She often stayed up late reading. She was of those who say that they have no time for reading in the day, and who like to look up (or rather, to say afterwards they looked up) to find the solemn moon peering in at them.
To-night there was no solemn or otherwise disposed moon.
Fay's heart suddenly began to beat so wildly that it seemed as if she would suffocate. What violent emotion was this which was flooding her, sweeping away all landmarks, covering, as by one great inrolling tidal wave, all the familiar country of her heart? Whither was she being swept in the midst of this overwhelming roaring torrent? Out to sea? To some swift destruction? Where? Where?
She clutched the arm of the sofa and trembled. She had known so many small emotions. What was this? And like a second wave on the top of the first a sea of recklessness broke over and engulfed her.What next?She did not know. She did not care. Michael, his face and hand. These were the only realities. In another moment she should see him, feel him, hold him, never, never let him go again.
In the intense stillness a whisper came up through the orange blossom below her balcony:
"Fay."
She was on the balcony in a moment. The scent of the orange blossom had become alive and confused everything.
"Come up," she said almost inaudibly.
"I cannot."
"You must. I must speak to you."
"Come down here then. I am not coming up."
She ran down, and felt rather than saw Michael's presence at the foot of the little stair.
He was breathing hard. He did not move towards her.
"You sent for me, so I came," he said. "Tell me quickly what I can do for you, how I can serve you. I cannot remain here more than a moment. I endanger your safety as it is."
It was all so different from what she had expected, from what she had pictured to herself. He was so determined and stern; and it had never struck her as possible that he would not come up to her room, that the interview would be so short.
"I can't speak here," she said, angry tears smarting in her eyes.
"You can and must. Tell me quickly, dearest, why you sent for me. You said it was all-important. I am here, I will do your bidding, if you will only say what it is."
"Take me with you," she gasped inaudibly.
She had not meant to say that. She was merely the mouthpiece of something vast, of some blind destructive force that was rending her. She swayed against the railings, clinging to them with both hands.
Even as she spoke her voiceless whisper was drowned in a sound but very little louder. There was a distant stir, a movement as of waking bees in the house.
He had not heard her. He was listening intently.
"Go back instantly and shut the window," he said, and in a moment she felt he was gone.
She crept feebly up the stairs to her room and sank down again on the couch, broken, half dead.
"I shall see him no more. I shall see him no more," she said to herself, twisting her hands. What a travesty, what a mockery that one hurried moment hadbeen! What a parting that was no parting! He had no heart. He did not really love her.
Through her stupor she felt rather than heard a movement in the house. She stole out of her room to the head of the grand staircase. Nearly all the lights had been put out. Close to a lamp in the saloon below, the duke and Lord John were standing, looking at a map. "The Grotta Ferrata road is the best," the duke was saying. And as he spoke a servant came in quickly, and whispered to the duke, who left the saloon with him.
Fay fled back to her own room. Something was happening. But what? Could it have any connection with herself and Michael? No, that seemed impossible. And Michael must by now have left the gardens, by the unlocked door by which he had come in.
Fay drew the reading lamp nearer to her, and opened the book of devotions which Magdalen, her far off sister in England, had sent her. Her eyes wandered over the page, her mind taking no heed.
"For it is the most pain that the soul may have, to turn from God any time by sin."
There certainly was a sort of subdued stir in the house. A nameless fear was invading Fay's heart. The book shook in her hand. Whatcouldbe happening? And if it was, as it must be, something quite apart from her and Michael, what did it matter, why be afraid?
"For sin is vile, and so greatly to be hated that it may be likened to no pain which is not sin. And to me was showed no harder hell than sin."
A low tap came at the window. Fay started violently, and the book dropped on the floor.
The tap was repeated. She went to the window, and saw Michael's face through the glass.
She opened the glass door, and he came in. His clothes were smeared and torn, and there was blood upon his hand.
"Something has happened," he said. "I don't know what it is, but the garden is surrounded, and there is someone watching at the door I came in at. I have tried all the other ways. I have tried to climb the wall, but there was glass at the top. I can't get out. And they are searching the gardens with lanterns."
Even as he spoke they saw lights moving among the ilexes.
"They can't know," she said faintly.
"It does not seem possible. They are probably looking for someone else, but I can't be found here at this hour without raising suspicion. Is there any way out through the house from here?"
"Only down the grand staircase."
"I must risk it. Show me the way."
They went together down the almost dark corridor. Fay's heart sickened at the thought that a belated servant might see them. But all was quiet. At the head of the staircase they both peered over the balustrade. At its foot in a narrow circle of light stood the duke and Lord John, and a man with a tri-coloured sash. Even as they looked, the three turned and began slowly to mount the staircase.
Fay and Michael were back in her boudoir in a moment.
"There is a way out here," he said, indicating the door into her bedroom.
"It leads into my bedroom, and then through to Andrea's rooms. There is no passage, and he has a dog in his room. It would bark."
"I must go back to the garden again," he said, and instantly moved to the window. Both saw twocarabinieristanding with a lantern at the foot of the balcony steps.
"If you go down now," said Fay hoarsely, "my reputation goes with you."
He looked at her.
It was as if his whole life were focussed on one burning point; how to save her from suspicion. If he could have shrivelled into ashes at her feet he would have done it. She saw her frightful predicament, and almost hated him.
The animal panic of being trapped caught them both simultaneously. He overcame it instantly, while she shook helplessly as in a palsy.
He went swiftly back to the door leading to the staircase, and glanced through it.
"They are coming along the corridor," he said. "They will certainly come in here."
"Stand behind the screen," she gasped. "I will say no one has been here, and they will pass through into the other room. As soon as they have left the room go quickly out by the staircase."
He looked round him once, and then walked behind a tall screen of Italian leather which stood at the head of a divan.
Fay took up her book from the floor, but her numb fingers refused to hold it. She put it on the edge of the table near her, under the lamp, hid her shakinghands in the folds of her long white chiffon gown, and fixed her eyes upon the page.
The words of the dead saint swam before her eyes:
"Yea, He loveth us now as well while we are here, as He shall do while we are there afore His blessed face. But for failing of love on our part, therefore is all our travail."
There were subdued footsteps outside, a tap, the duke's voice.
"May I come in?"
"Come in," she said, but she heard no words.
She made a superhuman effort.
"Come in," she said again, and this time to her relief she heard the words distinctly.
The duke entered and held the door half closed.
"I feared to disturb you, my child," he said, "but it is unavoidable that I disturb you. It is a relief to find that you are not yet in bed and asleep. A very grave, a very sad event has happened which necessitates the presence of the police commissioner. Calm yourself, my Francesca, and my good friend thedelegatowill explain."
The official in the sash came in. Lord John stood in the doorway.
"Duchess," said the official, "I grieve to say that one of your guests of this evening, the Marchese di Maltagliala, has been assassinated in the garden, or possibly in the road, and his dead body was dragged into the garden afterwards. He was found just inside the east garden door, which by some mischance had been left unlocked."
A deathlike silence followed thedelegato'swords.
"A DEATHLIKE SILENCE FOLLOWED THE DELEGATO'S WORDS"
Fay turned her bloodless face towards him, and her eyes never left him. She felt Michael listening behind the screen.
"There was hardly an instant," continued the official, with a touch of professional pride, "before the alarm was given. By a fortunate chance I myself happened to be near. The garden was instantly surrounded. It is being searched now. It seems hardly possible that the assassin can have escaped. I entreat your pardon for intruding this painful subject on the sensitive mind of a lady, and breaking in on your privacy."
"I should think he has escaped by now," said Fay hoarsely.
"It is possible, but improbable," said the official. Then he turned to the duke. "This is, I understand from you, the only way into the house from the garden?"
"The only way that might possibly still be open," said the duke. "The doors on the ground floor are both locked, as we have seen."
"We greatly feared," continued the duke, turning to his wife, "that the murderer if he were still in the garden, finding it was being searched, might terrify you by rushing in here."
"No one has been in here," said Fay automatically.
"Have you been in this room ever since you left the saloon?" said her husband.
"Yes. I have been reading here ever since."
"Then it is impossible that anyone should have escaped into the house through this room," said the duke. "The duchess must have seen him. It is no longer necessary to search the house."
Thedelegatohesitated. He opened the glass door and spoke to the men with the lantern.
"They are convinced that it is not possible he is concealed in the garden," he said. "Perhaps if the duchess were deeply engaged in study he might have serpentinely glided through into the next room without her perceiving him. It is, I understand, the duchess's private apartment. It might be as well—where does the duchess's apartment lead into?"
"Into my rooms," said the duke, "and my dog is there. He would have given the alarm long ago if any stranger had passed through my room. If he is silent no one has been near him."
There was a pause.
Fay learned what suspense means.
Thedelegatotwirled his moustaches.
He was evidently reluctant to give up the remotest chance, and yet reluctant to inconvenience the duke further.
"It is just possible," he said, "that the assassin may have taken refuge in here before the duchess came back to her apartment. My duties are grave, duchess. Have I your permission?"
Fay bowed.
The duke, still urbane, but evidently finding the situation unduly prolonged, led the way into Fay's bedroom.
This story would never have been written if Lord John had not remained standing in the doorway.
Did Michael know he was there? He had not so far spoken, or given any sign of his presence.
"Won't you go into my room, Lord John, and helpin the capture," she said distinctly; and as she spoke she was aware that she was only just in time.
But Lord John would not go in, thanks. Lord John preferred to advance heavily in her direction, and to sit down by her on the couch, telling her not to look so terrified, that he would take care of her.
She stared wildly at him, livid and helpless.
A door was softly opened, and was instantly followed by the furious barking of a dog.
"Go and help them," said Fay to Lord John.
But Lord John did not move. Like all bores he was conscious of his own attractive personality. He only settled his eyeglass more firmly in his pale eye.
"You never spoke to me all evening," he said, with jocular emphasis. "What have I done to deserve such severity?"
In another moment the duke and the official returned, followed by Sancho, a large Bridlington terrier, still bristling and snarling at the official.
Fay called the dog to her, and held it forcibly, pretending to caress it.
"No one has gone by that way," said thedelegatoto the duke. "The dog proves that."
"Sancho proves it," said the duke gravely.
As he spoke he paused as if suddenly arrested. His eyes were fixed on a small Florentine mirror which hung over Fay's writing-table in the angle of the wall. The duke's face changed, as a man's face might change, who, conscious of no enemy, feels himself stabbed from behind in the dark. Then he came forward, and said with a firm voice:
"We will now go once more into the gardens. Lord John, you will accompany us."
Lord John got heavily to his feet.
"Take Sancho with you," said Fay, holding the dog with difficulty, who was obviously excited and suspicious, its mobile nostrils working, its eyes glued to the screen.
The duke opened the glass door, and Sancho, his attention turned, rushed out into the night, barking furiously.
"You need have no further fear," said the duke to Fay, looking into her eyes. "The assassin has certainly escaped."
"No doubt," said Fay.
"Unless he is hiding behind the screen all the time," said Lord John, with his customary facetiousness. "It is about the only place in the room he could hide in, except of course the wastepaper basket."
Thedelegato, who was not apparently a man who quickly seized the humorous side of a remark, at once stepped back from the window, and glanced at the wastepaper basket.
"I may as well look behind the screen," he said, and went towards it.
But before he could reach it the screen moved, and Michael came out from behind it.
The four people in the room gazed at him spell-bound, speechless; Lord John reeled against the wall. The duke alone retained his self-possession.
Michael advanced into the middle of the room, and for a moment his eyes met Fay's. Who shall say what he read in their terror-stricken depths?
Then he turned to the duke and said:
"I ask pardon of you, duke, and of the duchess, my cousin, for the inconvenience I have caused you. I confess to the murder of the Marchese di Maltagliala, and sought refuge in the garden. When the garden was surrounded I sought refuge here. I did not tell the duchess what I had done, but I implored her to let me take shelter here, and to promise not to give me up. She ought at once to have given me up. She yielded to the dictates of humanity and suffered me to hide in this room. Duchess, I thank you for your noble, your self-sacrificing but unavailing desire to shield a guilty man."
Michael went up to her, took her cold hand and kissed it. Then he turned again to the duke.
"I offer you my apologies for this intrusion," he said, and the two men bowed to each other.
"And now, signor," he said in Italian to the amazed official, "I am at your service."
Qui sait tout souffrir peut tout oser.—Vauvenargues.
Qui sait tout souffrir peut tout oser.
—Vauvenargues.
Michael was imprisoned for the night in a cell attached to the Court of Mandamento, and the next day was sent to Rome to await his trial at theassise.
Early on the second day after he reached Rome the duke came to him. The two men looked fixedly at each other. They exchanged no form of greeting.
The duke made a little sign with his hand, and the warder withdrew outside the cell door, which he left ajar.
Then the duke sat down by Michael.
"I should have come yesterday," he said in English, "but it took time to gain permission, and also"—he nodded towards the door—"to arrange."
"For God's sake give me details," said Michael.
The duke gave them in a low voice. He described in a careful sequence the exact position of the dead body, the wound, caused by stabbing in the back, the strong inference that the murdered man had been attacked in the road, and then dragged just inside the Colle Alto garden door.
"I don't see any reason why he should have gone outside the garden," said Michael.
"Neither do I. But the garden door was unlocked. It had been locked as usual, my gardener swears, and the key left in the lock on the inside. Who then openedit, if for some reason the marchese did not open it himself?"
Michael did not answer.
"I saw the body before it was moved," continued the duke. "It was still warm. I incline to think the marchese was murdered actually inside the garden, and that he fell on his face where he stood, and was dragged behind the hydrangeas. But thedelegatothought differently. You will remember, Carstairs, that the dead man had been dragged by the feet."
"Did I put him on the right side or the left of the door as you go in?"
"On the left."
"On his face?"
"Yes."
There was a pause.
"You had no quarrel with the marchese, I presume?" said the duke significantly.
"On the contrary," said Michael; "it is not known, but I had."
"Just so. Just so. About a woman?"
Michael winced.
"About a horse," he said.
"No," said the duke, with decision. "Think again. Your memory does not serve you. It was about a woman. Was it not a dancing-girl?"
"I am not like that," said Michael, colouring.
"It is of no account what you are like, or what you are not like. What matters is that which is quickly believed. A quarrel about a woman is always believed, especially by women who think all turns on them. Were you not in Paris at Easter?"
"I was."
"Was not the marchese in Paris at Easter?"
"He was. I saw him once at the Opera with the old Duke of Castelfranco."
"Just so. A quarrel about a dancing-girl at Paris at Easter. That was how it was."
"You are right," said Michael, regaining his composure with an effort. "I owed him a grudge. You will be careful to mention this to no one?"
"I will mention it only to one or two women on whom I can rely," said the duke; "and to them only in the strictest confidence."
Michael nodded.
Silence fell between them, and he wondered why the duke did not go. The warder shifted his feet in the passage.
Presently the duke began to speak in a low, even voice.
"I owe you an apology," he said. "I saw you standing behind the screen, reflected in a little mirror, and for one moment I thought you had done me a great injury. It was only for a moment. I regained myself quickly. I would have saved you if I could. But I owe you an apology for a suspicion unworthy of either of us."
"It was natural," said Michael. He was greatly drawn to this man.
"I may in some matters be deceived," continued the duke, "for in my time I have deceived others, and have not been found out. I don't know why you were in my wife's rooms that night. Nevertheless, I clearly know two things: one, that you did not murder the marchese,and the other, that there was nothing wrong between you and my wife. With you her honour was safe. You and I are combining now to guard only her reputation before the world."
Michael did not answer. He nodded again.
"At the price," continued the duke, "probably of your best years."
"I am content to pay the price," said Michael. "It was the only thing to do." Then he coloured like a girl, and raised his eyes to the duke's. "I went to her that night to say good-bye," he said. "That was why the garden door was unlocked. I love her. I have loved her for years."
It seemed as if everything between the two men had become transparent.
"I know it," said the duke. "She also, the duchess, is in love with you."
Michael drew back perceptibly. His manner changed.
"A little—not much," continued the duke. "I watched her, when you gave up yourself. She could have saved you. She could save you still—by a word. But she will not speak it. She appeared to love me a little once. I was not deceived. I knew. She loves you a little now. Why do you deceive yourself, my friend? There is only one person for whom she has a permanent and deep affection—for her very charming self."
The words fell into the silence of the bare room. Michael's thin hands, tightly clenched, shook a little.
The duke bent towards him.
"Is she worth it?" he said, with sudden passion.
No answer. Michael hid his face in his hands.
"Is she worth it?" said the duke again.
Michael looked up suddenly at the duke, and the elder man winced at the expression in his face. He looked through the duke, through his veiled despair and disillusion, beyond him.
"Yes, she is worth it," he said. "You do not understand her because you only love her in part. I meant to serve her by leaving Rome, but now I can't leave it. What I can do for her I will. It is no sacrifice—I am glad to do it—to have the chance. I have always wished—to serve her—to put my hands under her feet."
The sudden radiance in Michael's face passed. He looked down embarrassed, annoyed with himself.
"There remains then but one other person to be considered," said the duke, looking closely at him. "The beautiful heroine, the young lover, these are now accommodated. All isen régle. But that dull elderly person who takes therôleof husband on these occasions! Is there not a husband somewhere? What of him? Will he indeed fold his arms as on the stage? Will he indeed stand by as serenely as you suppose and suffer an innocent man to make this sacrifice for the sake of his—honour?"
"He will, only because he must," said Michael, catching his breath. "I had thought of that. He can do nothing. Have I not accused myself? And his honour is also hers. They stand and fall together."
"'IS SHE WORTH IT?' HE SAID WITH SUDDEN PASSION"
"They stand and fall together," said the duke slowly. "Yes, that is true. And he is old. He is finished. He is the head of a great house. His honour is perhaps theonly thing that still means anything to him. Nevertheless, it is strange to me that you think he would consent to keep it at so great a cost, the cost perhaps of twenty years. That were impossible.... He could not permitthat. But—one little year—at most. That perhaps his conscience might permit. One little year! You are young. Supposing he has within him," he laid his hand on his heart, "that of which his wife does not know, which means that his release issure. Do you understand? Supposing it must come soon—very soon—her release—and yours. Perhaps then——" There was a long pause. "Perhaps then his conscience might suffer him to keep silence."
Michael's hand made a slight movement. The duke took it in his, and held it firmly.
"Listen," he said at last. "Once when I was young, twenty years ago, I loved. I too would fain have served a woman, would have put my hands under her feet. There is always one such a woman in life, but only one. She was to me the world. But I could only trouble her life. She was married. She had children. I knew I ought to go. I meant to go. She prayed me to go. I promised her to go—nevertheless I stayed. And at last—inasmuch as she loved me very much—I broke up her home, her life, her honour, she was separated from her children. She lost all, and then when all was gone she died. The only thing which I could keep from her was poverty, which would have been nothing to her. She never reproached me. There is no reproach in love. But—she died in disgrace, and alone. From the first to the last it was her white hands under my feet. That was how I served the one womanI have deeply loved, the one creature who deeply loved me." The duke's voice had become almost inaudible. "You have done better than I," he said.
Then he kissed Michael on the forehead, and went out.
They never met again.
The year slid like a corpse afloat.—D. G. Rossetti.
The year slid like a corpse afloat.—D. G. Rossetti.
And how did it fare with Fay during the days that followed Michael's arrest?
Much sympathy was felt for her. Lord John, wallowing in the delicious novelty of finding eager listeners, went about extolling her courage and unselfishness to the skies. Her conduct was considered perfectly natural and womanly. No man condemned her for trying to shield her cousin from the consequences of his crime. Women said they would have done the same, and envied her her romantic situation.
And Fay, shut up in her darkened room in her romantic situation—she who adored romantic situations—what were Fay's thoughts?
There is a travail of soul which toils with hard crying up the dark valley of decision, and brings forth in anguish the life entrusted to it. Perhaps it is the great renunciation. Perhaps it is only the loyal inevitable deed which is struggling to come forth, to be allowed to live for our healing and comfort.
But there is another travail of soul, barren, unavailing, which flings itself down, and tosses in impotent misery from side to side, from mood to mood, as in a sickly trance.
Such was Fay's.
Her decision not to speak had been made in thement when she had let Michael accuse himself, and she kept silence. But that she did not know. She thought it was still to make.
"I must speak. I must speak," she said to herself all through the endless day after Michael's arrest, all through the endless night, until the dawn came up behind the ilexes, the tranquil dawn that knew all, and found her shuddering and wild-eyed.
"I must speak. I cannot let Michael suffer for me, even to save my reputation."
Her reputation!How little she had cared for it twenty-four hours ago, when passion clutched the reins!
But now—— The public shame of it—the divorce which in her eyes must ensue—Andrea! Her courteous, sedate, inexorable husband, whose will she could not bend, whom she could not cajole, whose mind was a closed book to her; a book which had lain by her hand for three years, which she had never had the curiosity to open!—Fay feared her husband, as we all fear what we do not understand. He would divorce her—and then—— And Magdalen at home—and——
A flood of suffocating emotion swept over her, full of ugly swimming and crawling reptiles, and invertebrate horrors, the inevitable scavengers of the sea of selfish passion.
Fay shrank back for very life. She could not pass through that flood and live. Nevertheless she felt herself pushed towards it.
"But I have no choice. Imustspeak. He is innocent. He is doing this to shield me because he loves me. But I also love him, far, far more than he loves me, and I will prove it."
Fay went in imagination through a fearful and melodramatic scene, in which she revealed everything before a public tribunal. She saw her husband's face darken against her, her lover's lighten as she saved him. She saw her slender figure standing alone, bearing the whole shock, serene, unshaken. The vision moved her to tears.
Was it a prophetic vision?
It was quite light now, and she crept to her husband's room. She had not seen him during the previous day. He had been out the whole of it. She felt drawn towards him by calamity, by the loneliness of her misery.
The duke was not asleep. He was lying in bed with his hands clasped behind his head. His sallow face, worn by a sleepless night, and perhaps by a wounding memory, was turned towards the light, and the new day dealt harshly with it. There were heavy lines under the eyes. The eyes looked steadily in front of him, plunged deep in a past which had something of the irrevocable tenderness of the dawn in it, the holy reflection of an inalienable love.
He did not stir as his wife came in. His eyes only moved, resting upon her for a moment, focussing her with difficulty, as if withdrawn from something at a great distance, and then they turned once more to the window.
A pale primrose light had risen above the blue tangled mist of ilexes and olives. The cypresses stood half-veiled in mist, half-sharply clear against the stainless pallor of the upper sky.
"I am so miserable, Andrea."
He did not speak.
"I cannot sleep."
Still no answer.
"I am convinced that Michael is innocent."
"It goes without saying."
"Then they can't convict him, can they?"
"They will convict him," said the duke, and for a moment he bent his eyes upon her. "Has he not accused himself?"
"They won't—hang him?"
The duke shrugged his shoulders. He did not think fit to enlighten his wife's ignorance of the fact that in Italy there is no capital punishment.
"But if he has not done it, and we know he has not," faltered Fay.
"He is perhaps shielding someone," said the duke, "the real murderer."
"I don't see how that could be."
"He may have his reasons. The real murderer is perhaps a friend—or a—woman. Your cousin is a romantic. It is always better for a romantic if he had not been born. But generally a female millstone is in readiness to tie itself round him, and cast him into the sea. The world is not fitted to him. It is to egotistic persons like you and me, my Francesca, to whom the world is most admirably adapted."
"I don't see how the murderer could be a woman. Women don't murder men on the high road."
"No, not on the high road. You are in the right. How dusty, how dirty is the high road! But I have known, not once nor twice, women to murder men very quietly. Oh! so gently and cleanly—to let them die. I am much older than you, but you will perhaps alsolive to see a woman do this, Francesca. And now retire to your room, and let me counsel you to take some rest. Your beauty needs it."
She burst into tears.
"How little you care!" she said between her sobs, "how heartless you are! I will never believe they will convict him. He is innocent, and his innocence will come to light."
"I think the light will not be suffered to fall upon it," said the duke.
Afterwards, years afterwards, Fay remembered that conversation with wonder that its significance had escaped her. But at the time she could see nothing, feel nothing except her own anguish.
She left her husband's room. There was no help or sympathy in him. She went back to her own room and flung herself face downwards on her bed. Let no one think she did not suffer.
A faint ray of comfort presently came to her at the thought that Michael's innocence might after all come to light. It might be proved in spite of himself.
She would pray incessantly that the real murderer might give himself up, or that suspicion should fall on him, and he should be dragged to justice. And then, if—after all—Michael were convicted and his life endangered, then shemustspeak. But—not till then. Not now when all might yet go well without her confession.... And it was not as if she were guilty of unfaithfulness. She had not done anything wrong beyond imprudence. Yes, she had certainly been imprudent; that she saw. But she had done nothingwrong. It could not be right to confess to what inpublic opinion amounted to unfaithfulness on her part, and dishonourable conduct on his, when it was not so. They were both innocent. It would be telling a lie to let anyone think either of them could be guilty of such a sordid crime. It looked sordid now. Why should she drag down his name with hers into the mud—unless it were absolutely necessary.... And she must remember how distressed Michael would be if she said a word, if she flung her good name from her, which he had risked all to save. Some semblance of calm returned to her, as she thus reached the only conclusion which the bias of her mind would permit. The stream ran docilely in the little groove cut out for it.
During the days and weeks that followed Fay shut herself up, and prayed incessantly for Michael.
She prayed all through the interminable interval before the trial.
"If it goes against him, I will speak," she said.
Yet all the time Michael who loved her knew that she would not speak. Her husband who could have loved her, and who watched her struggle with compassion, knew that she would not speak. Only Fay who did not know herself believed that she would speak.
The day came when the duke gravely informed her that Michael was found guilty of murder.
Fay's prayers it seemed had not availed. She prayed no more. There was no help in God. Probably there was no God to pray to. Her sister Magdalen seemed to think there was. But how could she tell? Besides, Magdalen had such a calm temperament, and nothinghad ever happened to make her unhappy, or to shake her faith. It was different for Magdalen.
Evidently there was no justice anywhere, only a blind chance. "The truth will out," Fay had said to herself over and over again. She had tried to have faith. But the truth had not come out. She was being pushed, pushed over the edge of the precipice. Oh, why had Michael fallen in love with her when they were boy and girl! She remembered with horror and disgust those early days, that exquisite dawn of young passion in the time of primroses. It had brought her tothis—to this horrible place of tears and shame and shuddering—to these wretched days and hideous nights. Oh, why, why, had he loved her! Why had she let herself love him!
Suddenly she said to herself, "They may reprieve him yet. If his sentence is not commuted to imprisonment I will speak, so help me God I will."
It could never be known whether she would have kept that oath, for the next day she heard that Michael had been sentenced to fifteen years' imprisonment. Why had Andrea been so cruel as to let her imagine for a whole horrible night that Michael's would be a death sentence, when in Italy it seemed there was no capital punishment as in England? It was just like Andrea to torture her needlessly! When the sentence reached her Fay drew breath. The horrible catastrophe had been averted. To a man of Michael's temperament the living grave to which he was consigned was infinitely worse than death. But what was Michael's temperament to Fay? She shut her eyes to the cell of an Italian prison. Michael would live, and in timethe truth would come to light, and he would be released.
She impressed this conviction with tears on his half-brother Wentworth Maine, the kind, silent elder brother, Michael's greatest friend, who had come out to Italy to be near him, and who heard sentence given against him with a set face, and an unshaken belief in his innocence. Even to Wentworth Michael had said nothing, could be induced to say no word. He confessed to the murder. That was all.
Wentworth, who had never seen Fay before, as she had married just before he came to live at his uncle's place in Hampshire near Fay's home, saw the marks of grief in her lovely face, and was unconsciously drawn towards her. He was shy as only men can be; but he almost forgot it in her sympathetic presence. She came into his isolated, secluded life at the moment when the barriers of his instinctive timidity and apathy were broken down by his first real trouble. And he was grateful to her for having done her best to save Michael.
"I shall never forget that," he said, when he came to bid her good-bye. "There are very few women who would have had the courage and unselfishness to act as you did."
Fay winced and paled, and he took his leave, bearing away with him a grave admiration for this delicate, sensitive creature, so full of tender compassion for him and Michael.
He made no attempt to see her again when he returned to Italy some months later to visit Michael in prison. To visit Fay on that occasion would have taken him somewhat out of his way, and Wentworthnever went out of his way, not out of principle, but because such a course never occurred to him. He would have liked to see her, in order to tell her about Michael's condition, and also to deliver in person a message which Michael had sent to Fay by him. But when he realised that a detour would be necessary in order to accomplish this, he wrote to Fay to tell her with deep regret that it was impossible for him to see her, gave her Michael's message, and returned to England by the way he came. Nevertheless, he often thought of her, for she was inextricably associated with the unspeakable trouble of his life, his brother's living death.
When all was over, and the last sod had—so to speak—been cast upon that living grave, Fay tried to take up her life again. But she could not. She had lost heart. She dared not be alone. She shunned society. At her earnest request her sister Magdalen came out to her for a time, from the home in England, into which she was wedged so tightly. But even Magdalen's calm presence brought no calm with it, and the deepening friendship between her sister and her husband only irritated Fay. Everything irritated Fay. She was ill at ease, restless, feebly sarcastic, impatient.
There is a peace which passes understanding, and there is an unpeace which passes understanding also. Fay did not know, would not know, why she was so troubled, so weary of life, so destitute of comfort.
Had she met the great opportunity of her life, the turning point, and missed it? I do not think so. It was not for her.
A year later the duke died.
He made a dignified exit. An attack of vertigo to which he was liable came on when he was on horseback. He was thrown and dragged, and only survived a few days as by a miracle. His wife, who had seen little of him during the last year, saw still less of him during the days of his short illness. But when the end was close at hand he sent for her, and asked her to remain in a distant recess of his room during the painful hours.
"It will be a happier memory for you," he said gently to her between the paroxysms of suffering, "to think that you were there."
And so propped high in a great carved bedstead in the octagonal room where the Colle Altos were born, and where, when they could choose, they died, the duke lay awaiting the end.
He had received extreme unction. The chanting choir had gone. The priest had closed his pale fingers upon the crucifix, when he desired to be left alone with his wife.
She drew near timidly and stood beside his bed.
He bent his tranquil, kindly eyes upon her.
"Good-bye, my Francesca," he said. "May God and his angels protect you, and give you peace."
A belated compunction seized her.
"I wish I had been a better wife to you, Andrea," she said brokenly, laying her hand on his.
He made the ghost of a courteous, deprecating gesture, and raised her hand to his lips. The effort exhausted him. He closed his eyes and his hand fell out of hers.
Through the open window came a sudden waft ofhot carnations, a long drawn breath of the rapturous Italian spring.
It reached the duke. He stirred slightly, and opened his eyes once more. Once more they fell on Fay, and it seemed to her as if with the last touch of his cold lips upon her hand their relation of husband and wife had ceased. Even at that moment she realised with a sinking sense of impotence how slight her hold on him from first to last had been. Clearly he had already forgotten it, passed beyond it, would never remember it again.
"It is spring," he said, looking full at her with tender fixity, and for a moment she thought his mind was wandering. "Spring once more. The sun shines. He does not see them, the spring and the sunshine. Since a year he does not see them. Francesca, how much longer will you keep your cousin Michael in prison?"
And thereupon the duke closed his eyes on this world, and went upon his way.