Chapter Twenty Six.

Chapter Twenty Six.The Palazza Funaro.Days had lengthened into weeks, and it was already the end of February. In Florence, as in London, February is not the most enjoyable time of the year, and those who travel south to the Winter City expecting the sunshine and warmth of the Riviera are usually sadly disappointed. At the end of March Florence becomes pleasant, and remains so till the end of May; while in autumn, when the mosquitoes cease to trouble, the sun has lost its power, and the Lungarno is cool, it is also a delightful place of residence. But February afternoons beside the Arno are very often as dark, as dreary, and as yellow as beside the Thames; and as Gemma sat after luncheon in her cosy room, the smallest in the great old palazzo in the Borgo d’Albizzi which bore her name, she shuddered and drew a silken shawl about her shoulders. It was one of the show-places of Florence; one of those ponderous, prison-like buildings built of huge blocks of brown stone, time-worn, having weathered the storms of five centuries, and notable as containing a magnificent collection of works of art. Its mediaeval exterior, a relic of ancient Florence, was gloomy and forbidding enough, with its barred windows, over-hanging roof, strange lanterns of wonderfully worked iron, and great iron rings to which men tied their horses in days bygone. Once beyond the great courtyard, however, it was indeed a gorgeous palace. The Funaros had always been wealthy and powerful in the Lily City, and had through ages collected within their palace quantities of antiquities and costly objects. Every room was beautifully decorated, some with wonderful frescoes by Andrea del Sarto, whose work in the outer court of the Annunziata is ever admired by sight-seers of every nationality, while the paintings were by Ciro Ferri, Giovanni da Bologna, Filippo Lippi, Botticelli, and Fra Bartolommeo, together with some frescoes in grisaille with rich ornamentation by Del Sarto’s pupil Franciabigio, and hosts of other priceless works.It was a magnificent residence. There were half a dozen other palaces in the same thoroughfare, including the Altoviti, the Albizzi, and the Pazzi, but this was the finest of them all. When Gemma had inherited it she had at once furnished half a dozen rooms in modern style. The place was so enormous that she always felt lost in it, and seldom strayed beyond these rooms which overlooked the great paved courtyard with its ancient wall and curious sculptures chipped and weather-worn. The great gloomy silent rooms, with their bare oaken floors, mouldering tapestries, and time-blackened pictures, were to her grim and ghostly, as, indeed, they were to any but an art enthusiast or a lover of the antique. But the Contessa Funaro lived essentially in the present, and always declared herself more in love with cleanliness than antiquarian dirt. She had no taste for the relics of the past, and affected none. If English or American tourists found anything in the collections to admire, they were at liberty to do so on presenting their card to the liveried hall-porter. At the door the man had a box, and the money placed therein was sent regularly each quarter to the Maternity Hospital.She spent little time in her grim, silent home; for truth to tell, its magnificence irritated her, and its extent always filled her with a sense of loneliness. The housekeeper, an elderly gentlewoman who had been a friend of her dead mother’s, was very deaf, and never amusing; therefore, after a fortnight or so, she was generally ready to exchange the Funaro Palace for theHotel Cavourat Milan, theMinervaat Rome, or the hospitality of some country villa. Hotels, or even small houses, were not so grim and prison-like as her own great palazzo, the very walls of which seemed to breathe mutely of the past—of those troublous times when the clank of armour echoed in the long stone corridors, and the clink of spurs sounded in the courtyard below where now the only invaders were the pigeons.The furniture of the small elegant room in which she sat was entirely modern, upholstered in pale-blue silk, with her monogram in gold thread; the carpets were thick, the great high Florentine stove threw forth a welcome warmth, and the grey light which filtered through the curtains was just sufficient to allow her to read. She was lying back in her long chair in a lazy, negligent attitude, her fair hair a trifle disordered by contact with the cushion behind her head; and one of her little slippers having fallen off, her small foot in its neat black silk stocking peeped out beneath her skirt. On the table at her elbow were two or three unopened letters, while in a vase stood a fine bouquet of flowers, a tribute from her deaf housekeeper.Since the day she had parted from Count Castellani in the hall of the Embassy in Grosvenor Square she had travelled a good deal. She had been down to Rome, had had an interview with the Marquis Montelupo, and a week ago had unexpectedly arrived at the palazzo. As she had anticipated, when she broke her journey at Turin, on her way from London to Rome, and signed her name in the visitors’ book at the hotel, a police official called early on the following morning to inform her that she must consider herself under arrest. But the words scribbled by Montelupo upon his visiting-card had acted like magic, and, having taken the card to the Questura, the detective returned all bows and apologies, and she was allowed to proceed on her journey.Nearly nine months had elapsed since she last set foot within her great old palazzo, and as she sat that afternoon she allowed her book to fall upon her lap and her eyes to slowly wander around the pretty room. She glanced at the window where the rain was being driven upon the tiny panes by the boisterous wind, and again she shuddered.With an air of weariness she raised her hand and pushed the mass of fair hair off her brow, as if its weight oppressed her, sighing heavily. The events of the past month had been many and strange. In Rome she had found herself beset by a hundred pitfalls, but she had kept faith with the Marquis, and the terms she had made with him were such as to give her complete satisfaction. A crisis, however, was, she knew, imminent; a crisis in which she would be compelled to play a leading part. But to do so would require all her ingenuity, all her woman’s wit, all her courage, all her skill at deception.Suddenly, as she was thus reflecting, Margherita, her faithful but ugly woman, who had been with her at Livorno, opened the door, and, drawing aside the heavyportière, said—“The signore!”“At last I at last!” she cried, excitedly jumping up instantly. “Show him up at once.” Then, facing the great mirror, she placed both hands to her hair, rearranging it deftly, recovered her lost slipper, cast aside the wrap, and stood ready to receive her visitor.Again the door opened. The man who entered was Charles Armytage.For a few moments he held her in fond embrace, kissing her lips tenderly again and again; while she, in that soft, crooning voice that had rung in his ears through all those months of separation, welcomed him, reiterating her declarations of love.“I received your telegram in Brussels two days ago, and have come to you direct,” he said at last. “I did not go to the Post Office every day, hence the delay.”“Ah! my poor Nino must be tired,” she cried, suddenly recollecting. “Here, this couch. Sit here; it will rest you. Povero Nino! What a terrible journey—from Brussels to Florence!”He sank upon the divan she indicated, pale, weary, and travel-worn, while she, taking a seat beside him, narrated how she had left Lyddington for London, and afterwards travelled to Rome. Feeling that the glance of the woman he worshipped was fixed upon him, he raised his head; and then their eyes met for a moment with an expression of infinite gentleness, the mournful gentleness of their heroic love.“Why did you go to Rome?” he asked. “You always said you hated it.”“I had business,” she answered. “Urgent business; business which has again aroused hope within me.”“Still of a secret nature?” the young Englishman hazarded, with a quick glance of suspicion.“For the present, yes,” she replied in a low, intense voice. “But you still love me, Nino? You can trust me now, can’t you?” and she looked earnestly into his face.“I have already trusted you,” he replied. “Since that night I left you at Lyddington my life has indeed been a dull, aimless one. You have been ever in my mind, and I have wondered daily, hourly, what was the nature of the grave mysterious peril which you say threatens both of us.”“That peril still exists,” she answered. “It increases daily, nay hourly.”“You are still threatened? You, the wealthy owner of this magnificent palazzo!” he exclaimed, gazing around the pretty room bewildered. “Often when I was in Florence, in those days when we first met, I passed this great building. Little, however, did I dream that my Gemma, who used to cycle with me in the Cascine, was its owner.”She laughed. “I had reasons for not letting you know my real name,” she replied. “It is true that I have money; but wealth has brought me no happiness—only sorrow, alas!—until I met you.”“And now you are happy?” he asked earnestly.“Ah! yes, I am happy when you are beside me, Nino,” she responded, grasping his hand in hers. “I never thought that I could learn to love you so. I am still nervous, still in dread, it is true. The reason of my fear is a strange one; I fear the future, and I fear myself.”“Yourself?” he echoed. “You told me that once before—long ago. You are not very formidable.”“Ah, no! You don’t understand,” she cried hastily. “I fear that I may not have the strength and courage to carry through a plan I have formed to secure your safety and my own liberty.”“But I can assist you,” he suggested. “Your interests are mine, now, remember,” he added, kissing her.“Yes,” she said, looking up into his eyes. “But to render me assistance is not possible. Any action on my part must necessarily imperil both of us. No, I must act alone.”“When?”“Very soon. In a few days, or a few weeks. When, I know not. Very soon I must return to England.”“To England!” he cried. “I thought you preferred your own Italy!”“I have an object in going back,” she answered ambiguously.“You’ll let me accompany you?”She reflected for a moment; then, without responding, rose, rang the bell, and told the man-servant, who entered resplendent in the blue Funaro livery, to bring her visitor some wine.“You must be half famished after your journey,” she exclaimed. She was standing before him in a white gown, white from head to foot. “I must really apologise for not being more hospitable, Nino.”“I’m really not hungry,” he replied. Then he added, “You didn’t answer my question.”“I was reflecting,” she responded slowly. “I don’t know whether it is wise at this juncture for you to return to England, into the very midst of your enemies.”“You haven’t yet explained who my enemies are, beyond urging me to be wary of Malvano. True, that man has lied to me about you. He told me a silly, romantic, and wholly fictitious story regarding your parentage; but, after all, he may have been mistaken, especially as it was in answer to my inquiry whether he knew any one named Fanetti in Florence.”“Malvano was well aware that I had used that name more than once,” his well-beloved replied. “He wilfully deceived you for his own purpose. He wished to part us.”“Why? He is surely not in love with you?”“Certainly not,” she answered, laughing at such an idea. “His object was not jealousy.”“Then he is actually my enemy?”“Yes,” she replied. “Avoid him. If you desire to return to England with me, I will allow you to do so with one stipulation. The moment we set foot in London we must part. If it were known that we were together, all my plans would be frustrated.”“And I am to leave you to the mercy of these mysterious enemies of yours?” he observed dubiously.“It is imperative. You must leave London instantly and go away into the country. Malvano must not know that you are in England. Go to your uncle’s in Berkshire, and wait there until I can with safety communicate with you.”“But all this is extraordinary,” he said mystified, taking from her hand the glass of wine she had poured out for him. “I must confess myself still puzzled at finding you mistress of his magnificent palace, and yet existing in deadly fear of mysterious enemies.” He knew nothing of her connexion with the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and only regarded her as a wealthy woman whose caprice it had been to masquerade, and who had earned a wide reputation for gaiety and recklessness.“Some day, before long, you shall know the whole truth, Nino,” she assured him in deep earnestness.“When you do, you will be amazed—astounded, as others will be. I know I act strangely, without any apparent motive. I know you have heard evil of me on every hand, yet you still trust me,” and again she looked into his eyes; “yet you still love me.”“Yes, piccina,” he answered, calling her once again by that endearing term she had taught him in those summer days beside the sea when he knew so little Italian and experienced such difficulty in speaking to her. “Yes,” he said, placing his arm tenderly round her waist, “I trust you, although evil tongues everywhere try to wound you.”Only when beside this man she loved was she her real-self, true, honest, loving, and tender-hearted. To the world outside she was compelled to wear the mask as a cold, sneering, crafty, and coquettish woman, the cunning and remorseless adventuress who had won such unenviable notoriety in the political circle at Rome and in Florentine society.“La Funaro is known by repute in every town throughout Italy,” she said brokenly. “My reputation is that of a vain, coquettish woman without heart, without remorse. But you, Nino, when you know the truth, shall be my judge. Then you will know how I have suffered. The foul lies uttered on every side have cut me to the quick, but under compulsion I have remained silent. Soon, however”—and her brilliant eyes seemed to flash with eagerness at the thought which crossed her mind—“soon I shall release myself, and then you shall know everything—everything.”“On that day perfect happiness will come to me,” he said fervently. “I love you, Gemma, more deeply than ever man loved woman.”“And I, too, Nino, love you with all my heart, with all my soul.”Their lips met again in a fierce caress, their hands clasped tightly. He looked into her clear eyes, bright with unshed tears, and saw fear and determination, truth and honesty mirrored therein. Her tiny hand trembled in his, and then for very joy she suddenly burst into a flood of emotion.“When shall we leave for England?” he asked at last, his strong arm still about her waist.“In a couple of days. I have only waited here for you to join me,” she said, drying her eyes. “Life without you, Nino, is impossible.”“So within a week we shall be in London?”“Yes,” she replied. “Soon, very soon, I hope, I may be free. But I have a task before me—one that is difficult and desperate. In order to secure your safety, and my own freedom from the hateful bonds which have fettered me these last two years, I am compelled to resort to strategy, to deception deep and cunning, the smallest revelation of which would wreck all our hopes.”“How?”“Exposure of my plans would cost me my life,” she answered, her face white and set, a shudder running through her slight frame.“Your life?” he echoed, still mystified. “One would think you feared assassination!”She made no answer, but, pale to her lips, she held her breath. The flunkey in blue re-entered the room, bearing a telegram upon a salver. His mistress took it and, tearing open the folded pale drab paper, read its contents.“No reply,” she said; and the man, bowing, withdrew. “Nino,” she exclaimed in a voice of deep earnestness when the servant had gone, “you may think it extraordinary, but for your sake, because I love no other man but yourself, I have resolved to risk my life and free myself. This telegram makes it imperative that we should leave again for England to-night. You have shown trust in me; you do not believe all the idle tales gossips have littered. I love you, Nino. If I prove victor, I gain your affection, and happiness always with you. If I lose, then I die, unwillingly, but nevertheless in the confidence that to the end you trusted me.”“No, no!” he cried fiercely. “You shall not die! You shall never be taken from me! I adore you, Gemma! God knows I love you, darling!”“Then you will never doubt me—never!” she cried, clinging closely to him, and raising her beautiful face to his. “You will not doubt me even if, to gain my end, I feign love for another. To him, my kisses shall be Judas-kisses, my smiles mockery, my lips venom, my embrace the chilling embrace of death. Hear me?” she cried wildly. “I go to England with a purpose—a vendetta complete and terrible which I will accomplish by hatred—or, failing that, by love. Both will be equally fatal.”

Days had lengthened into weeks, and it was already the end of February. In Florence, as in London, February is not the most enjoyable time of the year, and those who travel south to the Winter City expecting the sunshine and warmth of the Riviera are usually sadly disappointed. At the end of March Florence becomes pleasant, and remains so till the end of May; while in autumn, when the mosquitoes cease to trouble, the sun has lost its power, and the Lungarno is cool, it is also a delightful place of residence. But February afternoons beside the Arno are very often as dark, as dreary, and as yellow as beside the Thames; and as Gemma sat after luncheon in her cosy room, the smallest in the great old palazzo in the Borgo d’Albizzi which bore her name, she shuddered and drew a silken shawl about her shoulders. It was one of the show-places of Florence; one of those ponderous, prison-like buildings built of huge blocks of brown stone, time-worn, having weathered the storms of five centuries, and notable as containing a magnificent collection of works of art. Its mediaeval exterior, a relic of ancient Florence, was gloomy and forbidding enough, with its barred windows, over-hanging roof, strange lanterns of wonderfully worked iron, and great iron rings to which men tied their horses in days bygone. Once beyond the great courtyard, however, it was indeed a gorgeous palace. The Funaros had always been wealthy and powerful in the Lily City, and had through ages collected within their palace quantities of antiquities and costly objects. Every room was beautifully decorated, some with wonderful frescoes by Andrea del Sarto, whose work in the outer court of the Annunziata is ever admired by sight-seers of every nationality, while the paintings were by Ciro Ferri, Giovanni da Bologna, Filippo Lippi, Botticelli, and Fra Bartolommeo, together with some frescoes in grisaille with rich ornamentation by Del Sarto’s pupil Franciabigio, and hosts of other priceless works.

It was a magnificent residence. There were half a dozen other palaces in the same thoroughfare, including the Altoviti, the Albizzi, and the Pazzi, but this was the finest of them all. When Gemma had inherited it she had at once furnished half a dozen rooms in modern style. The place was so enormous that she always felt lost in it, and seldom strayed beyond these rooms which overlooked the great paved courtyard with its ancient wall and curious sculptures chipped and weather-worn. The great gloomy silent rooms, with their bare oaken floors, mouldering tapestries, and time-blackened pictures, were to her grim and ghostly, as, indeed, they were to any but an art enthusiast or a lover of the antique. But the Contessa Funaro lived essentially in the present, and always declared herself more in love with cleanliness than antiquarian dirt. She had no taste for the relics of the past, and affected none. If English or American tourists found anything in the collections to admire, they were at liberty to do so on presenting their card to the liveried hall-porter. At the door the man had a box, and the money placed therein was sent regularly each quarter to the Maternity Hospital.

She spent little time in her grim, silent home; for truth to tell, its magnificence irritated her, and its extent always filled her with a sense of loneliness. The housekeeper, an elderly gentlewoman who had been a friend of her dead mother’s, was very deaf, and never amusing; therefore, after a fortnight or so, she was generally ready to exchange the Funaro Palace for theHotel Cavourat Milan, theMinervaat Rome, or the hospitality of some country villa. Hotels, or even small houses, were not so grim and prison-like as her own great palazzo, the very walls of which seemed to breathe mutely of the past—of those troublous times when the clank of armour echoed in the long stone corridors, and the clink of spurs sounded in the courtyard below where now the only invaders were the pigeons.

The furniture of the small elegant room in which she sat was entirely modern, upholstered in pale-blue silk, with her monogram in gold thread; the carpets were thick, the great high Florentine stove threw forth a welcome warmth, and the grey light which filtered through the curtains was just sufficient to allow her to read. She was lying back in her long chair in a lazy, negligent attitude, her fair hair a trifle disordered by contact with the cushion behind her head; and one of her little slippers having fallen off, her small foot in its neat black silk stocking peeped out beneath her skirt. On the table at her elbow were two or three unopened letters, while in a vase stood a fine bouquet of flowers, a tribute from her deaf housekeeper.

Since the day she had parted from Count Castellani in the hall of the Embassy in Grosvenor Square she had travelled a good deal. She had been down to Rome, had had an interview with the Marquis Montelupo, and a week ago had unexpectedly arrived at the palazzo. As she had anticipated, when she broke her journey at Turin, on her way from London to Rome, and signed her name in the visitors’ book at the hotel, a police official called early on the following morning to inform her that she must consider herself under arrest. But the words scribbled by Montelupo upon his visiting-card had acted like magic, and, having taken the card to the Questura, the detective returned all bows and apologies, and she was allowed to proceed on her journey.

Nearly nine months had elapsed since she last set foot within her great old palazzo, and as she sat that afternoon she allowed her book to fall upon her lap and her eyes to slowly wander around the pretty room. She glanced at the window where the rain was being driven upon the tiny panes by the boisterous wind, and again she shuddered.

With an air of weariness she raised her hand and pushed the mass of fair hair off her brow, as if its weight oppressed her, sighing heavily. The events of the past month had been many and strange. In Rome she had found herself beset by a hundred pitfalls, but she had kept faith with the Marquis, and the terms she had made with him were such as to give her complete satisfaction. A crisis, however, was, she knew, imminent; a crisis in which she would be compelled to play a leading part. But to do so would require all her ingenuity, all her woman’s wit, all her courage, all her skill at deception.

Suddenly, as she was thus reflecting, Margherita, her faithful but ugly woman, who had been with her at Livorno, opened the door, and, drawing aside the heavyportière, said—

“The signore!”

“At last I at last!” she cried, excitedly jumping up instantly. “Show him up at once.” Then, facing the great mirror, she placed both hands to her hair, rearranging it deftly, recovered her lost slipper, cast aside the wrap, and stood ready to receive her visitor.

Again the door opened. The man who entered was Charles Armytage.

For a few moments he held her in fond embrace, kissing her lips tenderly again and again; while she, in that soft, crooning voice that had rung in his ears through all those months of separation, welcomed him, reiterating her declarations of love.

“I received your telegram in Brussels two days ago, and have come to you direct,” he said at last. “I did not go to the Post Office every day, hence the delay.”

“Ah! my poor Nino must be tired,” she cried, suddenly recollecting. “Here, this couch. Sit here; it will rest you. Povero Nino! What a terrible journey—from Brussels to Florence!”

He sank upon the divan she indicated, pale, weary, and travel-worn, while she, taking a seat beside him, narrated how she had left Lyddington for London, and afterwards travelled to Rome. Feeling that the glance of the woman he worshipped was fixed upon him, he raised his head; and then their eyes met for a moment with an expression of infinite gentleness, the mournful gentleness of their heroic love.

“Why did you go to Rome?” he asked. “You always said you hated it.”

“I had business,” she answered. “Urgent business; business which has again aroused hope within me.”

“Still of a secret nature?” the young Englishman hazarded, with a quick glance of suspicion.

“For the present, yes,” she replied in a low, intense voice. “But you still love me, Nino? You can trust me now, can’t you?” and she looked earnestly into his face.

“I have already trusted you,” he replied. “Since that night I left you at Lyddington my life has indeed been a dull, aimless one. You have been ever in my mind, and I have wondered daily, hourly, what was the nature of the grave mysterious peril which you say threatens both of us.”

“That peril still exists,” she answered. “It increases daily, nay hourly.”

“You are still threatened? You, the wealthy owner of this magnificent palazzo!” he exclaimed, gazing around the pretty room bewildered. “Often when I was in Florence, in those days when we first met, I passed this great building. Little, however, did I dream that my Gemma, who used to cycle with me in the Cascine, was its owner.”

She laughed. “I had reasons for not letting you know my real name,” she replied. “It is true that I have money; but wealth has brought me no happiness—only sorrow, alas!—until I met you.”

“And now you are happy?” he asked earnestly.

“Ah! yes, I am happy when you are beside me, Nino,” she responded, grasping his hand in hers. “I never thought that I could learn to love you so. I am still nervous, still in dread, it is true. The reason of my fear is a strange one; I fear the future, and I fear myself.”

“Yourself?” he echoed. “You told me that once before—long ago. You are not very formidable.”

“Ah, no! You don’t understand,” she cried hastily. “I fear that I may not have the strength and courage to carry through a plan I have formed to secure your safety and my own liberty.”

“But I can assist you,” he suggested. “Your interests are mine, now, remember,” he added, kissing her.

“Yes,” she said, looking up into his eyes. “But to render me assistance is not possible. Any action on my part must necessarily imperil both of us. No, I must act alone.”

“When?”

“Very soon. In a few days, or a few weeks. When, I know not. Very soon I must return to England.”

“To England!” he cried. “I thought you preferred your own Italy!”

“I have an object in going back,” she answered ambiguously.

“You’ll let me accompany you?”

She reflected for a moment; then, without responding, rose, rang the bell, and told the man-servant, who entered resplendent in the blue Funaro livery, to bring her visitor some wine.

“You must be half famished after your journey,” she exclaimed. She was standing before him in a white gown, white from head to foot. “I must really apologise for not being more hospitable, Nino.”

“I’m really not hungry,” he replied. Then he added, “You didn’t answer my question.”

“I was reflecting,” she responded slowly. “I don’t know whether it is wise at this juncture for you to return to England, into the very midst of your enemies.”

“You haven’t yet explained who my enemies are, beyond urging me to be wary of Malvano. True, that man has lied to me about you. He told me a silly, romantic, and wholly fictitious story regarding your parentage; but, after all, he may have been mistaken, especially as it was in answer to my inquiry whether he knew any one named Fanetti in Florence.”

“Malvano was well aware that I had used that name more than once,” his well-beloved replied. “He wilfully deceived you for his own purpose. He wished to part us.”

“Why? He is surely not in love with you?”

“Certainly not,” she answered, laughing at such an idea. “His object was not jealousy.”

“Then he is actually my enemy?”

“Yes,” she replied. “Avoid him. If you desire to return to England with me, I will allow you to do so with one stipulation. The moment we set foot in London we must part. If it were known that we were together, all my plans would be frustrated.”

“And I am to leave you to the mercy of these mysterious enemies of yours?” he observed dubiously.

“It is imperative. You must leave London instantly and go away into the country. Malvano must not know that you are in England. Go to your uncle’s in Berkshire, and wait there until I can with safety communicate with you.”

“But all this is extraordinary,” he said mystified, taking from her hand the glass of wine she had poured out for him. “I must confess myself still puzzled at finding you mistress of his magnificent palace, and yet existing in deadly fear of mysterious enemies.” He knew nothing of her connexion with the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and only regarded her as a wealthy woman whose caprice it had been to masquerade, and who had earned a wide reputation for gaiety and recklessness.

“Some day, before long, you shall know the whole truth, Nino,” she assured him in deep earnestness.

“When you do, you will be amazed—astounded, as others will be. I know I act strangely, without any apparent motive. I know you have heard evil of me on every hand, yet you still trust me,” and again she looked into his eyes; “yet you still love me.”

“Yes, piccina,” he answered, calling her once again by that endearing term she had taught him in those summer days beside the sea when he knew so little Italian and experienced such difficulty in speaking to her. “Yes,” he said, placing his arm tenderly round her waist, “I trust you, although evil tongues everywhere try to wound you.”

Only when beside this man she loved was she her real-self, true, honest, loving, and tender-hearted. To the world outside she was compelled to wear the mask as a cold, sneering, crafty, and coquettish woman, the cunning and remorseless adventuress who had won such unenviable notoriety in the political circle at Rome and in Florentine society.

“La Funaro is known by repute in every town throughout Italy,” she said brokenly. “My reputation is that of a vain, coquettish woman without heart, without remorse. But you, Nino, when you know the truth, shall be my judge. Then you will know how I have suffered. The foul lies uttered on every side have cut me to the quick, but under compulsion I have remained silent. Soon, however”—and her brilliant eyes seemed to flash with eagerness at the thought which crossed her mind—“soon I shall release myself, and then you shall know everything—everything.”

“On that day perfect happiness will come to me,” he said fervently. “I love you, Gemma, more deeply than ever man loved woman.”

“And I, too, Nino, love you with all my heart, with all my soul.”

Their lips met again in a fierce caress, their hands clasped tightly. He looked into her clear eyes, bright with unshed tears, and saw fear and determination, truth and honesty mirrored therein. Her tiny hand trembled in his, and then for very joy she suddenly burst into a flood of emotion.

“When shall we leave for England?” he asked at last, his strong arm still about her waist.

“In a couple of days. I have only waited here for you to join me,” she said, drying her eyes. “Life without you, Nino, is impossible.”

“So within a week we shall be in London?”

“Yes,” she replied. “Soon, very soon, I hope, I may be free. But I have a task before me—one that is difficult and desperate. In order to secure your safety, and my own freedom from the hateful bonds which have fettered me these last two years, I am compelled to resort to strategy, to deception deep and cunning, the smallest revelation of which would wreck all our hopes.”

“How?”

“Exposure of my plans would cost me my life,” she answered, her face white and set, a shudder running through her slight frame.

“Your life?” he echoed, still mystified. “One would think you feared assassination!”

She made no answer, but, pale to her lips, she held her breath. The flunkey in blue re-entered the room, bearing a telegram upon a salver. His mistress took it and, tearing open the folded pale drab paper, read its contents.

“No reply,” she said; and the man, bowing, withdrew. “Nino,” she exclaimed in a voice of deep earnestness when the servant had gone, “you may think it extraordinary, but for your sake, because I love no other man but yourself, I have resolved to risk my life and free myself. This telegram makes it imperative that we should leave again for England to-night. You have shown trust in me; you do not believe all the idle tales gossips have littered. I love you, Nino. If I prove victor, I gain your affection, and happiness always with you. If I lose, then I die, unwillingly, but nevertheless in the confidence that to the end you trusted me.”

“No, no!” he cried fiercely. “You shall not die! You shall never be taken from me! I adore you, Gemma! God knows I love you, darling!”

“Then you will never doubt me—never!” she cried, clinging closely to him, and raising her beautiful face to his. “You will not doubt me even if, to gain my end, I feign love for another. To him, my kisses shall be Judas-kisses, my smiles mockery, my lips venom, my embrace the chilling embrace of death. Hear me?” she cried wildly. “I go to England with a purpose—a vendetta complete and terrible which I will accomplish by hatred—or, failing that, by love. Both will be equally fatal.”

Chapter Twenty Seven.On the Night Wind.“You still wear your ring, I see,” Malvano exclaimed with a merry twinkle in his eyes one morning a fortnight later, while Gemma was sitting at breakfast at Lyddington with Nenci and his wife. The thin-faced, black-haired man had rejoined his wife suddenly a few days before, and since Gemma had returned they had formed quite a merry quartette. She had satisfactorily explained her sudden disappearance, and had concocted a clever story of complications regarding her estate to account for her journey to Italy. Both men, knowing she was “wanted” by the Italian police, marvelled at her audacity in going back and her adroitness in evading arrest.“I don’t always wear the ring,” she answered, raising her hand and contemplating it.“Let me see,” exclaimed Nenci, who was seated beside her.In response she handed it to him. It was unusually large for a lady, but of antique design. In the centre was a large oval turquoise, around which were set two rows of diamonds, all of beautiful colour and lustre, while the gold which encircled the finger was much thicker than usual, the whole forming a rather massive but extremely handsome ornament.Nenci held it for a moment, admiring it with the eye of a connoisseur, for by trade he was a jeweller, although he had performed, among other duties, those of waiter in a City restaurant. He declared at once that the diamonds were dirty beneath their settings, and, rising from the table, scrutinised it closely at the window.“I’ll clean it for you to-day, if you like,” he said, when he returned to his seat. “It is very dull and dusty.” She thanked him, and he placed it beside his plate. “Ah!” exclaimed the Doctor suddenly, with a glance full of meaning.“That was the marriage ring, wasn’t it?”Nenci glanced across at him quickly and frowned—a gesture of displeasure which Gemma failed to notice.“Yes,” she answered rather harshly; “it was the marriage ring—if you like to so term it. I scarcely ever wear it, because it brings back too many painful memories. The bond has been galling enough—Heaven knows!”“I thought you had no remorse. You always declared you had none,” Nenci remarked. “But since you’ve known that confounded lover of yours you’ve been a changed woman.”“Changed for the better, I hope,” she retorted. “Do you think it possible that I can wear that ring without remembering a certain night in Livorno—the night when all my evil fortune fell upon me?”Nenci laughed superciliously.“Come,” he said. “You’re growing sentimental. That’s the worst of being love-sick. When a woman of genius loves, she always throws common sense to the winds.”Her brows contracted for an instant, but, too discreet to exhibit annoyance, she merely joined his laughter, and, with skilful tact so characteristic of her, answered—“Ah, my dear Lionello, you seem to have forgotten our old Tuscan saying, ‘L’amore avvicina gli uomini agli angeli ed al Cielo; poichè il paradiso scende con l’amore in noi.’”“She’s had you there,” exclaimed the Doctor merrily. “Gemma isn’t the person upon whom to work off witticisms.” As he sat at table, Malvano looked the very picture of good health and spirits, ruddy, well-shaven, and spruce in his rough tweed riding-coat and gaiters, for, the roads being heavy and wet, he had resolved to ride his round that morning instead of driving. Only the day previous he had been attending upon the customers at the Bonciani, his ears ever open, and, arriving back at Lyddington by the last train from London, he had been a long time closeted with Nenci, prior to going to bed. The two men had held a long consultation, the nature of which Gemma was unable to determine, but it was evident from her close observation of their demeanour that morning that they had resolved upon some line of immediate action.La Funaro was now playing a dangerous game.Calm, silent, watchful, ever ready to listen to their nefarious plans, and even making suggestions of deeper cunning and a vengeance more terrible, she had remained there acting a double part with a skill that few other women could accomplish. But her previous training in the wiles of diplomacy and espionage under the crafty, far-seeing Montelupo now held her in good stead. She could conceal all her woman’s pity and forbearance, all her repugnance at the terrible plans which were so calmly discussed, and with them grow enthusiastic at the thought of what was to follow. Hers was a strange personality, a curious blending of the grave with the gay. The mask she wore as a heartless, abandoned woman was absolutely without a flaw.That day Nenci spent most of his hours in the Doctor’s study, the room wherein no one was allowed to enter. Sallow-faced, unshaven, wild-haired, he was so striking a figure that the Doctor had advised him not to go into the village, as his presence would at once be remarked. Therefore, when Malvano was absent, he amused himself in chatting to the assistant at work making up mixtures in the dark little room beyond the surgery, in reading in the room, half-study half-laboratory, which Malvano reserved to himself, or in strolling about the extensive grounds walled in against the vulgar gaze.Gemma that day idled over magazines and newspapers in the morning-room until luncheon, when the Doctor came in, cold and half famished, with an appetite which did justice to his truly British appearance. Afterwards she passed the afternoon in desultory gossip with Mrs Nenci, while the two men went to smoke; and in the evening, when coffee was served in the drawing-room, she played and sang to them “Duorme, Carmé,” “Surriento bello!” the humorous “Don Saverio,” and other pieces, while Malvano, in his usually buoyant spirits, fetched his mandolino and accompanied her, until the sweet music and the passionate words brought back to each of them memories of their own fair, far-off land.About ten, Mrs Nenci and Gemma retired, and that night the woman, whom, all Italy knew as “La Funaro,” knelt in the silence of her chamber long and earnestly before her ivory crucifix, praying for courage and for release. Meanwhile, the two men proceeded to the Doctor’s study, turning the key in the door after them. The small place, with its shutters closed and barred, smelt overpoweringly of pungent chemicals, the centre table being laden with bottles, test-tubes, retorts, a crucible beneath which a small spirit-lamp was burning, and a host of sundries, which plainly showed that experiments were in progress. At the wall opposite was a side-table upon which a small vice had been fixed, while beside it lay several files and other tools.Both men threw off their coats and turned up their shirt-cuffs. Malvano taking his seat in the centre of his chemical appliances, while his companion commenced work at the small side-table.Nenci was smoking a cigarette when they entered, but at sign of the Doctor at once extinguished it.“Have you given Gemma back her ring?” Malvano inquired as they sat down to work. The reason the Doctor always locked himself within that room was evident. He was making experiments in secret.“Yes; I gave it her just before dinner,” the other answered.“You cleaned it—eh?” the Doctor said, with a grim smile.“Yes,” the other replied briefly.“It seems a pity—a great pity!” Malvano exclaimed in a tone of regret. “Is there no other way?”“None,” Nenci answered firmly. “She knows too much. Besides, I have suspicions.”“Of what?”“That she may play us false,” the sallow-faced man replied. “Remember, she still loves that man Armytage—the devil take him!”“Well,” Malvano sighed, “it’s the only way, I suppose; but it’s hard—very hard on a woman whose life has been wrecked as hers has.”“Misericordia! My dear fellow,” cried Nenci impatiently. “Surely you won’t turn chicken-hearted after all this time? You’ve never shown the white feather yet.”The doctor remained silent, and turning in his chair, bent over the small crucible beneath which the blue flame was burning; while his companion, casting a keen half-suspicious glance in his direction, also turned to the small vice fixed to his table and commenced work.A long time elapsed in almost complete silence, so intent were both on what they were doing. Once—only once—did Malvano refer again to the subject of Gemma’s ring.“Is she actually wearing it now?” he inquired.“She did at dinner, I noticed,” Nenci answered. “But whether she wears her rings at night, I don’t know,” he laughed.“Isn’t it—well—dangerous?”“Dangerous! Not at all,” his companion replied impatiently. “She suspects nothing, absolutely nothing.”Again they lapsed into unbroken silence.Fully an hour went by, when Nenci rising, still in his shirt-sleeves, folded his arms, and exclaimed in a tone of satisfaction and confidence—“At last, my dear fellow! I’ve worked it out completely. Failure has become absolutely impossible.” Malvano, still seated in his chair, leaned back and contemplated with admiration the object which his companion had placed before him—an exquisite little marble bust of King Humbert of Italy. It was only about eighteen inches high, but a faithful and beautifully executed copy of that celebrated head by the renowned Pisan sculptor, Fontacchiotti, which is so prominent a figure in the centre of the great reception hall of the Quirinal at Rome. Plaster replicas of this bust can be bought everywhere throughout Italy for half a franc, and are to be found in most houses of the loyal, while larger ones stand in every court of justice. But this miniature reproduction before the Doctor was really an admirable work of art, one such as connoisseur would admire.Nenci had not chiselled it, but had apparently been doing something to its small base of polished malachite. The hand that had succeeded in reproducing the features so exactly was without doubt a master-hand. On the table where the sallow-faced man had been working stood two other busts exactly similar in every detail, both in little cases of polished wood, lined with crimson velvet, and each bearing the royal monogram in gilt upon its base, exactly similar to the one in the Quirinal.“It’s excellent. The Gobbo has certainly turned them out marvellously well,” the Doctor observed.“He’s a genius,” the other said enthusiastically. “The reproduction is so exact that detection is absolutely impossible. Look!” And taking up a photograph of a miniature bust standing upon a carved shelf against a frescoed wall, they both compared it with the one before them. “Do you see that small chip in the base?” Nenci said, pointing to the picture. “The Gobbo has even reproduced that.”“A wonderful piece of work,” Malvano acquiesced. “Very neat, and very pretty.”“After it leaves our hands it won’t want many servants to keep it dusted,” his companion observed grimly. “You see, the base being circular is made to move,” he added, taking the little ornament in his hand. “You twist it slightly—so, and the thing is done. You see those two scratches across the stone. The base must be so turned as to join them. And then to the very instant—well—” And he broke off without concluding his sentence.“It will strike the half-hour, eh?” the Doctor suggested with a laugh.The other raised his shoulders and outspread his palms. Then, regarding his handiwork with the keenest satisfaction, he thrust his hands deep into his pockets, and, leaning against the mantelshelf, gaily hummed the popular Neapolitan chorus—“Pecchè. Ndringhete-ndringhete-ndràMmiez’ ’o mare nu scoglio nce sta!Tutte venene a bevere ccà,Pecchè. Ndringhete-ndringhete-ndrà.”The Doctor, with fingers stained yellow by the acids he had been mixing, the fumes of which filled the small den almost to suffocation, took up the beautiful little bust and examined its green polished base with critical eye, turning it over and over, and weighing it carefully in his hand.“Devilish cunningly contrived,” he said. “It’s a pity it must be sacrificed. But I suppose it must.”“Of course,” Nenci said quickly. “We must complete our experiments and ascertain that it actually strikes true. Is it quiet enough yet to try, do you think?” Malvano rose. The trousers he wore were old and burned brown where corrosive liquids had fallen upon them, his hair was ruffled, and his face dirty, as if smoke-blackened.“I hope the thing won’t create too much fuss,” he said in an apprehensive tone.“Leave all that to me,” his companion answered confidently; and taking the bust, he carefully unscrewed its malachite base, revealing a cavity wherein rested a small square receptacle, oblong and deep, something of the shape of a large-sized snuff-box. It was secured in its place by two springs, which, when released, allowed the box to fall out. Taking it up and opening it, he said to his companion—“Here you are. Fill it up, while I arrange the tube.”Then, while the Doctor carefully filled the box with some greyish-white powder from a tiny green glass bottle on the table, Nenci took up a tube of thin glass about an inch long, one of the two or three which Malvano had just filled with acid and hermetically sealed by the aid of his spirit-lamp and blow-pipe. This he carefully inserted in the opening, afterwards replacing the closed box of grey compound, securing it deeply in its place by the two little steel springs.Again he placed it upon the table, and, retreating a few steps, stood admiring it.“The reproductions are all absolutely perfect,” he observed. “We’ve only now to prove that our calculations are correct. Come, let’s go. If anybody meets us, they’ll think you’ve been called out to some urgent case. Therefore we’re safe enough.”“Very well,” the Doctor agreed; and both put on their coats and went out, Nenci with the bust covered carefully beneath the long ulster he assumed in the hall.Noiselessly they let themselves out by the servants’ entrance, crossed the large paved yard to the stables, and, finding a spade, the Doctor hid it beneath his overcoat. Then, crossing the lawn, they passed through a gap in the boundary fence, and was soon skirting a high hedge-row, proceeding towards the open country, crossing field after field until about twenty minutes later they paused at a lonely spot. The place where they halted was so dark that they could scarcely see one another, but the mossy, marshy ground was soft beneath their feet; therefore the Doctor, knowing the country well, suggested that this was the spot where the experiment should take place. His companion at once acquiesced, and the Doctor, speaking in a low undertone, drove his spade deep into the earth, and worked away digging a hole, although he could scarce see anything in that pitch darkness.Presently Nenci, placing the bust upon the ground, boldly struck a match, and by its fickle light ascertained the depth of the hole. Malvano was still working away, fearful lest they should be discovered, the perspiration dropping from his brow in great beads.“I think that’s deep enough,” he said after some minutes had elapsed. Then, striking another vesta, he glanced intently at his watch to ascertain the exact time. He handed the Doctor the matches, asking him to strike another, and by its aid held the bust upside down and moved the base very carefully round. When at last he had placed it at the exact point, he knelt and slowly lowered it into the hole which had been dug. Both men, working like moles in the dark, quickly replaced the earth, Nenci stamping it down with his feet. At risk of detection—for a lighted match can be seen a long way on a dark night—they struck two more vestas in order that they might the more completely hide the beautiful little work of art upon which Nenci had been engaged so many hours that day.When it had been entirely covered, and the ploughed land rearranged, both men retreated rather hurriedly across a couple of fields, and at an old weather-worn stile stood and waited, peering back into the darkness.The chimes of a distant church sounded over the hills; then the dead silence of the night fell again unbroken, save for the mournful sighing of the wind. For fully five minutes they waited, uttering no word.“It’s failed,” Malvano at last exclaimed disappointedly, in an excited half-whisper.“I tell you it can’t fail,” the other answered quickly. “I ought to know something of such contrivances.” Malvano muttered some words expressive of doubt, but scarce had they left his lips when all of a sudden there was a blood-red flash, a loud report, and tons of earth and stones shot skyward in the darkness, some falling unpleasantly close to them.“Holy Virgin!” ejaculated the Doctor. “It’s terrible! By Heaven it is!”“Nothing could withstand that,” Nenci observed enthusiastically, with an air of complete satisfaction. “I told you it was absolutely deadly.”The report had caused the earth to tremble where they stood, and, borne upon the night wind, had no doubt been heard for miles around. Losing no time, they sped quickly forward towards the spot, and there in the gloom discerned that a great oak in the vicinity had been shattered, its branches hanging torn and broken, while at the spot where the little bust had been buried, was a wide, deep, funnel-shaped hole. Some great hazel bushes in the vicinity had been torn up by the roots and hurled aside, while on every hand was ample evidence of the terrific and irresistible force of the explosion.“The strength of the compound is far greater than I ever imagined! It’s frightful?” exclaimed the Doctor, gazing around half fearfully. “But let’s get back, or some one, attracted by the report, may be astir. What will people think when it’s discovered in the morning?”“They’ll only believe that lightning has done it,” Nenci said airily, as, thrusting their hands into their overcoat pockets they retraced their steps, bending against the icy wind sweeping across the open land.In passing back across the lawn both were too preoccupied with their own thoughts to detect that behind the privet hedge was a crouching figure, and that the person so concealed had probably watched all their mysterious movements and taken the keenest interest in their extraordinary midnight experiment.

“You still wear your ring, I see,” Malvano exclaimed with a merry twinkle in his eyes one morning a fortnight later, while Gemma was sitting at breakfast at Lyddington with Nenci and his wife. The thin-faced, black-haired man had rejoined his wife suddenly a few days before, and since Gemma had returned they had formed quite a merry quartette. She had satisfactorily explained her sudden disappearance, and had concocted a clever story of complications regarding her estate to account for her journey to Italy. Both men, knowing she was “wanted” by the Italian police, marvelled at her audacity in going back and her adroitness in evading arrest.

“I don’t always wear the ring,” she answered, raising her hand and contemplating it.

“Let me see,” exclaimed Nenci, who was seated beside her.

In response she handed it to him. It was unusually large for a lady, but of antique design. In the centre was a large oval turquoise, around which were set two rows of diamonds, all of beautiful colour and lustre, while the gold which encircled the finger was much thicker than usual, the whole forming a rather massive but extremely handsome ornament.

Nenci held it for a moment, admiring it with the eye of a connoisseur, for by trade he was a jeweller, although he had performed, among other duties, those of waiter in a City restaurant. He declared at once that the diamonds were dirty beneath their settings, and, rising from the table, scrutinised it closely at the window.

“I’ll clean it for you to-day, if you like,” he said, when he returned to his seat. “It is very dull and dusty.” She thanked him, and he placed it beside his plate. “Ah!” exclaimed the Doctor suddenly, with a glance full of meaning.

“That was the marriage ring, wasn’t it?”

Nenci glanced across at him quickly and frowned—a gesture of displeasure which Gemma failed to notice.

“Yes,” she answered rather harshly; “it was the marriage ring—if you like to so term it. I scarcely ever wear it, because it brings back too many painful memories. The bond has been galling enough—Heaven knows!”

“I thought you had no remorse. You always declared you had none,” Nenci remarked. “But since you’ve known that confounded lover of yours you’ve been a changed woman.”

“Changed for the better, I hope,” she retorted. “Do you think it possible that I can wear that ring without remembering a certain night in Livorno—the night when all my evil fortune fell upon me?”

Nenci laughed superciliously.

“Come,” he said. “You’re growing sentimental. That’s the worst of being love-sick. When a woman of genius loves, she always throws common sense to the winds.”

Her brows contracted for an instant, but, too discreet to exhibit annoyance, she merely joined his laughter, and, with skilful tact so characteristic of her, answered—“Ah, my dear Lionello, you seem to have forgotten our old Tuscan saying, ‘L’amore avvicina gli uomini agli angeli ed al Cielo; poichè il paradiso scende con l’amore in noi.’”

“She’s had you there,” exclaimed the Doctor merrily. “Gemma isn’t the person upon whom to work off witticisms.” As he sat at table, Malvano looked the very picture of good health and spirits, ruddy, well-shaven, and spruce in his rough tweed riding-coat and gaiters, for, the roads being heavy and wet, he had resolved to ride his round that morning instead of driving. Only the day previous he had been attending upon the customers at the Bonciani, his ears ever open, and, arriving back at Lyddington by the last train from London, he had been a long time closeted with Nenci, prior to going to bed. The two men had held a long consultation, the nature of which Gemma was unable to determine, but it was evident from her close observation of their demeanour that morning that they had resolved upon some line of immediate action.

La Funaro was now playing a dangerous game.

Calm, silent, watchful, ever ready to listen to their nefarious plans, and even making suggestions of deeper cunning and a vengeance more terrible, she had remained there acting a double part with a skill that few other women could accomplish. But her previous training in the wiles of diplomacy and espionage under the crafty, far-seeing Montelupo now held her in good stead. She could conceal all her woman’s pity and forbearance, all her repugnance at the terrible plans which were so calmly discussed, and with them grow enthusiastic at the thought of what was to follow. Hers was a strange personality, a curious blending of the grave with the gay. The mask she wore as a heartless, abandoned woman was absolutely without a flaw.

That day Nenci spent most of his hours in the Doctor’s study, the room wherein no one was allowed to enter. Sallow-faced, unshaven, wild-haired, he was so striking a figure that the Doctor had advised him not to go into the village, as his presence would at once be remarked. Therefore, when Malvano was absent, he amused himself in chatting to the assistant at work making up mixtures in the dark little room beyond the surgery, in reading in the room, half-study half-laboratory, which Malvano reserved to himself, or in strolling about the extensive grounds walled in against the vulgar gaze.

Gemma that day idled over magazines and newspapers in the morning-room until luncheon, when the Doctor came in, cold and half famished, with an appetite which did justice to his truly British appearance. Afterwards she passed the afternoon in desultory gossip with Mrs Nenci, while the two men went to smoke; and in the evening, when coffee was served in the drawing-room, she played and sang to them “Duorme, Carmé,” “Surriento bello!” the humorous “Don Saverio,” and other pieces, while Malvano, in his usually buoyant spirits, fetched his mandolino and accompanied her, until the sweet music and the passionate words brought back to each of them memories of their own fair, far-off land.

About ten, Mrs Nenci and Gemma retired, and that night the woman, whom, all Italy knew as “La Funaro,” knelt in the silence of her chamber long and earnestly before her ivory crucifix, praying for courage and for release. Meanwhile, the two men proceeded to the Doctor’s study, turning the key in the door after them. The small place, with its shutters closed and barred, smelt overpoweringly of pungent chemicals, the centre table being laden with bottles, test-tubes, retorts, a crucible beneath which a small spirit-lamp was burning, and a host of sundries, which plainly showed that experiments were in progress. At the wall opposite was a side-table upon which a small vice had been fixed, while beside it lay several files and other tools.

Both men threw off their coats and turned up their shirt-cuffs. Malvano taking his seat in the centre of his chemical appliances, while his companion commenced work at the small side-table.

Nenci was smoking a cigarette when they entered, but at sign of the Doctor at once extinguished it.

“Have you given Gemma back her ring?” Malvano inquired as they sat down to work. The reason the Doctor always locked himself within that room was evident. He was making experiments in secret.

“Yes; I gave it her just before dinner,” the other answered.

“You cleaned it—eh?” the Doctor said, with a grim smile.

“Yes,” the other replied briefly.

“It seems a pity—a great pity!” Malvano exclaimed in a tone of regret. “Is there no other way?”

“None,” Nenci answered firmly. “She knows too much. Besides, I have suspicions.”

“Of what?”

“That she may play us false,” the sallow-faced man replied. “Remember, she still loves that man Armytage—the devil take him!”

“Well,” Malvano sighed, “it’s the only way, I suppose; but it’s hard—very hard on a woman whose life has been wrecked as hers has.”

“Misericordia! My dear fellow,” cried Nenci impatiently. “Surely you won’t turn chicken-hearted after all this time? You’ve never shown the white feather yet.”

The doctor remained silent, and turning in his chair, bent over the small crucible beneath which the blue flame was burning; while his companion, casting a keen half-suspicious glance in his direction, also turned to the small vice fixed to his table and commenced work.

A long time elapsed in almost complete silence, so intent were both on what they were doing. Once—only once—did Malvano refer again to the subject of Gemma’s ring.

“Is she actually wearing it now?” he inquired.

“She did at dinner, I noticed,” Nenci answered. “But whether she wears her rings at night, I don’t know,” he laughed.

“Isn’t it—well—dangerous?”

“Dangerous! Not at all,” his companion replied impatiently. “She suspects nothing, absolutely nothing.”

Again they lapsed into unbroken silence.

Fully an hour went by, when Nenci rising, still in his shirt-sleeves, folded his arms, and exclaimed in a tone of satisfaction and confidence—

“At last, my dear fellow! I’ve worked it out completely. Failure has become absolutely impossible.” Malvano, still seated in his chair, leaned back and contemplated with admiration the object which his companion had placed before him—an exquisite little marble bust of King Humbert of Italy. It was only about eighteen inches high, but a faithful and beautifully executed copy of that celebrated head by the renowned Pisan sculptor, Fontacchiotti, which is so prominent a figure in the centre of the great reception hall of the Quirinal at Rome. Plaster replicas of this bust can be bought everywhere throughout Italy for half a franc, and are to be found in most houses of the loyal, while larger ones stand in every court of justice. But this miniature reproduction before the Doctor was really an admirable work of art, one such as connoisseur would admire.

Nenci had not chiselled it, but had apparently been doing something to its small base of polished malachite. The hand that had succeeded in reproducing the features so exactly was without doubt a master-hand. On the table where the sallow-faced man had been working stood two other busts exactly similar in every detail, both in little cases of polished wood, lined with crimson velvet, and each bearing the royal monogram in gilt upon its base, exactly similar to the one in the Quirinal.

“It’s excellent. The Gobbo has certainly turned them out marvellously well,” the Doctor observed.

“He’s a genius,” the other said enthusiastically. “The reproduction is so exact that detection is absolutely impossible. Look!” And taking up a photograph of a miniature bust standing upon a carved shelf against a frescoed wall, they both compared it with the one before them. “Do you see that small chip in the base?” Nenci said, pointing to the picture. “The Gobbo has even reproduced that.”

“A wonderful piece of work,” Malvano acquiesced. “Very neat, and very pretty.”

“After it leaves our hands it won’t want many servants to keep it dusted,” his companion observed grimly. “You see, the base being circular is made to move,” he added, taking the little ornament in his hand. “You twist it slightly—so, and the thing is done. You see those two scratches across the stone. The base must be so turned as to join them. And then to the very instant—well—” And he broke off without concluding his sentence.

“It will strike the half-hour, eh?” the Doctor suggested with a laugh.

The other raised his shoulders and outspread his palms. Then, regarding his handiwork with the keenest satisfaction, he thrust his hands deep into his pockets, and, leaning against the mantelshelf, gaily hummed the popular Neapolitan chorus—

“Pecchè. Ndringhete-ndringhete-ndràMmiez’ ’o mare nu scoglio nce sta!Tutte venene a bevere ccà,Pecchè. Ndringhete-ndringhete-ndrà.”

“Pecchè. Ndringhete-ndringhete-ndràMmiez’ ’o mare nu scoglio nce sta!Tutte venene a bevere ccà,Pecchè. Ndringhete-ndringhete-ndrà.”

The Doctor, with fingers stained yellow by the acids he had been mixing, the fumes of which filled the small den almost to suffocation, took up the beautiful little bust and examined its green polished base with critical eye, turning it over and over, and weighing it carefully in his hand.

“Devilish cunningly contrived,” he said. “It’s a pity it must be sacrificed. But I suppose it must.”

“Of course,” Nenci said quickly. “We must complete our experiments and ascertain that it actually strikes true. Is it quiet enough yet to try, do you think?” Malvano rose. The trousers he wore were old and burned brown where corrosive liquids had fallen upon them, his hair was ruffled, and his face dirty, as if smoke-blackened.

“I hope the thing won’t create too much fuss,” he said in an apprehensive tone.

“Leave all that to me,” his companion answered confidently; and taking the bust, he carefully unscrewed its malachite base, revealing a cavity wherein rested a small square receptacle, oblong and deep, something of the shape of a large-sized snuff-box. It was secured in its place by two springs, which, when released, allowed the box to fall out. Taking it up and opening it, he said to his companion—

“Here you are. Fill it up, while I arrange the tube.”

Then, while the Doctor carefully filled the box with some greyish-white powder from a tiny green glass bottle on the table, Nenci took up a tube of thin glass about an inch long, one of the two or three which Malvano had just filled with acid and hermetically sealed by the aid of his spirit-lamp and blow-pipe. This he carefully inserted in the opening, afterwards replacing the closed box of grey compound, securing it deeply in its place by the two little steel springs.

Again he placed it upon the table, and, retreating a few steps, stood admiring it.

“The reproductions are all absolutely perfect,” he observed. “We’ve only now to prove that our calculations are correct. Come, let’s go. If anybody meets us, they’ll think you’ve been called out to some urgent case. Therefore we’re safe enough.”

“Very well,” the Doctor agreed; and both put on their coats and went out, Nenci with the bust covered carefully beneath the long ulster he assumed in the hall.

Noiselessly they let themselves out by the servants’ entrance, crossed the large paved yard to the stables, and, finding a spade, the Doctor hid it beneath his overcoat. Then, crossing the lawn, they passed through a gap in the boundary fence, and was soon skirting a high hedge-row, proceeding towards the open country, crossing field after field until about twenty minutes later they paused at a lonely spot. The place where they halted was so dark that they could scarcely see one another, but the mossy, marshy ground was soft beneath their feet; therefore the Doctor, knowing the country well, suggested that this was the spot where the experiment should take place. His companion at once acquiesced, and the Doctor, speaking in a low undertone, drove his spade deep into the earth, and worked away digging a hole, although he could scarce see anything in that pitch darkness.

Presently Nenci, placing the bust upon the ground, boldly struck a match, and by its fickle light ascertained the depth of the hole. Malvano was still working away, fearful lest they should be discovered, the perspiration dropping from his brow in great beads.

“I think that’s deep enough,” he said after some minutes had elapsed. Then, striking another vesta, he glanced intently at his watch to ascertain the exact time. He handed the Doctor the matches, asking him to strike another, and by its aid held the bust upside down and moved the base very carefully round. When at last he had placed it at the exact point, he knelt and slowly lowered it into the hole which had been dug. Both men, working like moles in the dark, quickly replaced the earth, Nenci stamping it down with his feet. At risk of detection—for a lighted match can be seen a long way on a dark night—they struck two more vestas in order that they might the more completely hide the beautiful little work of art upon which Nenci had been engaged so many hours that day.

When it had been entirely covered, and the ploughed land rearranged, both men retreated rather hurriedly across a couple of fields, and at an old weather-worn stile stood and waited, peering back into the darkness.

The chimes of a distant church sounded over the hills; then the dead silence of the night fell again unbroken, save for the mournful sighing of the wind. For fully five minutes they waited, uttering no word.

“It’s failed,” Malvano at last exclaimed disappointedly, in an excited half-whisper.

“I tell you it can’t fail,” the other answered quickly. “I ought to know something of such contrivances.” Malvano muttered some words expressive of doubt, but scarce had they left his lips when all of a sudden there was a blood-red flash, a loud report, and tons of earth and stones shot skyward in the darkness, some falling unpleasantly close to them.

“Holy Virgin!” ejaculated the Doctor. “It’s terrible! By Heaven it is!”

“Nothing could withstand that,” Nenci observed enthusiastically, with an air of complete satisfaction. “I told you it was absolutely deadly.”

The report had caused the earth to tremble where they stood, and, borne upon the night wind, had no doubt been heard for miles around. Losing no time, they sped quickly forward towards the spot, and there in the gloom discerned that a great oak in the vicinity had been shattered, its branches hanging torn and broken, while at the spot where the little bust had been buried, was a wide, deep, funnel-shaped hole. Some great hazel bushes in the vicinity had been torn up by the roots and hurled aside, while on every hand was ample evidence of the terrific and irresistible force of the explosion.

“The strength of the compound is far greater than I ever imagined! It’s frightful?” exclaimed the Doctor, gazing around half fearfully. “But let’s get back, or some one, attracted by the report, may be astir. What will people think when it’s discovered in the morning?”

“They’ll only believe that lightning has done it,” Nenci said airily, as, thrusting their hands into their overcoat pockets they retraced their steps, bending against the icy wind sweeping across the open land.

In passing back across the lawn both were too preoccupied with their own thoughts to detect that behind the privet hedge was a crouching figure, and that the person so concealed had probably watched all their mysterious movements and taken the keenest interest in their extraordinary midnight experiment.

Chapter Twenty Eight.The Trick of a Trickster.One afternoon, a week later, Gemma was idling in her cosy private sitting-room at the Hotel Victoria. She had returned there in an involuntary manner, because it was the only hotel she knew in London. It had been a wet, dismal day, and by three o’clock it had become so dark that she had been compelled to switch on the electric light in order to see to write. During two hours she had not risen, but had continued covering sheet after sheet of foolscap with her fine angular writing. She wrote with the air of one accustomed to write, folding down the left-hand edge of her paper so as to create a margin and writing on one side of the sheet only. Before commencing, she had several times read through a long and apparently deeply interesting letter, making careful notes upon it before commencing. Then, drawing her chair closer to the table, she took up her pen and wrote away at express speed, now and then halting to reflect, but quickly resuming until she had filled a dozen folios. At last she concluded abruptly, and without signature, afterwards leaning back in her little Chippendale armchair, turning over the numbered pages, and reading through what she had written. When she had finished, she paused and looked straight before her blankly. Her lips moved, but no sound escaped them. Presently she took from the dressing-bag open beside her a large linen-lined blue envelope, whereon was printed in Italian “Private.—To His Excellency the Marquis Montelupo, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Rome.” Into this she placed what she had written, afterwards sealing it at each corner and in the centre, in the manner the Italian Administration of Posts requires insured letters to be secured.This done, she paused, resting her head wearily on her hands, as if tired out. Suddenly there was a loud rap at the door, and one of the hotel message-boys entered with a card.“Show him up at once,” Gemma answered in her broken English, after she had glanced at the name; and a few minutes later a sour-faced, middle-aged Italian entered, bowing.“Good-evening, Califano,” she said. “It is quite ready;” and she handed him the secret despatch. “You leave for Rome to-night—eh?”“Si—Signora Contessa,” the man answered. “I arrived in London only an hour ago, and I leave againsubito. The Marquis has sent me expressly for this.”“Then see that he gets it at the earliest possible moment,” she said quickly. “It is of the utmost secrecy and importance.”“I quite understand, Signora Contessa,” the man courteously replied, carefully placing the envelope in the breast-pocket of his heavy frieze overcoat. “His Excellency has already given me instructions.”“Va bene. Then go. Make all haste, for every hour lost may place Italy in greater jeopardy. Remember that your early arrival is absolutely imperative.” She spoke authoritatively, and it was evident that they were not strangers.“I shall not lose an instant,” answered the Minister’s private messenger. “The Contessa has no further commands?” he added inquiringly.“None,” she answered briefly. “Arivederci!”“Arivederci, Signora Contessa,” he replied; and a moment later Gemma found herself again alone.“God forgive me!” she murmured as she paced the room wildly agitated. “It’s the only way—the only way! I have transgressed before man and before Heaven in order to free myself from this hateful tie of heinous sin; I have risked all in order to gain happiness with the man I love. And if I fail”—she paused, pale-faced, haggard-eyed, shuddering—“if I fail,” she went on in a changed voice, “then I must take my life.”She threw herself into a chair before the fire, and was silent for a long time. The dressing-bell sounded, but she took no heed; she had no appetite. The crowded table d’hôte, with its glare and colour and clatter, jarred upon her highly-strung nerves. She had dined in the great gilded saloon the night before, and had resolved not to do so again. She would have a little soup and a cutlet brought to her room.At that moment she was calmly, deliberately contemplating suicide.She sat in the low chair, her elbows on her knees, gazing gloomily into the fire. The loose gown of pale lilac silk, with deep lace at the collar and cuffs, suited her fair complexion admirably, although it imparted to her a wan appearance, and made her look older than she really was, while the tendrils of her gold-brown hair, straying across her brow, gave her a wild, wanton look. Even as she sat, her eyes fixed upon the leaping flames, hers was still a countenance frail, childlike in its softness, purity, and innocence of expression—a face perfect in its symmetry, and one in which it was difficult to conceive that any evil could lurk.The diamonds upon her fingers sparkling in the fitful firelight caught her gaze. She looked long and earnestly at the strange ring of turquoise and diamonds upon her right hand, and the sad memories it recalled caused her to sigh deeply, as they ever did. Again she remained plunged in a deep debauch of melancholy, until suddenly the was aroused from her reverie by a loud knocking at her door and her hotel number being shouted by the lad in buttons.“Gentleman wishes to see you, ma’am,” the youngster said, handing her another card.She glanced quickly at the name, then rising slowly, answered—“Show him up.”Her breath seemed to catch in her throat, but to her cheeks there came a slight flush, whether of excitement or of anger it was difficult to determine. Her brows were knit, and, as she glanced at herself in the mirror, she felt dissatisfied with herself, because she knew she looked haggard and ugly.As she turned away from the glass with a gesture of determination, Frank Tristram entered.“Well,” she inquired, turning quickly upon him the moment they were alone. “Why have you the audacity to seek me?”“Hear me out, Gemma, before you grow angry!” he exclaimed, advancing towards her. “I have come to crave your forgiveness;” and he stood with bent head before her, motionless, penitent.“My forgiveness? You ask that after your attempt to take my life?” she retorted.“I was mad, then,” he declared quickly. “Forgive me. I ask your forgiveness in order that one you know may be made happy.”“I don’t understand you.”“Carmenilla. I’m going to marry her,” he explained briefly.“To marry Carmenilla!” she exclaimed, surprised.He nodded. “Tell me that you forgive my madness that night,” he urged. “Remember that both you and I are hemmed in by enemies on every side; that our interests are exactly identical. In return for your forgiveness, I am ready to assist you in any way possible.”Her clear eyes rested upon him with unwavering gaze.“And you ask my forgiveness,” she said in atone of contempt at length. “You—who murdered Vittorina—a helpless, friendless girl.”“I—murdered her!” he cried uneasily, with a look of abject terror. This denunciation was utterly unexpected. “What made you suspect that?”“To any one who had knowledge of the facts, it’s quite plain,” she answered boldly. “Ah! do not try to deceive me. The police were in ignorance, therefore they could have no clue, and could make no arrest. I, however, am aware of the reason poor Vittorina’s life was taken; I know that her presence was detrimental to all our plans, and that she was enticed here, to London, in order that she might die. It is useless for you to protest your innocence to me.” Her face was hard, her eyes fixed immovably upon his.He shrank beneath her searching glance, and stood before her with bent head in silence.“You cannot deny that you had a hand in the crime?” she went on relentlessly. “You, a murderer, ask my forgiveness!”“Ah! Gemma,” he cried hoarsely, “forgive me.” Then, without heeding the terrible denunciation she had levelled against him, continued, “We have both suffered much, you and I; you perhaps more than myself because you have earned ill repute, and been compelled to pose as an adventuress. But those who know you are well aware that you have always been an honest woman, that your so-called adventures have only been taken in order to act the ignoble part which you were compelled to act, and in every way that you are worthy the love of an upright man like Armytage. Forgive me,” he urged in a low, intense voice, stretching forth his hand. “Forgive me!”Her troubled breast heaved and fell. In that instant she remembered what the black-robed nuns had told her long ago at San Paolo della Croce—that the first step towards penitence was forgiveness. She looked straight into the face of the man before her for several moments in hesitation, then at last, in a low, faltering tone, said—“The evil you tried to do me I forgive freely; but—but I cannot take the hand of a murderer”; and she turned away suddenly, her silken gown sweeping past him where he stood.“Then you will allow me to marry Carmenilla? You will not denounce me as one who tried to take your life?” he cried eagerly, following her a few paces.“Your secret will be mine,” she answered coldly. “I have forgotten, and bear you no malice.”She was standing beside the fire, once again idly contemplating her rings. The diamonds of the quaint one, with its turquoise centre, seemed to glitter with extreme brilliance and with an evil glint that night.Presently Tristram advanced swiftly, almost noiselessly, until he reached her side. Then again he proffered his hand, asking—“May we not be friends?”“We are no longer enemies,” she answered, disregarding his invitation to exchange the hand-clasp of friendship. “This interview is painful,” she added. “I have forgiven you. Surely that is sufficient?”“I believed you to be my enemy—I thought that you had denounced me to the police on that night when my mad passion got the mastery,” he said apologetically. “I assure you that I have deeply regretted ever since.”“It is past,” she said in a chilly voice. “To recall it is needless.”After reflecting for some moments, he commenced to protest his innocence of the crime she attributed to him; but with a gesture of impatience she held up both her hands as if to shut out his presence from her gaze, and then slowly he left the room without further word.Afterwards she stood, a slim, graceful figure, leaning upon the mantelshelf, gazing down into the fire. Now and then sighs escaped her; once a shudder ran over her, for her thoughts were still weird and morbid. She was debating whether death by her own hand was not preferable to the strange life she had been for the past two years compelled to lead, still dubious as to whether at last she could secure happiness beside the young Englishman whom she loved with all her soul, and for whom she had risked her life.Through ten days she remained alone in the great hotel and found London horrible. She went out but little, as the weather was gloomy and wet, and spent her time in her warm private sitting-room in reading, or doing fancy needlework. She had written to Armytage, and received an immediate response, which set her mind at ease. He had urged that he might be allowed to see her, but she had replied firmly in the negative. If she desired him to come to her, she would telegraph. In a couple of hours he could be at her side. Fettered as she was hand and foot, knowing that her lover’s enemies sought his life, yet without power to save him, she existed in those days in constant dread lest they should discover his presence in England, and carry out their design. The life of a man is just as easily taken in England as it is in Italy, and she knew well her associates to be desperate, and that they would now hesitate at nothing in order to guarantee success of their plans.One night, after she had been at the hotel about a fortnight, she dressed her hair as carefully as she could, possessing no maid, and putting on a pretty evening gown of pale-blue, cut low and filled with fine old lace drawn round the throat in the manner of evening dresses in vogue in Italy, she wound around her head a pale-blue silken scarf she had purchased in Livorno, one of those worn by the Livornese girls on festive days, and, assuming a rich cape trimmed with otter, drove in a hansom to Lady Marshfield’s in Sussex Square.The man-servant, without taking her name, showed her at once to the drawing-room. He had no doubt received instructions. Upon the threshold she stood for an instant holding her breath, as if in fear; then, bracing herself for an effort, entered the room, a striking figure, proud, erect, handsome, the diamond crescent sparkling in her hair, her silken skirts sweeping behind her with loudfrou-frou. At that moment she was La Funaro, the notorious woman whose striking costumes had so often been the envy and admiration of fashionable Italy.In the great apartment there had assembled, in a group near the fire, the Doctor, the Gobbo, Romanelli, and Nenci. All four were in well-cut evening clothes, and were chatting affably, her ladyship, ugly, yet affecting youth, holding a little court about her. On Gemma’s entrance there was an instant’s silence. Then with almost one voice they welcomed her, crying, “Viva, La Funaro!”Smiling, she shook hands with each in turn, and sank on the silken settee beside her hostess.“We are still waiting for one other,” her ladyship said, glancing at the clock. “He is late.” Afterwards, turning to Gemma, the eccentric old woman began to pay her all sorts of compliments in very fair Italian, while the men stood together smoking and chatting, sometimes in mysterious undertones.At last the person for whom they had apparently been waiting entered, hot and flushed. It was Tristram. He shook hands with all, except with Gemma. To her he merely bowed.Lady Marshfield, a few minutes later, rose and passed into the small inner room—a signal for her guests to follow. Then, when they had entered, the door was locked, Romanelli alone remaining outside in the drawing-room to guard against the possibility of any of the servants acting as eavesdropper. A table had been placed in the centre of the apartment, and around this they at once assembled, while Nenci, opening the lady’s dressing-bag which he carried, took therefrom a small oblong box of polished oak, which he set upon the table, afterwards displaying the exquisite replica of the bust of the reigning sovereign of Italy.“Beautiful!” they all cried with one accord. “Nothing could be better!”“Its action is marvellous,” Malvano explained. “We have already tried it. The effect is frightful. When set, it contains explosives enough to reduce every house in this street to ruins.”They looked at one another and shuddered.“It’s really very inoffensive-looking,” her ladyship remarked, raising her glasses, deeply interested. “I hope it isn’t charged!”“Oh dear, no,” Nenci laughed, taking it in his hand. “I’ve brought it here to show how the mechanism is contrived;” and bending towards her, he opened its malachite base, showing the empty receptacle for the explosive compound, the hole for the tiny tube of acid, and the small clockwork mechanism no larger than a watch imbedded deeply in cotton-wool, so as to be noiseless. Standing at the table, he glanced keenly from one to the other as he explained its working. As he handled the bust tenderly, his keen black eyes seemed to shine with an evil light.When he had concluded, he replaced the mechanical portions he had removed, and put the bust back into the dressing-bag beside him.“No, no,” Malvano said, smiling grimly, some minutes later. “Don’t hide it away, Lionello. It’s well worth our admiration, and does you credit. This is the last time we shall have an opportunity of seeing it, so let it remain on the table.”All joined in a chorus of laughter and approbation, and Nenci, fumbling in the bag at his side, reproduced it and placed it upon the table in full view of their gaze. At that moment Gemma, deep in conversation with her ladyship, did not notice that the bust was before them, and not until Nenci and Malvano had left the room together in order to consult with the foppishly dressed young man outside in the drawing-room, did she detect its presence.Then, with a sudden scream of wild alarm, she dashed forward, her bare arms raised in despair, crying—“Look! Look! This is not the bust he showed us at first, but another! This one is charged! Fly quickly—all of you! In another instant this house will be in a mass of ruins, and we shall all be blown to atoms! This is Nenci’s diabolical vengeance!”With one accord they sprang from their chairs and rushed towards the door. Tristram was the first to gain it, turned the handle.“God! It’s locked!” he shrieked.Nenci, the sinister-faced man who, with his two infamous companions, had secured them in that room with the frightful engine of destruction in their midst, had ingeniously escaped. Speechless, with faces blanched, they exchanged quick apprehensive glances of terror. Those moments were full of terrible suspense. All knew they they were doomed, and appalled, rooted to the spot by unspeakable terror, none dared to move a muscle or touch that exquisite bust upon the table. Each second ticked out clearly by the Sèvres clock upon the mantelshelf brought them nearer to an untimely and frightful end; nearer to that fatal moment when the tiny glass tube must be shattered by the internal mechanism, and thus cause an explosion which would in an instant launch them into eternity.

One afternoon, a week later, Gemma was idling in her cosy private sitting-room at the Hotel Victoria. She had returned there in an involuntary manner, because it was the only hotel she knew in London. It had been a wet, dismal day, and by three o’clock it had become so dark that she had been compelled to switch on the electric light in order to see to write. During two hours she had not risen, but had continued covering sheet after sheet of foolscap with her fine angular writing. She wrote with the air of one accustomed to write, folding down the left-hand edge of her paper so as to create a margin and writing on one side of the sheet only. Before commencing, she had several times read through a long and apparently deeply interesting letter, making careful notes upon it before commencing. Then, drawing her chair closer to the table, she took up her pen and wrote away at express speed, now and then halting to reflect, but quickly resuming until she had filled a dozen folios. At last she concluded abruptly, and without signature, afterwards leaning back in her little Chippendale armchair, turning over the numbered pages, and reading through what she had written. When she had finished, she paused and looked straight before her blankly. Her lips moved, but no sound escaped them. Presently she took from the dressing-bag open beside her a large linen-lined blue envelope, whereon was printed in Italian “Private.—To His Excellency the Marquis Montelupo, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Rome.” Into this she placed what she had written, afterwards sealing it at each corner and in the centre, in the manner the Italian Administration of Posts requires insured letters to be secured.

This done, she paused, resting her head wearily on her hands, as if tired out. Suddenly there was a loud rap at the door, and one of the hotel message-boys entered with a card.

“Show him up at once,” Gemma answered in her broken English, after she had glanced at the name; and a few minutes later a sour-faced, middle-aged Italian entered, bowing.

“Good-evening, Califano,” she said. “It is quite ready;” and she handed him the secret despatch. “You leave for Rome to-night—eh?”

“Si—Signora Contessa,” the man answered. “I arrived in London only an hour ago, and I leave againsubito. The Marquis has sent me expressly for this.”

“Then see that he gets it at the earliest possible moment,” she said quickly. “It is of the utmost secrecy and importance.”

“I quite understand, Signora Contessa,” the man courteously replied, carefully placing the envelope in the breast-pocket of his heavy frieze overcoat. “His Excellency has already given me instructions.”

“Va bene. Then go. Make all haste, for every hour lost may place Italy in greater jeopardy. Remember that your early arrival is absolutely imperative.” She spoke authoritatively, and it was evident that they were not strangers.

“I shall not lose an instant,” answered the Minister’s private messenger. “The Contessa has no further commands?” he added inquiringly.

“None,” she answered briefly. “Arivederci!”

“Arivederci, Signora Contessa,” he replied; and a moment later Gemma found herself again alone.

“God forgive me!” she murmured as she paced the room wildly agitated. “It’s the only way—the only way! I have transgressed before man and before Heaven in order to free myself from this hateful tie of heinous sin; I have risked all in order to gain happiness with the man I love. And if I fail”—she paused, pale-faced, haggard-eyed, shuddering—“if I fail,” she went on in a changed voice, “then I must take my life.”

She threw herself into a chair before the fire, and was silent for a long time. The dressing-bell sounded, but she took no heed; she had no appetite. The crowded table d’hôte, with its glare and colour and clatter, jarred upon her highly-strung nerves. She had dined in the great gilded saloon the night before, and had resolved not to do so again. She would have a little soup and a cutlet brought to her room.

At that moment she was calmly, deliberately contemplating suicide.

She sat in the low chair, her elbows on her knees, gazing gloomily into the fire. The loose gown of pale lilac silk, with deep lace at the collar and cuffs, suited her fair complexion admirably, although it imparted to her a wan appearance, and made her look older than she really was, while the tendrils of her gold-brown hair, straying across her brow, gave her a wild, wanton look. Even as she sat, her eyes fixed upon the leaping flames, hers was still a countenance frail, childlike in its softness, purity, and innocence of expression—a face perfect in its symmetry, and one in which it was difficult to conceive that any evil could lurk.

The diamonds upon her fingers sparkling in the fitful firelight caught her gaze. She looked long and earnestly at the strange ring of turquoise and diamonds upon her right hand, and the sad memories it recalled caused her to sigh deeply, as they ever did. Again she remained plunged in a deep debauch of melancholy, until suddenly the was aroused from her reverie by a loud knocking at her door and her hotel number being shouted by the lad in buttons.

“Gentleman wishes to see you, ma’am,” the youngster said, handing her another card.

She glanced quickly at the name, then rising slowly, answered—

“Show him up.”

Her breath seemed to catch in her throat, but to her cheeks there came a slight flush, whether of excitement or of anger it was difficult to determine. Her brows were knit, and, as she glanced at herself in the mirror, she felt dissatisfied with herself, because she knew she looked haggard and ugly.

As she turned away from the glass with a gesture of determination, Frank Tristram entered.

“Well,” she inquired, turning quickly upon him the moment they were alone. “Why have you the audacity to seek me?”

“Hear me out, Gemma, before you grow angry!” he exclaimed, advancing towards her. “I have come to crave your forgiveness;” and he stood with bent head before her, motionless, penitent.

“My forgiveness? You ask that after your attempt to take my life?” she retorted.

“I was mad, then,” he declared quickly. “Forgive me. I ask your forgiveness in order that one you know may be made happy.”

“I don’t understand you.”

“Carmenilla. I’m going to marry her,” he explained briefly.

“To marry Carmenilla!” she exclaimed, surprised.

He nodded. “Tell me that you forgive my madness that night,” he urged. “Remember that both you and I are hemmed in by enemies on every side; that our interests are exactly identical. In return for your forgiveness, I am ready to assist you in any way possible.”

Her clear eyes rested upon him with unwavering gaze.

“And you ask my forgiveness,” she said in atone of contempt at length. “You—who murdered Vittorina—a helpless, friendless girl.”

“I—murdered her!” he cried uneasily, with a look of abject terror. This denunciation was utterly unexpected. “What made you suspect that?”

“To any one who had knowledge of the facts, it’s quite plain,” she answered boldly. “Ah! do not try to deceive me. The police were in ignorance, therefore they could have no clue, and could make no arrest. I, however, am aware of the reason poor Vittorina’s life was taken; I know that her presence was detrimental to all our plans, and that she was enticed here, to London, in order that she might die. It is useless for you to protest your innocence to me.” Her face was hard, her eyes fixed immovably upon his.

He shrank beneath her searching glance, and stood before her with bent head in silence.

“You cannot deny that you had a hand in the crime?” she went on relentlessly. “You, a murderer, ask my forgiveness!”

“Ah! Gemma,” he cried hoarsely, “forgive me.” Then, without heeding the terrible denunciation she had levelled against him, continued, “We have both suffered much, you and I; you perhaps more than myself because you have earned ill repute, and been compelled to pose as an adventuress. But those who know you are well aware that you have always been an honest woman, that your so-called adventures have only been taken in order to act the ignoble part which you were compelled to act, and in every way that you are worthy the love of an upright man like Armytage. Forgive me,” he urged in a low, intense voice, stretching forth his hand. “Forgive me!”

Her troubled breast heaved and fell. In that instant she remembered what the black-robed nuns had told her long ago at San Paolo della Croce—that the first step towards penitence was forgiveness. She looked straight into the face of the man before her for several moments in hesitation, then at last, in a low, faltering tone, said—“The evil you tried to do me I forgive freely; but—but I cannot take the hand of a murderer”; and she turned away suddenly, her silken gown sweeping past him where he stood.

“Then you will allow me to marry Carmenilla? You will not denounce me as one who tried to take your life?” he cried eagerly, following her a few paces.

“Your secret will be mine,” she answered coldly. “I have forgotten, and bear you no malice.”

She was standing beside the fire, once again idly contemplating her rings. The diamonds of the quaint one, with its turquoise centre, seemed to glitter with extreme brilliance and with an evil glint that night.

Presently Tristram advanced swiftly, almost noiselessly, until he reached her side. Then again he proffered his hand, asking—

“May we not be friends?”

“We are no longer enemies,” she answered, disregarding his invitation to exchange the hand-clasp of friendship. “This interview is painful,” she added. “I have forgiven you. Surely that is sufficient?”

“I believed you to be my enemy—I thought that you had denounced me to the police on that night when my mad passion got the mastery,” he said apologetically. “I assure you that I have deeply regretted ever since.”

“It is past,” she said in a chilly voice. “To recall it is needless.”

After reflecting for some moments, he commenced to protest his innocence of the crime she attributed to him; but with a gesture of impatience she held up both her hands as if to shut out his presence from her gaze, and then slowly he left the room without further word.

Afterwards she stood, a slim, graceful figure, leaning upon the mantelshelf, gazing down into the fire. Now and then sighs escaped her; once a shudder ran over her, for her thoughts were still weird and morbid. She was debating whether death by her own hand was not preferable to the strange life she had been for the past two years compelled to lead, still dubious as to whether at last she could secure happiness beside the young Englishman whom she loved with all her soul, and for whom she had risked her life.

Through ten days she remained alone in the great hotel and found London horrible. She went out but little, as the weather was gloomy and wet, and spent her time in her warm private sitting-room in reading, or doing fancy needlework. She had written to Armytage, and received an immediate response, which set her mind at ease. He had urged that he might be allowed to see her, but she had replied firmly in the negative. If she desired him to come to her, she would telegraph. In a couple of hours he could be at her side. Fettered as she was hand and foot, knowing that her lover’s enemies sought his life, yet without power to save him, she existed in those days in constant dread lest they should discover his presence in England, and carry out their design. The life of a man is just as easily taken in England as it is in Italy, and she knew well her associates to be desperate, and that they would now hesitate at nothing in order to guarantee success of their plans.

One night, after she had been at the hotel about a fortnight, she dressed her hair as carefully as she could, possessing no maid, and putting on a pretty evening gown of pale-blue, cut low and filled with fine old lace drawn round the throat in the manner of evening dresses in vogue in Italy, she wound around her head a pale-blue silken scarf she had purchased in Livorno, one of those worn by the Livornese girls on festive days, and, assuming a rich cape trimmed with otter, drove in a hansom to Lady Marshfield’s in Sussex Square.

The man-servant, without taking her name, showed her at once to the drawing-room. He had no doubt received instructions. Upon the threshold she stood for an instant holding her breath, as if in fear; then, bracing herself for an effort, entered the room, a striking figure, proud, erect, handsome, the diamond crescent sparkling in her hair, her silken skirts sweeping behind her with loudfrou-frou. At that moment she was La Funaro, the notorious woman whose striking costumes had so often been the envy and admiration of fashionable Italy.

In the great apartment there had assembled, in a group near the fire, the Doctor, the Gobbo, Romanelli, and Nenci. All four were in well-cut evening clothes, and were chatting affably, her ladyship, ugly, yet affecting youth, holding a little court about her. On Gemma’s entrance there was an instant’s silence. Then with almost one voice they welcomed her, crying, “Viva, La Funaro!”

Smiling, she shook hands with each in turn, and sank on the silken settee beside her hostess.

“We are still waiting for one other,” her ladyship said, glancing at the clock. “He is late.” Afterwards, turning to Gemma, the eccentric old woman began to pay her all sorts of compliments in very fair Italian, while the men stood together smoking and chatting, sometimes in mysterious undertones.

At last the person for whom they had apparently been waiting entered, hot and flushed. It was Tristram. He shook hands with all, except with Gemma. To her he merely bowed.

Lady Marshfield, a few minutes later, rose and passed into the small inner room—a signal for her guests to follow. Then, when they had entered, the door was locked, Romanelli alone remaining outside in the drawing-room to guard against the possibility of any of the servants acting as eavesdropper. A table had been placed in the centre of the apartment, and around this they at once assembled, while Nenci, opening the lady’s dressing-bag which he carried, took therefrom a small oblong box of polished oak, which he set upon the table, afterwards displaying the exquisite replica of the bust of the reigning sovereign of Italy.

“Beautiful!” they all cried with one accord. “Nothing could be better!”

“Its action is marvellous,” Malvano explained. “We have already tried it. The effect is frightful. When set, it contains explosives enough to reduce every house in this street to ruins.”

They looked at one another and shuddered.

“It’s really very inoffensive-looking,” her ladyship remarked, raising her glasses, deeply interested. “I hope it isn’t charged!”

“Oh dear, no,” Nenci laughed, taking it in his hand. “I’ve brought it here to show how the mechanism is contrived;” and bending towards her, he opened its malachite base, showing the empty receptacle for the explosive compound, the hole for the tiny tube of acid, and the small clockwork mechanism no larger than a watch imbedded deeply in cotton-wool, so as to be noiseless. Standing at the table, he glanced keenly from one to the other as he explained its working. As he handled the bust tenderly, his keen black eyes seemed to shine with an evil light.

When he had concluded, he replaced the mechanical portions he had removed, and put the bust back into the dressing-bag beside him.

“No, no,” Malvano said, smiling grimly, some minutes later. “Don’t hide it away, Lionello. It’s well worth our admiration, and does you credit. This is the last time we shall have an opportunity of seeing it, so let it remain on the table.”

All joined in a chorus of laughter and approbation, and Nenci, fumbling in the bag at his side, reproduced it and placed it upon the table in full view of their gaze. At that moment Gemma, deep in conversation with her ladyship, did not notice that the bust was before them, and not until Nenci and Malvano had left the room together in order to consult with the foppishly dressed young man outside in the drawing-room, did she detect its presence.

Then, with a sudden scream of wild alarm, she dashed forward, her bare arms raised in despair, crying—

“Look! Look! This is not the bust he showed us at first, but another! This one is charged! Fly quickly—all of you! In another instant this house will be in a mass of ruins, and we shall all be blown to atoms! This is Nenci’s diabolical vengeance!”

With one accord they sprang from their chairs and rushed towards the door. Tristram was the first to gain it, turned the handle.

“God! It’s locked!” he shrieked.

Nenci, the sinister-faced man who, with his two infamous companions, had secured them in that room with the frightful engine of destruction in their midst, had ingeniously escaped. Speechless, with faces blanched, they exchanged quick apprehensive glances of terror. Those moments were full of terrible suspense. All knew they they were doomed, and appalled, rooted to the spot by unspeakable terror, none dared to move a muscle or touch that exquisite bust upon the table. Each second ticked out clearly by the Sèvres clock upon the mantelshelf brought them nearer to an untimely and frightful end; nearer to that fatal moment when the tiny glass tube must be shattered by the internal mechanism, and thus cause an explosion which would in an instant launch them into eternity.

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