Struck by the hand of God! So men say when, after denying God's existence ail their lives, the seeming solid earth heaves up like a ship on a storm-billow, dragging down in its deep recoil their lives and habitations. An earthquake! Its irresistible rise and fall makes human beings more powerless than insects,—their houses and possessions have less stability than the spider's web which swings its frail threads across broken columns in greater safety than any man-made bridge of stone,—and terror, mad, hopeless, helpless terror, possesses every creature brought face to face with the dire cruelty of natural forces, which from the very beginning have played havoc with struggling mankind. Struck by the hand of God!—and with a merciless blow! All the sunny plains and undulating hills of the beautiful stretch of land in Southern California, in the centre of which the "Plaza" hotel and sanatorium had stood, were now unrecognisable,—the earth was torn asunder and thrown into vast heaps—great rocks and boulders were tumbled over each other pell-mell in appalling heights of confusion, and, for miles around, towns, camps and houses were laid in ruins. The scene was one of absolute horror,—there was no language to express or describe it—no word of hope or comfort that could be fitly used to lighten the blackness of despair and loss. Gangs of men were at relief work as soon as they could be summoned, and these busied themselves in extricating the dead, and rescuing the dying whose agonised cries and moans reproached the Power that made them for such an end,—and perhaps as terrible as any other sound was the savage roar and rush of a loosened torrent which came tearing furiously down from the cleft hills to the lower land, through the great canon beyond the site where the Plaza had stood,—a canon which had become enormously widened by the riving and the rending of the rocks, thus giving free passage to wild waters that had before been imprisoned in a narrow gorge. The persistent rush of the flood filled every inch of space with sound of an awful, even threatening character, suggesting further devastation and death. The men engaged in their dreadful task of lifting crushed corpses from under the stones that had fallen upon them, were almost overcome and rendered incapable of work by the appalling clamour, which was sufficient to torture the nerves of the strongest; and some of them, sickened at the frightful mutilation of the bodies they found gave up altogether and dropped from sheer fatigue and exhaustion into unconsciousness, despite the heroic encouragement of their director, a man well used to great emergencies. Late afternoon found him still organising and administering aid, with the assistance of two or three Catholic priests who went about seeking to comfort and sustain those who were passing "the line between." All the energetic helpers were prepared to work all night, delving into the vast suddenly made grave wherein were tumbled the living with the dead,—and it was verging towards sunset when one of the priests, chancing to raise his eyes from the chaos of earth around him to the clear and quiet sky, saw what at first he took to be a great eagle with outspread wings soaring slowly above the scene of devastation. It moved with singular lightness and ease,—now and then appearing to pause as though seeking some spot whereon to descend,—and after watching it for a minute or two he called the attention of some of the men around him to its appearance. They looked up wearily from their gruesome task of excavating the dead.
"That's an air-ship"—said one—"and a big thing, too!"
"An air-ship!" echoed the priest amazedly,—and then was silent, gazing at the shining expanse of sky through which the bird-shaped vessel made its leisurely way like the vision of a fairy tale more than any reality. There was something weirdly terrible in the contrast it made, moving so tranquilly through clear space in apparent safety, while down below on the so-called "solid" earth, all nature had been convulsed and overthrown. The wonderful result of human ingenuity as measured with the remorseless action of natural forces seemed too startling to be real to the mind of a Spanish priest who, despite all the evidences of triumphant materialism, still clung to the Cross and kept his simple, faithful soul high above the waves that threatened to engulf it. Turning anew to his melancholy duties, he bent over a dying youth just lifted from beneath a weight of stones that had crushed him. The boy's fast glazing eyes were upturned to the sky.
"See the angel coming?" he whispered, thickly—"Never used to believe in them!—but there's one sure enough! Glory—!" and his utterance ceased for ever.
The priest crossed his hands upon his breast and said a prayer—then again looked up to where the air-ship floated in the darkening blue. It was now directly over the canon,—immediately above the huge rift made by the earthquake, through which the clamorous rush of water poured. While he watched it, it suddenly stood still, then dived slowly as though bent on descending into the very depths of the gully. He could not forbear uttering an exclamation, which made all the men about him look in the direction where his own gaze was fixed.
"That air-ship's going to kingdom-come!" said one—"Nothing can save it if it takes to nose-diving down there!"
They all stared amazed—but the dreadful work on which they were engaged left them no time for consideration of any other matter. The priest watched a few minutes longer, more or less held spell-bound with a kind of terror, for he saw that without doubt the great vessel was either purposely descending or being drawn into the vast abyss yawning black beneath it, and that falling thus it must be inevitably doomed to destruction. Whoever piloted it must surely be determined to invite this frightful end to its voyage, for nothing was ever steadier or more resolute than its downward movement towards the whirling waters that rushed through the canon. All suddenly it disappeared, whelmed as it seemed in darkness and the roaring flood, and the watching priest made the sign of the cross in air murmuring—
"God have mercy on their souls!"
Had he been able to see what happened he might have thought that the confused brain of the dying boy who had imagined the air-ship to be an angel, was not so far wrong, for no romancer or teller of wild tales could have pictured a stranger or more unearthly sight than the wonderful "White Eagle" poised at ease amid the tossed-up clouds of spray flung from the seething mass of waters, while at her prow stood a woman fair as any fabled goddess—a woman reckless of all danger, and keenly on the alert, with bright eyes searching every nook and cranny that could be discerned through the mist. Clear above the roaring torrent her voice rang like a silver trumpet as she called her instructions to the two men who, equally defying every peril, had ventured on this journey at her command,—Rivardi and Gaspard.
"Let her down very gently inch by inch!" she cried; "It must be here that we should seek!"
In absolute silence they obeyed. Both had given themselves up for lost and were resigned and ready to meet death at any moment. From the first they had made no effort to resist Morgana's orders—she and they had left Sicily at a couple of hours' notice—and their three days' journey across the ocean had been accomplished without adventure or accident, at such a speed that it was hardly to be thought of without a thrill of horror. No information had been given them as to the object of their long and rapid aerial voyage,—and only now when the "White Eagle," swooping over California, reached the scene of the terrific devastation wrought by the earthquake did they begin to think they had submitted their wills and lives to the caprice of a madwoman. However, there was no drawing back,—nothing for it but still to obey,—for even in the stress and terror naturally excited by their amazing position, they did not fail to see that the great air-ship was steadily controlled, and that whatever was the force controlling it, it maintained its level, its mysterious vibrating discs still throbbing with vital and incessant regularity. Apparently nothing could disturb its equilibrium or shatter its mechanism. And, according to its woman-designer's command, they lowered it gently till it was, so to say, almost immersed in the torrent and covered with spray—indeed Morgana's light figure itself at the prow looked like a fair spirit risen from the waters rather than any form of flesh and blood, so wreathed and transfigured it was by the dust of the ceaseless foam. She stood erect, bent on a quest that seemed hopeless, watching every eddying curve of water,—every flickering ripple,—her eyes, luminous as stars, searched the black and riven rocks with an eager passion of discovery,—when all suddenly as she gazed, a thin ray of light,—pure gold in colour,—struck sharply like a finger-point on a shallow pool immediately below her. She looked and uttered a cry, beckoning to Rivardi.
"Come! Come!"
He hurried to her side, Gaspard following. The pool on which her eyes were fixed was shallow enough to show the pebbly bed beneath the water—and there lay apparently two corpses—one of a man, the other of a woman whose body was half flung across that of the man.
Morgana pointed to them.
"They must be brought up here!" she said, insistently—"You must lift them! We have emergency ropes and pulleys—it is easily done! Why do you hesitate?"
"Because you demand the impossible!" said Rivardi—"You send us to death to rescue the already dead!"
She turned upon him with wrath in her eyes.
"You refuse to obey me?"
What a face confronted him! White as marble, and as terrible in expression as that of a Medusa, it had a paralysing effect on his nerves, and he shrank and trembled at her glance.
"You refuse to obey me?" she repeated—"Then—if you do—I destroy this air-ship and ourselves in less than two minutes! Choose! Obey, and live!—disobey and die!"
He staggered back from her in terror at her looks, which gave her a supernatural beauty and authority. The "fey" woman was "fey" indeed!—and the powers with which superstition endows the fairy folk seemed now to invest her with irresistible influence.
"Choose!" she reiterated.
Without another word he turned to Gaspard, who in equal silence got out the ropes and pulleys of which she had spoken. The air-ship stopped dead—suspended immovably over the wild waters and almost hidden in spray; and though the strange vibration of its multitudinous discs continued in itself it was fixed as a rock. A smile sweet as sunshine after storm changed and softened Morgana's features as she saw Rivardi swing over the vessel's side to the pool below, while Gaspard unwound the gear by which he would be able to lift and support the drowned creatures he was bidden to bring.
"That's a true noble!" she exclaimed—"I knew your courage would not fail! Believe me, no harm shall come to you!"
Inspirited by her words, he flung himself down—and raising the body of the woman first, was entangled by the wet thick strands of her long dark hair which, like sea-weed, caught about his feet and hands and impeded his movements. He had time just to see a face white as marble under the hair,—then he had enough to do to fasten ropes round the body and push it upward while Gaspard pulled—both men doubting whether the weight of it would not alter the balance of the air-ship despite its extraordinary fixity of position. Morgana, bending over from the vessel, watched every action,—she showed neither alarm nor impatience nor anxiety—and when Gaspard said suddenly—
"It is easier than I thought it would be!" she merely smiled as if she knew. Another few moments and the drowned woman's body was hauled into the cabin of the ship, where Morgana knelt down beside it. Parting the heavy masses of dark hair that enshrouded it she looked—and saw what she had expected to see—the face of Manella Soriso. But it was the death-mask of a face—strangely beautiful—but awful in its white rigidity. Morgana bent over it anxiously, but only for a moment, drawing a small phial from her bosom she forced a few drops of the liquid it contained between the set lips, and with a tiny syringe injected the same at the pulseless wrist and throat. While she busied herself with these restorative measures, the second body,—that of the man,—was landed almost at her feet—and she found herself gazing in a sort of blank stupefaction at what seemed to be the graven image of Roger Seaton. No effigy of stone ever looked colder, harder, greyer than this inert figure of man,—uninjured apparently, for there were no visible marks of wounds or bruises upon his features, which appeared frozen into stiff rigidity, but a man as surely dead as death could make him! Morgana heard, as in a far-off dream, the Marchese Rivardi speaking—
"I have done your bidding because it was you who bade,"—he said, his voice shaking with the tremor and excitement of his daring effort—"And it was not so very difficult. But it is a vain rescue! They are past recall."
Morgana looked up from her awed contemplation of Seaton's rigid form. Her eyes were heavy with unshed tears.
"I think not,"—she said—"There is life in them—yes, there is life, though for the time it is paralysed. But"—here she gave him the loveliest smile of tenderness—"You brave Giulio!—you are exhausted and wet through—attend to yourself first—then you can help me with these unhappy ones—and you Gaspard,—Gaspard!"
"Here, Madama!"
"You have done so well!" she said—"Without fear or failure!"
"Only by God's mercy!" answered Gaspard—"If the rope had broken; if the ship had lost balance—"
She smiled.
"So many 'ifs' Gaspard? Have I not told you it CANNOT lose balance? And are not my words proved true? Now we have finished our rescue work we may go—we can start at once—"
He looked at her.
"There is more weight on board!" he said meaningly, "If we are to carry two dead bodies through the air, it may mean a heavenly funeral for all of us! The 'White Eagle' has not been tested for heavy transport."
She heard him patiently,—then turned to Rivardi and repeated her words—
"We can start at once. Steer upwards and onwards."
Like a man hypnotised he obeyed,—and in a few moments the air-ship, answering easily to the helm, rose lightly as a bubble from the depths of the canon, through the fiercely dashing showers of spray tossed by the foaming torrent, and soared aloft, high and ever higher, as swiftly as any living bird born for long and powerful flight. Night was falling; and through the dense purple shadows of the Californian sky a big white moon rose, bending ghost-like over the scene of destruction and chaos, lighting with a pale glare the tired and haggard faces of the relief men at their terrible work of digging out the living and the dead from the vast pits of earth into which they had been suddenly engulfed,—while far, far above them flew the "White Eagle," gradually lessening in size through distance till it looked no bigger than a dove on its homeward way. Some priests watching by a row of lifeless men, women and children killed in the earthquake, chanted the "Nunc Dimittis" as the evening grew darker,—and the only one among them who had first seen the air-ship over the canon, where it fell, as it were in the deep gulf surrounded by flood and foam, now raised his eyes in wonderment as he perceived it once more soaring at liberty towards the moon.
"Surely a miracle!" he ejaculated, under his breath—"An escape from destruction through God's mercy! God be praised!"
And he crossed himself devoutly, joining in the solemn chanting of his brethren, kneeling in the moonlight, which threw a ghastly lustre on the dead faces of the victims of the earthquake,—victims not "struck by the hand of God" but by the hand of man! And he who was responsible for the blow lay unconscious of having dealt it, and was borne through the air swiftly and safely away for ever from the tragic scene of the ruin and desolation he had himself wrought.
A great silence pervaded the Palazzo d'Oro,—the strained silence of an intense activity weighted with suspense. Servants moved about here and there with noiseless rapidity,—Don Aloysius was seen constantly pacing up and down the loggia absorbed in anxious thought and prayer, and the Marchese Rivardi came and went on errands of which he alone knew the import. Overhead the sky was brilliantly blue and cloudless,—the sun flashed a round shield of dazzling gold all day long on the breast of the placid sea,—but within the house, blinds were drawn to shade and temper the light for eyes that perhaps might never again open to the blessing and glory of the day. A full week had passed since the "White Eagle" had returned from its long and adventurous flight over the vast stretches of ocean, bearing with it the two human creatures cast down to death in the deep Californian canon,—and only one of them had returned to the consciousness of life,—the other still stayed on the verge of the "Great Divide." Morgana had safely landed the heavy burden of seeming death her ship had carried,—and simply stating to Lady Kingswood and her household staff that it was a case of rescue from drowning, had caused the two corpses—(such as they truly appeared)—to be laid, each in a separate chamber, surrounded with every means that could be devised or thought of for their resuscitation. In an atmosphere glowing with mild warmth, on soft beds they were placed, inert and white as frozen clay, their condition being apparently so hopeless that it seemed mere imaginative folly to think that the least breath could ever again part their set lips or the smallest pulsation of blood stir colour through their veins. But Morgana never wavered in her belief that they lived, and hour after hour, day after day she watched with untiring patience, administering the mysterious balm or portion which she kept preciously in her own possession,—and not till the fifth day of her vigil, when Manella showed faint signs of returning consciousness, did she send to Rome for a famous scientist and physician with whom she had frequently corresponded. She entrusted the dispatch of this message to Rivardi, saying—
"It is now time for further aid than mine. The girl will recover—but the man—the man is still in the darkness!"
And her eyes grew heavy with a cloud of sorrow and regret which softened her delicate beauty and made it more than ever unearthly.
"What are they—what is HE—to you?" demanded Rivardi jealously.
"My friend, there was a time when I should have considered that question an impertinence from you!" she said, tranquilly—"But yours is the great share of the rescue—and your magnificent bravery wins you my pardon,—for many things!" And she smiled as she saw him flush under her quiet gaze—"What is this man to me, you ask? Why nothing!—not now! Once he was everything,—though he never knew it. Some quality in him struck the keynote of the scale of life for me,—he was the great delusion of a dream! The delusion is ended—the dream is over! But for that he WAS to me, though only in my own thoughts, I have tried to save his life—not for myself, but for the woman who loves him."
"The woman we rescued with him?—the woman who is here?"
She bent her head in assent. Rivardi's eyes dwelt on her with greater tenderness than he had ever felt before,—she looked so frail and fairy-like, and withal so solitary. He took her little hand and gently kissed it with courteous reverence.
"Then—after all—you have known love!" he said in a low voice—"You have felt what it is,—though you have assumed to despise it?"
"My good Giulio, I DO despise most heartily what the world generally understands as love"—she replied; "There is no baser or more selfish sentiment!—a sentiment made up half of animal desire and half of a personal seeking for admiration, appreciation and self-gratification! Yes, Giulio!—it is so, and I despise it for all these attributes—in truth it is not what I understand or accept as love at all—"
"What DO you understand and accept?" he asked, softly.
Her eyes shone kindly as she raised them to his face.
"Not what you can ever give, Giulio!" she said—"Love—to my mind—is the spiritual part of our being—it should be the complete union of two souls that move as one,—like the two wings of a bird making the body subservient to the highest flights, even as far as heaven! The physical mating of man and woman is seldom higher than the physical mating of any other animals under the sun,—the animals know nothing beyond—but we—we ought to know something!" She paused, then went on—"There is sometimes a great loftiness even in the physical way of so-called 'love'—such passion as the woman we have rescued has for the man she was ready to die with,—a primitive passion of primitive woman at her best. Such feeling is out of date in these days—we have passed that boundary line—and a great unexplored world lies open before us—who can say what we may find there! Perhaps we shall discover what all women have sought for from the beginning of things—"
"And that is?" he asked.
"Happiness!" she replied—"The perfect happiness of life in love!"
He had held her hand till now, when he released it.
"I wish I could give it to you!" he said.
"You cannot, Giulio! I am not made for any man—as men go!"
"It is a pity you think so"—he said—"For—after all—you are just—a woman!"
"Am I?" she murmured,—and a strange flitting smile brightened her features—"Perhaps!—and yet—perhaps not! Who knows!"
She left him puzzled and uneasy. Somehow she always managed to evade his efforts to become more intimate in his relations with her. Generous and kind-hearted as she was, she held him at a distance, and maintained her own aloof position inexorably. A less intelligent man than Rivardi would have adopted the cynic's attitude and averred that her rejection of love and marriage arose from her own unlovableness and unmarriageableness, but he knew better than that. He was wise enough to perceive the rareness and delicacy of her physical and mental organisation and temperament,—a temperament so finely strung as to make all other women seem gross and material beside her. He felt and knew her to be both his moral and intellectual superior,—and this very fact rendered it impossible that he could ever master her mind and tame it down to the subservience of married life. That dauntless spirit of hers would never bend to an inferior,—not even love (if she could feel it) would move her thus far. And the man she had adventured across ocean to rescue—what was he? She confessed that she had loved him, though that love was past. And now she had set herself to watch night and day by his dead body (for dead he surely was in Rivardi's opinion) sparing no pains to recover what seemed beyond recovery; while one of the greatest mysteries of the whole mysterious affair was just this—How had she known the man's life was in danger?
All these questions Rivardi discussed with Don Aloysius, who listened to him patiently without committing himself to any reply. Whatever Morgana had confided to him—(and she had confided much)—he kept his own counsel.
Within forty-eight hours of Morgana's summons the famous specialist from Rome, Professor Marco Ardini, noted all over the world for his miraculous cures of those whom other physicians had given up as past curing, arrived. He heard the story of the rescue of a man and woman from drowning with emotionless gravity, more taken for the moment by Morgana herself, whom he had never seen before, but with whom he had corresponded on current questions of scientific importance. From the extremely learned and incisive tone of her letters he had judged her to be an elderly woman of profound scholarship who had spent the greater part of her life in study, and his astonishment at the sight of the small, dainty creature who received him in the library of the Palazzo d'Oro was beyond all verbal expression,—in fact, he took some minutes to recover from the magnetic "shock" of her blue eyes and wistful smile.
"I must be quite frank with you,"—she said, after a preliminary conversation with the great man in his own Italian tongue—"These two people have suffered their injuries by drowning—but not altogether. They are the victims of an earthquake,—and were thrown by the earth's upheaval into a deep chasm flooded by water—"
The Professor interrupted her.
"Pardon, Signora! There has been no recent earthquake in Europe."
She gave a little gesture of assent.
"Not in Europe—no! But in America—in California there has been a terrible one!"
"In California!" he echoed amazedly-"Gran' Dio! You do not mean to say that you brought these people from California, across that vast extent of ocean?"
She smiled.
"By air-ship—yes! Really nothing so very remarkable! You will not ask for further details just now, Professor!" and she laid her pretty hand coaxingly on his arm—"You and I both know how advisable it is to say as little as possible of our own work or adventures, while any subject is awaiting treatment and every moment counts! I will answer any question you may ask when you have seen my patients. The girl is a beautiful creature—she is beginning to regain consciousness—but the man I fear is past even YOUR skill. Come!"
She led the way and Professor Ardini followed, marvelling at her ethereal grace and beauty, and more than interested in the "case" on which his opinion was sought. Entering a beautiful room glowing with light and warmth and colour, he saw, lying on a bed and slightly propped up by pillows, a lovely girl, pale as ivory, with dark hair loosely braided on either side of her head. Her eyes were closed, and the long black lashes swept the cheeks in a curved fringe,—the lips were faintly red, and the breath parted them slowly and reluctantly. The Professor bent over her and listened,—her heart beat slowly but regularly,—he felt her pulse.
"She will live!"—he said—"There are no injuries?"
"None"—Morgana replied, as he put his questions—"Some few bruises—but no bones broken—nothing serious."
"You have examined her?"
"Yes."
"You have no nurses?"
"No. I and my house people are sufficient." Her tone became slightly peremptory. "There is no need for outside interference. Whatever your orders are, they shall be carried out."
He looked at her. His face was a somewhat severe one, furrowed with thought and care,—but when he smiled, a wonderful benevolence gave it an almost handsome effect. And he smiled now.
"You shall not be interfered with,"—he said—"You have done very well! Complete rest, nourishment and your care are all that this patient needs. She will be quite herself in a very short time. She is extraordinarily beautiful!"
"I wish you could see her eyes!" said Morgana.
Almost as if the uttered wish had touched some recess of her stunned brain, Manella's eyelids quivered and lifted,—the great dark glory of the stars of her soul shone forth for an instant, giving sudden radiance to the pallor of her features—then they closed again as in utter weariness.
"Magnificent!" said Ardini, under his breath—"And full of the vital light,—she will live!"
"And she will love!" added Morgana, softly.
The Professor looked at her enquiringly.
"The man she loves is in the next room"—she continued—"We rescued him with her—if it can be called a rescue. He is the worst case. Only you may be able to bring him back to consciousness,—I have done my best in vain. If YOU fail then we must give up hope."
She preceded him into the adjoining chamber; as he entered it after her he paused—almost intimidated, despite his long medical and surgical experience, by the stone-like figure of man that lay before him. It was as if one should have unearthed a statue, grey with time—a statue nobly formed, with a powerful head and severe features sternly set,—the growth of beard revealing, rather than concealing, the somewhat cruel contour of mouth and chin. The Professor walked slowly up to the bed and looked at this strange effigy of a human being for many minutes in silence,—Morgana watching him with strained but quiet suspense. Presently he touched the forehead—it was stone-cold—then the throat, stone-cold and rigid—he bent down and listened for the heart's pulsations,—not a flutter—not a beat! Drawing back from this examination he looked at Morgana,—she met his eyes with the query in her own which she emphasised by the spoken word—
"Dead?"
"No!"—he answered—"I think not. It is very difficult for a man of this type to die at all. Granted favourable conditions—and barring accidents caused by the carelessness of others—he ought to be one of those destined to live for ever. But"—here he hesitated—"if I am right in my surmise,—of course it is only a first opinion—death would be the very best thing for him."
"Oh, why do you say that?" she asked, pitifully.
"Because the brain is damaged—hopelessly! This man—whoever he is—has been tampering with some chemical force he does not entirely understand,—his whole body is charged with its influence, and this it is that gives his form its unnatural appearance which, though death-like, is not death. If I leave him alone and untouched he will probably expire unconsciously in a few days,—but if—after what I have just told you—you wish me to set the life atoms going again,—even as a clock is wound up,—I can relax the tension which now paralyses the cells, muscles and nerves, and he will live—yes!—like most people without brains he will live a long time—probably too long!"
Morgana moved to the bedside and gazed with a solemn earnestness at the immobile, helpless form stretched out before her as though ready for burial. Her heart swelled with suppressed emotion,—she thought with anguish of the brilliant brain, the strong, self-sufficient nature brought to such ruin through too great an estimate of human capability. Tears rushed to her eyes—
"Oh, give him life!" she whispered—"Give him life for the sake of the woman who loves him more than life!"
The Professor gave her a quick, keen glance.
"You?"
She shivered at the question as though struck by a cold wind,—then conquering the momentary weakness, answered—
"No. The girl you have just seen. He is her world!"
Ardini's brows met in a saturnine frown.
"Her world will be an empty one!" he said, with an expressive gesture—"A world without fruit or flower,—without light or song! A dreary world! But such as it is,—such as it is bound to be,—it can live on,—a life-in-death."
"Are you quite sure of this?" Morgana asked—"Can any of us, however wise, be quite sure of anything?"
His frown relaxed and his whole features softened. He took her hand and patted it kindly.
"Signora, you know as well as I do, that the universe and all within it represents law and order. A man is a little universe in himself—and if the guiding law of his system is destroyed, there is chaos and darkness. We scientists can say 'Let there be light,' but the fulfilled result 'and there was light' comes from God alone!"
"Why should not God help in this case?" she suggested.
"Ah, why!" and Ardini shrugged his shoulders—"How can I tell? My long experience has taught me that wherever the law has been broken God does NOT help! Who knows whether this frozen wreck of man has obeyed or disobeyed the law? I can do all that science allows—"
"And you will do it!" interrupted Morgana eagerly, "You will use your best skill and knowledge—everything you wish shall be at your service—name whatever fee your merit claims—"
He raised his hand with a deprecatory gesture.
"Money does not count with me, Signora!" he said—"Nor with you. The point with both of us in all our work is—success! Is it not so? Yes! And it is because I do not see a true success in this case that I hesitate; true success would mean the complete restoration of this man to life and intelligence,—but life without intelligence is no triumph for science. I can do all that science will allow—"
"And you WILL do this 'all'"—said Morgana, eagerly—"You will forego triumph for simple pity!—pity for the girl who would surely die if he were dead!—and perhaps after all, God may help the recovery!"
"It shall be as you wish, Signora! I must stay here two or three days—"
"As long as you find it necessary"—said Morgana—"All your orders shall be obeyed."
"Good! Send me a trustworthy man-servant who can help to move and support the patient, and we can get to work. I left a few necessary appliances in your hall—I should like them brought into this room—and then—" here he took her hand and pressed it kindly—"you can leave us to our task, and take some rest. You must be very tired."
"I am never tired"—she answered, gently—"I thank you in advance for all you are going to do!"
She left the room then, with one backward glance at the inert stiff figure on the bed,—and went to arrange matters with her household that the Professor's instructions should be strictly carried out. Lady Kingswood, deeply interested, heard her giving certain orders and asked—
"There is hope then? These two poor creatures will live?"
"I think so"—answered Morgana, with a thrill of sadness in her sweet voice—"They will live—pray God their lives may be worth living!"
She watched the man-servant whom she had chosen to wait on Ardini depart on his errand—she saw him open the door of the room where Seaton lay, and shut it—then there was a silence. Oppressed by a sudden heaviness of heart she thought of Manella, and entered her apartment softly to see how she fared. The girl's beautiful dark eyes were wide open and full of the light of life and consciousness. She smiled and stretched out her arms.
"It is my angel!" she murmured faintly—"My little white angel who came to me in the darkness! And this is Heaven!"
Swiftly and silently Morgana went to her side, and taking her outstretched arms put them round her own neck.
"Manella!" she said, tenderly—"Dear, beautiful Manella! Do you know me?"
The great loving eyes rested on her with glowing warmth and pleasure.
"Indeed I know you!" and Manella's voice, weak as that of a sick child, sounded ever so far away—"The little white lady of my dreams! Oh, I have wanted you!—wanted you so much! Why did you not come back sooner?"
Afraid to trouble her brain by the sudden shock of too rapidly recurring memories, Morgana made no reply, but merely soothed her with tender caresses, when all at once she made a violent struggle to rise from the bed.
"I must go!" she cried—"He is calling me! I must follow him—yes, even if he kills me for it—he is in danger!"
Morgana held her close and firmly.
"Hush, hush, dear!" she murmured—"Be quite still! He is safe—believe me! He is near you—in the next room!—out of all danger."
"Oh, no, it is not possible!" and the girl's eyes grew wild with terror—"He cannot be safe!—he is destroying himself! I have followed him every step of the way—I have watched him,—oh!—so long!—and he came out of the hut this morning—I was hidden among the trees—he could not see me—" she broke off, and a violent trembling shook her whole body. Morgana tried to calm her into silence, but she went on rambling incoherently. "There was something he carried as though it was precious to him—something that glittered like gold,—and he went away quickly—quickly to the canyon,—I followed him like a dog, crawling through the brushwood—I followed him across the deep water—to the cave where it was all dark—black as midnight!" She paused—then suddenly flung her arms round Morgana crying—"Oh, hold me!—hold me!—I am in this darkness trying to find him!—there!—there!—he turns and sees me by the light of a lamp he carries; he knows I have followed him, and he is angry! Oh, dear God, he is angry—he raises his arm to strike me!" She uttered a smothered shriek, and clung to Morgana in a kind of frenzy. "No mercy, no pity! That thing that glitters in his hand—it frightens me—what is it? I kneel to him on the cold stones—I pray him to forgive me—to come with me—but his arm is still raised to strike—he does not care—!"
Here a pale horror blanched her features—she drew herself away from Morgana's hold and put out her hands with the instinctive gesture of one who tries to escape falling from some great height. Morgana, alarmed at her looks, caught her again in her arms and held her tenderly, whereat a faint smile hovered on her lips and her distraught movements ceased.
"What is this?"—she asked—then murmured—"My little white lady, how did you come here? How could you cross the flood?—unless on wings? Ah!—you are a fairy and you can do all you wish to do—but you cannot save HIM!—it is too late! He will not save himself—and he does not care,—he does not care—neither for me nor you!"
She drooped her head against Morgana's shoulder and her eyes closed in utter exhaustion. Morgana laid her back gently on her pillows, and pouring a few drops of the cordial she had used before, and of which she had the sole secret, into a wineglassful of water, held it to her lips. She drank it obediently, evidently conscious now that she was being cared for. But she was still restless, and presently she sat up in a listening attitude, one hand uplifted.
"Listen!" she said in a low, awed tone—"Thunder! Do you hear it? God speaks!"
She lay down again passively and was silent for a long time. The hours passed and the day grew into late afternoon, and Morgana, patiently watchful, thought she slept. All suddenly she sprang up, wide-eyed and alert.
"What was that?" she cried—"I heard him call!"
Morgana, startled by her swift movement, stood transfixed—listening. The deep tones of a man's voice rang out loudly and defiantly—
"There shall be no more wars! There can be none! I say so! I am Master of the World!"
A brilliant morning broke over the flower-filled gardens of the Palazzo d'Oro, and the sea, stretched out in a wide radiance of purest blue shimmered with millions of tiny silver ripples brushed on its surface by a light wind as delicate as a bird's wing. Morgana stood in her rose-marble loggia, looking with a pathetic wistfulness at the beauty of the scene, and beside her stood Marco Ardini, scientist, surgeon and physician, looking also, but scarcely seeing, his whole thought being concentrated on the "case" with which he had been dealing.
"It is exactly as I at first told you,"—he said—"The man is strong in muscle and sinew,—but his brain is ruined. It can no longer control or command the body's mechanism,—therefore the body is practically useless. Power of volition is gone,—the poor fellow will never be able to walk again or to lift a hand. A certain faculty of speech is left,—but even this is limited to a few words which are evidently the result of the last prevailing thoughts impressed on the brain-cells. It is possible he will repeat those words thousands of times!—the oftener he repeats them the more he will like to say them."
"What are they?" Morgana asked in a tone of sorrow and compassion.
"Strange enough for a man in his condition"—replied Ardini—"And always the same. 'THERE SHALL BE NO MORE WARS! THERE CAN BE NONE! I SAY IT!—IONLY! IT IS MY GREAT SECRET!IAM MASTER OF THE WORLD!' Poor devil! What a 'master of the world' is there!"
Morgana shuddered as with cold, shading her eyes from the radiant sunshine.
"Does he say nothing else?" she murmured—"Is there no name—no place—that he seems to remember?"
"He remembers nothing—he knows nothing"—answered Ardini—"He does not even realize me as a man—I might be a fish or a serpent for all his comprehension. One glance at his moveless eyes is enough to prove that. They are like pebbles in his head—without cognisance or expression. He mutters the words 'Great Secret' over and over again, and tacks it on to the other phrase of 'No more wars' in a semi-conscious sort of gabble,—this is, of course, the disordered action of the brain working to catch up and join together hopelessly severed fragments."
Morgana lifted her sea-blue eyes and looked with grave appeal into the severely intellectual, half-frowning face of the great Professor.
"Is there no hope of an ultimate recovery?" she asked—"With time and rest and the best of unceasing care, might not this poor brain right itself?"
"Medically and scientifically speaking, there is no hope,—none whatever"—he replied—"Though of course we all know that Nature's remedial methods are inexhaustible, and often, to the wisest of us, seem miraculous, because as yet we do not understand one tithe of her processes. But—in this case,—this strange and terrible case"—and he uttered the words with marked gravity,—"It is Nature's own force that has wrought the damage,—some powerful influence which the man has been testing has proved too much for him—and it has taken its own vengeance."
Morgana heard this with strained interest and attention.
"Tell me just what you mean,"—she said—"There is something you do not quite express—or else I am too slow to understand—"
Ardini took a few paces up and down the loggia and then halted, facing her in the attitude of a teacher preparing to instruct a pupil.
"Signora,"—he said—"When you began to correspond with me some years ago from America, I realised that I was in touch with a highly intelligent and cultivated mind. I took you to be many years older than you are, with a ripe scientific experience. I find you young, beautiful, and pathetic in the pure womanliness of your nature, which must be perpetually contending with an indomitable power of intellectuality and of spirituality,—spirituality is the strongest force of your being. You are not made like other women. This being so I can say to you what other women would not understand. Science is my life-subject, as it is yours,—it is a window set open in the universe admitting great light. But many of us foolishly imagine that this light emanates from ourselves as a result of our own cleverness, whereas it comes from that Divine Source of all things, which we call God. We refuse to believe this,—it wounds our pride. And we use the discoveries of science recklessly and selfishly—without gratitude, humbleness or reverence. So it happens that the first tendency of godless men is to destroy. The love of destruction and torture shows itself in the boy who tears off the wing of an insect, or kills a bird for the pleasure of killing. The boy is father of the man. And we come, after much ignorant denial and obstinacy, back to the inexorable truth that 'they who take the sword shall perish with the sword.' If we consider the 'sword' as a metaphor for every instrument of destruction, we shall see the force of its application—the submarine, for example, built for the most treacherous kind of sea-warfare—how often they that undertake its work are slain themselves! And so it is through the whole gamut of scientific discovery when it is used for inhuman and unlawful purposes. But when this same 'sword' is lifted to put an end to torture, disease, and the manifold miseries of life, then the Power that has entrusted it to mankind endows it with blessing and there are no evil results. I say this to you by way of explaining the view I am forced to take of this man whose strange case you ask me to deal with,—my opinion is that through chance or intention he has been playing recklessly with a great natural force, which he has not entirely understood, for some destructive purpose, and that it has recoiled on himself."
Morgana looked him steadily in the eyes.
"You may be right,"—she said—"He is—or was—one of the most brilliant of our younger scientists. You know his name—I have sent you from New York some accounts of his work—He is Roger Seaton, whose experiments in the condensation of radioactivity startled America some four or five years ago—"
"Roger Seaton!" he exclaimed—"What! The man who professed to have found a new power which would change the face of the world? ... He,—this wreck?—this blind, deaf lump of breathing clay? Surely he has not fallen on so horrible a destiny!"
Tears rushed to Morgana's eyes,—she could not answer. She could only bend her head in assent.
Profoundly moved, Ardini took her hand, and kissed it with sympathetic reverence.
"Signora," he said—"This is indeed a tragedy! You have saved this life at I know not what risk to yourself—and as I am aware what a life of great attainment it promised to be, you may be sure I will spare no pains to bring it back to normal conditions. But frankly I do not think it will be possible. There is the woman who loves him—her influence may do something—"
"If he ever loved her—yes"—and Morgana smiled rather sadly—"But if he did not—if the love is all on her side—"
Ardini shrugged his shoulders.
"A great love is always on the woman's side,"—he said—"Men are too selfish to love perfectly. In this case, of course, there is no emotion, no sentiment of any sort left in the mere hulk of man. But still I will continue my work and do my best."
He left her then,—and she stood for a while alone, gazing far out to the blue sea and sunlight, scarcely seeing them for the half-unconscious tears that blinded her eyes. Suddenly a Ray, not of the sun, shot athwart the loggia and touched her with a deep gold radiance. She saw it and looked up, listening.
"Morgana!"
The Voice quivered along the Ray like the touched string of an aeolian harp. She answered it in almost a whisper—
"I hear!"
"You grieve for sorrows not your own," said the Voice—"And we love you for it. But you must not waste your tears on the errors of others. Each individual Spirit makes its own destiny, and no other but Itself can help Itself. You are one of the Chosen and Beloved!—You must fulfil the happiness you have created for your own soul! Come to us soon!" A thrill of exquisite joy ran through her.
"I will!" she said—"When my duties here are done."
The golden Ray decreased in length and brilliancy, and finally died away in a fine haze mingling with the air. She watched it till it vanished,—then with a sense of relief from her former sadness, she went into the house to see Manella. The girl had risen from her bed, and with the assistance of Lady Kingswood, who tended her with motherly care, had been arrayed in a loose white woollen gown, which, carelessly gathered round her, intensified by contrast the striking beauty of her dark eyes and hair, and ivory pale skin. As Morgana entered the room she smiled, her small even teeth gleaming like tiny pearls in the faint rose of her pretty mouth, and stretched out her hand.
"What has he said to you?" she asked—"Tell me! Is he not glad to see you?—to know he is with you?—safe with you in your home?"
Morgana sat down beside her.
"Dear Manella"—she answered, gently and with tenderest pity—"He does not know me. He knows nothing! He speaks a few words,—but he has no consciousness of what he is saying."
Manella looked at her wonderingly—
"Ah, that is because he is not himself yet"—she said—"The crash of the rocks—the pouring of the flood—this was enough to kill him—but he will recover in a little while and he will know you!—yes, he will know you, and he will thank God for life to see you!"
Her unselfish joy in the idea that the man she loved would soon recognise the woman he preferred to herself, was profoundly touching, and Morgana kissed the hand she held.
"Dear, I am afraid he will never know anything more in this world"—she said, sorrowfully—"Neither man nor woman! Nor can he thank God for a life which will be long, living death! Unless YOU can help him!"
"I?" and Manella's eyes dilated with brilliant eagerness; "I will give my life for his! What can I do?"
And then, with patient slowness and gentleness, little by little, Morgana told her all. Lady Kingswood, sitting in an arm-chair near the window, worked at her embroidery, furtive tears dropping now and again on the delicate pattern, as she heard the details of the tragic verdict given by one of Europe's greatest medical scientists on the hopelessness of ever repairing the damage wrought by the shock which had shaken a powerful brain into ruins. But it was wonderful to watch Manella's face as she listened. Sorrow, pity, tenderness, love, all in turn flashed their heavenly radiance in her eyes and intensified her beauty, and when she had heard all, she smiled as some lovely angel might smile on a repentant soul. Her whole frame seemed to vibrate with a passion of unselfish emotion.
"He will be my care!" she said—"The good God has heard my prayers and given him to me to be all mine!" She clasped her hands in a kind of ecstasy, "My life is for him and him alone! He will be my little child!—this big, strong, poor broken man!—and I will nurse him back to himself,—I will watch for every little sign of hope!—he shall learn to see through my eyes—to hear through my ears—to remember all that he has forgotten!..." Her voice broke in a half sob. Morgana put an arm about her.
"Manella, Manella!" she said—"You do not know what you say—you cannot understand the responsibility—it would make you a prisoner for life—"
"Oh, I understand!" and Manella shook back her dark hair with the little proud, decisive gesture characteristic of her temperament—"Yes!—and I wish to be so imprisoned! If we had not been rescued by you, we should have died together!—now you will help us to live together! Will you not? You are a little white angel—a fairy!—yes!—to me you are!—your heart is full of unspent love! You will let me stay with him always—always?—As his nurse?—his servant?—his slave?"
Morgana looked at her tenderly, touched to the quick by her eagerness and her beauty, now intensified by the glow of excitement which gave a roseate warmth to her cheeks and deeper darkness to her eyes. All ignorant and unsuspecting as she was of the world's malignity and cruel misjudgments, how could it be explained to her that a woman of such youth and loveliness, electing to dwell alone with a man, even if the man were a hopeless paralytic, would make herself the subject of malicious comment and pitiless scandal! Some reflection of this feeling showed itself in the expression of Morgana's face while she hesitated to answer, holding the girl's hand in her own and stroking it affectionately the while. Manella, gazing at her as a worshipper might gaze at a sacred picture, instinctively divined her thought.
"Ah? I know what you would say!" she exclaimed, "That I might bring shame to him by my companionship—always—yes!—that is possible!—wicked people would talk of him and judge him wrongly—"
"Oh, Manella, dear!" murmured Morgana—"Not him—not him—but YOU!"
"Me?" She tossed back her wealth of hair, and smiled—"What am I? Just a bit of dust in his path! I am nothing at all! I do not care what anybody says or thinks of ME!—what should it matter! But see!—to save HIM—let me be his wife!"
"His wife!" Morgana repeated the words in amazement, and Lady Kingswood, laying down her work, gazed at the two beautiful women, the one so spiritlike and fair, the other so human and queenly, in a kind of stupefaction, wondering if she had heard aright.
"His wife! Yes!"... Manella spoke with a thrill of exultation in her voice,—and she caught Morgana's hand and kissed it fondly—"His wife! It is the only way I can be his slave-woman! Let me marry him while he knows nothing, so that I may have the right to wait upon him and care for him! He shall never know! For—if he comes to himself again—please God he will!—as soon as that happens I will go away at once. He will never know!—he shall never learn who it is that has cared for him! You see? I shall never be really his wife—nor he my husband—only in name. And then—when he comes out of the darkness—when he is strong and well once more, he will go to YOU!—you whom he loves—"
Morgana silenced her by a gesture which was at once commanding and sweetly austere.
"Dear girl, he never loved me!" she said, gently—"He has always loved himself. Yes!—you know that as well as I do! Once—I fancied I loved HIM—but now I know my way of love is not his. Let us say no more of it! You wish to be his wife? Do you think what that means? He will never know he is your husband—never recognise you,—your life will be sacrificed to a helpless creature whose brain is gone—who will be unconscious of your care and utterly irresponsive. Oh, sweet, TOO loving Manella!—you must not pledge the best years of your youth and beauty to such a destiny!"
Manella's dark eyes flashed with passionate ardour and enthusiasm.
"I must—I must!" she said—"It is the work God gives me to do! Do you not see how it is with me? It is my one love—the best of my heart!—the pulse of my life! Youth and beauty!—what are they without him? Ill or well, he is all I care for, and if I may not care for him I will die! It is quite easy to die—to make an end!—but if there is any youth or beauty to spend, it will be better to spend it on love than in death! My white angel, listen and be patient with me! You ARE patient but still be more so!—you know there will be none in the world to care for him!—ah!—when he was well and strong he said that love would weary him—he did not think he would ever be helpless and ill!—ah, no!—but a broken brain is put away—out of sight—to be forgotten like a broken toy! He was at work on some wonderful invention—some great secret!—it will never be known now—not a soul will ever ask what has become of it or of him! The world does not care what becomes of anyone—it has no sympathy. Only those who love greatly have any pity!"
She clasped her hands and lifted them in an attitude of prayer, laying them against Morgana's breast.
"You will let me have my way—surely you will?" she pleaded—"You are a little angel of mercy, unlike any other woman I ever saw—so white and pure and sweet!—you understand it all! In his dreadful weakness and loneliness, God gives him to ME!—happy me, who am young and strong enough to care for him and attend upon him. I have no money,—perhaps he has none either, but I will work to keep him,—I am clever at my needle—I can embroider quite well—and I will manage to earn enough for us both." Her voice broke in a sob, and Morgana, the tears falling from her own eyes, drew her into a close embrace.
And she murmured plaintively again—
"His wife!—I must be his wife,—his serving-woman—then no one can forbid me to be with him! You will find some good priest to say the marriage service for us and give us God's benediction—it will mean nothing to him, because he cannot know or understand,—but to me it will be a holy sacrament!"
Then she broke down and wept softly till the pent-up passion of her heart was relieved, and Morgana, mastering her own emotion, had soothed her into quietude. Leaning back from her arm-chair where she had rested since rising from her bed, she looked up with an anxious appeal in her lovely eyes.
"Let me tell you something before I forget it again"—she said—"It is something terrible—the earthquake."
"Yes, yes, do not think of it now"—said Morgana, hastily, afraid that her mind would wander into painful mazes of recollection—"That is all over."
"Ah, yes! But you should know the truth! It was NOT an earthquake!" she persisted—"It was not God's doing! It was HIS work!"
And she indicated by a gesture the next room where Roger Seaton lay.
A cold horror ran through Morgana's blood. HIS work!—the widespread ruin of villages and townships,—the devastation of a vast tract of country—the deaths of hundreds of men, women and little children—HIS work? Could it be possible? She stood transfixed,—while Manella went on—
"I know it was his work!" she said—"I was warned by a friend of his who came to 'la Plaza' that he was working at something which might lose him his life. And so I watched. I told you how I followed him that morning—how I saw him looking at a box full of shining things that glittered like the points of swords,—how he put this box in a case and then in a basket, and slung the basket over his shoulder, and went down into the canon, and then to the cave where I found him. I called him—he heard, and held up a miner's lamp and saw me!—then—then, oh, dear God!—then he cursed me for following him,—he raised his arm to strike me, and in his furious haste to reach me he slipped on the wet, mossy stones. Something fell from his hand with a great crash like thunder—and there was a sudden glare of fire!—oh, the awfulness of that sound and that flame!—and the rocks rose up and split asunder—the ground shook and broke under me—and I remember no more—no more till I found myself here!—here with you!"
Morgana roused herself from the stupefaction of horror with which she had listened to this narration.
"Do not think of it any more!" she said in a low sad voice—"Try to forget it all. Yes, dear!—try to forget all the mad selfishness and cruelty of the man you love! Poor, besotted soul!—he has a bitter punishment!"
She could say no more then,—stooping, she kissed the girl on the white forehead between the rippling waves of dark hair, and strove to meet the searching eyes with a smile.
"Dear, beautiful angel, you will help me?" Manella pleaded—"You will help me to be his wife?"
And Morgana answered with pitiful tenderness.
"I will!"
And with a sign to Lady Kingswood to come nearer and sit by the girl as she lay among her pillows more or less exhausted, she herself left the room. As she opened the door on her way out, the strong voice of Roger Seaton rang out with singularly horrible harshness—
"There shall be no more wars! There can be none! I say it! My great secret! I am master of the world!"
Shuddering as she heard, she pressed her hands over her ears and hurried along the corridor. Her thoughts paraphrased the saying of Madame Roland on Liberty—"Oh, Science! what crimes are committed in thy name!" She was anxious to see and speak with Professor Ardini, but came upon the Marchese Rivardi instead, who met her at the door of the library and caught her by both hands.
"What is all this?" he demanded, insistently—"I MUST speak to you! You have been weeping! What is troubling you?"
She drew her hands gently away from his.
"Nothing, Giulio!" and she smiled kindly—"I grieve for the griefs of others—quite uselessly!—but I cannot help it!"
"There is no hope, then?" he said.
"None—not for the man"—she replied—"His body will live,—but his brain is dead."
Rivardi gave an expressive gesture.
"Horrible! Better he should die!"
"Yes, far better! But the girl loves him. She is an ardent Spanish creature—warm-hearted and simple as a child,—she believes"—and Morgana's eyes had a pathetic wistfulness—"she believes,—as all women believe when they love for the first time,—that love has a divine power next to that of God!—that it will work miracles of recovery when all seems lost. The disillusion comes, of course, sooner or later,—but it has to come of itself—not through any other influence. She—Manella Soriso—has resolved to be his wife."
"Gran' Dio!" Rivardi started back in utter amazement—"His wife?—That girl? Young, beautiful? She will chain herself to a madman? Surely you will not allow it!"
Morgana looked at him with a smile.
"Poor Giulio!" she said, softly—"You are a most unfortunate descendant of your Roman ancestors as far as we women are concerned! You fall in love with me—and you find I am not for you!—then you see a perfectly lovely woman whom you cannot choose but admire—and a little stray thought comes flying into your head—yes!—quite involuntarily!—that perhaps—only perhaps—her love might come your way! Do not be angry, my friend!—it was only a thought that moved you when you saw her the other day—when I called you to look at her as she recovered consciousness and lay on her bed like a sleeping figure of the loveliest of pagan goddesses! What man could have seen her thus without a thrill of tenderness!—and now you have to hear that all that beauty and warmth of youthful life is to be sacrificed to a stone idol!—(for the man she worships is little more!) ah, yes!—I am sorry for you, Giulio!—but can do nothing to prevent the sacrifice,—indeed, I have promised to assist it!"
Rivardi had alternately flushed and paled while she spoke,—her keen, incisive probing of his most secret fancies puzzled and vexed him,—but with a well-assumed indifference he waved aside her delicately pointed suggestions as though he had scarcely heard them, and said—
"You have promised to assist? Can you reconcile it to your conscience to let this girl make herself a prisoner for life?"
"I can!" she answered quietly—"For if she is opposed in her desire for such imprisonment she will kill herself. So it is wisest to let her have her way. The man she loves so desperately may die at any moment, and then she will be free. But meanwhile she will have the consolation of doing all she can for him, and the hope of helping him to recover; vain hope as it may be, there is a divine unselfishness in it. For she says that if he is restored to health she will go away at once and never let him know she is his wife."
Rivardi's handsome face expressed utter incredulity.
"Will she keep her word I wonder?"
"She will!"
"Marvellous woman!" and there was bitterness in his tone—"But women are all amazing when you come to know them! In love? in hate, in good, in evil, in cleverness and in utter stupidity, they are wonderful creatures! And you, amica bella, are perhaps the most wonderful of them all! So kind and yet so cruel!"
"Cruel?" she echoed.
"Yes! To me!"
She looked at him and smiled. That smile gave such a dreamy, spiritlike sweetness to her whole personality that for the moment she seemed to float before him like an aerial vision rather than a woman of flesh and blood, and the bold desire which possessed him to seize and clasp her in his arms was checked by a sense of something like fear. Her eyes rested on his with a full clear frankness.
"If I am cruel to you, my friend"—she said, gently, "it is only to be more kind!"
She left him then and went out. He saw her small, elfin figure pass among the chains of roses which at this season seemed to tie up the garden in brilliant knots of colour, and then go down the terraces, one by one, towards the monastic retreat half buried among pine and olive, where Don Aloysius governed his little group of religious brethren.
He guessed her intent.
"She will tell him all"—he thought—"And with his strange semi-religious, semi-scientific notions, it will be easy for her to persuade him to marry the girl to this demented creature who fills the house with his shouting 'There shall be no more wars!' I should never have thought her capable of tolerating such a crime!"
He turned to leave the loggia,—but paused as he perceived Professor Ardini advancing from the interior of the house, his hands clasped behind his back and his furrowed brows bent in gloomy meditation.
"You have a difficult case?" he queried.
"More than difficult!" replied Ardini—"Beyond human skill! Perhaps not beyond the mysterious power we call God."
Rivardi shrugged his shoulders. He was a sceptic of sceptics and his modern-world experiences had convinced him that what man could not do was not to be done at all.
"The latest remedy proposed by the Signora is—love!" he said, carelessly—"The girl who is here,—Manella Soriso—has made up her mind to be the wife of this unfortunate—"
Ardini gave an expressive gesture.
"Altro! If she has made up her mind, heaven itself will not move her! It will be a sublime sacrifice of one life for another,—what would you? Such sacrifices are common, though the world does not hear of them. In this instance there is no one to prevent it."
"You approve—you tolerate it?" exclaimed Rivardi angrily.
"I have no power to approve or to tolerate"—replied the scientist, coldly—"The matter is not one in which I have any right to interfere. Nor,—I think,—have YOU!—I have stated such facts as exist—that the man's brain is practically destroyed—but that owing to the strength of the life-centres he will probably exist in his present condition for a full term of years. To keep him so alive will entail considerable care and expense. He will need a male nurse—probably two—food of the best and absolutely tranquil surroundings. If the Signora, who is rich and generous, guarantees these necessities, and the girl who loves him desires to be his wife under such terrible conditions, I do not see how anyone can object to the marriage."
"Then he poor devil of a man will be married without his knowledge, and probably (if he had his senses) against his will!" said Rivardi.
Ardini bent his brows yet more frowningly.
"Just so!" he answered—"But he has neither knowledge nor will—nor is he likely ever to have them again. These great attributes of the god in man have been taken from him. Power and Will!—Will and Power!—the two wings of the Soul!—they are gone, probably for ever. Science can do nothing to bring them back, but I will not deny the possibility of other forces which might work a remedy on this ruin of a 'master of the world' as he calls himself! Therefore I say let the love-woman try her best!"