"What evil fate kept him alive all that time?" the Professor muttered under his breath. "Men are buried deep who pass within the walls of an Italian prison. What had kept this frail old man alive?" Before the night was over, he knew!
The Professor sat on the edge of his chair, limp and dejected. He was quite powerless to frame any speech of welcome or congratulation. Fortunately, it was not expected. His visitor was deep in thought, and some time passed before he appeared even to notice the presence of Signor Bartlezzi. At last, however, he looked up and spoke.
"I fear that all things have not gone well with us!" he said sadly. "On my release, I visited the old home of our society in the Piazza di Spiola at Rome. It was broken up. I met with no one who could tell me anything about it. It was doubtless because I knew not where to go; but I had fancied—I had hoped—that there might have been some one whose memory would not have been altogether dulled by time, who would have come to meet me at the prison gates, and welcome me back into the living world once more. But that is nothing. Doubtless the day of my release was unknown. It was the hot season at Rome, and I wandered wearily about, seeing no familiar face, and unable to hear anything of our friends. I might have had patience and lingered, but it seemed to me that I had been patient so long—it was all exhausted. From there I went to Florence, with the same result. At last I came to London, and by making cautious inquiries through my bank, I discovered your address. So I have come here."
"Ah, yes, yes," answered the Professor, with blinking eyes, and still completely bewildered. "You have come here. Just so. Just so."
"The numbers have fallen off, I suppose? Yet you still have meetings?"
"Oh, yes; certainly. We still have meetings," the Professor assented spasmodically.
The little old man nodded his head gravely. He had never doubted it.
"When is the next?" he asked, with the first touch of eagerness creeping into his voice.
Signor Bartlezzi felt a cold perspiration on his forehead, and slowly mopped it with a red cotton handkerchief. The calmness of despair was settling down upon him. "He must know," he thought. "Better get it over."
"To-night," he answered, "in an hour—perhaps before. They'll be dropping in directly."
"Ah!" It was a long-drawn and significant monosyllable. The Count rose to his feet, and commenced pacing the room. Already its meanness was forgotten, its narrow walls had expanded. The day of his desire had come. "What are your numbers now?" he asked.
The Professor drew a long breath, and kept his eyes fixed upon his visitor. The thing was narrowing down.
"Four," he answered; "four besides myself."
The Count started and appeared perplexed.
"Four on the acting committee, you mean, I suppose?" he suggested. "Four is the old number."
The Professor shook his head doggedly.
"Four altogether," he repeated.
The old man's eyes flashed, but the angry light died almost immediately away. After all, there might be grave reasons, of which he was ignorant, for restricting the number.
"Four desperate and brave men may be much," he mused, half aloud. "One will do enough for my purpose."
There was a ghastly humor in that speech which was nearly too much for Signor Bartlezzi. He was within an ace of collapsing, but he saved himself by a quick glance at that worn old man. His visitor was living in the light of five-and-twenty years ago. The awakening would come. It was at hand.
"Signor Bartlezzi," the Count said, pausing suddenly in his restless walk, "I have a confession to make."
"So had he," Signor Bartlezzi mused, though his would keep.
"Proceed," he begged, with a wave of his hand and a touch of his old bombast, which had collapsed so suddenly. "Proceed, I am all attention."
The Count stood in the middle of the room, with his left hand thrust into the bosom of his coat, and the right stretched out toward the Professor. It was his old attitude of bygone days into which he had unconsciously fallen, but his expression was no longer threatening, and his voice, though indeed it quivered, was free from the passion and fire of his youth. He was apologetic now, rather than denunciatory. It was a great change.
"You will doubtless imagine, Signor Bartlezzi," he said, "from my presence here, from my seeking you out immediately upon my release, that the old fires burn still in my heart; that my enthusiasm for the cause still survives the chill of five-and-twenty years. Alas! that I should confess it, but it is not so!"
"Then what the mischief does he want here?" mused the Professor. "An account of his money, I suppose. Oh, damn those meddlesome Italians who set him free."
"I am sorry, but it is natural," he remarked aloud, wagging his head sagely. "Five-and-twenty years is a devil of a time!"
"You will not misunderstand me, Professor," he went on almost pleadingly. "You will not imagine for one moment that the 'Order of the White Hyacinth' and everything connected with it, is not still dear to me, very dear. I am an old man, and my time for usefulness is past. Yet there is one demand which I have to make of the association which I have faithfully served and suffered for. Doubtless you know full well what I mean. Will you hear it now, or shall I wait and lay it before the meeting to-night?"
"The latter, by all means," begged the Professor hastily. "They wouldn't like it if you told me first. They'd feel hurt, I'm sure."
The Count bowed his head.
"So be it, then," he said gravely.
There was a short silence. The Professor, with his thumbs in his waistcoat, gazed fixedly down the street.
"I don't see why they shouldn't share the storm," he mused. "He's small, but he looks as though he might be awkward. I would very much rather Martello and the others were here; Martello is a strong man."
There was a knock at the outside door, and Signor Bartlezzi peered through the window.
"There they are!" he exclaimed. "I'll go and let them in myself. It would be better to prepare them for your presence. Excuse me."
His visitor bowed, and resumed his seat.
"I await the pleasure of the Council," he said with dignity.
The Count was left to himself in the bare, untidy-looking parlor, and for a minute or two he was content to sit quite still and recover himself after the unaccustomed exertion of speech. He needed all his strength for what lay before him, but, by degrees, his restlessness grew. He rose from his chair and paced up and down in increasing excitement—his misgivings were growing fainter—he worked himself up into the firm belief that the day for which he had waited so long was at hand.
"They dare not deny me!" he cried, lifting his hands high above his head until they almost touched the smoke-begrimed ceiling; "it is my due, my just reward!"
He was so absorbed that he did not hear the noises outside—the shuffling of feet, and, after a while, a brief suppressed tittering. Signor Bartlezzi, who had entered the room quietly, had to speak twice before he was conscious of his presence.
"They are in the room behind, Signor Count, and I have informed them of your presence," he announced.
The Count drew himself up, and stopped suddenly short in his restless walk.
"Good!" he exclaimed. "Lead the way! I follow."
Together they passed into the narrow passage, and the Professor threw open the door of another room. The Count entered.
The Professor had done what he could in the short time at his disposal. Pens and ink had been placed upon the deal table, and the chairs had been ranged along it instead of around the fire. The tobacco jar and pipes were there, however, and some suspicious-looking jugs; and the hasty current of fresh air, caused by the withdrawal of a sheet of brown paper from the upper window frame, was altogether powerless to cope with the close beer-house smell which hung about the place.
The company consisted of four men. The chair at the head of the table had been left vacant for the Professor. On the right sat Andrew Martello, an anglicized Italian, and a vendor of ice cream; on the left was Pietro Muratti, the proprietor of an itinerant musical instrument. These were the only two, besides the Professor, who had any pretense to Italian blood. The other two were a French barber and a Jew pawnbroker.
The light was purposely dim, and the Count's eyes were bad. Besides, his long confinement, and the great though suppressed excitement under which he was laboring, had to a certain extent confused his judgment. He saw a mean room, and four men only, when he had dreamed of a chamber in some great house and an important assemblage; but, disappointing though this was, it did not seem fatal to his hopes. Let but these four men be faithful to their oaths, and he, who had served their cause so well, could demand as a right the boon he craved. He strove earnestly to read their faces, but the light was bad and his eyes were dim. He must wait. Their voices would show him what manner of men they were. After all, why should he doubt for a moment? Men who had remained faithful to a dying and deserted cause, must needs be men of strength and honorable men. The very fewness of their numbers proved it, else why should they too not have fallen away. He would banish all doubt. He would speak when his time came with all confidence.
The Professor introduced him with all solemnity, casting an appealing glance at each in turn, as though begging them to accept this matter seriously. There was just a slender thread of hope still, and he did not intend to abandon it.
"Gentlemen," he said, "I have the honor to present to you the Count Leonardo di Marioni, a martyr, as you all know, to our cause. Count Marioni was, only last week, released from an imprisonment which has lasted for five-and-twenty years."
They all looked at him curiously—a little compassionately, but none of them were quite sure how to acknowledge the salutation. The Jew alone stood up and made a shuffling little bow; the others remained silent except the little French barber, who murmured something about pleasure and acquaintance, which the Professor promptly frowned down. The Count, who had remained standing, advanced to the bottom of the table, and, laying his trembling hands upon it, spoke:
"Gentlemen and Brothers of the Order of the White Hyacinth," he said solemnly, "I am glad to meet you."
The Frenchman and the Italian Muratti exchanged expressive winks. The vendor of ice cream growled across the table for the bird's-eye, and commenced leisurely filling his pipe, while the Jew ventured upon a feeble "hear, hear."
"My name is doubtless known to you," the Count continued, "and the story of my life, which, I am proud to remember, is closely interwoven with the history of your Order. Your faces, alas! are strange to me. My old comrades, whom, I had hoped to meet, and whose sympathy I had counted on, are no more. I feel somewhat as though I had stepped out of the shadows of a bygone life, and everything is a little strange to me. I have grown unaccustomed even to speech itself. You must pardon me if I do not make myself understood with ease. The past seems very, very far away."
By this time all the pipes were lit, and the mugs were filled. The smoke hung round the little assembly in a faint cloud, and the atmosphere was growing dense. The Count looked a little puzzled, but he only hesitated for a moment. He remembered that he was in England, and the habits of foreigners were not easy to grow accustomed to. It was a small matter, although he wished that the odor of the tobacco had not been quite so rank. When he resumed speaking, however, it was forgotten in a moment.
"I must ask you to bear with me in a certain confession which I am about to make," he continued. "I am not here to-night to inquire or in any way to concern myself in the political prospects of our Order. Alas! that the time should come when I should find myself calmly acknowledging that my country's sorrows were mine no longer. But, comrades, I must claim from you your generous consideration. Five-and-twenty years is a long time. I have lost my touch of history. My memory—I must confess it—my memory itself is weak. I do not doubt that, small though your numbers be, you are nobly carrying on the work in which I, too, once bore a part. I do not doubt but that you are laboring still in the glorious cause of liberty. But I am with you no longer; my work on earth for others, such as it has been, is accomplished. I do not come to aid or to join you. Alas! that I should say it, I, Leonardo di Marioni, whose life was once so closely bound up with your prosperity as the breath of a man is to his body. But it is so. I am stranded upon the wreck of my past, and I can only call upon you with a far-distant voice for my own salvation."
There was a distinct air of relief. The vendor of ice cream spat upon the floor, and, in response to a frown from the Professor, at once covered it with his foot. The Professor drew his hand thoughtfully down his chin. They were approaching thecruxof the whole matter.
"We regret it deeply, Count," he said solemnly. "In that case the small trifle of money which the London agents of your bank have placed to our credit yearly on your behalf for the cause, and which has regularly been used for the—er—necessary expenses—er——"
The Count stretched out his hand.
"It is nothing," he answered. "Why should you mention it? That and more, too, the Order is welcome to. I doubt not that it has been well used."
"It has!" they cried, with one voice.
"A drop more beer, and a bottle of bran——"
The ice vendor never finished his sentence. A furious kick from the Professor, under the table, reminded him that he was on dangerous grounds, and he desisted, rubbing his leg and growling.
The Count scarcely heeded the interruption. His whole form was shaking with eagerness; his bony, white hands were outstretched toward his four listeners. For five-and-twenty years he had dreamed of this.
"No, my appearance once more before you, comrades, brothers, has no such petty object!" he cried. "I am here to demand my rights as a member of the Order of the White Hyacinth. I am here to remind you of our great principle—vengeance upon traitors! I am here to remind you of your unchanging oaths, and to claim your fulfillment of them, even as Francesco Dellia pleaded, and not in vain, before the council at Rome thirty years ago. We are a society of peace, save alone where traitors are concerned. I point out to you a traitor, and I cry—punishment!"
The Professor knitted his brows, and his hopes suddenly fell. They all exchanged glances.
"Old buffer's dotty," whispered the Jew to his neighbor, tapping his head significantly.
The musical gentleman nodded.
"Let's hear what it's all about, anyhow," muttered the ice-cream vendor, tapping the table.
There was silence at once. They all turned toward the Count, and waited.
He had not been disappointed in their silence. It seemed to him like the prudent reserve of true conspirators. They wished to hear his case, and, as yet, he had only reached the preamble. Good! they should hear it.
"You all know that I was arrested and thrown into prison because I broke what they choose to call my parole—because, after the sentence of banishment had been passed upon me, I returned to my native country, and took part once more in the counsels of our Order. But you have yet to learn this, comrades; you have yet to learn that I was betrayed, foully, wilfully—betrayed into the clutches of the Italian police. Before my very eyes papers of our society incriminating me were placed in the hand of our enemy, Signor Villesco, by one who had sworn our oaths in the first degree and worn our flower. At your hands I call for vengeance upon my betrayers—vengeance upon Adrienne di Cartuccio, calling herself Lady St. Maurice, vengeance upon her husband, her family, and all belonging to her. It is the first decree of our Order, which all of you have sworn to, and I stand within my rights. Answer, comrades of the Order of the White Hyacinth! For your sake I have languished five-and-twenty years in a Roman prison. With you it rests to sweeten my death. By your oaths, I charge you, give me vengeance!"
His eyes were flashing, and his features, for the first time, were convulsed with anxiety. What meant this unsympathetic silence, this lack of enthusiasm? He looked from one to another of their stolid, puzzled faces. Where were the outstretched hands, the deep solemn oaths, the cry for lots to be drawn, which he had confidently expected? Their silence was driving him mad. Suddenly the ice-cream vendor spoke.
"What is it you want, gaffer?" he asked, without removing his pipe from his mouth. "Cursed if I can see what you're driving at, or any of us, for that matter."
"What is it I want?" he cried passionately. "The life of my betrayer, or such a mark of my vengeance as will make her rue the day she sent one of your Order to work out his life, a miserable captive, in a prison cell. Is it not clear what I want? Speak, all of you! Do you grudge me this thing? Do you hesitate?"
The vendor of ice cream constituted himself the spokesman of the little party. He knocked the dead ashes from his pipe, and leisurely refilled it. The little old man at the bottom of the table was shaking with anxiety. The thunderbolt quivered in the air.
"That's all bally rot, you know, guv'nor," he said calmly. "We ain't murderers here! This White Hyacinth crew as you're a-talking of must a been a blood-thirsty lot o' chaps. We ain't on that track. We meets here just for a drop and a smoke, sociable like, with our friend the Professor, and forms a sort of a club like among hourselves. You've come to the wrong shop!"
The man's words, blunt and unfeeling, answered their purpose well. They left no possibility of doubt or misunderstanding. The Count, after a moment's wild stare around, tottered, and sank into a chair. All that had seemed strange to him was suddenly clear. His head fell upon his arms, and he crouched there motionless. The hopes of five-and-twenty years were wrecked. The spark which had left him alive had died out! The Order of the White Hyacinth was no more!
There was a distinct and terrible pathos in the scene. Even those rough, coarse men, casting uneasy glances at that white, bowed head and crouching figure at the head of the table, and listening to his low moaning, were conscious of a vague pity. They thought of him as of some wandering lunatic who had strayed in upon them; and, indeed, none of them, except the Professor, doubted but that he was mad.
He looked up at last, and the ice-cream vendor, who was not a bad sort at heart, poured out a mugful of the unwholesome-looking beer, and pushed it across the table toward him.
"Here, guv'nor, drink this," he said gruffly; "it'll do you good. Cheer up, old buck! I should. What's done can't be undone, and what's dead can't be brought to life again. Make the best of it, I say. You've got some of the ready left, I'll go bail, and you ain't too old to get a bit out o' life yet—if yer make haste. And about that blood-thirsty talk of yours, about vengeance and such like, you just take my tip and chuck it. We think more of life here than they does in furrin parts, and hangin' ain't a pleasant death. Take my tip, guv'nor, you chuck it!"
The Count pushed the mug away, and rose to his feet. He had not heard a word. There was a terrible buzzing in his head and ears.
"I am a foolish old man, I fear," he said unsteadily. "I ought to have considered. Five-and-twenty-years! Ah, yes, it is a long time ago. Professor, will you send your servant for a carriage? I will go away."
He stood quite still, talking softly to himself, with the tips of his fingers still resting lightly upon the table, and a far-away look in his eyes. Signor Bartlezzi himself ran hatless to the nearest cabstand, and in a few minutes the rattle of a vehicle was heard outside, and the Professor returned breathless. The Count rose at once.
"I wish you good-night, gentlemen," he said mildly. "You have been very patient with me. Five-and-twenty years! It is a long while—a long while! Five-and-twenty years! Good-evening, gentlemen. Professor, I will take your arm to the door. My sight is a—little dim. Thank you. How dark it is. The Hotel Continental, if you please. Thank you, Professor."
And so he went away.
For three days Count Leonardo di Marioni abode in his sitting-room at the Hotel Continental, living the life of a man in a dream. So far as the outside world was concerned, it was a complete case of suspended animation. Of all that passed around him he was only dimly conscious. The faces of his fellow creatures were strange to him. He had lost touch with the world, and the light of his reason was flickering; almost it seemed as though it would go out indeed, and leave him groping in the chaos of insanity. Mechanically he rose late in the morning, ate what was brought to him, or ordered what was suggested. All day long he sat in a sort of dreamless apathy, living still the life of the last five-and-twenty years, and finding no change, save that the chair in which he sat was softer, and the fire over which he stretched his withered palms was a new experience to him. There were things even which he missed in the freedom—if freedom it could be called. He missed the warm dancing sunlight which, day by day, had filled the shabby sitting-room of his confinement. He missed that patch of deep blue sky seen through his high, barred window, and the fragrant scents of the outside world which, day by day, had floated through it. He missed the kindly greeting of his pitying gaoler, and the simple food—the macaroni, the black coffee, and the fruit—which had been served to him; and above all, there was something else which he missed.
For through all his apathy he was conscious of a great sickening disappointment, something gone out of his life which had helped him, day by day, through all that weary imprisonment. Dear to his heart had grown that hope of standing one day before the masters of his Order, and claiming, as his rightful due, vengeance upon those whose word had sent him into captivity. Dear to his memory and treasured among his thoughts had grown that hope. In his prison house he had grown narrower; other thoughts and purposes had faded away. That one only remained, growing stronger and stronger day by day, until it had seized hold of his whole being. He lived only through it and with it.
Given some soul-absorbing purpose, some cherished end, however dimly seen through the mists of futurity, and a man may preserve his reason through the longest captivity; while, day by day, his narrowing life contracts till all conscience, all hope, all sentiment, become the slaves of that one passionate desire. Day by day, it looms larger before him; day by day, all doubts concerning it grow weaker, and the justice of it becomes clearer and more unquestioned. Right and wrong, justice and injustice, according to other men's standards, have no power over it in his own thoughts. His moral sense slumbers. So deeply has it become grafted into his life, that he no more questions its right to exist than he does the presence of the limbs upon his body. As surely as the night follows day, so surely does his whole being gravitate toward the accomplishment of his desire. It is a part of what is left of his life, and if it is smitten, his life is smitten. They are at once sympathetic and identical, so closely entwined that to sever them is death to both.
Thus it was with Count Marioni, and thus it was that, day by day, he sat in his sitting-room slowly pining to death. Rude feet had trampled upon the desire of his life, and the wound was open and bleeding. Only a little while longer and he would have turned upon his side with a sigh, and yielded up his last breath; and, so far as his numbed faculties could have conceived a thought, death would have seemed very pleasant to him. He was dying of loneliness, of disappointment and despair.
The people at the hotel had made several attempts to rouse him, but in vain. He answered no questions, and in his quiet way resented intrusion. He paid whatever was demanded, and he gave no trouble. The manager, who knew his history from a short cutting in a newspaper which had chronicled his arrival in London, was at his wits' end to know how to save him. He had once endeavored to reason gently with his eccentric visitor, and he had been bidden quietly to leave the room. On his endeavoring to make one more appeal, the Count had risen quietly and pointed to the door.
"I wish only to be left in peace," he said, with a touch of dignity in his sad, calm manner. "If you cannot do that I will go away to another hotel. Choose!"
The manager had bowed and withdrawn in silence. But he was a kind-hearted man, and he was still troubled about the matter. Day by day the Count was growing weaker; before long he would doubtless die from sheer distaste of living as much as from any actual disease. Something ought to be done toward communicating with his friends, if he had any. With a certain amount of reluctance, the manager, as a last resource, penned the following advertisement and sent it to the principal London papers:
"If there are any friends or relatives still alive of Count Leonardo di Marioni, who has recently been set free by the Italian Government after a long term of imprisonment, they are requested to communicate, personally, if possible, with the manager of the Hotel Continental, where the Count is now lying dangerously ill."
"If there are any friends or relatives still alive of Count Leonardo di Marioni, who has recently been set free by the Italian Government after a long term of imprisonment, they are requested to communicate, personally, if possible, with the manager of the Hotel Continental, where the Count is now lying dangerously ill."
At four o'clock on the afternoon of the following day, an open barouche, drawn by a pair of magnificent bay horses, drove up to the door of the Hotel Continental. The manager, who was standing at the window of his private room, noticed two things—first, that there was a coronet upon the carriage door; and secondly, that the lady who was alighting carried in her hand a copy of theMorning Postturned down, as though to mark a certain place in it.
As she crossed the pavement he had a better view of her face, and recognized her with a little start of surprise. In a moment he was outside, and on the steps to receive her, an attention he very rarely bestowed upon his guests.
The swing doors opened and closed, and the lady, with the paper still in her hand, turned to the manager.
"Do you know anything about this paragraph?" she asked, touching it with her delicately-gloved forefinger. "The one, I mean, which concerns the Count di Marioni?"
"Certainly, your ladyship," he answered. "I inserted it myself."
"He is still here, I suppose?"
"He is, your ladyship. I do not know whether you will consider that I acted wisely in taking such a step, but I could see no alternative. He arrived here alone about a fortnight ago, and at that time there seemed to be nothing singular about him excepting his clothing, and a certain nervousness which the servants marked in his manner, and which we can scarcely wonder at, considering his painful history and recent return to—er—civilized ways. He left the hotel almost immediately after engaging his room, and was away, I believe, for several hours. I chanced to be in the hall on his return, and was struck by the change in his appearance. Your ladyship, I never saw a man on whose face was written such dumb and helpless agony. He went straight to his room, and since then has never left it. He is simply pining to death there. He neither eats, nor drinks, nor speaks. He sits there, with his eyes fixed upon the fire, like a man waiting for his end. I ventured to visit him one morning, but my attempts at remonstrance were cut short at once in a most dignified fashion. I feel that it would be heartless to ask him to leave the hotel; but, at the same time, if he remains, and continues in the same way, he will certainly either die or go mad very shortly. What he wants is the personal care of friends, and very kind treatment; and as I could think of no other way of communication with them, I decided to advertise his presence here. I trust that your ladyship does not think my interference officious?"
He bowed his head, and turned away out of respect for the tears which he could see in her eyes, and which she made scarcely an effort to conceal.
"No; you did quite right," she said after a moment's pause. "I was waiting for my husband outside the club, and quite by chance I took up thePostand saw your paragraph. I drove here at once. Will you show me to the Count's rooms, if you please?"
"Certainly, your ladyship. Will you come this way?"
She followed him up the fine marble staircase and down the first-floor corridor. At the extreme end he paused outside a door.
"It is of no use knocking," he said; "he never answers. If I can be of any further service, your ladyship will perhaps be so good as to ring the bell."
He opened the door for her, and closed it quietly as she entered. Then he retreated along the corridor, and returned to his room, wondering not a little at the visitor whom his advertisement had brought.
The great room in which the Count Marioni was sitting was almost in darkness, for the afternoon was dull and foggy, and the curtains were partially closed. There was no lamp lit, and the only light came from the brightly-burning fire near which the Count was sitting in an armchair ludicrously too large for his frail body. The flames fell upon his white, worn face, with its deep branding lines, and gleamed in his great sad eyes, so bright and dry that they seemed like mirrors for the firelight. His hair and short unkempt beard were as white as snow, matching even the unnatural pallor of his skin, and his black frock coat was buttoned across a chest which would have been narrow for a consumptive boy. He did, indeed, look on the threshold of death.
He had not turned his head at the opening or closing of the door, but presently another sound broke the silence. It was a woman's sob, and as he slowly turned his head, a tall, graceful figure moved forward out of the shadows, and he heard his name softly murmured.
"Leonardo!"
His hand went up to his forehead. Was it a dream; or was he indeed back once more in the days of his youth, back among the pine woods which topped his castle, walking side by side with her whose presence seemed to make the long summer days one sweet dream of delight? The familiar odor of violets and wild hyacinths seemed to fill the room. The fog-bound city, with its ceaseless roar, existed for him no longer. The sun of his own dear country warmed his heart, and the sea wind blew in his eager face. And she was there—his queen—the great desire of his weary life. All his pulses leaped with the joy of her presence. Five-and-twenty years of lonely misery were blotted out. Ah! memory is a wonderful magician!
"Leonardo! Will you not speak to me?"
Again that voice! Where was he now? Face to face with her on the sands at Palermo, deceived, betrayed, given over to the enemies of his country, and by her—the woman for whom his passionate love had been his sole crime. Listen! The air is full of that cry of threatened vengeance. Hark how the echoes ring back from the cliffs. "By the sun, and the sky, and the sea, and the earth, I swear that, as they continue unchanged and unchanging, so shall my hate for you remain!" Darkness—a prison cell. Year by year, year by year, darkness, solitude, misery! See the blade hair turn gray, the strength of manhood wasting away, the eye growing dim, the body weak. Year by year, year by year, it goes on. What was that scratched upon the whitewashed walls? What was the cry which rang back from the towering cliff! "Hate unchanging and unchanged!" The same—ever the same.
"Leonardo, have you no word for me?"
He rose slowly from his chair, and fixed his eyes upon her.
Before their fire she shrank back, appalled. Was it a storm about to burst upon her? No! The words were slow and few.
"You have dared to come—here; dared to come and look upon your handiwork! Away! Out of my sight! You have seen me. Go!"
Tears blinded her eyes. The sight of him was horrible to her. She forgot, in her great pity, that justice had been upon her side. She sank upon her knees before him on the velvet pile carpet.
"Leonardo, for the love of God, forgive me!" she sobbed. "Oh! it is painful to see you thus, and to know the burden of hate which you carry in your heart. Forgive me! Forgive us both!"
He stooped down until his ghastly face nearly touched hers.
"Curse you!" he muttered hoarsely. "You dare to look at me, and ask for forgiveness. Never! never! Every morning and night I curse you. I curse you when my mother taught me to pray. I live for nothing else. If I had the strength I would strangle you where you stand. Hell's curses and mine ring in your ears and sit in your heart day by day and night by night! Away with you! Away, away!"
She was a brave woman, but she fled from the room like a hunted animal, and passed out of the hotel with never a look to the right or to the left.
The manager came out to speak to her, but he stood still, aghast, and let her go without uttering a word or offering to assist her. As long as he lived he remembered the look on the Countess of St. Maurice's face as she came down those stairs, clutching hold of the banisters, and, with hasty trembling steps, left the hotel. He was a great reader of fiction, and he had heard of Irish banshees and Brahmin ghosts; but never a living story-teller had painted such a face as he looked upon at that moment.
Two days more passed without any change in the Count's conduct or health, save that his brow was a little darker, and he was heard occasionally muttering to himself.
On the morning of the third, a four-wheeled cab deposited at the door of the hotel a young lady, who demanded somewhat haughtily to see the manager. She was shown into the waiting-room, and in a few minutes he appeared.
He had been expecting a visit from an applicant for the post of assistant bookkeeper, and he entered the room with a little less than his usual ceremony, under the impression that this was she. He found himself confronted with a tall, slim girl, elegantly but simply dressed in plain black clothes. She carried herself with the dignity of a queen, and before the quick glance of her flashing black eyes he felt himself abashed into making a low bow. There was something foreign in her appearance, but something eminently aristocratic.
"Good-morning, madam."
She disdained to notice the salutation, and, holding out a paper toward him, pointed with her long slim finger to the advertisement column.
"I have come about this paragraph. Take me to him!"
"With the greatest pleasure, madam," he answered, bowing. "May I be permitted to ask, are you a relation of the Count's?"
"Certainly, I am his niece," she answered, frowning. "Take me to him at once. I don't choose to be kept waiting," she added impetuously.
The manager bit his lip, and bowed again to hide a smile. It seemed to him that if this young lady failed to rouse his eccentric visitor the task was hopeless indeed.
"Will you pardon me, madam, if I detain you one moment," he said deferentially. "I should like, before you see the Count, to explain to you the reasons which induced me to insert that notice in theTimes."
She tapped the floor impatiently with her foot.
"Be quick, then!"
"The Count arrived here on the first of the month, almost a fortnight ago. Immediately on his arrival he went out in a cab, and returned somewhat late at night, looking dazed and ill. From that moment he has not left his room, and we fear, madam, to be candid, that he is losing his reason. He declines to go out to see a physician; to write to his friends. It is pitiable to see him, especially when one considers his long and painful imprisonment, from which he has only just been released. He would not listen to any suggestions or advice from us, so it occurred to me to put that advertisement in the paper unknown to him. May I be pardoned if I beg of you not to mention the means by which you became aware of his presence here, or to simply state that you saw his arrival chronicled in the paper? He may regard our interference in the light of a liberty, although it was solely for his good."
"It was a liberty to take!" she answered coldly. "I will not promise anything. I dare say I shall not mention it."
"There is one thing more which I should tell you, madam," he continued. "Two days ago a visitor came to see him, having noticed in the paper, as you have done, the paragraph I inserted. I will not tell you her name, but she was one of the most beautiful and distinguished Englishwomen of our aristocracy, and from the manner of her departure, I could not help coming to the conclusion that the Count, by some means or other, had frightened her to death. She was nearly fainting as she came downstairs, and she has not been here since. I have no reason, beyond what I have told you, to doubt the Count's sanity, but I think that it is right for you to know this."
"Very well. I am not afraid. Kindly take me to him at once, now!" she directed.
He led her out of the apartment, and up the broad staircase. Outside the door of the Count's sitting-room he paused.
"Shall I announce you, madam?" he asked.
"No! Go away!" she answered shortly. "I wish to enter alone."
Count Marioni sat in his old attitude, brooding over the fire from the depths of his armchair, with a sad, vacant look in his dull eyes. At first he took no notice of the opening of the door, but as the light, smooth footsteps crossed the floor toward him and hesitated at his side, he glanced wearily up. In a moment his whole expression was changed. He was like a numbed and torpid figure suddenly galvanized into acute life.
He passed his hand swiftly across his eyes, and his thin fingers grasped the sides of his chair with nervous force. Ah! he must be dreaming again! It was one of the faces of the past, tempting and mocking him! Yet, no! she stood there; surely she stood there. Mother of God! Was this madness come at last?
"Margharita!" he cried, stretching out his hands toward her. "Margharita!"
It was no dream, then, nor was it madness. It was truth. There were loving, clinging arms around his neck, a passionate, weeping face pressed close against his. Hot tears, her tears, were tricking down his hollow cheeks, kindling his stagnant blood by their warmth, and thawing the apathetic chill whose icy hand had lain so heavy upon him. A sob escaped him. His eager, trembling fingers pushed back the clustering hair from her temples. He peered wonderingly into her face. It must be a vision; it would surely fade away, and leave him once more in the outer darkness. Five-and-twenty years had passed! She had been like this then! A sense of bewilderment crept in upon him.
"Margharita!" he exclaimed feebly. "I do not understand! You are Margharita; you have her hair, her eyes, her mouth! And yet, of course, it cannot be. Ah, no! it cannot be!"
"You are thinking of my mother," she cried softly. "She loved you so much. I am like her, am I not?"
"Married! Margharita married! Ah, of course! I had forgotten. And you are her child. My sister's child. Ah, five-and-twenty years is a long time."
"It is a shameful, cruel time," she cried passionately. "My mother used to tell me of it, when I was a little girl, and her voice would shake with anger and pity. Francesca, too, would talk to me about you. I prayed for you every evening when I was little, that they might soon set you free again. Oh, it was cruel!"
She threw her arms around his neck, and he rested his head upon her shoulder. It was like an elixir of life for him.
"And your mother, Margharita?" he asked fearfully.
"She is dead," was the low reply.
"Ah! Margharita dead! She was so like you, child. Dead! Five-and-twenty years is a weary while. Dead!"
He sighed, and his tearless eyes looked thoughtfully into the fire. Memories of other days were rising up and passing before him in swift procession. He saw himself and her, orphan brother and sister, wandering hand in hand over their beautiful island home, with the sea wind blowing in their faces, and the spirit of the mountains which towered around them entering into their hearts. Dear to them had been that home, dear that close and precious companionship. They had talked of the life which lay before them—rose-colored and joyous, pregnant with glorious opportunities and possibilities. For their island and the larger continent close at hand were convulsed at that time in certain patriotic efforts, the history of which has been written into the history of Europe, and no one desired more ardently to bear a hand in the struggle than young Leonardo di Marioni. Large hearted, romantic, and with an imagination easily fired, he was from the first a dreamer, and Margharita had ever been ready to share his dreams. The blood of kings was in their veins, to lead him on to great things; and she, Margharita, his sister, his beloved sister, should be the mistress of his destinies. Thus they had talked, thus they had dreamed, and now from the other side of the gulf he looked backward, and saw in his own life, in the place of those great deeds which he had hoped to accomplish, one black miserable chasm, and in hers, forgetfulness of her high descent—for she had married this English merchant's son—and the grave. Ah! it was sad, very sad!
Her soft breath upon his cheek brought him back to the present. He looked down into her face with such a wistful fondness that it brought the tears again into her eyes.
"Your mother, then, married Martin Briscoe?"
"Yes."
"And he——"
"My father, too, is dead," she answered sadly. "I am an orphan."
"Ah! And now you live—with whom do you live, child?" he asked, with sudden eagerness. "Tell me, are you happy?"
"I am miserable," she cried passionately.
A quiet smile flitted across his face. There was hope. It was well.
"I am miserable. Often I wish that I were dead."
"Tell me all about it, child," he whispered. "I have a right to know."
She sank down upon the floor, and rested her head upon the side of the chair. In a moment she began.
"I think that I was quite happy when I was a little girl. I do not remember very much about that time, or about my mother, for she died when I was six years old. Papa was very good to me, but he was stern and cold always. I do not think that he ever smiled after mamma died, and he had money troubles, too. A bank failed, and he lost a great deal; and then he had a great many shares in a company which failed. I don't understand much about it, but when he died three years ago nearly everything he had went to pay people. I had to go and live with my father's brother, and I hate it. I hate them all—my uncle, my aunt, and my cousins. They are vulgar, common people. They are in business, and they are fearfully rich, but their manners are dreadful, and they are always talking of their money. They have no taste, no art, no refinement. I was going to leave them, when I heard that you were here. I was going to be a governess—yes, even earn my own bread—rather than stay with them any longer. I hated them so, and their life, and everything to do with them. Oh, uncle, uncle, let me live with you. Let us go away from this wretched England. Let us go to some southern country where the sun is warm, and the people do not talk of their money, and there are beautiful things to see and admire. It is ugly and cold here, and I am weary of it."
She broke off in a sudden fit of sobbing. He took her face gently in his hands, and held it up to him. It was he, now, who was to play the part of consoler.
"Margharita, I am a lonely old man whose life is well nigh spent. Yet, if you will come to me, if you will really live with me, then you will make my last days happy. When I die all that I have will be yours. It is settled, is it not?"
Like summer lightning the tempest of her grief died away, and her face was brilliant with smiles.
"I will never, never leave you, uncle," she cried joyously. "We will live together always. Oh, how happy we shall be!"
Then she looked at him—looked at his shrunken limbs and worn, pinched face, and a sudden darkening fire kindled in her face. She stamped her foot, and her eyes flashed angrily. The sight of him reminded her that, so far as he was concerned at least, their happiness could not be of very long duration. The finger of death had laid its mark upon that ashen gray face. It was written there.
"How I hate them!" she cried. "Those cruel, wicked people, who kept you in prison all these years. I should like to kill them all—to see them die here before us. I would not spare one—not one!"
He thrust her away, and started to his feet a changed man. The old fires had leaped up anew; the old hate, the old desire, was as strong as ever within him. She looked at him, startled and wondering. His very form seemed dilated with passion.
"Child!" he cried, "have you ever heard the story of my seizure and imprisonment? No, you have not. You shall hear it. You shall judge between me and them. Listen! When I was a young man, Italy seemed trembling on the verge of a revolution. The history of it all you know. You know that the country was honeycombed with secret societies, more or less dangerous. To one of these I belonged. We called our Order the 'Order of the White Hyacinth.' We were all young, ardent and impetuous, and we imagined ourselves the apostles of the coming liberation. Yet we never advocated bloodshed; we never really transgressed the law. We gave lectures, we published pamphlets. We were a set of boy dreamers with wild theories—communists, most of us. But there was not one who would not have died to save our country the misery of civil war—not one, not one! Even women wore our flower, and were admitted associates of our Order. We pledged ourselves that our aims were bloodless. No society that ever existed was more harmless than ours. I say it! I swear it! Bear me witness, oh, my God, if what I say be not true!"
He was a strong man again. The apathy was gone; his reason was saved. He stood before this dark, tall girl, who, with clasped hands, was drinking in every word, and he spoke with all the swelling dignity of one who has suffered unjustly.
"By some means or other our society fell under the suspicion of the government. The edict went forth that we should be broken up. We heard the mandate with indignation. We were young and hot-blooded, and we were conscious that we had done no harm—that we were innocent of the things ascribed to us. We swore that we would carry on our society, but in secret. Before then, everything had been open; we had had a recognized meeting place, the public had attended our lectures, ladies had worn the white hyacinth openly at receptions and balls. Now, all was changed. We met in secret and under a ban. Still our aim was harmless. One clause alone was added to our rules of a different character, and we all subscribed to—'Vengeance upon traitors!' We swore it solemnly one to the other—'Vengeance upon traitors!"
"Ah! if I had lived in those days I would have worn your flower at the court of the king," she cried, with glowing cheeks.
He pressed her hand in silence, and continued.
"As time went on, and things grew still more unsettled in the country, a species of inquisition was established. The eyes of the law were everywhere. They fell upon us. One night ten of us were arrested as we left our meeting place. We were all noble, and the families of my companions were powerful. I was looked upon as the ringleader; and upon me fell the most severe sentence. I was banished from Italian soil for ten years, with the solemn warning that death would be my lot if I ventured to return."
"It was atrocious!"
He held up his hand.
"Margharita, in those days I loved. Her name was Adrienne. She, too, was an orphan, and although she was of noble birth, she was poor, as we Marionis were poor also. She had a great gift; she was a singer; and, sooner than be dependent upon her relatives, she had sung at concerts and operas, until all Europe knew of her fame. When I was exiled I was given seven days in which to make my adieux. I went to her, and declared my love. She did not absolutely reject me, nor did she accept me. She asked for time for consideration. I could give her none! I begged her to leave the country with me. Alas! she would not! Perhaps I was too passionate, too precipitate! It may have been so; I cannot say. I went away alone and left her. I plunged into gay life at Paris; I dwelt among the loneliest mountains of Switzerland; I endured the dullness of this cold gray London, and the dissipation of Vienna. It was all in vain! One by one they palled upon me. No manner of life, no change of scene, could cure me of my love. I fell ill, and I knew that my heart was breaking. You and I, Margharita, come of a race whose love and hatred are eternal!"
She crept into his arms; and he went on, holding her there.
"Back I came at the peril of my life; content to die, if it were only at her feet. I found her cold and changed; blaming me even for my rashness, desiring even my absence. Not a word of pity to sweeten those weary days of exile; not a word of hope to repay me for all that I had risked to see her again. Soon I knew the reason—another love had stolen away her heart. There was an Englishman—one of those cursed Englishmen—visiting her daily at Palermo; and she told me calmly one day that she loved him, and intended to become his wife. She forgot my long years of devoted service; she forgot her own unspoken, yet understood, promise; she forgot all that I had suffered for her; she forgot that her words must sound to me as the death warrant of all joy and happiness in this world. And she forgot, too, that I was a Marioni! Was I wrong, I wonder, Margharita, that I quarreled with him! You are a child, and yet my instinct tells me that you have a woman's judgment! Tell me, should I have stepped aside, and let him win her, without a blow?"
"You would have been a coward if you had!" she cried. "You fought him! Tell me that you fought him?"
"Margharita, you are a true daughter of your country!" the old man cried. "You are a Marioni! Listen! I insulted him! He declined to fight! I struck him across the face in a public restaurant, and forced him to accept my challenge. The thing was arranged. We stood face to face on the sand, sword in hand. The word had been given! His life was at my mercy; but mind, Margharita, I had no thought of taking it without giving him a fair chance. I intended to wait until my sword was at his throat and then I would have said to him, 'Give up the woman whom I have loved all my life, and go unhurt!' He himself should have chosen. Was not that fair?"
"Fair! It was generous! Go on! Go on!"
"The word had been given; our swords were crossed. And at that moment, she, Adrienne, the woman whom I loved, stood before us. With her were Italian police come to arrest me! There was one letter alone of mine, written in a hasty moment, which could have been used in evidence against me at my former trial, and which would have secured for me a harsher sentence. That letter had fallen into her hands; and she had given it over to my bitter enemy, the chief of the Italian police. I was betrayed, betrayed by the woman whom I had braved all dangers to see! It was she who had brought them; she who—without remorse or hesitation—calmly handed me over to twenty-five years' captivity in a prison cell!"
Margharita freed herself from his arms. She was very pale, and her limbs were shaking. But what a fire in those dark, cruel eyes.
"Go on! Go on!" she cried. "Let me hear the rest."
"Then, as I stood there, Margharita, love shriveled up, and hate reigned in its place. The memory of the oath of our Order flashed into my mind. A curtain seemed raised before my eyes. I saw the long narrow room of our meeting place. I saw the dark, faithful faces of my comrades. I heard their firm voices—'Vengeance upon traitors, vengeance upon traitors!' She, too, this woman who had betrayed me, had worn our flower upon her bosom and in her hair! She had come under the ban of that oath. Margharita, I threw my sword into the sea, and I raised my clasped hands to the sky, and I swore that, were it the last day of my life, the day of my release should see me avenged. Let them hide in the uttermost corners of the earth, I cried, that false woman and her English lover, still I would find them out, and they should taste of my vengeance! To my trial I went, with that oath written in my heart. I carried it with me into my prison cell, and day by day and year by year I repeated it to myself. It kept me alive; the desire of it grew into my being. Even now it burns in my heart!
"During my captivity I was allowed to see my lawyer, and I made over by deed so much, to be paid every year to the funds of our Order at the London Branch, for our headquarters had been moved there after my first arrest. Day by day I dreamed of the time when I should stand, a martyr in their cause, before my old comrades, and demand of them the vengeance which was my due. I imagined them, one by one, grasping my hand, full of deep, silent sympathy with my long sufferings. I heard again the oath which we had sworn—'Vengeance upon traitors, vengeance upon traitors!' It was the music which kept me alive, the hope which nourished my life!"
The dark eyes glowed upon him like stars, and her voice trembled with eagerness.
"You have been to them? You will be avenged! Tell me that it is so?"
A little choking sob escaped from him. The numbness was passing away from his heart and senses. His sorrows were becoming human, and demanding human expression.
"Alas, Margharita, alas!" he cried, with drooping head, "the bitterest disappointment of my life came upon me all unawares. While I have lain rotting in prison history has turned over many pages. The age for secret societies has gone by. The 'Order of the White Hyacinth' is no more—worse than that, its very name has been dragged through the dust. One by one the old members fell away; its sacred aims were forgotten. The story of its downward path will never be written. A few coarse, ignorant men meet in a pothouse, night by night, to spend the money I sent in beer and foul tobacco. That is the end of the 'Order of the White Hyacinth!'"
Margharita looked like a beautiful wild animal in her passion. Her hair had fallen all over her face, and was streaming down her back. Her small white hand was clenched and upraised, and her straight, supple figure, panther-like in its grace, was distended until she towered over the little shrunken form before her. Terrible was the gleam in her eyes, and terrible the fixed rigidity of her features. Yet she was as beautiful as a young goddess in her wrath.
"No!" she cried fiercely, "the Order shall not die! You belong to it still; and I—I, too, swear the oath of vengeance! Together we will hunt her down—this woman! She shall suffer!"
"She shall die!" he cried.
A slight shudder passed across the girl's face, but she repeated his words.
"She shall die! But, uncle, you are ill. What is it?"
She chafed his hands and held him up. He had fainted.
"Where am I, Margharita?"
She leaned over him, and drew a long deep breath of relief. It was the reward of many weary days and nights of constant watching and careful nursing. His reason was saved.
"In your own room at the hotel," she whispered. "Don't you remember? You were taken ill."
He looked at her, helpless and puzzled. Slowly the mists began to roll away.
"Yes, you were with me," he murmured softly. "I remember now. I was telling you the story of the past—my past. You are Margharita's child. Yes, I remember. Was it this afternoon?"
She kissed his forehead, and then drew back suddenly, lest the warm tear which was quivering on her eyelid should fall back upon his face.
"It was three weeks ago!"
"Three weeks ago!" He looked wonderingly around—at the little table at his side, where a huge bowl of sweet-scented roses was surrounded by a little army of empty medicine bottles, at Margharita's pale, wan face, and at a couch drawn up to the bedside. "And you have been nursing me all the time?" he whispered.
She smiled brightly through the tears which she could not hide.
"Of course I have. Who has a better right, I should like to know?"
He sighed and closed his eyes. In a few minutes he was asleep.
For a fortnight his life had hung upon a thread, and even when the doctor had declared him out of danger, the question of his sanity or insanity quivered upon the balance for another week. He would either awake perfectly reasonable, in all respects his old self, or he would open his eyes upon a world, the keynote to which he had lost forever. In other words he would either awake a perfectly sane man, or hopelessly and incurably insane. There would be no middle course. That was the doctor's verdict.
And through all those long days and nights Margharita had watched over him as though he had been her own father. All the passionate sympathy of her warm southern nature had been kindled by the story of his wrongs. Day by day the sight of his helpless suffering had increased her indignation toward those whom she really believed to have bitterly wronged him. Through those long quiet days and silent nights, she had brooded upon them. She never for one moment repented of having allied herself to that wild oath of vengeance, whose echoes often at dead of night seemed still to ring in her ears. Her only fear was that he would emerge from the fierce illness under which he was laboring, so weakened and shaken, that the desire of his life should have passed from him. She had grown to love this shrunken old man. In her girlhood she had heard stories of him from her nurse, and many times the hot tears had stood in her eyes as she conjured up to herself that pathetic figure, waiting and waiting, year by year, for that liberty which was to come only with old age. She had thought of him, sad-eyed and weary, pacing his lonely prison cell, and ever watching through his barred window the little segment of blue sky and sunlight which penetrated into the high-walled court. How he must long for the scent of flowers, the fresh open air, the rustle of leaves, and the hum of moving insects. How his heart must ache for the sound of men's voices, the touch of their hands, some sense of loving or friendly companionship to break the icy monotony of his weary, stagnant existence. Her imagination had been touched, and she had been all ready to welcome and to love him as a hero and a martyr, even if he had appealed to her in no other way. But when she had seen him stricken down and helpless, with that look of ineffable sadness in his soft dark eyes, it was more than her sympathy which was aroused, more than her imagination which was stirred. Her large pitying heart became his absolutely. She was alone in the world, and she must needs love some one. For good or for evil, fate had brought this strange old man to her, and woven this tie between them.
That night she scarcely slept at all, and before daybreak she stole softly over to the window and looked out. The roar of the great city was hushed and silent. Below, the streets and squares were white and empty in the gray light of the approaching dawn. The mists were rising from the river, and the yellow light was dying out of the room. Away eastward, there was a break in the sky, a long thin line of amber light which widened even while she watched it. Below, the sky was red, a dull brick red, as though the yellow fog had mingled with the fainter and rosier coloring. Gradually the two came nearer together. In the distance a cock crew, and a cab drove across the empty square at the end of the street. A lamplighter came round the corner, whistling, and, one by one, the row of gaslights beneath were extinguished. Even in that moment or two a brighter shade had stolen into the eastern sky. That bank of dull purple clouds was breaking away, and a few brilliant specks of cloudlets were shot up toward St. Paul's. Then the sun showed a rim, and almost its first pale beam quivered upon the great church dome, traveled across a thousand slate roofs, and fell upon the girl's white, upturned face, and across the white coverlet.
"Margharita!"
She turned round quickly. He was sitting up in bed, and the sunbeam was traveling up toward him.
"Are you awake? Did I disturb you?" she asked tenderly.
He shook his head.
"I have been awake, thinking. I remember being taken ill. I remember everything. Tell me. I must know. Did you—did you mean—everything you said? You pitied me, and my story made you sad. I would not hold you to your word."
She drew herself up; she was pale no longer; the color burned in her cheeks.
"I am a Marioni!" she answered proudly. "Every word I said seems to me now too weak. That is the only change."
He held out his hands; she grasped them fondly.
"Margharita, she came here!" he whispered.
"What, here? Here in this room?"
He nodded.
"It was two days before you came. I was sitting alone in the twilight. The door opened. I thought I was dreaming. It was she, as beautiful as ever, richly dressed, happy, comely. She came to pity, to sue for pardon. I let her talk, and then, when I had gathered strength, I stood up and cursed her. I thrust her away; I cursed her with the fiercest and crudest words which my lips could utter. It drove the warm color from her cheeks, and the light from her eyes. I cursed her till her heart shook with fear. She staggered out of the room a stricken woman. I——"
"Tell me her name."
"It was Adrienne Cartuccio. It is now Lady Maurice."
"The Lady St. Maurice! She was my mother's friend then?"
"Yes."
Margharita's eyes were bright, and her voice trembled.
"Listen!" she cried. "When my mother was dying she gave me a letter. If ever you need a friend or help," she whispered, "go to Lady St. Maurice. This letter is to her. She will help you for my sake. Uncle, fate is on our side. Just before I came to you I wrote to Lady St. Maurice. I told her that I was unhappy in my life, and I wished for a situation as a governess. I sent her my mother's letter."
"And she replied?"
"Yes. She offered me a home. If I wished I could teach her little girl."
Her voice was trembling, and her eyes, dry and brilliant, were fixed upon his. He was sitting upright in bed, leaning a little forward toward her, and the sunbeam which had stolen in through the parted curtains fell upon his white corpse-like face. A strange look was in his eyes; his fingers clutched the bedclothes nervously.
"You will—go?" he asked hoarsely. "You will go to Lady St. Maurice?"
An answering light shot back from her eyes. She was suddenly pale to the lips. Her voice was hushed as though in fear, but it was firm.
"Yes, I shall go. To-night I shall accept her offer."