"Geoff, it's the most extraordinary thing in the world."
"What is it, dear?" he asked, throwing down his newspaper on the breakfast table, and lighting a cigarette. "Tell me about it."
"Listen."
She read the letter, which was open in her hands, and he listened thoughtfully, leaning back in the high-backed oak chair, and watching the blue smoke from his cigarette curl upward to the ceiling.
"London,Thursday."Dear Lady St. Maurice: I have delayed answering your letter for some time, longer than may seem courteous to you, owing to the illness of a member of the family with whom I have been living. I trust, however, that you will not consider it too late for me to thank you heartily for your generous offer to me, which, if we can agree upon one point, I shall be most happy and grateful to accept. You have a little girl, you tell me, and no governess. If you will allow me to fill the latter position, which I believe that I am quite capable of doing, I shall be glad to come. I could not feel myself at ease in becoming one of your household on any other footing. Hoping to hear from you soon, I am, yours sincerely,"Margharita Briscoe."
"London,Thursday.
"Dear Lady St. Maurice: I have delayed answering your letter for some time, longer than may seem courteous to you, owing to the illness of a member of the family with whom I have been living. I trust, however, that you will not consider it too late for me to thank you heartily for your generous offer to me, which, if we can agree upon one point, I shall be most happy and grateful to accept. You have a little girl, you tell me, and no governess. If you will allow me to fill the latter position, which I believe that I am quite capable of doing, I shall be glad to come. I could not feel myself at ease in becoming one of your household on any other footing. Hoping to hear from you soon, I am, yours sincerely,
"Margharita Briscoe."
"Did you ever hear of such a thing?" Lady St. Maurice exclaimed. "Margharita's child, my governess. I call it very stupid pride."
Lord St. Maurice shook his head.
"I think you are wrong, dear. After all, you must remember that you are a complete stranger to her."
"That has been her mother's fault. Margharita never exactly blamed me for what I did at Palermo, but she always felt bitterly for her brother, and she could not forget that it was my hand which had sent him to prison. It was very unreasonable of her, but, after all, one can understand her feeling. Still, this girl of hers can have no such feeling toward me."
"Of course not; but, none the less, as I said before, you are a complete stranger to her," Lord St. Maurice answered. "Her parentage is just the sort to have given her those independent ideas, and I'm inclined to think that she is quite right."
Lady St. Maurice sighed.
"I would have been only too happy to have welcomed her as a daughter," she said. "I dare say you are right, Geoff. I shall write and tell her to come."
She walked away to the window, looking across the pine-bound cliffs to the sea. Time had dealt with her very leniently, as indeed he needs must with those whose life is like one long summer's day. Her brow was still smooth, and her hair, rich and soft as ever, had not a single tinge of gray. Her figure, too, was perfect; the lithe gracefulness of youth had only ripened into the majesty of dignified womanhood. There was not a society paper which did not sometimes allude to her as "the beautiful Lady St. Maurice."
But just at that moment her eyes were sad, and her face was troubled. Her husband, looking up suddenly, saw it, and throwing down his paper, walked across the room to her side.
"Adrienne, what is it, little woman?" he asked fondly.
"I was thinking of poor Leonardo," she answered. "Geoffrey, it is very foolish to let it trouble me, is it not?"
"Very, darling. Why should it?"
"Do you remember how terrible he looked when they arrested him on the sands, and those fierce threatening words of his? Even now I can hear them sometimes in my ears."
"Foolish little woman."
"I cannot help it. This girl's letter, with its note of proud independence, brings it all back to me. Geoffrey, Leonardo di Marioni comes of a race who pride themselves more than anything upon keeping their word in love and in hate. You can scarcely understand their fierce passionate nature. I have always felt that when the day of his release came he would remember his oath, and strive to work some evil upon us."
Lord St. Maurice passed his arm around his wife's waist, with a reassuring smile.
"It is five-and-twenty years ago, love. Is not that enough to set your fears at rest?"
She looked at him without a smile, grave and serious.
"The five-and-twenty years are up, Geoffrey. Leonardo is free!"
"What of it?" he answered carelessly. "If he has not forgotten us altogether, what harm could he do us?"
She clasped her hands around his neck, and looked into his face.
"Geoffrey, I have a confession to make," she whispered. "Will you forgive me?"
"It's a rash promise, but I'll chance it," he answered, smoothing her hair and smiling down into her upturned face.
"Geoffrey, he is in London. I have seen him."
He looked a little surprised, but he did not draw away.
"Seen him! Where? When?"
"Do you remember the day when I was to have called for you at the 'Travelers,' and you waited for me, and I did not come? Yes, I know that you do. Well, I did come, really, but as I sat in the carriage waiting, I took up theMorning Postand I read an advertisement there, signed by the manager of the Continental Hotel. It was inquiring for any friend or relative of Count Leonardo di Marioni, who was lying there dangerously ill and alone. Geoffrey, of course I ought to have waited for you, but I am impulsive sometimes, and I was then. I thought that if I could see him alone for the first time, that I might win his forgiveness, and so I drove there at once. They showed me into his room; he was sitting over the fire, a miserable, shrunken little figure, wasted to a shadow. Ah, how my heart ached to see him. Geoffrey, I knelt by his side; I spoke to him as tenderly as I could to one of my own children; and then he turned a white corpse-like face upon me, and spoke words which God grant I may some day forget. I do not believe that human lips have ever framed such hideous curses. How I got down to the carriage, I do not know. You are not angry with me, Geoffrey?"
"Angry? why no, love," he answered tenderly. "You did it for the best. What a vindictive little beggar."
"Geoffrey, I can't help thinking that some day, if he recovers, he will try to do you or me a mischief."
Lord St. Maurice laughed outright.
"We are not in Sicily," he answered lightly.
"What could he do to either of us? Am I not big enough to protect myself, and take care of you? I tell you what, Adrienne, why shouldn't I go and see him when I am in London next week?"
"You!" She shuddered and clasped him tightly. "Geoffrey, promise me at once that you will not go near him," she begged. "Promise me!"
"On one condition."
"What is it?"
"That you will give up troubling about this nonsense."
"I will try," she promised.
"That's right. Now put on your hat, and come for a run on the cliff. I can't have you looking so pale."
He walked to the door with her and opened it, kissing her forehead as she passed through. She looked up at him fondly, and the quiet pleasure which glowed for a moment in her cheeks and shone in her eyes made her look once more like a girl of twenty. A woman's greatest happiness had been hers. In middle age her husband was still her lover.
"Forgive me for being silly," she whispered. "I can't help it. Our life has been so happy that I cannot bear to think of a cloud of any sort coming over it, even for a very short while."
"The only cloud we have to fear is that big fellow yonder over Gorton point," he laughed.
"Better bring your mackintosh down. I shall not shoot to-day until I have seen some color in your cheeks."
None of the little household at Mallory Grange, Lord St. Maurice's Norfolk seat, ever forgot Margharita's first appearance among them. She came late in the afternoon, and was shown into Lady St. Maurice's own little sitting room, without the ceremony of an announcement. Lady St. Maurice had many kind words ready to say, but the sight of the figure who crossed the threshold, and came out of the dusk toward the center of the room, struck her dumb. She stood up for a moment perfectly silent, with her hand pressed to her side. Such a likeness was marvelous. In this girl's proud, dark face she could recall Leonardo's features one by one. The air seemed suddenly full of voices, sobbing and cursing and threatening. Then she came to herself, and held out her hand—forced her lips even to wear a kindly welcoming smile.
"I am so glad to have you here, Margharita," she said. "Do you know that your likeness to your mother—and her family—has startled me. It is wonderful."
"It is very nice to hear you say so," the girl answered, taking the chair which, at Lady St. Maurice's motion, a servant had wheeled up to the fire. "I like to think of myself as belonging altogether to my mother and her people. I have been very unhappy with my father's relations."
"I am only sorry that you remained with them so long," Lady St. Maurice said. "Let me give you some tea, and then you must tell me why you never wrote to me before."
"Because I made up my mind to bear it as long as I was able," she answered. "I have done so. It was impossible for me to remain there any longer, and I determined to take my life into my own hands, and, if necessary, find a situation. I wrote first to you, and you have been kind enough to engage me."
To Lady St. Maurice, who was a woman of genial manners and kindly disposition, there seemed to be a curious hardness in the girl's tone and mode of expressing herself. She had avoided the kiss with which she had been prepared to greet her, and had shaken hands in the most matter-of-fact way. This last phrase, too, was a little ungracious.
"Engage you! I hope you are not going to look upon our little arrangement in that light," Lady St. Maurice said pleasantly. "For your mother's sake, Margharita, I should have been only too glad to have welcomed you here at any time as my daughter, and I hope that when we know one another better, you will not be quite so independent. Don't be afraid," she added, "you shall have your own way at first. Some day I hope that you will come round to mine."
Margharita sipped her tea quietly, and made no reply; but in the firelight her dark eyes glowed softly and brightly, and Lady St. Maurice was quite satisfied with her silence. For a few moments neither of them spoke. Then Lady St. Maurice leaned back in her chair, away from the firelight, and asked a question.
"Did you know that the Count di Marioni, your uncle, was in London?"
"I knew that he had been there," Margharita answered in a low tone.
"Had been! Has he gone away?"
"I suppose so," the girl continued, looking steadily at her questioner. "Yesterday I called to see him at a hotel in Piccadilly, and they told me that he had left that morning for abroad. I was sorry to be too late."
"Yes."
Lady St. Maurice asked no more. The dark eyes seemed to be trying to pierce the dusk between them, and read her face. She turned the conversation, and asked a few questions about the journey. Afterward would be time enough to find out how much this girl knew.
Soon Lord St. Maurice came in from shooting, wet to the skin, and stood by the fire, drinking his tea and talking pleasantly to Margharita and his wife. She talked more readily to him than to Lady St. Maurice, but in the middle of the conversation she checked herself and stood up.
"I am tired," she said abruptly. "May I go to my room?"
Lady St. Maurice took her away herself, and showed her the suite which had been prepared for her. There was a bedroom, a daintily furnished little sitting room, and a bath room, all looking out upon the sea. A bright fire had been lit in both the rooms, and bowls of flowers and many little feminine trifles helped to unite comfort to undoubted luxury. Margharita went from one to the other without remark.
"These are far too nice," she said simply, when Lady St. Maurice turned to go. "I have not been used to such luxury."
Lady St. Maurice left her with a sigh, and went downstairs. She had hoped to see the cold proud face relax a little at the many signs of thought in the preparations which had been made for her, and she was disappointed. She entered her sitting room thoughtfully, and went up to her husband.
"Geoffrey, she is horribly like him."
"If poor Marioni had had this girl's looks I should have felt more jealous," he answered lightly. "I'm almost sorry Lumley is here."
She shook her head.
"She is beautiful, but I don't think Lumley will admire her. He places expression before everything, and this girl has none. She must have been very unhappy, I think, or else she is very heartless!"
He stood with his back to the fire, twisting his mustache and warming himself.
"The fact is," he remarked, "you're disappointed because she didn't jump into your arms and cry a little, and all that sort of thing. Now, I respect the girl for it; for I think she was acting under constraint. Give her time, Adrienne, and I think you'll find her sympathetic enough. And as to the expression—well, I may be mistaken, but I should say that she had a sweeter one than most women, although we haven't seen it yet. Give her time, Adrienne. Don't hurry her."
It was two hours before they saw her again, and then she came into the drawing room just as the dinner gong was going. Neither of them had seen her save by the dim light of a single lamp, and even then she had been wrapped in a long traveling coat; and so, although Lord St. Maurice had called her beautiful, they were neither of them prepared to see her quite as she was. She wore a plain black net dinner gown, curving only slightly downward at the white throat, the somberness of which was partially relieved by an amber foundation. She had no jewelry of any sort, nor any flowers, and she carried only a tiny lace handkerchief in her left hand. But she had no need of a toilet or of adornment. That proud, exquisitely graceful carriage, which only race can give, was the dowry of her descent from one of the ancient families of Southern Europe; but the beauty of her face was nature's gift alone. It was beauty of the best and purest French type—the beauty of the aristocrats of the court of Louis the Fourteenth. The luxurious black hair was parted in the middle, and raised slightly over the temples, showing a high but delicately arched forehead. Her complexion was dazzling in its purity, but colorless. There was none of the harshness of the Sicilian type in her features, or in the lines of her figure. The severest critic of feminine beauty could have asked only for a slightly relaxed mouth, and a touch of humanity in her dark, still eyes; and even he, knowing that the great joys of womanhood—the joys of loving and being loved—were as yet untasted by her, would have held his peace, murmuring, perhaps, that the days of miracles were not yet passed, and a daughter of Diana had appeared upon the earth.
The little group, to whom her entrance was something like a thunderbolt, consisted only of Lord and Lady St. Maurice, and their son, Lord Lumley. He, although his surprise was the greatest, was the first to recover from it.
"I am happy to meet you in proper form, Miss Briscoe," he said, bowing, and then looking into her face with a humorous light in his eyes. "I was afraid that I should never have the opportunity of telling you that those fellows met with, at any rate, a part of what they deserved. I saw them locked up."
She looked at him for a moment with slightly arched eyebrows, and then suddenly smiled.
"Oh! is it really you?" she exclaimed, holding out her hand, which she had not previously offered. "I am so glad. I was afraid that I should never have the opportunity to thank you for your kindness."
"You have met Lumley before, then?" asked Lady St. Maurice, wondering.
"Scarcely so much as that," he answered, laughing. "Don't you remember my telling you of my adventure in Piccadilly, mother?"
"Yes, I remember. Do you mean that the young lady was really Margharita?"
She looked at him, and he colored slightly. For the first time he remembered how enthusiastically he had spoken of the girl whom he had assisted, and Lady St. Maurice remembered, too, that for several days afterward he had been silent and distrait. She could not fail to remember it, for it was the first time she had ever heard Lumley admire a girl in such terms.
"Yes, it was Miss Briscoe," he answered, keeping his head turned away from his mother.
"It was indeed I," she admitted. "I don't know what I should have done, but for your help, Lord Lumley. I am afraid that I should have screamed and made a scene."
"I can't imagine your doing it!" he remarked truthfully.
"Perhaps not! But I was so surprised, I could not understand it."
"May I remind you that I am completely in the dark as to this little adventure," Lord St. Maurice remarked pleasantly. "What was it, Lumley?"
"A very simple affair after all. I was in Piccadilly, and Miss Briscoe here was coming out of some milliner's shop and crossing the pavement to her carriage."
"Cab!" she interrupted.
"Cab, then. Well, it was late in the afternoon, and two drunken little cads tried to speak to her. Naturally, as I was the nearest decent person, I interfered and assisted Miss Briscoe into her cab. That I was passing was a piece of good fortune for which I have always been thankful."
"Lord Lumley does not add that his interference consisted in knocking one man down and holding the other until he almost choked with one hand, while he helped me into the cab with the other."
"I only shook him a little," he laughed, giving his mother his arm, for the butler had announced dinner while they had been talking. "If I had been he I would rather have had the shaking than the look Miss Briscoe flashed at him."
"I detest being touched," she said coldly, "especially by a stranger."
"How did the affair end?" Lord St. Maurice asked, sipping his soup. "I hope you got them locked up, Lumley."
"Why, the termination of the affair was the part on which I do really congratulate myself," he answered. "A policeman came up at once, but before I could give them in charge—in which case I should, of course, have been called upon to prosecute and got generally mixed up in the affair—one of the fellows began thumping the policeman; so of course he collared them and marched them off. I slipped away, and I noticed the next morning that they got pretty heavily fined for assaulting a policeman in the execution of his duty."
"A satisfactory ending to a most unpleasant affair," Lord St. Maurice remarked.
During dinner Lord Lumley devoted himself to their guest, but for a long time the burden of the conversation lay altogether upon his shoulders. It was not until he chanced to mention the National Gallery, in connection with the season's exhibition of pictures, that Margharita abandoned her monosyllabic answers and generally reserved demeanor. He saw at once that he had struck the right note, and he followed it up with tact. He was fresh from a tour among the galleries of southern Europe and Holland, and he himself was no mean artist. But Margharita, he soon found, knew nothing of recent art. She was hopelessly out of date. She knew nothing of the modern cant, of the nineteenth century philistinism, at which it was so much the fashion to scoff. She had not caught the froth of the afternoon talk at fashionable studios, and, having jumbled it together in the popular fashion, she was not prepared to set forth her views on art in somebody else's pet phrases. Lord Lumley had met that sort of young lady, and had shunned her. Margharita had simply acquired from a hurried visit to Italy, when she was quite young, a dim but vast appreciation of the soul of the great masters. She could not have defined art, nor could she have expressed in a few nicely-rounded sentences her opinion of Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece, or of the genius of Pico della Mirandola. But she felt that a great world lay beyond a larger knowledge and understanding of these things, and some day she hoped, after time, and thought, and study, to enter it.
And Lord Lumley, reading her thoughts with a keen and intuitive sympathy, talked to her that night at dinner and afterward in a corner of the perfumed rose-lit drawing room, as no man had ever talked to her before—talked to her so earnestly, and with so much effect, that Lady St. Maurice rose from her writing table at the other end of the room, watched them with pale and troubled face, and more than once made some faint effort to disturb them. He showed her the systems and manner of thought by which the dimly-felt, wondering admiration of the uncultured, yet sensitive, mind can develop into the large and soul-felt appreciation of the artist. It was the keys of her promised land which he held out to her with winning speech and a kindliness to which she was unaccustomed. He was young himself, but he had all the advantages of correct training, of travel, and of delicate artistic sensibilities. He had taught himself much, and fresh from the task of learning, he had all the best enthusiasm of the teacher. He had told himself that he, too, like the Athenians, worshiped beauty, but never in his life had he seen anything so beautiful as Margharita's face as she listened to him. Spiritual life seemed to have been poured into a piece of beautiful imagery. Her lips were parted and her dark eyes were softened. It was the face of a St. Cecilia. How long before it would become the face of a woman!
It was Lord St. Maurice's arrival which dissolved the spell. He had missed his after-dinner cigar and chat with Lumley, and directly he entered the drawing room he saw the cause. Adrienne's eyes and his met. A little annoyed by his son's defection he did not hesitate to act.
"Miss Briscoe, are you too tired, or may we ask for a little music?" he said, walking up to the pair.
She looked up, frowning a little at the interruption. Then a swift recollection of her position came to her, and the light died out of her face. She rose at once.
"I shall be pleased to do what I can. I sing a little, but I play badly."
She affected not to notice Lord St Maurice's arm, but crossed the room by his side toward the piano. He opened it, arranged the stool, and remained standing there.
She struck a few minor chords, and suddenly the room seemed full of a sad, plaintive music rising gradually to a higher pitch, and then dying away as her voice took up the melody and carried it on. Lady St. Maurice held her hand to her side for a moment, and her husband frowned. It was a Sicilian love song which she was singing; the song of a peasant whose bride lies dead by his side, the victim of another's jealousy. Adrienne had heard it often in the old days, and the beautiful wild music which rang in their ears was full of memories to her. It closed abruptly, and only Lumley, with an unusual sparkle in his eyes, found words to thank her.
"Are all your songs sad ones, Miss Briscoe?" Lord St. Maurice asked abruptly. "Can't you offer us something in the shape of an antidote?"
She sat down at the piano again.
"I do not know anything gay," she said. "I can only sing what I feel. I will play something."
She dashed off into a light Hungarian dance, full ofverveand sparkle, and Lord St. Maurice kept time with his foot, smiling approvingly. Directly it was over she closed the piano and turned to Lady St. Maurice.
"If I may I should be glad to go to my room now," she said. "I had no idea it was so late."
Lumley held the door open for her, and felt unreasonably disappointed because she passed out with a slight inclination of the head, but without looking at him. Then he turned back into the room, and they all three looked at one another for a moment.
"She is marvelously handsome," Lord St. Maurice pronounced.
"Marvelously!" his son echoed softly.
But Lady St. Maurice said nothing.
"Geoffrey, come here for a moment!"
The Earl of St. Maurice, who was a most obedient husband, folded up his paper and joined his wife at the window.
"Well, dear."
"Look there."
He followed her finger. It pointed to three figures; a man in shooting clothes, with a gun under his arm, a girl and a child between them, strolling along the cliffs outside the grounds. He glanced at them carelessly, and back into his wife's face as though for an explanation.
"Well?"
"This is the third morning that Lumley has joined Margharita and Gracie in their walk."
"Very good natured of him," the Earl replied carelessly. "He always was fond of Gracie though, wasn't he?"
"I wish I could feel sure that it was entirely for Gracie's sake," she answered anxiously.
Her husband whistled, and his brows contracted a little.
"You mean to suggest, I suppose, that Miss Briscoe is the attraction," he remarked thoughtfully.
"How can I help thinking so? Both yesterday and this morning he was in the schoolroom until I heard her tell him quite severely that he must go, as he was interrupting their work. Both mornings I have asked him to drive with me, and each time he made an excuse. If Margharita's name is mentioned before him, he is either unusually silent and reserved, or very talkative. As a rule, you know, Lumley does not care for girls. That makes me all the more anxious."
"Miss Briscoe is certainly wonderfully beautiful," he said. "Yet I think that Lumley has common sense."
"He has peculiar ideas," his wife answered. "I have always been afraid of his doing somethingbizarre, and as you say, Margharita is wonderfully beautiful—far more so than her mother, I think. What would you advise me to do, Geoffrey?"
He stroked his long gray mustache, and looked thoughtful.
"It's a delicate matter," he said. "To even hint at the girl going away because Lumley admires her would be unjust, and, at the same time, if Lumley got an inkling of the reason it would certainly make him think more of her than he does now. You have no fault to find with her in any way?"
"None! absolutely none! Her behavior is perfect. She is proud, but I do not consider that a fault. Her manners are the manners of a perfectly-bred lady."
"And Gracie likes her?"
"Gracie adores her!"
"She certainly doesn't attempt to encourage Lumley in any way," the Earl continued thoughtfully.
"Her manners and behavior, in fact, her whole conduct, is perfectly irreproachable," Lady St. Maurice acknowledged. "In certain ways she has been a great disappointment to me, but I wish to be just to her, and I feel bound to say so. It makes the situation all the more difficult."
"In that case we can do nothing," her husband said decidedly. "Things must take their course. If they develop, as we will hope they may not, I will speak to Lumley privately."
"You see she is coming back because Lumley has joined them," Lady St. Maurice said. "Geoffrey, look at her now at the top of that hill. Does she not remind you of him?"
He took up a pair of field glasses from the table and looked at her steadily.
"Yes, she does," he admitted. "She is just like that poor fellow Marioni sometimes. I never noticed it so clearly."
"She is horribly like him, and, Geoffrey, it is foolish of me, but sometimes she looks at me with his eyes. It makes me shiver."
"Foolish little woman! Why, you are actually nursing your fears."
"They are scarcely fears; only a stupid sort of foreboding that comes on sometimes, and which, afterward, I look upon as morbid. It is foolish of me, I know, to connect them with Margharita, and yet I can't help it sometimes. She is so like him."
"Why don't you ask her if she knows anything about him, or where he is? Surely you might do that."
"I have made up my mind to more than once, but really, Geoffrey, absurd though it may sound, I have never felt quite at ease in asking Margharita personal questions. She so obviously insists upon our relations remaining exactly those of employer and employed. It was not at all what I intended; but what can I do? I wish to be a friend to her, but her manner quite forbids it. She is far prouder than I am."
Lord St. Maurice shrugged his shoulders and kissed his wife's forehead.
"I shouldn't trouble about it, dear. They are a headstrong, intractable race, those Marionis, and this girl takes after her mother. Treat her kindly and she'll come round some day. Come and sit in the library if you have nothing better to do for half an hour. I have some stupid letters to write."
"I will come in one moment, Geoffrey," she answered. "I may as well clear off some of my correspondence debts. There are some invitations to answer, too."
Lord St. Maurice left the room and Adrienne remained by the window, her eyes fixed upon the little group which had come to a standstill now on the summit of the low line of cliffs. The field glasses were still on the table by her side, and raising them to her eyes, she watched them steadfastly for several minutes. When she put them down she was a shade paler, and there were tears in her eyes.
"If I thought that it would wipe out the past," she murmured, "after all it might be well. But how can it? He will never forgive! Never! never!"
She turned away, brushing the tears from her eyes, and went into her husband's room smiling and comely. Such sorrows as she had were not for him to share—not even for him to know of. The burden of them was for her alone.
And, meanwhile, Lord Lumley, her only son, was leaning against the trunk of a pine tree on the brow of the cliff, with something very much like a frown upon his forehead; and a little distance away, Margharita was calmly reading to Gracie out of a French picture book, brought, as Lord Lumley had been quick to surmise, chiefly with a view of excluding him from their company. It was quite true, as his father had remarked, that he had received very little encouragement from Margharita; in fact, he had been told somewhat plainly, a few minutes ago, that his presence was interfering with the lesson. "As if there was any necessity to bring lesson books out of doors," he had mutteredsotto voce, withdrawing himself a few yards, however, and relapsing into an irritated silence. The book had been brought on his account altogether. There was no doubt whatever about that, and, manlike, he felt aggrieved. Of course he ought to have gone away at once, and he had started with that intention, but the sound of Margharita's voice arrested him before he had gone half a dozen yards. After all, it would be pleasanter to stay and listen.
So he stood there, crumpling up a sprig of heather in his hand, and ostensibly waiting for a shot at a sea gull. He was quite aware that no sea gull was likely to rise anywhere near, and that his gun was unloaded, but the excuse was the only one that had occurred to him at a minute's notice. His real object in remaining was that he might walk home with Margharita when the lesson was over.
The Earl of St. Maurice had been a handsome man in his youth, but his son was handsomer. To the fine Saxon physique of the St. Maurices, in Lord Lumley had been added something of the more delicate beauty of his mother. He had the long limbs and broad shoulders of which a gallery full of St. Maurices boasted, but his features were more delicately formed, and his forehead was higher and more intellectual than any of them.
Yet it had not in any way spoiled him. He had not an atom of conceit or pride of any sort. At college, where he had graduated early, he presented the rare combination of a nobleman's son, a moderate athlete, and a hard reading man. His had been the intellectual set of the whole university, and having the rare gift of attaining an unsought influence over most of those with whom he was brought into contact, he had imparted a distinctly scholarly tone to the little circle which he had formed. Men of all grades spoke well of him. He was reserved, and he was not a prig; he was consistent to his own ideals, and yet not censorious. He was possessed of an agreeable and even winning manner, and yet he had rather avoided the society of women than otherwise. The consequence was that, at twenty-four, he had the thoughtful intellectual air of a much older man.
The lesson came to an end at last, and the three strolled down toward the house together. Lord Lumley had joined them because there was something which he was determined to say.
"Miss Briscoe," he began, during a momentary halt while they watched a yacht tacking in the bay below, "may I ask you a question?"
"I suppose so," she answered carelessly, without looking at him.
"You are beginning to avoid me."
"Indeed!"
"You brought that wretched book out this morning as an excuse to get rid of me."
"Well, if I did, you should certainly relieve me of the necessity, should you not?"
"You know that you did. And, yesterday morning, if Gracie had not pleaded to stay out a little longer, you would have cut your work short because of my presence."
"Then, if you think so, Lord Lumley, it is clearly your duty to go away, as I reminded you just now."
"Thanks. I wonder why the path of duty is always so disagreeable."
She did not answer him; but, taking Gracie by the hand, turned homeward. He kept his place by her side, heedless of the angry glance which she flashed upon him.
"I want to know why you object to my society so much, Miss Briscoe?" he said presently.
"There are a great many things we want to know in this world which we don't know," she answered. "Where we go to after we die, for instance. We have to be patient, and wait till we find out."
"Then you won't tell me?"
"Why should I? But if you really want to know, the reason is simple enough. I have been used to solitude. I prefer it. If I cannot have it absolutely I can have it comparatively, at any rate."
"With Gracie?"
"Exactly."
"You are complimentary," he laughed.
She shrugged her shoulders.
"Why should I not tell the truth when there is nothing to be gained by telling a falsehood?"
He looked at her gravely.
"That sounds cynical, Miss Briscoe."
"I am indifferent as to its sound," she answered. "Hadn't you better go and shoot something?"
He did not notice her suggestion.
"Miss Briscoe, I do not like the way in which we are talking. I——"
"The remedy is obvious," she interrupted haughtily.
"Probably the fault is mine," he continued, calmly ignoring her speech. "I have not been used to talking to girls much. My friends have all been men, and I daresay that I have got into the habit, therefore, of expressing myself clumsily. But what I want to say to you, if you will give me the opportunity, is this: The first few evenings after your arrival here were very pleasant ones indeed—for me. You talked to me, and I found more pleasure in our conversation than I have ever done in anything else in my life. There, that is being frank, is it not? I hoped that we might be friends; indeed, it seemed to me that we were certainly going to be so. I do not wish to offend you by any apparent exaggeration, but I must say that it made a considerable difference to my interest in life. That is putting it mildly. Where you have found the time to read and think so much, of course, I cannot tell. It is not my business. Only, I know that it makes your companionship very pleasant for me. You see I am trying to be as matter-of-fact as possible—do please give me credit for that. I just want to know why you have altered your manner to me; why we cannot be friends? Will you tell me, please, Miss Briscoe?"
His pleading tone had a manly musical ring in it which was very pleasant to listen to, and in his anxiety for her answer he had stooped down until his dark handsome head nearly touched hers. She drew away impatiently.
"That is impossible," she said coldly.
"And why?"
"If for no other reason, surely the Countess of St. Maurice's governess is no suitable friend for Lord Lumley."
He colored under the intense hauteur of her words.
"You will forgive my saying that that is the first remark which I have heard from you, Miss Briscoe, which has not been in good taste. Good-morning. Good-bye, Gracie."
He turned abruptly along a private path through the pine wood. Margharita and her charge went on up to the house alone.
Late in the afternoon of the same day they met again, and this time really by accident. Since morning a storm had been blowing, but just before sunset the wind and rain had dropped, and an angry sun glared out in its last moments upon the troubled sea. Lord Lumley, tired of struggling with a pile of books and smoking cigarettes, had seen the change from his study window, and seizing his cap and a stick had hurried out to taste the strong salt wind and to watch the cloud effects from the cliffs; and, as he had rounded the corner, he had come face to face with Margharita.
She was standing on the highest point of the cliffs, her skirts blowing wildly around her tall, slim figure, and making strange havoc with her hair. Her face was turned seaward, but at the sound of his footsteps she turned quickly round. His heart beat fast for a moment, and then he remembered their parting earlier in the day.
"I am sorry to have disturbed you," he said coldly, raising his cap. "If I had had the least idea that you were here I would have taken the other path."
He was passing on, but as she made him no answer he glanced up at her face. Then all thought of going vanished. There were glistening tears in her dark eyes, and her lips were quivering.
"Forgive me, Miss Briscoe," he said, springing up to her side. "I was a clumsy idiot, but I was afraid that you would think that I had followed you. May I stay?"
She nodded, and turned her face away from him.
"Yes, stay," she answered softly; "stay and talk to me. Don't think me silly, but I was feeling sad—lonely, perhaps—and you have always spoken so kindly to me, that the change—it was a little too sudden."
"I was a brute," he whispered gently.
The change in her was wonderful. Her voice was soft, and, glancing up at her face, he could see that it was stained with tears. At that moment he felt that he would have given the world to have taken her into his arms and held her there, but he thrust the thought resolutely from him. Now was his opportunity to teach her to trust him. He would not even suffer his voice to take too tender a note.
"The fresh air is glorious after a day cooped up in a little study," he said lightly. "See the curlews there, flying round and round over the marshes. Tennyson's old home lies that way, you know. Do you wonder that this flat country, with its strange twilight effects, should have laid hold of him so powerfully?"
"It is strange and weird," she murmured thoughtfully.
"Weird is the very word for it. Tennyson might have written that lovely but hackneyed poem, 'Locksley Hall,' from this very spot. The place seems born to evoke sentiment, and a stormy twilight like this seems to fit in with it. It is not a fair-weather land. People come here in the summer, and call the place flat and uninteresting. One can scarcely wonder at it."
"It is a sad-looking country," she said. "It was its sadness which brought me out this afternoon;similia similibus curantur, you know; but in my case it has failed."
"And why should you be sad?" he asked softly. "Won't you give me a little of your confidence?"
She smiled bitterly, and shook her head.
"No, you could never know. Ask me no questions; only leave me alone. Talk to me of other things, if you will. My thoughts are bad companions to-night. I do not want to be left alone with them. Do you know any of Swinburne's 'Salt Marshes'?"
"A little."
"Say it to me. I want to escape from my thoughts."
He obeyed her, standing up by her side and watching the wild music of the poetry kindle her imagination and work into her heart. He understood the situation now. She was oppressed by some great trouble, and he must help her to forget it. And so, when he had come to the last line, he talked to her softly of it, pointing out the strange lights on the sea, and the shadows lying across the desolate country. Soon he drifted into verse again, striving, so far as he could, to avoid the poetry of pessimism and despair, so beautiful and yet so noxious, and strike a more joyous and hopeful note. Soon he found himself at "Maud," and here he was fluent, but here she stopped him, warned perhaps by the light which was creeping into his eyes.
"Let us go home now," she said. "You have been very kind to me. I shall never forget it."
He gave her his hand, and they scrambled down on to the path. They retraced their steps toward the house almost in silence. He was only fearful of losing one particle of the advantage which he had gained. The fear of not seeing her again, however, gave him courage.
"May I ask a favor?" he begged humbly.
She nodded.
"Make it a small one, please. I am almost afraid of having to refuse it."
"Will you come down into the drawing room to-night?"
She shook her head.
"I cannot. I have a long letter to write."
His face fell.
"For just a short time, then."
She hesitated.
"Yes, if you wish it."
"We are friends now, are we not?" anxiously.
She flashed a brilliant look upon him, which made the color steal into his cheeks, and his heart beat fast.
"Yes," she said softly, "if you will."
"Mother, don't you think that Miss Briscoe is a very strange girl?"
Lady St. Maurice looked up from her work quickly. Nine o'clock was just striking, and her son only a moment before had replaced his watch in his pocket with an impatient little gesture.
"Yes, I do think so," she answered quietly. "I think her very strange indeed. Why do you ask me?"
He shrugged his shoulders.
"Oh, I don't know exactly. It seems odd that she should want to spend all her evening alone, and that she should have so many long letters to write. Do you think that she quite understands that you would like her to come down with us?"
"I am quite sure that she does, Lumley. I even objected to having her come here as a governess at all. Her mother was a dear friend of mine many years ago, and I told Margharita from the first that I would rather have her here as my daughter. She would have been very welcome to a home with us. It was only her pride which made her insist upon coming as Gracie's governess, and I suppose it is the same feeling which prompts her to keep herself so much aloof from us. I am sorry, but I can do no more than I have done toward making her see things differently."
Lord Lumley fidgeted about for a minute or two on the hearthrug. There was a certain reserve in his mother's manner which made the task which he had set himself more difficult even than it would have been under ordinary circumstances. Besides, he felt that from her low seat she was watching him intently, and the knowledge did not tend toward setting him more at his ease.
"You loved her mother, then?"
"I did. She was my dearest friend."
"And yet—forgive me if I am wrong—but sometimes I fancy that you do not even like Miss Briscoe."
"She will not let me like or dislike her, Lumley."
He shook his head.
"It isn't that exactly. I have seen you watching her sometimes—as for instance when she sang that Sicilian song here—as though you were—well, almost afraid of her; as though there was something about her which almost repelled you."
The Countess laid down her work, and looked steadfastly into the fire. There was a moment's silence.
"You have been a close watcher, Lumley."
"I admit it. But, tell me, have I not watched to some purpose. There is no mistaking the look in your face sometimes, when she comes into the room unexpectedly. If the thing were not absurd, I should say that you were afraid of her."
Lady St. Maurice held her hand to her side for a moment, as though she felt a sudden pain. She repeated her son's words without looking up at him.
"Afraid of her! No, no, Lumley. I am afraid of something else, something of which her face continually reminds me. It is the shadow of the past which seems to follow her footsteps."
A tragic note had suddenly been struck in the conversation between mother and son. Lord Lumley, who had been altogether unprepared for it, was full of interest.
"The past!" he repeated. "Whose past? Tell me all about it, mother."
She looked up at him, and he saw that her face was unusually pale.
"Lumley, it is only a little while ago since your father and I told you the story of our strange meeting and marriage. You remember it?"
"Every word! Every word, mother!"
"You remember the duel which the Count di Marioni sought to force upon your father, but which I prevented? You remember the means which I was driven to use to prevent it, and the oath of vengeance which Leonardo—the Count di Marioni—swore against us both?"
"Yes."
"Lumley, twenty-five years have passed away, and he is free."
"But, Miss Briscoe?" he asked, bewildered. "How does all this concern her?"
"She is his niece."
"His niece! his niece!"
Lord Lumley could say nothing. With all the swift selfishness of a man his thoughts were centered round one point. Would this new development hinder his purpose, or was it favorable to him?
"Leonardo's sister, Lumley, was my dear friend. She married a man named Briscoe, and died very soon afterward. Margharita is their daughter, and, Lumley, there is no English blood in her veins. She is a Marioni! I can see his eyes and his forehead every time I look at hers. They seem to tell me that that wild oath still lives; that some day he will stretch out his hand and redeem that murderous threat. Lumley, there have been times when it has terrified me to look at that girl."
His face was clearing. A smile even began to dawn upon his lips.
"Why, mother, don't you see that so far as Miss Briscoe is concerned that is all fancy," he said. "You feel in that way toward her simply because she happens to resemble the Count di Marioni. Isn't that a little unfair to her? What can she know of an oath which was sworn five-and-twenty years ago, long before she was born. Why, I don't suppose that she ever heard of it."
She smiled a little sadly.
"Lumley, I do not attempt to defend my feeling. Of course it is absurd to connect her with it, really."
"I was sure that you would say so, mother."
"But, Lumley, although I cannot defend it the feeling remains. Listen. No woman has known greater happiness than I have. My life has been sometimes almost too perfect, and yet I never altogether forgot those passionate words of Leonardo's. They lay like a shadow across my life, darkening and growing broader as the years of his confinement passed away. The time of his release came at last—only a few months ago, and only a few months ago, Lumley, I saw him."
"You saw him! Where?"
"In London, Lumley! Why did he come, almost on the day of his release, here to England? It was a country which he hated in his younger days, and yet, instead of visiting his old home, his love for which was almost a passion, instead of lingering in those sunny southern towns where many friends still remained who would have received him with open arms, he came straight to London alone. I found him at a hotel there, broken down, and almost, as it were, on the threshold of death! Yet, when he saw me, when he heard my voice, the old passion blazed out. Lumley, I prayed to him for forgiveness, and he scorned me. He had never forgotten! He would never forgive! He pointed to his person, his white hairs, to all the terrible evidences of his long imprisonment, and once more, with the same passion which had trembled in his tone twenty-five years ago, he cursed me! It was horrible! I fled from that place like a haunted woman, and since then, Lumley, I have been haunted. Every feature in the girl's magnificent face, and every movement of her figure, reminds me that she is a Marioni!"
She had risen and was standing by his side, a beautiful, but a suffering woman. He took her into his arms and kissed her forehead.
"Mother, you have too much imagination," he said gently. "Look at the matter seriously. Granted that this old man still harbors a senseless resentment against you. Yet what could he do? He forgets the days in which he lives, and the country to which you belong! Vendettas and romantic vengeances, such as he may have dreamt of five-and-twenty years ago, are extinct even in his own land; here, they cannot be taken seriously at all!"
She shivered a little, and looked into his face as though comforted in some measure.
"That is what I say to myself, Lumley," she said; "but there are times when the old dread is too strong for me wholly to crush it. I am not an Englishwoman, you know; I come of a more superstitious race!"
"I am sorry that Miss Briscoe should be the means of bringing these unpleasant thoughts to you," he remarked thoughtfully. "Mother!"
"Yes, Lumley."
"Would it be a great trouble to you if—some day—I asked you to receive her as a daughter?"
She stood quite still and shivered. Her face was suddenly of a marble pallor.
"You—you mean this, Lumley?"
"I mean that I care for her, mother."
"You have not—spoken to her?"
"No. I should not have said anything to you yet, only it pained me to think that there was anything between you—any aversion, I mean. I thought that if you knew, you would try and overcome it."
"I cannot!"
"Mother!"
"Lumley, I cannot! She looks at me out of his eyes; she speaks to me with his voice; something tells me that she bears in her heart his hate toward me. You do not know these Marionis! They are one in hate and one in love; unchanging and hard as the rocks on which their castle frowns. Even Margharita herself, in the old days, never forgave me for sending Leonardo to prison, although I saved her lover's life as well as mine. Lumley, you have said nothing to her?"
"Not yet."
"She would not marry you! I tell you that in her heart she hates us all! Sometimes I fancy that she is here—only——"
"Mother!"
He laid his hand firmly upon her white trembling arm. She looked around, following his eyes. Margharita, pale and proud, was standing upon the threshold, with a great bunch of white hyacinths in the bosom of her black dress.
"Am I intruding?" she asked quietly. "I will come down some other evening."
Lord Lumley sprang forward to stop her; but his mother was the first to recover herself.
"Pray don't go away, Margharita," she said, with perfect self-possession. "Only a few minutes ago we were complaining that you came down so seldom. Lumley, open the piano, and get Miss Briscoe's songs."
He was by her side in a moment, but he found time for an admiring glance toward his mother. She had taken up a paper knife, and was cutting the pages of her book. It was thesavoir-faireof a great lady.
Letter from Count Leonardo di Marioni to Miss M. Briscoe, care of the Earl of St. Maurice, Mallory Grange, Lincolnshire.
"Hotel de Paris, Turin.
"My beloved Niece: Alas! I have but another disappointment to recount. I arrived here last night, and early this morning I visited the address which I obtained at Florence with so much difficulty. The house was shut up. From inquiries made with caution among the neighbors I learned that Andrea Paschuli had left a few months before for Rome. Thither I go in search of him.
"The delay is irksome, but it is necessary. Although my desire for the day of my vengeance to come is as strong as ever, I would not have the shadow of a suspicion rest upon you. Truly, yours will be no crime, but the world and the courts of justice would have it otherwise. You will, in verity, be but the instrument. Upon my head be the guilt, as mine will be the exceeding joy, when the thing for which I crave is accomplished. Bless you, my child, that you have elected to aid me in carrying out this most just requital! Bless you, my child, that you have chosen to bring peace into the heart of one who has known great suffering!
"Your last letter was short; yet I do not wonder at it. What is there you can find to say to me, while our great purpose remains thus in abeyance? My health continues good, I am thankful to say, yet, were it otherwise, I know that my strength would linger with me till my oath is accomplished. Till that day shall come death itself has no power over me. Even though its shadow lay across my path I could still defy it. Think not that I am blaspheming, Margharita, or that I believe in no God. I believe in a God of justice, and he will award me my right. Oh, that the time may be short, for I am growing weary. Life is very burdensome, save only for its end.
"Sometimes, my beloved Margharita, you have sought to lighten the deep gloom through which I struggle, by picturing the happy days we may yet spend together in some far-distant country, where the shadows of this great selfish world barely reach, and its mighty roar and tumult sound but as a faint, low murmur. I have listened, but I have answered not; for in my heart I know that it will never be. Those days will never come. I have shrunk from throwing a chill upon your warm, generous heart; but of late I have wondered whether I do well in thus silently deceiving you. For, Margharita, there is no such time of peaceful happiness in store for me. I am dying! Nay, do not start! Do not pity me! Do not fear! I know it so well; and I feel no pang, no sorrow. The limit of my days is fixed—not in actual days or weeks, but by events. I shall live to see my desire accomplished, and then I shall die. The light may flicker, but, till then, it will not go out. You will ask me: Who am I that I dare to fix a limit to an existence which God alone controls? I cannot tell you, Margharita, why I know, or how, yet it is surely so. The day which sees me free of my vow will also be the day of my death.
"Trouble not, my child, at this thought, nor wonder why I can write of the end of my days so calmly. Ask yourself rather what further life could mean for me. There is no joy which I desire; my worn-out frame could find no pleasure in dragging out a tasteless and profitless existence. I look for death as one looks for his couch who has toiled and labored through the heat of the day. I shall find there rest and peace. I have no other desire.
"For yourself, Margharita, have no fear. I have made your fortune my care, and God grant that it may be a happy one. Honest men have made good profit out of my lands during my imprisonment. I have wealth to leave, and it is yours. The Castle of the Marionis will be yours, and well I know you will raise once more and uphold the mighty, though fallen, traditions of our race. I leave all fearlessly in your hands, at your entire disposal. Only one thing I beg of you, and that without fear of refusal. Marry not an Englishman. Marry one of the nobility of our own island, if you can find one worthy of you; if not, there are nobles of Italy with whom your alliance would be an honor, and also a profit. You will be rich as you are beautiful; and the first lady in Italy, our distant kinswoman, Angela di Carlotti, will be your guardian and your friend. May you be very, very happy, dearest; and all that comes to you you will deserve, for you have lightened the heart of a weary old man, whose blessing is yours, now and for ever.
"Leonardo di Marioni."
Letter from Margharita Briscoe to the Count Leonardo di Marioni, care of the Princess di Carlotti, Palazzo Carlotti, Rome.
"My dear, dear Uncle: I am inclined to scold you for your letter, for it made me very sad. Why should you be so sure of dying just as the vengeance which is your due becomes yours? You are not very old, and I can nurse you even as I did before. Think how lonely I should be without you. No, you must not think of leaving me. I forbid it! It is morbid. Banish that fancy for my sake, and try and think of a quiet happy life together, away in some southern city, where the sea and the sky are blue, and the sun is warm, and the breezes are soft and laden with the perfume of sweet flowers. We would never live in this country, would we? I do not like it. It is cold and damp, and it chills me, chills even my heart. Oh! I know just the life we could live together, and be very, very happy. Write to me no more of death.
"I am quite settled down here, waiting. My duties are light, and I do not find them irksome. Every day I realize that I did well in coming here as a governess, and not as one seeking a home. They think that it is because of my pride that I have willed it so. They do not know.
"Lady St Maurice tries to be kind to me in her way; but when the honeyed words are upon her lips, I think of you and my heart is steel. She must have been a very beautiful woman—nay, she is beautiful now! You asked me in your first letter to watch well and to tell you whether they were happy together. You asked me, and I tell you the truth.
"Yes! I think that of all the women whom I have ever seen, her life seems to have flown along the most calmly and peacefully. I have never seen a cloud upon her brow; I hate her for it. She has no right to be happy; she who by such treachery condemned you to a living death. Once my anger rose up so fiercely that I nearly struck her, and I had to hurry from the room lest I should betray myself before the time. Truly she deserves punishment, and my hand shall not shrink from inflicting it.
"Yet, after all, is death the most complete form of punishment. Sometimes I doubt it. I would mar the beauty of her face for ever, and laugh. I would strike her blind gladly; I would make her a cripple for life, without remorse, without hesitation. To see her suffer would please me. I should have no pity!
"But death, uncle! If anything of our religion be true, would death be so terrible a thing? Against my will I see that her life is good. She has made her home what it should be, and her husband happy. She is a devoted Christian, and, wet or fine, every Sunday morning before breakfast, she goes to the little church in the village and kneels before the altar. She visits the sick and the poor, and they love her. For me, religion has become something of a dream. I was brought up a Roman Catholic. What I am now I do not know! When I vowed my life to its present purpose I filled it with new thoughts; I put my religion away from me. I could not kneel with hate in my heart; I could not confess, with the desire to kill in my bosom.
"Yet let that pass. Supposing there be a heaven, if we kill her for her treachery to you will not that sin be wiped out? May she not gain heaven? And if so, what of our vengeance? Death is swift! What will she suffer? It will be those who are left behind who will feel the pain; for her, there will be a happiness beyond even the happiness of earth. She will be shriven of her sin by our vengeance.
"Think of this, my dear uncle! Do not imagine that I am growing faint-hearted; do not imagine that I am drawing back from the task which I now claim as my right. Death, or some other sort of punishment, shall surely fall upon her; she shall not escape! Only think what is best.
"Write to me all that is in your heart. Fear not to speak out! I would know all. Farewell! Your loving
"Margharita."
Letter from the Count Leonardo di Marioni, the Palazzo Carlotti, Rome, to Miss Margharita Briscoe, Mallory Grange, Lincolnshire.
"Beloved Margharita: I will confess that your letter troubles me. If there be heaven for the woman who wrecked my life, there is no heaven for me, no religion, no God. You say that she is a good woman. She is then a good woman through fear. She seeks to atone, but she can never atone. She won a boy's passionate love; she wore his heart upon her sleeve; she cast it away at the moment of her pleasure. She broke the vows of an order, which should have been as sacred to her as the face of God to the angels; and she sent a Marioni to rot through a useless life in a miserable prison. The boy whose heart she broke, and the man whose life she severed, lives only to nurse his unchanging and unchangeable hate for her. Away with all other thoughts, my vengeance knows but one end, and that is death! Not sudden death, mind! but death—slow, lingering, and painful. I would see the struggle against some mysterious sickness, with my own eyes; I would stand by the bedside and mock, I would watch the cheeks grow thin and pale, and the eyes grow dim. She should know me in those last moments. She should see me, the wasted shadow of a man, myself on the threshold of the grave, standing by her bedside, cold and unpitying, and holding out toward her a white hyacinth.
"That is how I would have it, though thus it may not be. Yet speak to me not of any other vengeance save death. Let none other dwell for a moment in your thoughts, I solemnly charge you, Margharita.
"As to my search, it has not yet, alas, been successful. Think not that I have lost heart, or that I am discouraged. Never fear but that I shall find the man whom I seek—if not, there are others. I give myself one month longer; at the end of that time, if Paschuli be not found, another must serve my purpose.
"The Princess is much interested in you, and sends her love. She is impatient to take you under her care. I have told her that it will not be long—nor will it.
"Farewell, my child. Soon I shall send you the good news.—Yours,
"Leonardo di Marioni."