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Title: A Daughter of the Marionis
Alternative title (U.S.): To Win the Love He Sought
Author: Oppenheim, Edward Phillips (1866-1946)
Date of first publication: 1895
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   London, Melbourne and Toronto: Ward, Lock & Co., undated
Date first posted: 4 October 2013
Date last updated: 4 October 2013
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #1116

This ebook was produced by Al Haines






  A DAUGHTER
  OF THE MARIONIS



  BY

  E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM

  AUTHOR OF "MYSTERIOUS MR. SABIN," "AS A MAN LIVES," ETC.



  WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED
  LONDON, MELBOURNE AND TORONTO




CONTENTS


BOOK I

  I. THE MEETING
  II.  "SHE IS A SINGER"
  III.  "BETTER THOU WERT DEAD BEFORE ME"
  IV.  "DOWN INTO HELL TO WIN THE LOVE HE SOUGHT"
  V.  TREACHERY
  VI.  "THE BITTER SPRINGS OF ANGER AND FEAR"
  VII.  "COMFORT!  COMFORT SCORNED OF DEVILS"
  VIII.  "DEATH IN THE FACE, AND MURDER IN THE HEART"
  IX.  "AH!  WHY SHOULD LOVE," ETC.
  X.  A MARIONI'S OATH


BOOK II

  I.  A MEETING OF THE ORDER
  II.  "A FIGURE FROM A WORLD GONE BY"
  III.  BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH
  IV.  AN EVERLASTING HATE
  V.  THE COUNT'S SECOND VISITOR
  VI.  A NEW MEMBER FOR THE ORDER
  VII.  THE RETURN TO REASON
  VIII.  "I HAVE A FEAR--A FOOLISH FEAR"
  IX.  THE NEW GOVERNESS
  X.  LORD LUMLEY AND MARGHARITA
  XI.  A LAND THAT IS LONELIER THAN RUIN
  XII.  LORD LUMLEY'S CONFESSION


BOOK III

  I.  MARGHARITA'S DIARY--A CORRESPONDENCE
  II.  "WHITE HYACINTHS"
  III.  AMONGST THE PINE TREES
  IV.  STORMS
  V.  A LIFE IN THE BALANCE
  VI.  ONE DAY'S RESPITE
  VII.  "THERE IS DEATH BEFORE US"
  VIII.  THE DAWN OF A NEW LIFE
  IX.  AN OLD MAN'S HATE
  X.  THE KEEPING OF THE OATH




A DAUGHTER OF THE MARIONIS



BOOK I




CHAPTER I

THE MEETING

The soft mantle of a southern twilight had fallen upon land and sea,
and the heart of the Palermitans was glad.  Out they trooped into the
scented darkness, strolling along the promenade in little groups,
listening to the band, drinking in the cool night breeze from the sea,
singling out friends, laughing, talking, flirting, and passing on.  A
long line of carriages was drawn up along the Marina, and many of the
old Sicilian aristocracy were mingling with the crowd.

Palermo is like a night blossom which opens only with the first breath
of evening.  By day, it is parched and sleepy and stupid; by night, it
is alive and joyous--the place itself becomes an alfresco paradise.  It
is night which draws the sweetness from the flowers.  The air is heavy
with the faint perfume of hyacinths and wild violets, and a breeze
stirring amongst the orange groves wafts a delicious aromatic odour
across the bay.  Long rays of light from the little semi-circle of
white-fronted villas flash across the slumbering waters of the harbour.
Out-of-door restaurants are crowded; all is light and life and bustle;
every one is glad to have seen the last of the broiling sun; every one
is happy and light-hearted.  The inborn gaiety of the south asserts
itself.  Women in graceful toilettes pass backwards and forwards along
the broad parade, making the air sweeter still with the perfume of
their floating draperies, and the light revelry of their musical
laughter.

'Tis a motley throng, and there is no respecting of persons.
Townspeople, a sprinkling of the old nobility, and a few curious
visitors follow in each other's footsteps.  By day, those who can,
sleep; by night, they awake and don their daintiest clothing, and
Palermo is gay.

The terrace of the Htel de l'Europe extends to the very verge of the
promenade, and, night by night, is crowded with men of all conditions
and nations, who sit before little marble tables facing the sea,
smoking and drinking coffee and liqueurs.  At one of these, so close to
the promenade that the dresses of the passers-by almost touched them,
two men were seated.

One was of an order and race easily to be distinguished in any quarter
of the globe--an English country gentleman.  There was no possibility
of any mistake about him.  Saxon was written in his face, in the cut of
his clothes; even his attitude betrayed it.  He was tall and handsome,
and young enough not to have outlived enthusiasm, for he was looking
out upon the gay scene with keen interest.  His features were well cut,
his eyes were blue, and his bronze face was smooth, save for a slight,
well-formed moustache.  He wore a brown tweed coat and waistcoat,
flannel trousers, a straw hat tilted over his eyes, and he was smoking
a briar pipe, with his hands in his pockets, and his feet resting upon
the stone-work.

His companion was of a different type.  He was of medium height only,
and thin; his complexion was sallow, and his eyes and hair were black.
His features, though not altogether pleasing, were regular, and almost
classical in outline.  His clothes displayed him to the worst possible
advantage.  He wore black trousers and a dark frock coat, tightly
fitting, which accentuated the narrowness of his shoulders.  The only
relief to the sombreness of his attire consisted in a white flower
carefully fastened in his button-hole.  He, too, had been smoking, but
his cigarette had gone out, and he was watching the stream of people
pass and repass, with a fixed searching gaze.  Though young, his face
was worn and troubled.  He had none of the _sang-froid_ or the
pleasure-seeking carelessness of the Englishman who sat by his side.
His whole appearance was that of a man with a steadfast definite
purpose in life--of a man who had tasted early the sweets and bitters
of existence, joy and sorrow, passion and grief.

They were only acquaintances, these two men; chance had brought them
together for some evil purpose of her own.  When the Englishman, who,
unlike most of his compatriots, was a young man of a sociable turn of
mind, and detested solitude, had come across him a few minutes ago in
the long, low dining-room of the hotel, and had proposed their sharing
a table and their coffee outside, the other would have refused if he
could have done so with courtesy.  As that had been impossible he had
yielded, however, and they had become for a while companions, albeit
silent ones.

The Englishman was in far too good a humour with himself, the place,
and his surroundings, to hold his peace for long.  He exchanged his
pipe for a Havana, and commenced to talk.

"I say, this is an awfully jolly place!  No idea it was anything like
it.  I'm glad I came!"

His _vis--vis_ bowed in a courteous but abstracted manner.  He had no
wish to encourage the conversation, so he made no reply.  But the
Englishman, having made up his mind to talk, was not easily repulsed.

"You don't live here, do you?" he asked.

The Sicilian shook his head..

"No!  It happens that I was born here, but my home was on the other
side of the island.  It is many years since I visited it."

He had made a longer speech than he had intended, and he paid the
penalty for it.  The Englishman drew his chair a little nearer, and
continued with an air of increasing familiarity.

"It's very stupid of me, but, do you know, I've quite forgotten your
name for the moment.  I remember my cousin, Cis Davenport, introducing
us at Rome, and I knew you again directly I saw you.  But I'm hanged if
I can think of your name!  I always had a precious bad memory."

The Sicilian looked none too well pleased at the implied request.  He
glanced uneasily around, and then bent forward, leaning his elbow upon
the table so that the heads of the two men almost touched.  When they
had come into the place, he had carefully chosen a position as far away
from the flaming lights as possible, but they were still within hearing
of many of the chattering groups around.

"I do not object to telling you my name," he said in a low tone, sunk
almost to a whisper, "but you will pardon me if I make a request which
may appear somewhat singular to you.  I do not wish you to address me
by it here, or to mention it.  To be frank, there are reasons for
wishing my presence in this neighbourhood not to be known.  You are a
gentleman, and you will understand."

"Oh, perfectly," the Englishman answered in a tone of blank
bewilderment.

What did it all mean?  Had he run off with some one else's wife, or was
he in debt?  One of the two seemed to be the natural conclusion.
Anyhow, he did not want to know the fellow's name.  He had only asked
out of politeness, and if he were in any sort of scrape, perhaps it
would be better not to know it.

"I tell you what," the Englishman explained, in the midst of the
other's hesitating pause, "don't tell it me!  I can call you anything
you like for this evening.  I daresay we sha'n't meet afterwards, and
if you want to keep it dark about your being here, why, then, I sha'n't
be able to give you away--by accident, of course.  Come, I'll call you
anything you like.  Choose your name for the night!"

The Sicilian shook his head slowly.

"You have been told my name when I had the honour of being presented to
you at Rome," he said, "and at any chance mention you might recall it.
I prefer to tell it to you, and rely upon your honour."

"As you like."

"My name is Leonardo di Marioni!"

"By Jove! of course it is!" the Englishman exclaimed.  "I should have
thought of it in a moment.  I remember, Davenport made me laugh when he
introduced us.  His pronounciation's so queer, you know, and he's only
been at Rome about a month, so he hasn't had time to pick it up.  Good
old Cis! he was always a dunce!  I suppose his uncle got him in at the
Embassy."

"No doubt," the Sicilian answered politely.  "I have only had the
pleasure of meeting your cousin once or twice, and I know him but
slightly.  You will not forget my request, and if you have occasion to
address me, perhaps you will be so good as to do so by the name of
'Cortegi.'  It is the name by which I am known here, and to which I
have some right."

The Englishman nodded.

"All right.  I'll remember.  By the bye," he went on, "I had the
pleasure of meeting your sister in Naples, I believe.  She is engaged
to marry Martin Briscoe, isn't she?"

The Sicilian's face darkened into a scowl; the thin lips were tightly
compressed, and his eyes flashed with angry light.

"I was not aware of it," he answered haughtily.

The other raised his eyebrows.

"Fact, I assure you," he continued suavely, not noticing the Sicilian's
change of countenance.  "Martin told me about it himself.  I should
have thought that you would have known all about it.  Briscoe isn't
half a bad fellow," he went on meditatively.  "Of course, it isn't
altogether pleasant to have a father who makes pickles, and who won't
leave off, although he must have made a fine pot of money.  But Martin
stands it very well.  He isn't half a bad fellow."

The Sicilian rose from his chair with a sudden impetuous movement.  The
moonlight fell upon his white, furious face and black eyes, ablaze with
passion.  He was in a towering rage.

"I repeat, sir, that I know of no such engagement!" he exclaimed, in a
voice necessarily subdued, but none the less fierce and angry.  "I do
not understand your nation, which admits into the society of nobles
such men.  It is infamous!  In Sicily we do not do these things.  For
such a man to think of an alliance with a Marioni is more than
presumption--it is blasphemy!"

"That's all very well, but I only know what I was told," the Englishman
answered bluntly.  "It's no affair of mine.  I'm sorry I mentioned it."

The Sicilian stood quite still for a moment; a shade of sadness stole
into his marble face, and his tone, when he spoke again, was more
mournful than angry.

"It may be as you say, Signor.  I have been travelling, and for many
months I have seen nothing of my sister.  I have heard such rumours as
you allude to, but I have not heeded them.  The affair is between us
two.  I will say no more.  Only this.  While I am alive, that marriage
will not take place!"

He resumed his seat, and conversation languished between the two men.
The Englishman sat with knitted eyebrows, watching the people pass
backwards and forwards, with an absent, puzzled look in his blue eyes.
He had an indistinct recollection of having been told something
interesting about this man at the time of their introduction.  He was
notorious for something.  What was it?  His memory seemed utterly to
fail him.  He could only remember that, for some reason or other,
Leonardo di Marioni had been considered a very interesting figure in
Roman society during his brief stay at the capital, and that he had
vanished from it quite suddenly.

The Sicilian, too, was watching the people pass to and fro, but more
with the intent gaze of one who awaits an expected arrival than with
the idle regard of his companion.  Once the latter caught his anxious,
expectant look, and at the same time noticed that the slim fingers
which held his cigarette were trembling nervously.

"Evidently looking out for some one," he thought.  "Seems a queer fish
anyhow.  Is it a man or a woman, I wonder?"

Soon he knew.




CHAPTER II

"SHE IS A SINGER"

There was a brief lull in the stream of promenaders.  The Englishman
turned round with a yawn, and ordered another cup of coffee.  From his
altered position he had a full view of the Sicilian's face, and became
suddenly aware of an extraordinary change in it.  The restlessness was
gone; the watching seemed to be at an end.  The fire of a deep passion
was blazing in his dark eyes, and the light of a great wistful joy
shone in his face.  The Englishman, almost involuntarily, turned in his
chair, and glanced round to see what had wrought the change.

He looked into the eyes of the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
A flood of silver moonlight lay upon the Marina, glancing away across
the dark blue waters of the bay, and the soft dazzling light gently
touched her hair, and gleamed in her dark, sweet eyes.  She was tall,
and clad in white flowing draperies clinging softly around her slim,
girlish figure, and giving to her appearance an inexpressible
daintiness, as though they were indeed emblematic of the spotless
purity of that fair young being.  Was it the chastened light, or was
there indeed something spiritual, something more than humanly beautiful
in the delicate oval face--perfect in its outline, perfect in its faint
colouring and stately poise?  She was walking slowly, her every
movement full of a distinctive and deliberate grace, and her head a
little upturned, as though her thoughts were far away among the
softly-burning stars, rather than concerned with the fashionable and
picturesque crowd which thronged around her.  A remark from her
companion, a girl of somewhat slighter stature and darker complexion,
caused her to lower her eyes, and in doing so they fell upon the eager,
impassioned gaze of the young Englishman.

Afterwards he was never ashamed to confess that that moment brought
with it a peculiar lingering sweetness which never altogether died
away.  It was the birth of a new sensation, the most poignant of all
sensations, although philosophers deny and materialists scoff at it.
After all, there is something more than refined sensuality in love
which has so sudden a dawning; there is a certain innate spirituality
which sublimates and purifies it, so that the flame burns softly but
brightly still through joy and grief, mocking at satiety, surviving the
sorrow of grey hairs, triumphing over the desolation of old age, and
sweetening the passage to the grave.  He was a headstrong, chivalrous
young man, passionate, loyal, and faithful, amongst all his faults.
That first love of his never grew cold, never lessened.  It lasted for
ever.  For some men it is not possible to give the better part of
themselves up to the worship of a pure woman; selfishness forbids it.
But this young Englishman who sat there spell-bound, absorbed in the
consciousness of this new and sweet emotion, was not one of these.

Suddenly she withdrew her eyes with a faint, conscious blush, and as
she did so she saw for the first time the Sicilian.  Her whole aspect
swiftly changed.  A terrified shudder swept across her features, and
her lips parted with fear.  She looked into a face but a moment before,
at her first appearance, all aglow with passionate love, now black with
suppressed anger and fierce jealousy.  His eyes fascinated her, but it
was the fascination of dread; and, indeed, his appearance was not
pleasant to look upon.  His thin form seemed dilated with nervous
passion, and his eyes were on fire.  Suddenly he conquered himself,
and, with the swiftness of lightning across the water, the fierceness
died out of his face, leaving it pale almost to ghastliness in the
moonlight.  He half rose from his seat, and, lifting his hat, bowed low.

She answered his salutation timidly, and touched her companion on the
arm.  She, too, started as she saw that dark, thin figure gazing so
steadfastly upon them, and her first impulse seemed to be to approach
him.  She stopped short on the promenade, and though there was a
certain amount of apprehension in her dark eyes, there was also some
pleasure, and her lips were parted in a half-welcoming, half-inviting
smile.  But he did not make any advance towards her; on the contrary,
with a slight and almost imperceptible gesture, he motioned them to
proceed.  With a little wave of the hand, she obeyed him, and he
resumed his seat, drawing his hat over his eyes, and no longer watching
the stream of promenaders.

The Englishman, absorbed in his own sudden passion, had seen nothing
out of the common in the brief interchange of glances between the trio.
All that he noticed was that his companion had saluted the taller of
the two girls, and that she had acknowledged the salutation.  It was
quite enough for him.

He leaned over the low palisade, watching her until she disappeared
amongst the crowd, scarcely daring to hope that she might look back,
and yet determined to lose no opportunity of a farewell glance should
she do so.  When she was finally out of sight, he drew a long breath
and turned towards his companion.

"Who is she?" he asked abruptly.

"I fear that I do not quite understand you," he said quietly, although
his voice and limbs were trembling with passion; "to whom do you
allude?"

"The girl in white who passed just now.  You knew her!  Tell me her
name!"

"Why should I?"

"I wish to know it."

The Sicilian lit his cigarette.  He was growing calmer, but the fingers
which held the match were still shaking.

"Possibly.  But that is no reason why I should tell it to you.  That
lady is a friend of mine, certainly, but it is not the custom in my
country, however it may be in yours, to bandy a lady's name about a
public place."

"But I am not asking out of curiosity," the other persisted, "nor am I
a stranger to you."

"What is your motive, if it be not curiosity?" the Sicilian asked, with
a dark shade stealing into his face.  "You had better be careful,
Signor; there is danger at hand for any man who so much as directs an
impertinent glance at either of those ladies."

The Englishman was far too deeply in earnest to be angry.

"You won't tell me, then?" he said simply.

"I will not."

"Certain?"

"Quite certain."

"Very good.  I shall find out."

The Sicilian laid his hand upon the other's arm.  His black eyes were
flashing angrily, and his tone was threatening.

"Signor! a word of warning!  I constitute myself the protector of those
ladies.  I have a very good right to do so.  Any idle and public
inquiries concerning them, or any attempt to obtrude an acquaintance
upon them, I shall--punish!  You understand!"

"Certainly," he answered.  "You have only to prove the offence and the
right of protectorship, and I shall be at your service.  You probably
know little concerning the men of my country.  Let me tell you that we
are not in the habit of forcing ourselves upon unknown ladies, nor in
our respect for them are we second to the men of any nation in the
world.  I wish you good-evening, Signor."

He walked away with his head in the air, an object of much curiosity to
the many scattered little groups of dusky foreigners and Jews through
which he passed.  At the door of the hotel he paused for a moment, and
then, instead of joining the stream of promenaders, he entered and
slowly ascended the broad marble staircase towards his room.  Just as
he reached the first landing, however, he felt a light touch on his
arm, and a guttural voice in his ear.  He turned sharply round, and
found before him one of the waiters--the one who had served him with
his coffee outside.

"Well! what do you want?" he asked.

The man answered in a low tone, with his eyes glancing suspiciously
around all the time.

"The Signor was inquiring the name of the lady who passed by," he said
apologetically.  "The Signor spoke loudly, and I could not choose but
hear."

The Englishman came to a sudden standstill, and looked down into the
ferret-like face and black eyes of the man who had followed him.

"Well?"

"I can tell it to the Signor."

"Look sharp then!"

"The Signor is generous," he remarked, with a cunning look.  "I have
risked my place by leaving the terrace without permission to bring him
this news, and I am poor--very, very poor!" he added, with a sudden
drop in his voice which resembled a whine.

The Englishman threw a piece of gold into the brown, greedy palm.

"Tell it me, and be off," he said shortly.  The waiter--half Greek,
half native, and a thorough rascal--bowed low, and his bead-like eyes
glistened.

"The Signor is noble.  The beautiful lady's name is Signorina Adrienne
Cartuccio."

"The singer?"

"The same, Signor.  The divine singer."

"Ah!"

The Englishman turned towards the wide, open window, and gazed
steadfastly at the place in the crowd where she had vanished.

"She sings to-night, does she not?" he asked.

"Truly, Signor.  Palermo is full of visitors from all parts of the
island on purpose to hear her."

"At what time?"

"At nine o'clock, Signor, in the concert hall.  If the Signor desires
to hear her he should go early, for to-night is the only chance.  She
sings but once, and it is for the poor.  They say that she has come to
the Villa Fiolesse on the hill, to be away from the world, to rest."

The Englishman descended the stairs and went slowly back to his seat.
He had only one thought.  In a few hours' time he would see her again.
It would be Paradise!

He reached his table and sat down.  The seat opposite to him was empty.
The Sicilian had gone.




CHAPTER III

"BETTER THOU WERT DEAD BEFORE ME"

On the brow of the Hill Fiolesse, at a sharp angle in the white dusty
road, a man and woman stood talking.  On one side of them was a grove
of flowering magnolias, and on the other a high, closely-trimmed hedge
skirted the grounds of the Villa Fiolesse.  There was not another soul
in sight, but, as though the place were not secure enough from
interruption, the girl, every now and then, glanced half fearfully
around her, and more than once paused in the middle of a sentence to
listen.  At last her fears escaped from her lips.

"Leonardo, I wish that you had not come!" she cried.  "What is the good
of it?  I shall have no rest till I know that you are beyond the sea
again."

His face darkened, and his tone was gloomy and sad.

"Beyond the seas, while my heart is chained for ever here, Margharita!"
he answered.  "Ah!  I have tried, and I know the bitterness of it.  You
cannot tell what exile has been like to me.  I could bear it no longer.
Tell me, child!  I watched you climb this hill together.  You looked
back and saw me, and waited.  Did she see me, too?  Quick! answer me!
I will know!  She saw me on the Marina.  Did she know that I was
following her?"

"I think she saw you.  She said nothing when I lingered behind.  It was
as though she knew."

The Sicilian clasped his hands, and looked away over the sea.  The
moonlight fell upon his weary pallid face, and glistened in his dark
sad eyes.  He spoke more to himself than her.

"She knew!  And yet she would not wait to speak a single word to me!
Ah! it is cruel!  If only she could know how night by night, in those
far-distant countries, I have lain on the mountain tops, and wandered
through the valleys, thinking and dreaming of her--always of her!  It
has been an evil time with me, my sister, a time of dreary days and
sleepless nights.  And this the end of it!  My heart is faint and sick
with longing, and I hastened here before it should break.  I must see
her, Margharita!  Let us hasten on to the villa!"

She laid her hand upon his arm.  Her eyes were soft with coming tears.

"Leonardo, listen," she cried.  "It is best to tell you.  She will not
see you.  She is quite firm.  She is angry with you for coming."

"Angry with me!  Angry because I love her, so that I risk my life just
to see her, to hear her speak!  Ah! but that is cruel!  Let me go in
and speak to her!  Let me plead with her in my own fashion!"

She shook her head.

"Leonardo, the truth is best," she said softly.  "Adrienne does not
love you.  She is quite determined not to see you again.  Even I,
pleading with tears in my eyes, could not persuade her.  She has locked
herself in her room while she prepares for the concert.  You could not
see her unless you forced yourself upon her, and that would not do."

"No, I would not do that," he answered wearily.  "Margharita, there is
a question; I must ask it, though the answer kill me.  Is there any one
else?"

She shook her head,

"There is no one else, Leonardo, yet.  But what matter is that, since
it cannot be you?  Some day it will come.  All that a sister could do I
have done.  She pities you, Leonardo, but she does not love you.  She
never will!"

He moved from the open space, where the moonlight fell upon his marble
face, to the shadow of the magnolia grove.  He stood there quite silent
for a moment.  Then he spoke in a strained, hard voice, which she
scarcely recognised.

"Margharita, you have done your best for me.  You do not know what a
man's love is, or you would not wonder that I suffer so much.  Yet, if
it must be, it must.  I will give her up.  I will go back to my exile
and forget her.  Yet since I am here, grant me a last favour.  Let me
see her to say farewell."

She looked up at him in distress.

"Leonardo, how can I?  She has given orders that under no circumstances
whatever are you to be admitted."

"She would not believe it.  It has been so before, Leonardo, and then
you have been passionate, and pleaded your cause all over again.  I
have promised that I will never ask her to see you again."

"Then let me see her without asking.  You can find an opportunity, if
you will.  For my sake, Margharita!"

She laid her troubled, tear-stained face upon his shoulder.

"It is wrong of me, Leonardo.  Yet if you will promise me to say
farewell, and farewell only----"

"Be it so!  I promise!"

"Well, then, each night we have walked past the Marina, and home by the
mountain road.  It is a long way round and it is lonely; but we have
Pietro with us, and on these moonlight nights the view is like
fairyland."

"And will you come that way home to-night, after the concert?"

"Yes."

"It is good."

"You will remember your promise, Leonardo," she said anxiously.

"I will remember," he answered.  "And, Margharita, since this is to be
our farewell, I have something to say to you also, before I pass away
from your life into my exile.  In Rome I was told a thing which for a
moment troubled me.  I say for a moment, because it was for a moment
only that I believed it.  The man who told me was my friend, or he
would have answered to me for it, as for an insult.  Shall I tell you,
Margharita, what this thing was?"

Her face was troubled, and her eyes were downcast.  The Sicilian
watched her confusion with darkening brows.  Since she made no answer,
he continued--

"They told me, Margharita, that you, a Marioni, daughter of one of
Europe's grandest families, daughter of a race from which princes have
sprung, and with whom, in the old days, kings have sought alliance,
they told me that you were betrothed to some low American, a trader, a
man without family or honour.  They told me this, Margharita, and I
answered them that they lied.  Forgive me for the shadow of a doubt
which crossed my mind, sister.  Forgive me that I beg for a denial from
your own lips."

She lifted her head.  She was-pale, but her dark eyes had an indignant
sparkle in them.

"They did lie, Leonardo," she answered firmly, "but not in the fact
itself.  It is true that I am engaged to be married."

"Betrothed!  Without my sanction!  Margharita, how is that?  Am I not
your guardian?"

"Yes, but, Leonardo, you have been away, and no one knew when you would
return, or where you were."

"It is enough.  Tell me of the man to whom you are betrothed.  I would
know his name and family."

"Leonardo, his name is Martin Briscoe, and his family--he has no family
that you would know of.  It is true that he is an American, but he is a
gentleman."

"An American!  It is perhaps also true that he is a trader?"

His coolness alarmed her.  She looked into his face and trembled.

"I do not know; it may be so.  His father----"

The Sicilian interrupted her.  His face was marble white, but his eyes
were afire.

"His father!  Spare me the pedigree!  I know it!  Margharita, stand
there, where the moonlight touches your face.  Let me look at you.  Is
it you, a daughter of the Marionis, who can speak so calmly of bringing
this disgrace upon our name?  You, my little sister Margharita, the
proud-spirited girl who used to share in my ambitions, and to whom our
name was as dear as to myself?"

"Leonardo, spare me!"

"Spare you?  Yes, when you have told me that this is some nightmare,
some phantasm--a lie!  Spare you!  Yes, when you tell me that this
presumptuous upstart has gone back to his upstart country."

She dropped her hands from before her face, and stood before him, pale
and desperate.

"Leonardo, I cannot give him up, I love him!"

"And do you owe me no love?  Do you owe no duty to the grandeur of our
race?  _Noblesse oblige_, Margharita!  We bear a great name, and with
the honour which it brings, it brings also responsibilities.  I do not
believe that you can truly love this man; but if you do, your duty is
still plain.  You must crush your love as you would a poisonous weed
under your feet.  You must sacrifice yourself for the honour of our
name."

"Leonardo, you do not understand.  I love him, and cannot give him up.
My word is given; I cannot break it."

He drew a step further away from her, and his voice became harder.

"You must choose, then; between him and me; between your honour and
your unworthy lover.  There is no other course.  As my sister, you are
the dearest thing on earth to me; as that man's wife, you will be an
utter stranger.  I will never willingly look upon your face, nor hear
you speak.  I will write your name out of my heart, and my curse shall
follow you over the seas to your new home, and ring in your ears by day
and by night.  I will never forgive; I swear it!"

He ceased and bent forward, as though for her answer.  She did not
speak.  The deep silence was broken only by the far-off murmur of the
sea, and the sound of faint sobbing from between her clasped hands.
The sound of her distress softened him for a moment; he hesitated, and
then spoke again more quietly.

"Margharita, ponder this over.  Be brave, and remember that you are a
Marioni.  Till to-morrow, farewell!"




CHAPTER IV

"DOWN INTO HELL TO WIN THE LOVE HE SOUGHT"

It was two hours later, and the Marina was almost deserted.  The
streets and squares, too, of the southern city were silent and empty.
It seemed as though all Palermo had gathered together in that
sprawling, whitewashed building, called in courtesy a concert hall.
Flashes of light from its many windows gleamed upon the pavements
below, and from the upper one the heads of a solid phalanx of men and
women, wedged in together, threw quaint shadows across the narrow
street.  The tradespeople, aristocracy, and visitors of the place had
flocked together to the concert, frantically desirous of hearing the
great singer who, although so young had been made welcome at every
court in Europe.  It was an honour to their island city that she should
have visited it at all; much more that she should choose to sing there;
and the quick Palermitans, fired with enthusiasm, rushed to welcome
her.  The heavy slumberous air was still vibrating with the shout which
had greeted her first appearance, and the echoes from across the
scarcely rippled surface of the bay were lingering amongst the rocky
hills on the other side of the harbour.

The Sicilian heard it as he threaded his way towards the poorer part of
the city, and a dull red glow burned for a moment in his sallow cheeks.
It maddened him that he, too, was not there to join in it, to feast his
eyes upon her, and listen to the matchless music of her voice.  Was she
not more to him than to any of them?  So long he had carried her image
in his heart that a curious sense of possession had crept into all his
thoughts of her.  He was frantically jealous, heedless of the fact that
he had no right to be.  He would have felt towards the man on whom
Adrienne Cartuccio had smiled, as towards a robber.  She was his, and
his only she should be.  Years of faithful homage and unabated longing
had made her so.  His was a narrow but a strong nature, and the desire
of her had become the mainspring of his life.  His she should surely
be!  No other man had the right to lift his eyes to her.  As he hurried
through those silent streets, he forgot her many kindly but firm
repulses.  Jesuitical in his love, any means by which he might win her
seemed fair and honourable.  And to-night, though he was stooping to
treachery to possess himself of this long-coveted jewel, he felt no
shame; only his heart beat strong and fast with passionate hope.  The
moment had come at length for him to play his last card, and at the
very prospect of success heaven itself seemed open before his eyes.

He had been threading his way swiftly, and with the air of one well
acquainted with the neighbourhood, through a network of narrow streets
and courts, filthy and poverty stricken.  At last he came to a sudden
pause before a flight of steps leading down to the door of a small
wine-shop, which was little more than a cellar.

From the street one could see into the bar, and the Sicilian paused for
a moment, and peered downwards.  Behind the counter, a stout,
swarthy-looking native woman was exchanging coarse badinage with a man
in a loose jersey and baggy trousers.  There seemed to be no one else
in the place, save another man who sat in the darkest corner, with his
head buried upon his arms.

The Sicilian only hesitated for a moment.  Then he pulled his soft hat
lower over his eyes, and lighting a cigarette, to dispel as far as
possible the rank, stale odour of the place, stepped down and entered
the wine-shop.

Evidently he was not known there.  The woman stared curiously at him as
she passed the glass of curacao for which he asked, and the man
scowled.  He took no notice of either, but, with his glass in his hand,
made his way across the sawdust-covered floor to the most remote of the
small tables.

A few feet only from him was the man who slept, or who seemed to sleep,
and all around quaint shadows of the tall buildings outside stealing in
through the open window almost shut the two men off from the rest of
the wine-shop where the gas jets hung.  The Sicilian smoked on in
silence; his neighbour commenced to move.  Presently the woman and her
admirer resumed their talk, with their heads a little closer together
and their voices lowered.  They were absorbed in themselves and their
coarse flirtation.  The man sipped more liquor, and the woman filled
his glass with no sparing hand.  The strong brandy ran through his
veins quicker and quicker.  He tried to embrace the woman, and failed,
owing to the barrier between them.  He tried again, and this time
partially succeeded.  Then he tried to clamber over the counter, but
missed his footing and fell in a heap on the floor, where he lay, to
all appearance, too drunk to get up--helpless and stupefied.

The woman peered over at him with a sneer on her face.  Then she
arranged the bottles in their places, and called out a noisy greeting
to the Sicilian who was smoking silently amongst the shadows with only
the red tip of his cigarette visible in the darkness.  He made no
reply.  She yawned, and looked downwards at the drunken man once more.
There was no sign of life in his coarse face.  He was wrapped deep in a
drunken sleep and he still had money in his pockets.  Ah, well!  It
should be hers when these two strangers had gone.

She turned to a little recess behind the bar, and, approaching the
wall, looked at herself in a cracked looking-glass which hung there.
Something in her hair needed rearrangement, and she remained there
straightening it with her fingers.  From where she stood she was within
hearing distance if any one descended the steps and entered the
wine-shop, so she did not hurry.  The contemplation of her coarse
features and small black eyes seemed to inspire her with a strange
pleasure.  She remained at the glass, turning her head from side to
side with a curiously grotesque satisfaction.  Then one of her large
glass earrings was dull.  She took it out, and rubbed it vigorously on
her skirt, humming a popular tune to herself the while.  The whole
thing took time; but what matter?  There was no one in the vault save
two drunken men, and another who chose to sit in the darkness without
making any response to her advances.  If a fresh customer had descended
the greasy stone steps, and pushed open the rickety swing-door, he
would have found her in her place, ready with the usual coarse greeting
or jest, should he chance to be a neighbour or an acquaintance.
Meanwhile, she was happy where she was.

In the wine-shop itself things were not exactly as she supposed.  No
sooner had her back been turned, than the man near whom the Sicilian
had seated himself slowly raised his head, and looked around.  Assured
of her departure, and after a moment's contemplation of the man who lay
upon the floor to all appearance so hopelessly drunk, he turned towards
the Sicilian.

"My orders, Signor," he whispered.  "It is to be to-night?"

"Yes."

"The Signorina will not listen to reason, then?"

In the darkness the Sicilian felt the deep flush which stole into his
olive cheeks.  He was not there without an effort.  In all his deeds
and thoughts he had always reckoned himself as others had reckoned him,
an honourable man.  His presence, in this place, and the means he was
stooping to use, filled him with the most intense humiliation.  Only
one thing was stronger--his passionate love for Adrienne Cartuccio.

"Do not breathe the Signorina's name," he muttered.  "Receive your
instructions, but make no comments."

"Command, Signor; I am ready," was the whispered answer.

"First; have you succeeded as you expected?  The carriage and mules and
men?"

"In ten minutes I could have them all here, Signor.  The task was not
easy, but it is accomplished.  They are at the Signor's disposal.  All
that remains is for you to give the orders."

The Sicilian was perfectly silent for a moment.  The darkness hid his
face--hid the shame which for a moment lowered it, the shame which an
honourable gentleman feels when he stoops to dishonour.  It passed away
before the stronger feeling, and when he spoke his tone was firm though
low.

"It is well.  Listen, Pietro.  The attempt is to be made to-night, in
three hours' time.  You will be prepared?  The notice is sufficient?"

"More than sufficient, Signor.  The sooner the better.  The mouths of
my men are closed with gold, and they are carefully chosen; but, one
and all, they love the wine, and wine, in its way, is as powerful as
gold.  See that animal yonder, Signor.  My men love the drink as well
as he, and before he reached that state he might have chattered away a
dozen secrets."

The Sicilian watched the man who was lying on the sawdust-strewn floor.
Something in his breathing attracted him, and he leaned forward.

"Is he asleep, do you think?" he whispered.  "I thought I saw his eyes
open."

Pietro rose, and crawling like a cat, drew close to the drunken man.
He passed his hand lightly over him, and listened to his breathing.
Finally he crept back to his seat.

"That is no spy!" he whispered; "he is only a common fisherman, and he
is stupefied with drink.  I watched him when he came in.  Proceed,
Signor.  Let me know your plans."

The Sicilian continued, speaking as rapidly as possible.  He had
conspired before, but honourably, and with men of his own rank.  But
here--in this low den, with such a companion--it made his heart sick.
He was only anxious to get away as speedily as possible.

"To-night the Signorina sings at the Town Hall.  She leaves there at
ten o'clock, on foot, accompanied only by another lady and a
man-servant who is in my pay.  She will dismiss her carriage, and walk.
The road to the Villa Fiolesse, you know.  They will pursue it past the
turn, thinking to follow a winding path that leads from it into the
grounds of the villa about half a mile further on.  The road is quite
deserted there, and sheltered by pine groves.  At the entrance to the
first grove the cart and mules must be in waiting--also your men.
There will be no resistance; but, above everything, Pietro, remember
this--no discourtesy or roughness to either of the ladies.  Let them be
treated firmly, but with the utmost respect.  Remember that one will be
my wife, and the other is my sister!"

"But you yourself, Signor!  Shall you not be there?"

"No! If all goes well, I shall follow, and join you at Ajalito.  At
that place more mules must be purchased, as we shall take the mountain
road to the Castle of Marioni, and the cart will be useless.  Is all
clear to you, Pietro?"

"It is clear, Signor!"

"It may be that you will require more money.  Here are a hundred
francs.  Use what you will."

"I shall use all of them, Signor.  To be well served requires good pay.
The Signor shall be well served."

"Spend it as you will, and come to me afterwards for your own reward.
I will go now to make my own preparations.  Be faithful this night,
Pietro, and your fortune is secured.  I am not one to forget a service!"

"The Signor is a prince," Pietro answered, bowing.  "See, the moon is
behind a cloud.  It is a propitious moment to leave this place without
being observed.  I, too, must go, but outside our ways lie apart."

"Come, then," the Sicilian answered, rising quickly.  "But one last
caution, Pietro.  See that your men understand perfectly that, for any
rudeness or ill-usage to either of the Signorinas, they will answer to
me with their lives.  It may be that I shall not join you before
daybreak.  If so, remember that the man who offends those whom you
guard, by so much as a look, shall die.  His corpse shall whiten on the
mountains for carrion crows to peck at!"

"It is well, Signor.  There is no fear."

They crept out of the door, opening and closing it noiselessly,
ascended into the street, and separated.  The sound of their footsteps
died away upon the rude stone pavements.  For a minute or two unbroken
silence reigned in the wine-shop.

"Diabolo!"

The exclamation came from the man who had fallen while endeavouring to
embrace the hostess, and who since, to all appearance, had been in a
drunken sleep.  A very remarkable change had come over him.  He was
sitting bolt upright on the floor, shaking the sawdust from his hair,
and his dark eyes were no longer vacant, but bright and full of
excitement.  He peered cautiously over the counter.  The woman who had
repelled his advances was still loitering near the looking-glass.  Then
he stole softly on to his feet, and walking on tip-toe and without the
slightest difficulty, left the place.  Outside he simulated once more
the walk of a drunken man, and staggered down the street and out of
sight.

Presently the hostess of the place, having arranged her head-dress to
her own satisfaction, came out behind the counter.  She leaned over and
looked for her drunken admirer.  After all, he had money in his pocket,
and he was not such a bad fellow.  She would take him into her little
room behind, and let him sleep for a while more comfortably.  But--but
where was he?  He was not there.  She turned the light higher and
looked around.  There was no one in the room at all.  Two hopelessly
drunken men and the stranger had left the place without making the
slightest sound, or without calling for more drink.  It was incredible.
But it was true.  The wine-shop keeper had never been so surprised in
her life.  Not only was she surprised, but she was frightened.  The
thing was beyond belief.  The sweat broke out upon her forehead, and
she crossed herself.  The devil himself must have come and fetched them
away, and, if so, why should he not fetch her?  She was wicked enough.
What a horrible thought.

Half a dozen men, the crew of a fishing boat, suddenly entered the
court, filling the air with their voices, and descended the steps.  She
came to herself while serving them, and commenced to forget her fright.
But she did not mention that little occurrence, and the very thought of
a drunken man for days afterwards made her shudder.




CHAPTER V

TREACHERY

It was almost midnight, and Palermo lay sleeping in the moonlight.  The
concert was over, and the people who had shouted themselves hoarse with
enthusiasm had dispersed at last to their homes.  The last of the
broad-wheeled, heavily-built carriages had rolled away through the
white streets of the town.  One by one the promenaders had left the
Marina, and all sound had died away.  There was a faint, sighing breeze
in the orange groves around the bay, but scarcely a ripple upon the
water.  One man alone lingered drinking in the sweetness of the night.
The Englishman sat on the last seat of the Marina, in the shadow of a
cluster of orange trees.

He had seen her again--nay, more, he had heard her sing--this
girl-nightingale, who had taken the world by storm.  Chance had
favoured him, insomuch that he had been able to secure almost a front
seat in the concert room, and the wonderful music of her voice rang
still in his ears.  He had stolen out here to try and think it all
over, and to calm the passion which had suddenly leapt up within him.
It was quite a new experience through which he was passing; he scarcely
knew himself.  He was happy and miserable, sanguine and despondent, all
in a moment.  One question was always before him--one end, one aim.
How was he to know her?  How could he endure to live here, seeing her
day by day for a brief while, without making her acquaintance?  There
was nothing to be hoped for from the Sicilian, who would not even tell
him her name.  Possibly, though, she would visit, or be visited by,
some of the nobility of the place.  This was almost his only hope.  He
had letters to most of them, and he made up his mind to present them
all on the morrow.

He sat there dreaming, with a burnt-out cigar between his teeth, and
his eyes idly wandering over the blue Mediterranean.  Suddenly the
stillness was broken by the sound of a soft gliding footstep close at
hand.  He had heard no one approach, yet when he looked up quickly he
found he was no longer alone.  A man in the garb of a native peasant
was standing by his side.

Naturally the Englishman was a little surprised.  He half rose from his
seat, and then resumed it as he recognised the dark, swarthy face and
black eyes of the waiter who had told him Adrienne Cartuccio's name.

"Hullo!  What are you doing here?" he demanded.

"I was in search of the Signor!" was the hasty response.  "For an hour,
I have sought him everywhere, and now it is by chance that I am
successful."

The Englishman looked at him with suspicion.  This change of dress was
doubtless for the purpose of disguise.  What was the meaning of it?

"Well, and now you've found me, what do you want?" he asked, watching
him closely.

"I will tell the Signor.  Is it not that he has an admiration for
Mademoiselle Cartuccio, the singer?  Well, she is in danger!  It is for
the Signor to rescue her."

The Englishman sprang up with sparkling eyes, and pitched his dead
cigar into the sea.

"In danger!" he repeated breathlessly.  "Quick!  Tell me where!"

The man pointed inland.

"Do you see that belt of white road there, leading up into the hills?"

"Yes; what about it?"

"Have you noticed anything pass along it?"

"There was a heavy cart or carriage and some mules, I think, went by
half an hour ago."

The native shrugged his shoulders.

"It was an hour, Signor, but no matter!  Step back with me into the
shadow of these olive trees.  That is better.  Now we cannot be seen,
and I will explain."

The Englishman beat the ground with his foot.

"Explanations be damned!" he exclaimed.  "Where is Mademoiselle
Cartuccio?  Quick!"

The man held up his hands, and spoke more rapidly.

"This evening I heard by accident of a plot to carry off Signorina
Cartuccio by a rejected suitor.  I hasten to inform the police, but on
the way I pause.  I say to myself, What shall I get for my pains, and
for the risk I run?  Nothing!  Then I think of the Signor.  I watch his
face when the Signorina pass by, and I say to myself, He has the
passion of her.  If I show him the way to save her he will be generous.
He will win the lady, and he will reward poor Andrea."

"That's all right.  Tell me what to do, and I will give you fifty
pounds--anything you like.  Don't waste time.  Speak up!"

The man's eyes shone with cupidity.  He went on rapidly--

"The Signor is a prince.  Listen!  Along yonder road, before many
minutes have passed, will come the Signorina Cartuccio with her friend,
attended only by an aged servant.  Men are waiting for them in the
grove of orange trees above the Villa Fiolesse.  Their orders are to
carry off the two ladies to the other side of the island, where a place
has been prepared for them.  For an hour I have searched for the
Signor, that he might procure aid, and so encounter these brigands, but
in vain.  I was in despair."

"I want no help!  How many of the blackguards are there?"

"Four, Signor!"

"Natives?"

"Yes, Signor."

"And cowards, I suppose?"

The man smiled.

"They have not much bravery, Signor.  I know the men."

"I wouldn't have any one else here for the world," the Englishman said,
shaking his fist.

"Does the Signor want a knife?" asked the man, thrusting his hand into
his inner pocket.

"Not I.  We don't understand that sort of thing in our country, my
brave Andrea.  Fisticuffs will settle this little matter, you'll see!"

The man looked up admiringly at the Englishman's commanding figure and
broad shoulders.

"I think they will run away from the Signor when they see him," he
whispered.  "But let the Signor remember this: if one of them thrusts
his hand inside his coat, so, do not wait one moment--knock him down or
get out of his way.  He will have the knife, and they know how to use
it, these brigands."

"Tell me the name of their leader--I mean the fellow who is trying to
carry off the Signorina.  Will he be there?"

The man shook his head.

"I cannot tell the Signor his name.  I dare not.  I was once in his
service, and he has powers--hush!"

The two men held their breath, keeping well in the shadow of the orange
grove.  They had reached the road, and in the distance they could hear
the sound of approaching voices.

"I leave you now, Signor," whispered his companion to the Englishman.
"I dare not be seen.  To-morrow, at the hotel."

He glided noiselessly away.  The Englishman scarcely heard him, he was
listening intently.  Light footsteps were coming along the winding road
towards him, and soon a laughing voice rang out upon the night air.

"My dear Adrienne, don't you think we were a little foolish to walk
home so late as this?  See, there is not a soul upon the promenade."

"_Tant mieux!_" was the light answer.  "Is it not to escape from them
all that we came this way?  The stillness is exquisite, and the night
breeze from the sea, after that hot room, is divine.  What a view we
shall have of the bay when we get to the top of the hill."

"They say that this place is infested with robbers, and it is terribly
lonely," was the somewhat fearful answer.  "Why would you not let poor
Leonardo come with us?"

"Because.  I did not want Leonardo, _chrie_.  Leonardo is very good,
but he wearies me by persisting to dwell upon a forbidden subject; and
as for protection--well, I fancy Giovanni is sufficient."

They were passing him now so close that he felt impelled to hold his
breath.  He had only a momentary glimpse of them, but it was
sufficient.  A few yards behind, a sullen-looking servant was trudging
along, looking carefully around.  In the white moonlight their faces,
even their expressions, were perfectly visible to him; Adrienne's rapt
and absorbed by the still restful beauty of the dreaming night, and
indifferent to all fear; her companion, whose dark eyes were glancing
somewhat anxiously around her, and Giovanni's, whose furtive looks,
more expectant than apprehensive, marked him out to the Englishman as
an accomplice in whatever devilry was afoot.  Unseen himself, he
watched them pass, and listened to their voices growing fainter and
fainter in the distance.  They were out of sight and out of hearing.

He was preparing to follow them, when suddenly another sound broke the
stillness.  He held his breath, and crouched down, watching.  In a
minute, two dark forms, keeping carefully in the shadows by the side of
the road, crept stealthily past.

He waited till they, too, were out of sight, and then stood up with
tingling pulses, but quite cool.  Moving on tiptoe, he stepped lightly
over the low stone wall into the road, and gazed after them.

The ascent was steep, and the road curved round and round in zigzag
fashion.  On one side it was bordered by a thickly-growing orange
grove, whose delicate perfume was sweetening the still languid air.  On
the other was a stretch of waste open country, separated from the road
by a low wall.  He chose the seaward side, and keeping under the shadow
of the trees, followed them, his footsteps sinking noiselessly into the
thick dust.

Once the two ladies paused to look back.  He stopped too; and the two
bending figures between them drew closer into the shadows, and waited.
He was some distance away, but the sound of her voice floated clearly
down to him on a breath of that faint night air.

"Ah, how beautiful it is," she cried, pointing downwards; "just a few
steps, and we shall see the sea glistening through the leaves of the
orange trees."

"I am sure that it is not prudent, Adrienne.  We have come past the
footpath down to the villa, and this upper road is so lonely.  Listen!
I fancied that I heard footsteps."

There was a moment's silence, then a low musical laugh which sounded to
him like the sweetest music.

"It was the echo of our own, you foolish child.  There is nothing to
fear, and have we not Giovanni?"

Again they turned, and again he followed.  Suddenly his heart gave a
great bound.  About fifty yards in front of the two girls was a
rudely-built country carriage, drawn by a pair of mules and with a
single man on the box.  They had paused at such an unexpected sight,
and seemed to be deliberating in whispers whether or no they should
proceed.  Before they had come to any decision, the two men had crept
out from the shadow of the wall and trees into the road, and with bent
bodies hurried towards them.

He did not shout out or make any noise; he simply lessened the distance
between him and them by increasing his pace.  The two stooping forms,
casting long, oblique shadows across the white, hard road, were almost
level with their intended victims.  Now the shadow of one of them crept
a little in advance of the ladies, and Adrienne Cartuccio, seeing it,
stepped suddenly back with a cry of alarm.

"Giovanni!  Giovanni!  There are robbers!  Ah!"

The cry became a shriek, but it was instantly stifled by a coarse hand
thrust upon her mouth.  At the same moment her companion felt herself
treated in a similar manner.  They could only gaze into the dark
ruffianly faces of their captors in mute terror.  The whole thing had
been too sudden for them to make any resistance, and Giovanni, their
trusted escort, seemed suddenly to have disappeared.  As a matter of
fact, he was watching the proceedings from behind a convenient boulder.

The man who was holding Adrienne pointed to the carriage, the door of
which the driver had thrown open.

"This way, Signorina," he said.  "It is useless to struggle.  We shall
not harm you."

She shook her head violently, and with a sudden effort thrust his hand
away from her mouth.

"What do you want?" she cried.  "Who are you?  You can have my jewels,
but I will never step inside that carriage.  Help!  Help!"

He wound his arms around her, and, without a word, commenced dragging
her across the road.

"You may shout as much as you like," he muttered.  "There will only be
echoes to answer you."

A sudden warning cry rang out from his companion, and, with a start, he
released his victim.  The Englishman had stepped into the middle of the
group, and, before he could spring back, a swinging left-hander sent
him down into the dust with a dull, heavy thud.

"You blackguard!" he thundered out.  Then turning quickly round he
faced the other man, who had sprung across the road with bent body, and
with his right hand in his breast.  There was a gleam of cold steel,
but before he could use the knife which he had drawn, his arm was
grasped and held as though by a vice, and slowly bent backwards.  He
dropped the weapon, with a shriek of pain, upon the road, and fell on
his knees before his captor.

The Englishman's grasp relaxed, and taking advantage of it, the man
suddenly jumped up, leaped over the wall, and disappeared in the
plantation.  Pursuit would have been impossible, but none of them
thought of it.

The two ladies looked at their preserver standing in the middle of the
road--fair and straight and tall, like a Greek god, but with a terrible
fury blazing in his dark blue eyes.

"You are not hurt, I trust?" he asked, his breath coming quickly, for
he was in a towering passion.  He was not speaking to the darker of the
two girls at all; in fact, he was unconscious of her presence.  He was
standing by Adrienne Cartuccio's side, watching the faint colour steal
again into her cheeks, and the terror dying out of her eyes, to be
replaced by a far softer light.  Her black lace wrap, which she had
been wearing in Spanish fashion, had fallen a little back from her
head, and the moonlight was gleaming upon her ruddy golden hair, all
wavy and disarranged, throwing into soft relief the outline of her
slim, girlish figure, her heaving bosom, and the exquisite transparency
of her complexion.  She stood there like an offended young queen,
passionately wrathful with the men who had dared to lay their coarse
hands upon her, yet feeling all a woman's gratitude to her preserver.
Her eyes were flashing like stars, and her brows were bent, but as she
looked into his face her expression softened.  Of the two sensations
gratitude was the stronger.

"You are not hurt?" he repeated.  "I am sorry that I did not get here
sooner, before that fellow touched you."

She held out her hand to him with a little impetuous movement.

"Thanks to you.  No, Signor," she said, her eyes suddenly filling with
tears.  "Oh, how grateful we are, are we not, Margharita?"

"Indeed, indeed we are.  The Signor has saved us from a terrible
danger."

He laughed a little awkwardly.  Where is the Englishman who likes to be
thanked?

"It is nothing.  The fellows were arrant cowards.  But what was the
carriage doing here?"

He pointed along the road.  Already the clumsy vehicle had become a
black speck in the distance, swaying heavily from side to side from the
pace at which it was being driven, and almost enveloped in a cloud of
dust.

Adrienne shook her head.  Margharita had turned away, with her face
buried in her hands.

"I cannot imagine.  Perhaps they were brigands, and intended to carry
us off for a ransom."

The Englishman shrugged his shoulders.

"Odd sort of bandits," he remarked.  "Why, they hadn't the pluck of a
chicken between them, especially this one."

He touched the prostrate figure with his foot, and the two girls
shuddered.

"He is--is not dead, is he?" Margharita asked.

"Not he.  I shouldn't say that he was very badly hurt either," the
Englishman declared, bending down and listening to his breathing.
"More frightened than anything.  He'll get up and be off directly we
leave.  You will let me see you home?" he continued, speaking to
Adrienne.

She looked up at him with a gleam of humour in her wet eyes.

"You don't imagine that we should let you go and leave us here?" she
said.  "Come, Margharita."

The Englishman looked at the other girl, almost for the first time, as
she came up and joined them.  Her dark eyes were full of tears and her
face was troubled.  There was very little relief or thankfulness for
her escape in her expression.  The Englishman was no physiognomist, but
he was a little puzzled.

"There is no danger now, Signorina," he said reassuringly.  "To-morrow
I will go to the police, and I dare say that we shall get to the bottom
of the whole affair."

She shuddered, but made no reply, walking on by their side, but a
little distance apart.  As for the Englishman, he was in paradise.  To
all intents and purposes, he was alone with Adrienne Cartuccio,
listening to her low voice, and every now and then stealing a glance
downwards into those wonderful eyes, just then very soft and sweet.
That walk through the scented darkness, with the far-off murmur of the
sea always in their ears, was like the dawning of a new era in his life.

It was she who talked most, and he who listened.  Yet he was very
happy; and when they reached her villa, and he left them at the door,
she gave him a white flower which he had found courage to beg for.

"May I call on you to-morrow?" he asked, trembling for the answer.

"If you would like to, yes," she answered readily.  "Come early if you
have nothing to do, and we will give you afternoon tea _ l'Anglaise_.
By the bye," she added, a little shyly, "is there not something which
you have forgotten?"

He divined her meaning at once.

"Of course, I ought to have told you my name!" he exclaimed hastily.
"How stupid of me.  It is St. Maurice--Lord St. Maurice."

"Lord St. Maurice!  Then are you not the fortunate possessor of that
delightful little yacht in the harbour?"

"Yes, if you mean the _Pandora_, she's mine.  Do you like sailing?
Will you come for a sail?" he asked eagerly.

"We'll talk about it to-morrow," she laughed, holding out her hand.
"Good-night."

He let her hand go.  If he held it a moment longer, and a little more
firmly than was absolutely necessary, was he much to blame?

"Good-night," he said.  "Good-night, Signorina," he added, bowing to
Margharita.  "I shall come to-morrow afternoon."

Then he turned away, and walked with long swinging steps back to the
hotel.




CHAPTER VI

"THE BITTER SPRINGS OF ANGER AND FEAR"

"Margharita!"

She had found her way into a lonely corner of the villa grounds, and,
with her head resting upon her hands, she was gazing across the blue
sunlit waters of the bay.  Below, hidden by the thickly-growing shrubs,
was the white, dusty road, and the voice which disturbed her thoughts
seemed to come from it.  She pushed the white flowering rhododendrons
on one side, and peered through.

"Leonardo!" she exclaimed.  "Leonardo!"

She seemed surprised to see him standing there, pale, dusty, and with a
great weariness shining out of his black eyes, and it did not occur to
her to offer him any greeting.  She could not say that she was glad to
see him, and yet her heart ached when she looked into his pale,
sorrowful face.  So she was silent.

"Are you alone?" he asked.

"Yes.  Adrienne is in the house, I believe."

"Then I am coming in."

She looked troubled, but she could not send him away.  He clambered
over the low paling, and, pushing back the boughs of the shrubs which
grew between them, made his way up the bank to her side.

"Have you been away?" she asked.

"Yes, I have been home.  Home," he repeated bitterly.  "I have wandered
through the woods, and I have climbed the hills where we spent our
childhood.  I have looked upon the old scenes, and my heart is broken."

Her eyes filled with tears.  For a moment her thoughts, too, went back
to the days when they had been children together, and he had been her
hero brother.  How time had changed them both, and how far apart they
had drifted.  They could never be the same again.  She knew it quite
well.  There had grown up a great barrier between them.  She could not
even pretend to sympathise with him, although her heart was still full
of pity.

"Leonardo, I am sorry," she whispered.  "How is it, I wonder, that all
through life you seem to have set your heart upon things which are
impossible?"

"It is fate!"

"Fate!  But you are a man, and man should control fate."

"Have I not tried?" he answered bitterly.  "Tell me, do I so easily
relinquish my great desire?  Why am I here?  Because I have said to
myself that I will not be denied.  Adrienne shall be mine!"

She looked at him steadily.

"We have not met, Leonardo, since the night after the concert.  Do you
know that we had an adventure on the way home?"

"Tell me about it," he answered, looking away.

"Is there any need, Leonardo?"

A faint tinge of colour stole into his olive cheek.

"You guessed, then," he said.  "Tell me, does she know?  Has she any
idea?"

"None."

"She does not suspect me at all?"

"No; she thinks that it was an ordinary attack by robbers, and that the
carriage was to take us a little way into the interior, so that they
might hold us and demand a ransom.  It was her own idea; I said
nothing.  I feel as though I were deceiving her, but I cannot tell her.
She would never look upon your face again, Leonardo."

"You must not tell her," he muttered.  "Swear that you will not!"

She shook her head.

"There is no need.  I am not anxious to denounce my own brother as a
would-be abductor."

"Margharita, I was desperate," he cried passionately.  "And that cursed
Englishman, he has become my evil genius.  It was a miserable chance
that enabled him to become your preserver."

"It was a very fortunate one for you, Leonardo."

"What do you mean?" he cried sharply.  "Tell me, has he been here?"

"Yes."

He seemed to calm himself with a great effort.  He was on the threshold
of what he had come to know.  He must keep cool, or she would tell him
nothing.

"Margharita," he said slowly, "the time is fast coming when I shall
have no more favours to ask you.  Will you remember that you are my
sister, and grant me a great one now?"

"If I can, Leonardo."

"It is good.  I shall not ask you anything impossible or unreasonable.
Tell me the truth about Adrienne and this Englishman.  Tell me how you
have spent your days since this affair, and how often he has been here.
Then tell me what you yourself think.  Tell me whether she cares for
him; and he for her.  Let me hear the whole truth, so that I may know
how to act."

There was a moment's silence.  A yellow-breasted bird flew between
them, and a shower of rhododendron blossoms fell at their feet.  The
lazy murmur of insects floated upon the heavy afternoon air, so faint
and breathless that the leaves which grew thick around them scarcely
rustled.  A clump of pink and white hyacinths grew out of the wall, the
waxy heads bent with the weight of their heavy, bell-shaped petals.
She snapped off a white blossom, and toyed with it in her fingers for a
moment.  The lazy joy of the hot afternoon seemed to grate upon her
when she looked into that white, strained face, deep lined and
suffering.  What right had Nature to put forth all her sweet sights and
perfumes, to be so peaceful and joyous, whilst man, her master, could
feel such agony?  It was a mockery, it was not right or fair.

She thrust the flower into his hand.

"Leonardo," she whispered, "remember our watchword, 'Endurance.'  I
will tell you everything.  Lord St. Maurice came on the day after our
adventure.  He stayed till evening, and we walked with him on the
Marina.  The next day we went yachting with him.  Yesterday and to-day
he has spent nearly the whole of his time here.  I believe that he is
in love with Adrienne, and as for her, if she does not love him
already, I believe that she soon will.  You have asked for the truth,
my brother, and it is best that you should have it.  Forgive me for the
pain it must cause you."

He passed his arm round the gnarled branch of a small chestnut tree,
and then turning round, hid his face.  There was a great lump rising in
her throat, but she dared not attempt to console him.  She knew that he
was angry with her--that he blamed her for his fruitless love, and
despised her for the lover she had chosen.  In the days of their youth
they had both been dreamers.  He had been faithful to the proud,
romantic patriotism which had been the keynote of their idealism; she,
in his eyes at any rate, had been utterly faithless.  Only her
affection had remained steadfast, and even that he had commenced to
doubt.

Presently he turned and faced her.  His face was ghastly white, but his
eyes were hot and red.

"Where is she?" he asked.  "I am going to her.  I am going to see with
my own eyes, and hear with my own ears, whether this story of yours be
true.  Where is she?"

She looked at him doubtfully.

"Leonardo," she said, "forgive me; but you will frighten her if you go
as you are now.  Your clothes are all dusty and ragged, and you look as
though you were on the threshold of a fever.  Besides, she is asleep.
Go down to the hotel and change your clothes, and then ride up here to
call.  Somehow or other I will manage that she shall see you then."

He looked down at himself and smiled bitterly.

"It is true," he said, "I look but a sorry lover.  Remember,
Margharita; that I hold you to your promise.  In an hour I shall
return."

He left the grounds, and walked down the hill, with bent shoulders, and
never a glance to the right or the left.




CHAPTER VII

"COMFORT!  COMFORT SCORNED OF DEVILS"

"Adrienne, I am the happiest man in the world."

"For how long, sir?"

"_Pour la vie_," he answered solemnly.

Her hand stole softly into his, and there was a long silence between
them.  What need had they of words?  It is only the lighter form of
love, fancy touched by sentiment, which seeks for expressions by such
means.  Their love was different; a silent consciousness of each
other's presence sufficed for them.  And so they sat there, side by
side, steeped in the deep, subtle joy of that perfect love which upon
the nature of both the man and the woman had so chastening and
spiritualising an influence.  There was a new music in their lives, a
sweeter harmony than either of them had ever been conscious of before.
The world had grown more beautiful--and it was for them.  The love
which widens and deepens also narrows.  Humanity was a forgotten factor
in their thoughts.  All that they saw and dreamed of was theirs to
taste, to admire and to enjoy together.  It was for them that the
silvery moon and the softly-burning stars cast upon the sleeping earth
a strange new beauty.  It was for them the air hung heavy with the
faint perfume of spices, and the mingled scents of heliotrope and
violets.  It was for them that the dark pine trees waved softly
backwards and forwards against the violet sky; for them that the
far-away sea made melancholy music against the pebbly beach, and the
soft night wind rustled amongst the tree-tops in the orange groves.
All nature was fair for their sakes.  It is the grand selfishness of
love--a noble vice.

"Adrienne!"

They both started and looked round.  The voice was harsh and agitated,
and it broke in like a jarring note upon their sweet, absorbed silence.
It was Leonardo di Marioni who stood before them on the
balcony--Leonardo, with white face and darkly-gleaming eyes.  To Lord
St. Maurice, that stifled cry had sounded like the hiss of the snake in
paradise, and when he looked up the simile seemed completed.

"Is it you, Leonardo?" Adrienne said, letting go her lover's hand, and
leaning back in her chair.  "Your entrance is a little unceremonious,
is it not?  Were there no servants to announce you, or to bring me word
of your presence?  I dislike surprises."

"And I, too, Adrienne--I, too, dislike surprises," he answered, his
voice quivering with passion.  "I find one awaiting me here."

She rose and stood facing him, cold but angry.

"You are forgetting yourself, Count di Marioni, and your speech is a
presumption.  We have been friends, but, if you wish our friendship to
continue, you will alter your tone.  You have no right to speak to me
in that tone, and I expect an apology."

His lips quivered, and he spoke with a strange bitterness.

"No right!  Ay, you say well 'no right,' Adrienne.  Will you spare me a
few moments alone?  I have a thing to say to you."

She frowned and hesitated for a moment.  After all, she had a woman's
heart, and she could not choose but pity him.

"Will not another time do, Leonardo?" she asked almost gently.  "You
see I have a visitor."

Yes, he saw it.  He had looked up into the handsome, debonair face,
with that proud happy smile upon the parted lips, from the garden path
below.  How he hated it.

"I may be summoned away from Palermo at any moment," he said.  "Cannot
you spare me a short five minutes?  I will go away then."

She looked down at her lover.  He rose to his feet promptly.

"I'll have a cigar amongst the magnolias," he exclaimed.  "Call me when
I may come up."

A look passed between them which sent a swift, keen pain through the
Sicilian's heart.  Then Lord St. Maurice vaulted over the balcony,
alighting in the garden below, and they were alone.

"Adrienne!" Leonardo cried, and his voice was low and bitter, "I dare
not ask, and yet I must know.  Tell me quickly.  Don't torture me.  You
care for this Englishman?"

"Yes."

"You love him?"

"Dearly.  With all my heart."

"You are going to marry him?"

"Yes."

And not all her pity could keep the joy from her tone as she uttered
the last monosyllable.

"My God!  My God!"

The suffering in his white face was awful to see.  Her eyes filled with
tears.  She knew that she had done this man no wrong, that he had never
had a single word of definite encouragement from her, that, time after
time, she had told him that his love was hopeless.  Yet her heart was
heavy as she watched his anguish.

"Leonardo!" she said softly, "I am sorry.  But surely you do not blame
me?  Is it my fault that I love him, and not you?  Have I not begged
you often to accept the only answer I could ever give you?  Be
generous, Leonardo, and let us be friends."

It was several moments before he spoke, and then it seemed as though
there had been a conflict in the man, and the worse half had conquered.
The dumb grief in his eyes, which had been so piteous to witness, had
changed suddenly into a furious, passionate anger.  He shook with the
violence of his emotions, and though she was used to his stormy,
impetuous nature, she was frightened.

"Friends!  A curse upon such folly!  Is it for friendship's sake that I
have followed you here at the risk of my life, just to breathe the same
air, to look but now and then into your face?  Ah!  Adrienne!
Adrienne! listen once more to me.  Do you think that he can love you as
I do?  Never! never!  I know that sluggish English temperament.  Their
wives are their servants or their dolls.  Their passion is the passion
of animals, and they have not even constancy."

She held out her hand.  He had destroyed her pity.  Henceforth he was
obnoxious to her.

"Leave me," she commanded: "You are talking of what you do not
understand.  You are insulting me.  I detest you!"

"Detest me!" he laughed hysterically, and the fire in his eyes grew
brighter.  "Since when?  Since this cursed Englishman whispered his
lies into your ears and stole you from me.  Nay, do not shake your
head.  Mine you would have been some day, as surely as now you have
made my life a hell.  My love would have conquered in the end.  It
would have worn away your coldness and your resistance drop by drop.
Mother of God! it shall conquer!  Do I come of a race who are content
to stand calmly by and see the woman they love stolen away by
strangers?  No!"

He stopped short, and there was a strange look in his face.  Adrienne
saw it, and trembled.

"Leonardo," she said, "I call a man who cannot bear a disappointment a
coward.  I do not love you; and under no circumstances whatever would
it have been possible for me ever to have married you.  Never! never!"

He turned on his heel and walked away.

"We shall see!" he said.  "_Au revoir_, my cousin."

The emphasis in his tone, and a certain fixed look in his face chilled
her.  She held up her hands, and he stayed.

"Listen!" she said, speaking slowly, and with her eyes fixed steadily
upon him.  "I do not wish to think ill of you; I do not wish to think
that you could harm the man I love; but, if you did--if you did, I
say--you should taste a woman's vengeance!  You think me weak, but
there are things which will fire the blood and steel the nerve of a
weaker woman than I am.  Remember, Leonardo!  Lift but your little
finger against Lord St. Maurice, and all ties of kindred and country
are forgotten.  Those means which lie ready to my hand, I will use!  I
have warned you.  Remember!"

Her tone had passed from earnestness to solemnity; her attitude, her
final gesture, were full of dramatic grace.  Beside her, he appeared
mean and insignificant.

"I thank you for your candour, cousin," he said slowly.  "If I harm
your lover----"

"If you harm him," she interrupted fiercely, "you will win my undying
hate, even whilst you are undergoing my vengeance.  You know my power,
Leonardo; you know the means which lie ready to my hand.  Never doubt
but that I shall use them."

He turned round and walked out of the house, passing Lord St. Maurice
in the garden without even glancing towards him.  In the road he paused
for a moment, watching the long shadows pass quivering across the dark
hills, and the gleam of the moonlight upon the water far away below.

"She would never dare!" he murmured to himself.  "She is a woman, and
she would forget."




CHAPTER VIII

"DEATH IN THE FACE, AND MURDER IN THE HEART"

Lord St. Maurice was in a good humour with himself and the entire world
that night.  He had spent nearly the whole of the day with the woman he
loved, and whom he was shortly to marry, and with the prospect of
another such day on the morrow, even his temporary exile from paradise
was not a very severe trial.  He was an ardent suitor, and deeply in
love, but an hour or two alone with a case of excellent cigars, with
delightful thoughts to keep him company, the softest air in Europe to
breathe, and one of the most picturesque sights to look upon, could
scarcely be esteemed a hardship.  Above him, amongst the woods,
twinkled the bright lights of the Villa Fiolesse which he had just
quitted, and below was the gay little Marina, still dotted about with
groups of men in soft hats and light clothes, and bright-eyed, laughing
women, whose musical voices rang out on the still night air with
strange distinctness.

Through the clinging magnolia bushes and rhododendron shrubs he pushed
his way downwards, the red end of his cigar shining out like a signal
light in the semi-purple darkness.  Every now and then he stopped to
take a breath of air perfumed by a clump of hyacinth, or some
star-shaped flower which had yielded up its sweetness to the
softly-falling night.  Now and then, too, he took a lover's look at the
stars, and downwards to the softly-heaving bosom of the Mediterranean.
All these things seemed to mean so much more to him now!  Adrienne had
changed the world, and he was looking out upon it with different eyes.
Sentiment, which before he had scoffed at a little, as became a sturdy
young Briton but lately escaped from public school and college, had
suddenly become for him something akin to a holy thing.  He was almost
a poet that night--he who had scarcely read a line of what the world
calls poetry since his school days.  There was a man whom he had hated
all his life.  Just then he began to think of him without a particle of
anger or resentment.  If he could have met him there, amongst those
drooping, white-flowering shrubs, he felt that he could have shaken his
hand, have asked him heartily after his health, and doubtless have
fixed a day to dine with him.  The world was a capital place, and
Palermo was on the threshold of heaven.  His big, boyish heart was full
to overflowing.  Oh! it is a fine thing to be in love!

From the present he began to think a little of the future.  He was
right in the clouds, and he began to dream.  At twenty-five years old
imagination is the master of the man; at forty the situations are
reversed; but in losing the upper hand imagination often loses its
power and freshness.  Lord St. Maurice was in his twenty-sixth year,
and he began to dream.  He was his own master, and he was rich.  There
was a fine estate in Eastshire, a shooting-lodge in Scotland, and a box
in Leicestershire.  Which would Adrienne prefer?  How delightful it
would be to take her to them in the proper seasons, and find out which
one pleased her most.  When they reached England, after a cruise as far
as Cairo and back along the Mediterranean, July would be on the wane.
It was just the best time.  They would go straight to Scotland and have
a few days alone upon those glorious moors before the shooting
commenced.  He remembered, with a little laugh, the bachelor
invitations which he had given, and which must now be rescinded.
Bother bachelor invitations!  Adrienne was sure to like Scotland.  This
southern land with its profusion of flowers, its deep, intense
colouring, and its softly-blowing winds, was beautiful enough in its
way, but the purple-covered moors and cloud-topped hills of Scotland
had their own charm.  Adrienne had never seen heather; and his long,
low cottage was set in the very sea of it.  How pleasant the evening
would be, out on the balcony, with the red sun sinking down behind
Bathness Hill.  Ah! how happy they would be.  Life had never seemed so
fair a thing!

He was on the Marina by this time, elbowing his way amongst the people
who were still lazily walking backwards and forwards, or standing in
little knots talking.  The open-air restaurant, too, was crowded, but
there were a few vacant seats and amongst them the little iron chair in
which he had been lounging on that evening when Adrienne Cartuccio had
passed by amongst the crowd.  He stopped short, and stepping lightly
over the railing, drew it to him, and sat down.  The busy waiter was by
his side in a moment with coffee and liqueurs, and taking a cigar from
his case he began meditatively to smoke.

Since sundown the hot air had grown closer and more sulphurous, and
away westward over the waters the heavens seemed to be continually
opening and closing, belching out great sheets of yellow light.  A few
detached masses of black clouds were slowly floating across the starlit
sky.  Now one had reached the moon, and a sudden darkness fell upon the
earth.  With such a lamp in the sky illuminations in the hotel gardens
were a thing unheard of, and the effect was singular.  Only the red
lights of the smokers were visible, dotted here and there like
glow-worms.  Conversation, too, dropped.  Men lowered their voices, the
women ceased to make the air alive with the music of their laughter.
It was the southern nature.  When the sky was fair, their hearts were
light and their voices gay.  Now there was a momentary gloom, and every
one shivered.

The Englishman looked up at the cloud, wondered whether there would be
a storm, and calmly went on smoking.  The sudden hush and darkness
meant nothing to him.  In his state of mind they were rather welcome
than otherwise.  But in the midst of the darkness a strange thing
happened.

He was neither superstitious nor impressionable.  From either weakness
he would contemptuously, and with perfect truth, have declared himself
altogether free.  But suddenly the sweet, swiftly-flowing current of
his thoughts came to a full stop.  He was conscious of a cold chill,
which he could not in any way explain.  There had been no sound of
footsteps, nothing to warn him of it, but he fancied himself abruptly
encountered by some nameless danger.  The perspiration broke out upon
his forehead, and the cigar dropped from his fingers.  Was it a
nightmare, the prelude to a fever?  Was he going mad?  Oh! it was
horrible!

By a great effort of will he contrived to raise his eyes to the cloud.
It had almost passed away from the face of the moon.  The main body of
it was already floating northwards, only one long jagged edge remained.
There could be only a second or two more of this unnatural gloom.  His
heart was thankful for it.  Ah! what was that?  He bit his tongue hard,
or he would have called out.  Either he was dreaming, or that was the
warm panting breath of a human being upon his cheek.

He sprang up, with his arm stretched out as though to defend himself,
and holding his breath; but there was no sound, save the dull murmur of
whispered conversation around.  One glance more at the cloud.  How
slowly it moved.  Ah! thank God! the light was coming.  Already the
shadows were moving away.  Voices were being raised; figures were
becoming distinct; in a moment the moon would be free.

It was all over.  Laughing voices once more filled the air.  The
waiters were running about more busily than ever; people rubbed their
eyes and joked about the darkness.  But the Englishman sat quite still,
holding in his hand a long, curiously-shaped dagger, which the first
gleam of moonlight had shown him lying at his feet.

He was no coward, but he gave a little shudder as he examined the
thing, and felt its bluish steel edge with his finger.  It was by no
means a toy weapon; it had been fashioned and meant for use.  What use?
Somehow he felt that he had escaped a very great danger, as he put the
thing thoughtfully into his pocket, and leaned back in his chair.  The
shrill voices and clatter of glasses around him sounded curiously
unreal in his ears.

By degrees he came to himself, and leaning forward took a match from
the little marble table, and re-lit his cigar.  Then, for the first
time, he noticed with a start, that the chair opposite to him was
occupied, occupied, too, by a figure which was perfectly familiar.  It
was the Sicilian who sat there, quietly smoking a long cigarette, and
with his face shaded by the open palm of his hand.

Lord St. Maurice made no sign of recognition.  On the contrary, he
turned his head away, preferring not to be seen.  His nerves were
already highly strung, and there seemed to be to him something ominous
in this second meeting with the Sicilian.  If he could have been sure
of being able to do so unnoticed, he would have got up and gone into
the hotel.

"Good-evening, Signor!"

Lord St. Maurice turned and looked into the white, corpse-like face of
the Sicilian.  It told its own story.  There was trouble to come.

"Good-evening, Signor," he answered quietly.

The Sicilian leaned over the table.  There were grey rims under his
eyes, and even his lips had lost their colour.

"A week ago, Signor," he remarked, "we occupied these same seats here."

"I remember it," Lord St. Maurice replied quietly.

"It is well.  It is of the events which have followed that night that I
desire to speak, if you, Signor, will grant me a few moments of your
time?"

"Certainly," the Englishman replied courteously.  After all, perhaps
the fellow did not mean to quarrel.

"I regret exceedingly having to trouble you, Signor, with a little
personal history," the Sicilian continued.  "I must tell you, at the
commencement, that for five years I have been a suitor for the hand of
the Signorina Adrienne Cartuccio, my cousin."

"Second cousin, I believe," Lord St. Maurice interposed.

The Sicilian waved his hand.  It was of no consequence.

"Certain political differences with the Imperial party at Rome," he
continued, "culminated two years ago in my banishment from Italy and
Sicily.  You, I believe, Lord St. Maurice, are of ancient family, and
it is possible that you may understand to some extent the bitterness of
exile from a country and a home which has been the seat of my family
for nearly a thousand years.  Such a sentence is not banishment as the
world understands it; it is a living death!  But, Signor, it was not
all.  It was not even the worst.  Alas, that I, a Marioni, should live
to confess it!  But to be parted from the woman I love was even a sorer
trial.  Yet I endured it.  I endured it; hoping against hope for a
recall.  My sister and I were orphans.  She made her home with the
Signorina Cartuccio.  Thus I had news of her continually.  Sometimes my
cousin herself wrote to me.  It was these letters which preserved my
reason, and consciously or unconsciously, they breathed to me ever of
hope."

"Not Adrienne's, I'll swear," the Englishman muttered to himself.  He
was a true Briton, and there was plenty of dormant jealousy not very
far from the surface.

The Sicilian heard the words, and his eyes flashed.

"The Signorina Cartuccio, if you please, Signor," he remarked coldly.
"We are in a public place."

Lord St. Maurice felt that he could afford to accept the rebuke, and he
bowed his head.

"My remark was not intended to be audible!" he declared.

"For two years I bore with my wretched life," the Sicilian continued,
"but at last my endurance came to an end.  I determined to risk my
liberty, that I might hear my fate from her own lips.  I crossed the
Alps without molestation, and even entered Rome.  There I was watched,
but not interfered with.  The conclusion I came to was, that as long as
I lived the life of an ordinary citizen, and showed no interest in
politics, I was safe.  I crossed to Palermo unharmed.  I have seen the
Signorina, and I have made my appeal."

The Englishman dropped his eyes and knocked the ash from his cigar.
The fellow was coming to the point at last.

"You, Signor," the Sicilian continued, in a tone which, although it was
no louder, seemed to gain in intensity from the smouldering passion
underneath, "you, Signor, know what my answer was, for you were the
cause.  I have not told you this much of my story to win your pity; I
simply tell it that I may reason with you.  I have tried to make you
understand something of the strength of my love for the Signorina.  Do
you think that, after what I have risked, after what I have suffered, I
shall stand aside, and see another man, an alien, take her from me?  I
come of a race, Signor, who are not used to see the women they love
chosen for other men's wives.  Have you ever heard of Count Hubert di
Marioni, who, with seven hundred men, carried off a princess of Austria
from her father's court, and brought her safely through Italy here to
be one of the mothers of my race?  It was five hundred years ago, and,
amongst the ruins of ancient kingdoms, the Marionis have also fallen in
estate.  But the old spirit lingers.  Lord St. Maurice, I am not a
bloodthirsty man.  I do not wish your life.  Go back to your country,
and choose for a bride one of her own daughters.  Give up all thought
of the Signorina di Cartuccio, or, as surely as the moon yonder looks
down upon you and me, I shall kill you."

Lord St. Maurice threw his cigar away and shrugged his shoulders.  The
affair was going to be serious, then.

"You must forgive me, Signor, if I do not quite follow you," he said
slowly.  "The custom in our countries doubtless differs.  In England it
is the lady who chooses, and it is considered--pardon me--ill-mannered
for a rejected suitor to have anything more to say."

"As you remark, the ideas and customs of our countries differ," the
Sicilian rejoined.  "Here a nobleman of my descent would consider it an
everlasting shame to stand quietly on one side, and see the woman whom
he worshipped become the bride of another man, and that man an alien.
He would be esteemed, and justly, a coward.  Let us waste no more
words, Signor.  I have sought you to-night to put this matter plainly
before you.  Unless you leave this island, and give up your pretensions
to the hand of the Signorina Cartuccio, you die.  You have climbed for
the last time to the Villa Fiolesse.  Swear to go there no more; swear
to leave this island before day breaks to-morrow, or your blood shall
stain its shores.  By the unbroken and sacred oath of a Marioni, I
swear it!"

To Lord St. Maurice, the Sicilian's words and gestures seemed only
grotesque.  He looked at him a little contemptuously--a thin,
shrunken-up figure, ghastly pale, and seeming all the thinner on
account of his sombre black attire.  What a husband for Adrienne!  How
had he dared to love so magnificent a creature.  The very idea of such
a man threatening him seemed absurd to Lord St. Maurice, an athlete of
public school and college renown, with muscles like iron, and the
stature of a guardsman.  He was not angry, and he had not a particle of
fear, but his stock of patience was getting exhausted.

"How are you going to do the killing?" he asked.  "Pardon my ignorance,
but it is evidently one of the customs of the country which has not
been explained to me.  How do you manage it?"

"I should kill you in a duel!" the Sicilian answered.  "It would be
easily done."

The Englishman burst out laughing.  It was too grotesque, almost like a
huge joke.

"Hang you and your duels!" he said, rising to his feet, and towering
over his companion.  "Look here, Mr. di Marioni, I've listened to you
seriously because I felt heartily sorry for you; but I've had enough of
it.  I don't know whether you understand the slang of my country.  If
you do, you'll understand what I mean when I tell you that you've been
talking 'bally rot.'  We may be a rough lot, we Englishmen, but we're
not cowards, and no one but a coward would dream of giving a girl up
for such a tissue of whimperings.  Be a man, sir, and get over it, and
look here--none of this sort of business!"

He drew the dagger from his breast pocket, and patted it.  The Sicilian
was speechless and livid with rage.

"You are a coward!" he hissed.  "You shall fight with me!"

"That I won't," Lord St. Maurice answered good-humouredly.  "Just take
my advice.  Make up your mind that we both can't have her, and she's
chosen me, and come and give me your hand like a man.  Think it over,
now, before the morning.  Good-night!"

The Sicilian sprang up, and looked rapidly around.  At an adjoining
table he recognised two men, and touched one on the shoulder.

"Signors!" he cried, "and you, Signor le Capitaine, pardon me if I ask
you for your hearing for an instant.  This--gentleman here has insulted
me, and declines to give me satisfaction.  I have called him a coward
and a rascal, and I repeat it!  His name is Lord St. Maurice.  If he
forfeits his right to be considered a gentleman, I demand that his name
be struck off the visitors' club."

The three men had risen to their feet.  Two of them were gentlemen of
the neighbourhood with whom Lord St. Maurice had a bowing acquaintance.
The third was a French officer.  They looked inquiringly at Lord St.
Maurice.

"It's quite true, gentlemen," he said with easy self-possession.  "He's
been calling me all the bad names under the sun, and I have declined to
give him what he calls satisfaction.  I haven't the least objection to
your knowing it."

The two Palermitans looked at one another doubtfully.  The officer,
giving his moustache a twist, stepped forward and bowed.

"Might we inquire your reasons for declining the duel?" he asked.

The Englishman shrugged his shoulders.

"Certainly," he answered.  "In the first place, I am an officer in the
service of Her Majesty the Queen, and duelling is strictly forbidden;
in the second, Signor di Marioni is too excited to know what he is
talking about."

"In England, Signor, your first objection is valid; here, it is
scarcely so.  As to the latter, Monsieur le Count seems now to be
perfectly composed.  I am on the committee of the club, and I fear that
I must erase your name if you persist in your refusal."

"I don't care two straws about your club," Lord St. Maurice answered
carelessly.  "As for the duel, I decline it, once and for all.  We
Englishmen have a code of honour of our own, and it is more to us than
the custom of the countries which we chance to visit.  I wish you
good-night, gentlemen."

They fell back, impressed in spite of themselves by the coolness and
hauteur of his words.  Suddenly, with the swiftness of a tiger-cat, the
Sicilian leaped forward and struck the Englishman on the cheek.

"Perhaps you will tell us all, Signor, how the men of your country
resent an insult such as that," he cried.

Every one turned round at the sound of the scuffle.  The eyes of all
were upon the Englishman, who stood there, head and shoulders above all
the crowd, with blazing eyes and pale cheeks.  He was in a towering
passion, but his voice never shook nor faltered.

"You shall see for yourself, Signor!" he cried.

The Sicilian struggled, but he was like a child in the Englishman's
arms.  He had caught him up in a vice-like grasp, and held him high
over the heads of the astonished onlookers.  For a moment he seemed as
though he were going to throw him right out of the restaurant on to the
Marina, but at the last moment he changed his mind, and with a
contemptuous gesture set him down in the midst of them, breathless and
choking.

"You can send your seconds as soon as you like," he said shortly.
"Good-evening, gentlemen."

They fell back before him like sheep, leaving a broad way right into
the hotel, through which he passed, stern and self-possessed.  The
Sicilian watched him curiously, with twitching lips.

"There goes a brave man," whispered one of the Palermitans to the
French officer.  "But his days are numbered."

The Frenchman gazed at the Sicilian and nodded.  There was death in his
face.




CHAPTER IX

  "Ah! why should love, like men in drinking songs,
  Spice his fair banquet with the dust of earth?"


Lord St. Maurice walked straight into his room without perceiving that
it was already occupied.  He flung his hat into a corner, and himself
into an easy-chair, with an exclamation which was decidedly
unparliamentary.

"D--n!" he muttered.

"That's a lively greeting," remarked a voice from the other end of the
room.

He looked quickly up.  A tall figure loomed out of the shadows of the
apartment, and presently resolved itself into the figure of a man with
his hands in his pockets, and a huge meerschaum pipe in his mouth.

"Briscoe, by Jove!  How long have you been here?"

"About two hours.  I've been resting.  Anything wrong downstairs?
Thought I heard a row."

"Strike a light, there's a good fellow, and I'll tell you."

The new-comer moved to the window, and pulled aside the curtain.

"Moon's good enough," he remarked.  "I hate those sickly candles.
Great Scott! what's the matter with you?  You look as black as thunder."

Lord St. Maurice told him the whole story.  Martin Briscoe listened
without remark until he had finished.  Then he pushed the tobacco
firmly down into the bowl of his pipe and re-lit it, smoking for a few
minutes in silence.

"I tell you what, Maurice," he said at length, "of all the bloodthirsty
little devils that ever were hatched, that Marioni takes the cake.
Why, I'm going to fight him myself to-morrow morning."

"What!" cried St. Maurice, starting up in his chair.

"Fact, I assure you.  Margharita told me that he was going to be
troublesome, but I'd no idea that he was such a little spitfire.  I
landed two hours ago, and came straight here.  I'd scarcely had a tub,
and made myself decent, when in the little beggar walks, and kicks up
no end of a row.  I listened for a bit, and then told him to go to
blazes.  In five minutes he'd got the whole thing arranged seconds and
all.  To-morrow morning, at 6.30, on the sands, 'll see me a dead man,
if he can use his tools as well as he can talk, little beast."

"Briscoe, this is a horrible mess," Lord St. Maurice declared
emphatically.  "I don't know what you think of duels; I hate them."

"It isn't duels I hate, it's the being spitted," Briscoe answered
gloomily.  "I can fence a bit, but it's always been with foils.  I'm
not used to swords, and I expect that fellow is a regular 'don' at it.
There's a sort of corpse-like look about him, anyway.  Got any 'baccy,
St. Maurice?  Mine's so beastly dry."

"Help yourself, old fellow.  Who the devil's that?"

There was a knock at the door, and one of the servants of the hotel
appeared.  With some difficulty, for he was a native, and spoke French
execrably, he explained that there were some gentlemen below who,
desired to speak with Lord St. Maurice.

The two men exchanged glances.

"My time has come, you see," Lord St. Maurice remarked firmly.  "Wait
for me."

In the deserted _salle  manger_ the French officer and one of the
Palermitan gentlemen were talking together.  The latter approached Lord
St. Maurice and drew him on one side.

"I do not know how you may be situated here for friends, Lord St.
Maurice," he said, "but I felt that you would only consider it
courteous of me to offer my services to you in case you are without a
second in this affair.  My father wrote to me from Rome of your visit
here, and I went to your yacht to call this afternoon.  My name is
Pruccio--Signor Adriano Pruccio."

Lord Maurice bowed.

"I remember your father quite well," he said, "and I am glad to
commence our acquaintance by accepting the favour you offer.  Will you
be so good as to make all the necessary arrangements with the Count
Marioni's second, and let me know the result."

The Palermitan withdrew into a corner of the room with the Frenchman,
and a few minutes' whispered conversation took place between them.
Then he rejoined Lord St. Maurice, who was standing at the window.

"I am sorry to say that Count Marioni, who is the insulted person in
this affair, chooses swords."

Lord St. Maurice nodded.

"When, and where?"

"At a place below the cliffs to which I shall conduct you at six
o'clock to-morrow morning."

"At six o'clock!  But he has another affair on at half-past."

"So I understand," the Palermitan answered.  "I pointed out that we
should prefer an interval of at least a day; but Monsieur le Capitaine
there explains that the Count de Marioni, having dispensed with his
incognito, is hourly in danger of arrest on account of some political
trouble, and is therefore anxious to have both affairs settled.  I have
agreed, therefore, with your permission, to waive all etiquette in the
matter."

"I don't know that it makes any difference to me," Lord St. Maurice
answered.  "To-night, by moonlight, would have suited me best."

Signor Pruccio laughed.

"You are in a great hurry, Lord St. Maurice.  May I ask whether you are
proficient with your weapon?"

"I never fenced since I was at school," he answered coolly.  "I suppose
Marioni is dangerous?"

The Palermitan looked very grave.  He began to see that it would be
more like a murder than a duel.

"Count Marioni is one of the finest swordsmen in Italy," he answered.
"Perhaps, if I were to explain that you are not accustomed to the
rapier----"

"Pray don't," Lord St. Maurice interrupted.  "He'd be just as likely to
shoot me."

"That is true," Signor Pruccio assented.  "I have seen him do wonderful
things with the pistol.  If you can spare an hour or two, Signor, I
should be happy to give you a little advice as to the management of
your weapon.  There is a large room at the top of my house where we
fence."

Lord St. Maurice shook his head.

"Thank you, I'll take my chance," he answered.  "At five o'clock,
Signor.  Will you not come to my house for the night?"

"I'm much obliged, but I must write some letters.  Good-night, Signor."

"Good-night, Signor.  Sleep well!"

      *      *      *      *      *

The golden light died out of the waning moon, and afar off in the east
a long line of red clouds seemed to rise out of the sea.  The air was
still and calm and breathless.  Even the sea seemed hushed as the
yellow stars faded from the sky.  Behind the bank of glowing clouds was
the promise of the richer and fuller day.  Amber was becoming golden,
and pink purple, till through a very rainbow of colouring the sun's
first rays shot across the chilled waters.

Lord St. Maurice had fallen asleep, with his head resting upon his
arms, close to the open window.  By his side, with the ink scarcely dry
upon either, were his will, and his farewell letter to Adrienne.  No
one but himself would ever know the agony, the hopeless grief, which
had rent his heart, as word after word, sentence after sentence of
passionate leave-taking had found their way on to those closely-written
sheets of paper.  But it was over now--over and done with.  When, some
faint sound from below, or a breath of the morning breeze from the
bosom of the sea awoke him, and he commenced making a few preparations
for the start, he was surprised to find how calm he was.  The passion
of his grief had spent itself.  He thought of those hours before sleep
had fallen upon him with horror, but they seemed to him very far away.
He was face to face with death, but he felt only that he was about to
make a journey into an undiscovered land.  His imagination was dulled.
He remembered only that he was going out to meet death, and it behoved
him to meet it as an honourable English gentleman.

He plunged his head into a basin of cold water and made a careful
toilette, not forgetting even the button-hole which Adrienne had
fetched for him with her own fingers on the evening before.  Then he
quietly left the hotel, and walked slowly up and down the Marina until
Signor Pruccio arrived.




CHAPTER X

A MARIONI'S OATH

Two men stood fading one another on a narrow belt of sand, stripped to
the shirt, and with rapiers in their hands.  One was the Sicilian,
Leonardo di Marioni, the other the Englishman, Lord St. Maurice.  Their
attitude spoke for itself.  They were about to fight for each other's
life.

It was a fair spot which their two seconds had chosen to stain with
bloodshed.  Close almost to their feet, the blue waters of the
Mediterranean, glistening in the early morning sunlight, broke in tiny,
rippling waves upon the firm white sand.  Inland was a semi-circle of
steep cliffs, at the base of which there were great boulders of rock,
fern-covered and with hyacinths of many colours growing out of the
crevices, and lending a sweet fragrance to the fresh morning air.  It
was a spot shut off from the world, for the towering cliffs ran out
into the sea on either side, completely enclosing the little cove.
There was only one possible approach to it, save by boat, and that a
difficult and tedious one, and looking upwards from the shore, hard to
discover.  But on the northward side the cliffs suddenly dropped, and
in the cleft was a thick plantation of aloes, through which a winding
path led down to the beach.

Perhaps of all the little group gathered down there to witness and take
part in the coming tragedy, Signor Pruccio, Lord St. Maurice's second,
was looking the most disturbed and anxious.  His man, he knew, must
fall, and an ugly sickening dread was in his heart.  It was so like a
murder.  He pictured to himself that fair boyish face--and in the clear
morning sunlight the young Englishman's face showed marvellously few
signs of the night of agony through which he had passed--ghastly and
livid, with the stamp of death upon the forehead, and the deep blue
eyes glazed and dull.  It was an awful thing, yet what could he do?
What hope was there?  Leonardo di Marioni he knew to be a famous
swordsman; Lord St. Maurice had never fenced since he had left Eton,
and scarcely remembered the positions.  It was doubtful even whether he
had ever held a rapier.  But what Signor Pruccio feared most was the
pale unflinching hate in the Sicilian's white face.  He loathed it, and
yet it fascinated him.  He knew, alas! how easily, by one swift turn of
the wrist, he would be able to pass his sword through the Englishman's
body, mocking at his unskilled defence.  He fancied that he could see
the arms thrown up to heaven, the fixed, wild eyes, the red blood
spurting out from the wound and staining the virgin earth; almost he
fancied that he could hear the death-cry break from those agonised
white lips.  Horrible effort of the imagination!  What evil chance had
made him offer his services to this young English lord, and dragged him
into assisting at a duel which could be but a farce--worse than a
farce, a murder?  He would have given half his fortune for an
earthquake to have come and swallowed up that merciless Sicilian.

A few yards away Martin Briscoe was standing with his second.  He and
Lord St. Maurice, at this tragical moment of their lives, had been
nearer a quarrel than ever before.  Briscoe, with some justice, had
claimed priority with the Sicilian, and had maintained his right in the
face of Lord St. Maurice's opposition.  But the Sicilian had stepped
in, and insisted upon his privilege to decide for himself whom he
should first meet.  The times had been distinctly stated, he reminded
them, six o'clock by Lord St. Maurice's second, and half-past six by
Mr. Briscoe's.  He had arranged it so with a definite purpose, and he
claimed that it should be carried out.  There was no appeal from his
decision.  He was in the right, and Martin Briscoe, with a dull red
glow of anger in his homely rugged cheeks, had been forced to retire
and become a most unwilling spectator of what he feared could only be
butchery.

Signor Pruccio had delayed the duel as long as he could, under the
pretext of waiting for the doctor who had been instructed to follow
them, but who had not yet arrived.  Twice the Sicilian had urged that
they should commence, and each time he had pleaded that they might wait
for a few minutes longer.  To enter upon a duel _ l'outrance_, save in
the presence of a medical man, was a thing unheard of, he declared.
But at last this respite was exhausted, for the opposing second, with a
pleasant smile, had remarked that he himself was skilled in surgery,
and would be happy to officiate should any necessity arise.  There was
no longer any excuse.  Lord St. Maurice himself insisted upon the
signal being given.  Sadly therefore he prepared to give it.  Already
both men had fallen into position.  The word trembled upon his lips.

A flock of sea-birds flew screaming over their heads, and he waited a
moment until they should have passed.  Then he raised his hand.

"Stop!"

The cry was a woman's.  They all looked round.  Only a few yards away
from them stood Adrienne her fair hair streaming loose in the morning
breeze, and her gown torn and soiled.  She had just issued from the
sloping aloe plantation, and was trembling in every limb from the speed
of her descent.

The cloud on the Sicilian's face grew black as night.

"This is no sight for you to look upon!" he cried, between his teeth.
"You will not save your lover by waiting.  You had better go, or I will
kill him before your eyes!"

She walked calmly between them, and looked from one to the other.

"Lord St. Maurice, I need not ask you, I know!  This duel is not of
your seeking?"

"It is not!" he answered, lowering his sword.  "This fellow insulted
me, and I punished him publicly in the restaurant of the Htel de
l'Europe last night.  In my opinion, that squared matters but he
demanded satisfaction, and from his point of view, I suppose he has a
right to it.  I am quite ready to give it to him."

The seconds had fallen back.  They three were alone.  She went up to
the Sicilian and laid her hand upon his arm.

"Leonardo, we have been friends, have we not?  Why should you seek to
do that which will make us enemies for ever?  I have broken no faith
with you; I never gave you one word of hope.  I never loved you; I
never could have loved you!  Why should you seek to murder the man whom
I do love, and make me miserable for ever?"

His face was ghastly, but he showed no sign of being moved by her words.

"Bah!  You talk as you feel--just now!" he said quickly.  "I tell you
that I do not believe one word.  If he had not come between us, you
would have been mine some day.  Love like mine would have conquered in
the end.  Away! away!" he cried, pushing her back in growing
excitement, and stamping on the ground with his feet.  "The sight of
you only maddens me, and nerves my arm to kill!  Though you beg on your
knees for his life, that man shall die!"

"I shall not beg upon my knees," she answered proudly.  "Yet, Leonardo,
for your own sake, for the sake of your own happiness, I bid you once
more consider.  You would stain your hand with the blood of the man who
is more to me than you can ever be.  Is this what you call love?
Leonardo, beware!  I am not a woman to be lightly robbed of what is
dear to me.  Put up your sword, or you will repent it to your dying
day."

Her voice rang out clear and threatening upon the morning stillness,
and her eyes were flashing with anger.  It was a wonderful tableau
which had grouped itself upon that little strip of sand.

The Sicilian was unmoved.  The sight of the woman he loved championing
his foe seemed to madden him.

"Out of my way!" he cried, grasping his sword firmly.  "Lord St.
Maurice, are you not weary of skulking behind a woman's petticoats?  On
guard!  I say.  On guard!"

She suddenly flung her hands above her head, and there was what seemed
to be a miraculous increase in the little group.  Three men in plain,
dark clothes sprang from behind a gigantic boulder, and, in an instant,
the Sicilian was seized from behind.

He looked around at his captors, pale and furious.  They were strangers
to him.  As yet, he did not realise what had happened.

"What does this mean?" he cried furiously.  "Who dares to lay hands
upon me?  We are on free ground!"

She shook her head.

"Leonardo, you have brought this upon yourself," she said, firmly but
compassionately.  "You plotted to murder the man I love.  I warned you
that, to protect him, there was nothing which I would not dare.  Only a
moment ago, I gave you another chance.  One word from you, and I would
have thrown these papers into the sea," producing a packet from her
bosom, "rather than have placed them where I do now!"

A fourth man had strolled out of the aloe grove smoking a long
cigarette.  Into his hands Adrienne had placed the little packet of
letters, which he accepted with a low bow.

Even now the Sicilian felt bewildered, but as his eyes fell upon the
fourth man, he started and trembled violently, gazing at him as though
fascinated.

"I do not understand!" he faltered.

The fourth man removed his cigarette from his teeth, and produced a
paper.

"Permit me to explain," he said politely.  "I have here a warrant for
your arrest, Count di Marioni, alias Leonardo di Cortegi, on two counts
first, that you, being an exile, have returned to Italian soil; and
secondly, on a further and separate charge of conspiracy against the
Italian Government, in collusion with a secret society, calling
themselves 'Members of the Order of the White Hyacinth.'  The proofs of
the latter conspiracy which were wanting at your first trial, have now
been furnished."

He touched the little roll of papers which he had just received, and,
with a low bow, fell back.  There was an ominous silence.

At the mention of his first name a deathlike pallor had swept in upon
the Sicilian's face.  His manner suddenly became quite quiet and free
from excitement But there was a look in his dark eyes more awful than
had been his previous fury.

"You have done a brave thing indeed, Adrienne!" he said slowly.  "You
have saved your lover.  You have betrayed the man who would have given
his life to serve you.  Listen to me!  As I loved you before, so do I
hate you now!  As my love for you in the past has governed my life, and
brought me always to your side, so in the days to come shall my undying
hate for you and for that man shape my actions and mould my life, and
bring me over sea and land to the furthest corners of the earth to
wreak my vengeance upon you.  Be it ten, or twenty, or thirty years
they keep me rotting in their prisons, the time will come when I shall
be free again; and then, beware!  Search your memory for the legends of
our race!  Was ever a hate forgotten, or an oath broken?  Hear me
swear," he cried, raising his clasped hands above his head with a
sudden passionate gesture.  "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!  Ah! you can take your lover's hand,
traitress, and think to find protection there.  But in your heart I
read your fear.  The day shall come when you shall kneel at my feet for
mercy, and there shall be no mercy.  Gentlemen, my sword.  I am at your
service."




BOOK II




CHAPTER I

A MEETING OF THE ORDER

A man in a fur-lined overcoat--thin, shrunken, and worn--stood on the
pavement in a little street in Camberwell, looking about him in evident
disgust.  Before him stretched a long row of six-roomed houses,
smoke-begrimed, hideously similar, hideously commonplace.  The street
was empty save for the taxi-cab from which he had just alighted, and
which was now vanishing in a slight fog, a milkman and a greengrocer's
boy in amicable converse, and a few dirty children playing in the
gutter.  Nothing could be more depressing, or more calculated to
unfavourably impress a stranger from a southern land visiting the great
city for the first time.  It was a picture of suburban desolation, the
home of poverty-stricken philistinism, uncaring and uncared for.  In
Swinburne's words, though with a different meaning, one saw there,
without the necessity of further travel, "a land that was lonelier than
ruin."

The little old man who had alighted from the cab, stood for a moment or
two looking helplessly around, half surprised at what he saw, half
disgusted.  Such monotonous and undeviating ugliness was a thing which
he had never dreamed of--certainly he had never encountered anything
like it.  Was it possible that he had made a mistake in the address?
He drew a scrap of paper from his pocket and consulted it again.  The
address was written there plainly enough--85, Eden Street, Camberwell.
He was certainly in Eden Street, Camberwell, and the figures on the
gate-post opposite him, worn and black with dirt, were unmistakably an
eight and a five.  With a little shudder he pushed open the gate, and
walked through the narrow strip of untidy garden to the front door.
The bell he found broken and useless, so he knocked softly at first,
and then louder, against the worn panels.

It was some time before an answer came.  Several of the neighbours
appeared upon their doorsteps, and took bold and somewhat ribald stock
of the visitor.  A young person of eighty-one, who was considered the
wit of the neighbourhood, made several very audible remarks, which
produced a chorus of gigglings, on the subject of his clothes and
foreign appearance.  But he stood there as though he had been deaf, his
hands thrust down into the loose pockets of his overcoat, and his
deep-sunken eyes fixed wistfully but not impatiently upon the closed
door.  He was a mute picture of resignation.

At last, after his third summons, the door was slowly and cautiously
opened, and the astonished visitor beheld, for the first time in his
life, a London maid-of-all-work.  The astonishment seemed perfectly
mutual.  He, with his parchment dried face, white hair and eyebrows,
and piercing black eyes only a little dimmed by time, muffled up to the
throat in furs, and unmistakably a foreigner, was as strange to her as
her appearance was to him.  He looked at her black hands, her face
besmeared with dirt, and with her uncombed hair hanging loose around
it, at the tattered and soiled print gown looped up on one side and
held together on the other by pins, and at the white-stockinged feet
showing though the holes in her boots.  What an object it was!  It was
fortunate for him that the twilight and fog concealed, partially at any
rate, the disgust in his face.

"Is--Mr. Bartlezzi in?" he inquired, as soon as he could find words to
speak at all.

"Lawk-a-mussy!  I dunno," the girl answered in blank bewilderment.  "He
don't have no visitors, he don't.  You ain't taxes, are you?"

"No!" he answered, somewhat at a venture, for he did not catch her
meaning.

"Nor water rate?  No, you ain't the water rate," she continued,
meditatively.  "I knows him.  He wears a brown billycock and glasses,
'e does, and I see him walking with Mary Ann Stubbins on a Sunday."

He admitted doubtfully that she was correct.  He was not the water rate.

It began to dawn upon her that it would be safe to admit him into the
house.

"Just yer come hinside, will yer," she said.  "I dunno who yer are, but
I guess you ain't nothink to be afraid of.  Come hinside."

She opened the door and admitted him into a dark, narrow passage.  He
had to squeeze himself against the wall to allow her to pass him.  Then
she surveyed him critically again, with her arms akimbo and her head a
little on one side.

"I reckon you've got a name," she surmised.  "What is it?"

"You can tell Mr. Bartlezzi that a gentleman from abroad desires to
speak with him," he answered.  "My name is immaterial.  Will you accept
this?" he added, holding out a half-crown timidly towards her.

She grabbed it from him, and turned it over incredulously in the
semi-darkness.  There was no deception about it; it was indeed a
half-crown--the first she had ever been given in her life.

She dropped a rude sort of curtsey, and, opening the door of a room,
half ushered, half pushed him in.  Then she went to the foot of the
stairs, the coin tightly clenched in her hand, and he heard her call
out--

"Master!  There's a gent here from furrin parts has wants you, which
'is name his immaterial.  'E's in the parlour."

There was a growl in reply, and then silence.  The handmaiden, her duty
discharged, shuffled off to the lower regions.  The visitor was left
alone.

He looked around him in deep and increasing disgust.  The walls of the
little room into which he had been shown were bare, save for a few
cheap chromos and glaring oleographs of the sort distributed by grocers
and petty tradespeople at Christmas.  A cracked looking-glass, with a
dirty gilt frame, tottered upon the mantelpiece.  The furniture was
scanty, and of the public-house pattern, and there was a strong
nauseous odour of stale tobacco smoke and beer.  A small piano stood in
one corner, the cheapest of its kind and maintaining an upright
position only by means of numerous props.  One leg, tilted in the air,
was supported by two old and coverless volumes of at novel, and another
was casterless.  The carpet was worn into shreds, and there was no
attempt to conceal or mend the huge ravages which time had made in it.
The ceiling was cracked and black with smoke, and the faded paper was
hanging down from the top of the wall.  There was not a single article
or spot in the room on which the eye could rest with pleasure.  It was
an interior which matched the exterior.  Nothing worse could be said
about it.

The visitor took it all in, and raising his hand to his head, closed
his eyes.  Ah! what a relief it was to blot it all out of sight, if
only for a moment.  He had known evil times, but at their worst, such
surroundings as these he had never met with.  A strange nervousness was
creeping slowly over him, the presage of disappointment.  He dropped
his hands, and walked restlessly up and down, striving to banish his
fears.  Might not all this be necessary--a form of disguise--a clever
mode of concealment?  Poverty alone could not have brought things to
this strait.  Poverty!  There had been no poverty in his day.  Yet he
was full of forebodings.  He remembered the wonder, the evasions,
almost the pity with which his first inquiries in Rome had been met.
He could not expect to find things exactly the same.  Twenty years is a
long time, and there must be many changes.  Why had he not stayed in
Rome a little longer, and learned more?  He could easily have obtained
the knowledge which he desired there.  It would have been wiser, surely
it would have been wiser.

The door opened in the midst of his meditations, and he looked eagerly
up.  Again his heart fell.  It was not such a man as this that he had
expected to see.  Ah! what a day of disappointments it was!

The figure which, after a moment's pause in the doorway, now advanced
somewhat hesitatingly towards him, was that of a man a little past
middle age.  He was of medium height, but stout even to corpulency, and
his cheeks were fat and puffy.  His hair was grey, and his thick
stubbly moustaches, which had evidently once been black, were also
changing colour.  His dark, shiny coat was ridiculously short for him,
and his trousers terminated above his ankles.  He wore no necktie, and
his collar was ragged and soiled.  In short, his whole appearance was
not only untidy but dirty.  His gait, too, was slouching and
undignified.

"You wished to speak to me," he said in a thick tone and with a foreign
accent.  "My name is Bartlezzi--Signor Alfonso Bartlezzi."

"Yes, I wished to speak with you."

Signor Bartlezzi began to feel uncomfortable under his visitor's fixed
gaze.  Why should he look at him so intently?  He had never set eyes
upon him before--and what an odd, shrunken little figure it was.  He
coughed and shifted his position.

"Ah! yes.  I am ready, as you see.  Is it anything to do with my
profession?"

"I do not know what your profession is."

Signor Bartlezzi made an effort to draw himself up, and assumed a
military air.

"I am a master of fencing," he announced, "also a professor of
Italian--Professor Alfonso Bartlezzi, at your service.  I am fairly
well known in this neighbourhood.  If you have pupils to recommend,
sir, or if you are thinking of taking lessons yourself, I should be
most happy.  My services are sometimes made use of as interpreter both
in the police court and privately.  I should be happy to serve you in
that capacity, sir."

Signor Bartlezzi, having declared himself, folded his arms and waited.
He felt certain that his visitor must now divulge his name and mission.
That, however, he seemed in no hurry to do.

"You are an Italian?" he asked presently.

"Certainly, sir."

"May I ask, have you still correspondents or friends in that country?"

The Professor was a little uneasy.  He looked steadfastly at his
visitor for a moment, however, and seemed to regain his composure.

"I have neither," he answered sorrowfully.  "The friends of former days
are silent; they have forgotten me."

"You have lived in England for long, then?"

"Since I was a boy, sir."

"And you are content?"

The Professor shrugged his shoulders and looked round.  The gesture was
significant.

"Scarcely so," he answered.  "But what would you have?  May I now ask
you a question, sir?" he continued.

"Yes."

"Your name?"

His visitor looked around him mournfully.

"The day for secrecy is past, I suppose," he said sadly.  "I am the
Count Leonardo di Marioni."

"What!" shrieked the Professor.

"Count Leonardo di Marioni--that is my name.  I am better known as
Signor di Cortegi, perhaps, in the history of our society."

"My God!"

If a thunderbolt had burst through the ceiling of the little
sitting-room, the Professor could not have been more agitated.  He had
sunk down upon a chair, pale and shaking all over with the effect of
the surprise.

"He was a young man," he faltered.

His visitor sighed.

"It was five-and-twenty years ago," he answered slowly.
"Five-and-twenty years rotting in a Roman prison.  That has been my
fate.  I was a young man then.  You see me now."

He held up his arms, and let them drop again heavily to his side.  It
was a gesture full of sad dramatic pathos, but in that little room
there was no one to observe it, no one to pity him for those white
hairs and deep-drawn lines.  But that was nothing.  It was not pity
that he wanted.

There was silence.  Both men were absorbed in their own thoughts.
Signor Bartlezzi was thunderstruck and completely unnerved.  The
perspiration stood out upon his forehead, and he could feel his hands
and legs shaking.  This was a terrible and altogether unexpected blow
to him.  It was not the thought of that twenty-five years' lonely
captivity which was oppressing him, so much as the fact that it was
over--that the day of release had come, and that it was indeed Count
Marioni who stood before him, alive and a free man.  That was the
serious part of it.  Had it not been proclaimed that the imprisonment
was for life?  That had certainly been the sentence.  A gleam of hope
flashed in upon him.  Perhaps he had escaped from prison.  If so, the
sooner he was back there the better.

"Was not the sentence for life?" he gasped.

The Count assented, shaking his head slowly.

"Yes, for life," he answered bitterly.  "That was the sentence,
imprisonment for life."

"Then you have escaped?"

The same slow shake of the head.  The Professor was bitterly
disappointed.

"No.  At five-and-twenty years a prisoner with a good-conduct sheet is
restored to liberty.  My time came at last.  It was a weary while."

"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 humour 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 towards 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
though 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.




CHAPTER II

"A FIGURE FROM A WORLD GONE BY"

The Count was left to himself in the bare, untidy-looking parlour, 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 anglicised 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 pretence 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 labouring, 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 bone 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 honourable 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 honour 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 odour 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
labouring 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 the _crux_ of 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 towards 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 fulfilment 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 neighbour, 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 towards 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 bloodthirsty 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 club like amongst 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 towards 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.




CHAPTER III

BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH

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 amongst 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 towards 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 endeavoured to reason gently with his
eccentric visitor, and he had been bidden quietly to leave the room.
On his endeavouring 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 towards 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."




CHAPTER IV

AN EVERLASTING HATE

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 the _Morning Post_ turned down,
as though to mark a certain place in it.

As she crossed the pavement he had a better view of her face, and
recognised 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--civilised 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, and quite by chance I took up the _Post_ and
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
arm-chair 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 amongst 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 odour 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 black hair turn grey, 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.




CHAPTER V

THE COUNT'S SECOND VISITOR

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 taxi-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 book-keeper, 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
towards 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 _The Times_."

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 taxi, 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 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."




CHAPTER VI

A NEW MEMBER FOR THE ORDER

Count Marioni sat in his old attitude, brooding over the fire from the
depths of his arm-chair, 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 towards 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 galvanised
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 towards 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 trickling 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-coloured 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 backwards, 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 the
ashen grey 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 recognised 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 amongst the loneliest mountains of Switzerland; I
endured the dulness of this cold grey 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 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
quarrelled 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 shrivelled 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.




CHAPTER VII

THE RETURN TO REASON

"Where am I, Margharita?"

She leant over him, and drew a long deep breath of relief.  It was the
reward of many 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 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 for ever.
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 towards 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 labouring, 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 grey light of the approaching dawn.  The mists were rising
from the river, and the yellow light was dying out of the room.  Away
eastwards, 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 colouring.  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.  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 towards St.
Paul's.  Then the sun showed a rim, and almost its first pale beam
quivered upon the great church dome, travelled 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 travelling up towards 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 colour burnt 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 cruellest words which my lips could utter.  It drove the
warm colour 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 St. 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
towards 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."




CHAPTER VIII

"I HAVE A FEAR--A FOOLISH FEAR"

"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."


"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're 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 grey.  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
'Travellers,' 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 car
waiting, I took up the _Morning Post_ and 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, 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 colour in your cheeks."




CHAPTER IX

THE NEW GOVERNESS

None of the little household at Mallory Grange, Lord St. Maurice's
Lincolnshire seat, ever forgot Margharita's first appearance amongst
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 towards the centre 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 marvellous.  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.  Afterwards
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 moustache 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 travelling 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 downwards at the white throat, the sombreness of
which was partially relieved by an amber foundation.  She had no
jewellery 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 toilette
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 colourless.  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 coloured 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
afterwards 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 car."

"Taxi!" she interrupted.

"Taxi-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 taxi.
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 taxi 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
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
demeanour.  He saw at once that he had struck the right note, and he
followed it up with tact.  He was fresh from a tour amongst 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 twentieth-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 afterwards 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, worshipped 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 towards 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 of _verve_ and
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 marvellously handsome," Lord St. Maurice pronounced.

"Marvellously!" his son echoed softly.

But Lady St. Maurice said nothing.




CHAPTER X

LORD LUMLEY AND MARGHARITA

"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 school-room 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 something bizarre, 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 grey moustache, 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 behaviour 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 behaviour--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, afterwards, 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
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 the 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 muttered
_sotto 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 spoilt 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 contract, 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 towards
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
homewards.  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 coloured 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.




CHAPTER XI

A LAND THAT IS LONELIER THAN RUIN

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 seawards, 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 towards 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 favour?" 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 colour steal into
his cheeks, and his heart beat fast.

"Yes," she said softly, "if you will."




CHAPTER XII

LORD LUMLEY'S CONFESSION

"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 evenings 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 towards 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 towards
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 centred round one point.  Would this new
development hinder his purpose, or was it favourable to him?

"Leonardo's sister, Lumley, was my dear friend.  She married a man
named Briscoe, and died very soon afterwards.  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 towards 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 an 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 harbours 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
towards 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 towards his mother.  She had taken up a paper-knife, and was
cutting the pages of her book.  It was the _savoir-faire_ of a great
lady.




BOOK III




CHAPTER I

MARGHARITA'S DIARY--A CORRESPONDENCE

Letter from Count Leonardo di Marioni to Miss M. Briscoe, care of the
Earl of St. Maurice, Mallory Grange, Lincolnshire.


"HTEL 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 amongst the
neighbours, 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 laboured 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 rise 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 honour, 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 realise 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
towards 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."




CHAPTER II

"WHITE HYACINTHS"

I am driven to what is either the vehicle for the sentimental
vapourings of a school-girl, or the last resource of a desperate,
friendless woman.  I am going to set down on blank paper the record of
events here just in the way they occur to me.  I am going to enjoy the
luxury of being honest to myself.  I need not say in which of the above
states I am.  That is soon shown.

I would to God that I had died before I had come here; before I had
sought out my uncle, Count Marioni, and listened to the pitiful story
of his wrongs.  I am pledged to a purpose so awful that I dare not
think of it.  Day by day I am expecting the time to arrive for the
accomplishment of my hideous vow.  God keep it back!  Keep me innocent
a little longer!

I write this in a weak moment.  There are times when my uncle's wistful
eyes seem turned upon me, full of mute pleading, and the old spirit of
my race stirs up a great passion of hate in my heart.  Then the thing
seems easy; I long for a weapon that I may end the struggle, and avenge
the man who looks to me to strike.  Her gentle manners and kind words
have no influence.  I am adamant.  I look across the sea, and I see the
figure of a man, pale and lonely, languishing year by year in a Roman
prison.  Then, indeed, my heart is hard and my hand is ready!

But there are other times, such as these, when I loathe myself and the
part I am playing; when an unutterable horror comes upon me, and I see
myself and my purpose in hideous, ghastly colours.  It is such a mood
that has driven me to make use of this dumb confidant, that I may
confess what this thing is which has dawned upon me.  My cheeks are
stained with shame as I write it.  Never could it have passed my lips.
Oh! my love, my love, cursed am I that I love you!

He shall never know it!  He thinks me cold and capricious!  Let him!
It is my purpose to make him suffer, and he shall suffer!  In that I
will be true to my oath; I will make of this weakness a scourge!  No
one will know what it costs me!  No one will know how sweet to me are
the words which I train my lips to answer with scorn!  Never a tender
look or word shall he gain from me; yet this much can I promise myself.
No one else shall ever be dear to me!  No other lover will I have save
his memory!  He thinks that I dislike him!  He shall think so to the
end!  He shall never know--never!

I took up a novel this morning, and tried to read, but could not.  Ah!
those fools who write about a woman's love--what do they know about it?
Nothing! less than nothing!  I, Margharita, am nineteen years old, and
I love!  I would die this moment cheerfully, sooner than he should know
it!  Yet, though I shall never hear one word of love from his lips, or
rest for one moment in his arms; though I live to be an old woman, I
would starve, beg, die, sooner than give myself to any other man.  To
have loved, even though the love be unknown, and to have been loved,
even though it be silently, is sweet to a woman.  She can crystallise
the memory in her heart, and pass through life sad perhaps, yet content
cold and deaf to all other voices.  They say that a man is not like
this.  Perhaps!  A woman's nature is finer than a man's--less
passionate, but more devoted.

To-night, as the dressing-bell rang, and I was coming upstairs to
change my gown for dinner, he met me in the hall and offered me--a
spray of white hyacinths!  How my fingers shook as I took them!  White
hyacinths!  If he had only known what he had been doing.  White
hyacinths!  What was that oath--"Vengeance upon traitors."  Does she
remember it, I wonder?  I think that she does, for I wore them in the
bosom of my dress, and she turned pale when she glanced at them.  She
looked at me as though she were afraid.  Does my face remind her of the
past, I wonder?  She told me that my features are the features of the
Marionis, and I know that I am like my mother!  I am glad of it!  I
would have my face bring a pang to her heart every time she looks at
it.  That is justice!

She looked, as though fascinated, at the bunch of white flowers in my
bosom.  I took care to let her know that Lord Lumley had given them to
me.  I am never so gracious to him as in her presence.

"By the bye, mother," he said, during a pause in the conversation, "I
have noticed that, while you use every other colour of hyacinths for
table decorations, you never use any white ones.  Why is it?"

She looked at her husband.  I saw their eyes meet across the table, and
that look told me how near the past was to their thoughts.

"It is a flower I do not care for, Lumley," she said quietly.  "The
perfume is too faint.  Besides, they are so suggestive of funerals."

"Perhaps you would prefer my not wearing mine, then," I remarked
carelessly.  "I will throw them away."

I saw him bite his lip and frown, and I laughed to myself.  Lady St.
Maurice was hesitating.

"I should be sorry for you to do that," she said, "Groves can take them
away until after dinner, if you would not mind."

"They are scarcely worth keeping," I went on, drawing them from my
corsage.  "I care nothing for them after all," and opening the window
just behind my chair, I threw them into the darkness.

Lord Lumley came to me in the drawing-room afterwards.

"It was scarcely kind of you to throw my flowers away," he said,
bending over my chair.

I turned back with my hands clasped behind my head, and laughed up at
him.

"Why not?  They were nothing to me.  It was kind to your mother at any
rate."

Oh! hypocrite! hypocrite!  If he could only have seen me a few minutes
before, stealing along in the shadow of the shrubs outside looking
about in the darkness till I had found them, and holding them
passionately to my lips.  They were in my pocket then, wrapped in a
lace handkerchief.  They are in a secret drawer of my desk now, and
there will they remain for ever.  I do not mind confessing that they
are very precious to me.  But he does not know that.

He turned away offended and left me.  But I went to the piano, and sang
a wild Neapolitan love song, and when I had finished he was leaning
over me with a deep glow in his pale cheeks, and his eyes fixed upon
mine.  Does he know how handsome he is, I wonder?  Whence did I get the
strength to look into those deep blue eyes, burning with passion, and
mock at him?

"You sing divinely of what you know nothing!" he said.

"Isn't that rather a rash assumption?" I answered lightly.  "You are
paying me a poor compliment in taking it for granted that I never had a
lover, Lord Lumley."

"Have you?"

"Oh, yes, heaps!"

"Are you engaged, then?" he asked fiercely.

"How like a man you jump at conclusions!"

"But, are you?"

"Is it your business, Lord Lumley?"

"Yes!"

"Then if you make everybody's love affairs your concern, you must find
plenty to interest you."

"There is only one person in the world in whose love affairs I am
interested."

"Naturally!" I answered.  "Whose else should be so interesting as your
own?"

"I did not mean that!" he exclaimed, almost angrily.  "You are bandying
words with me."

"On the contrary, it is you who seem bent on mystifying me," I
answered, laughing.

"You shall hear me speak more plainly then."

"I would rather not.  Enigmas are so much more interesting.  Will you
allow me to pass?"

"Why?" he asked, without moving an inch.

"Because, as your mother does not seem to be coming in again, I should
prefer going to my room."

"She is coming in again.  I heard her order coffee here in ten minutes."

"I don't want any coffee, and I won't be kept here.  Lord Lumley, be so
good as to allow me to pass."

"In one minute, Margharita.  I----"

"Lord Lumley, I allow no man to call me by my Christian name without
permission."

"Then give me permission."

"Never!"

"You don't mean that?"

"I do!  Lord Lumley, allow me to pass.  I will not be kept here against
my will!"

He caught hold of my wrist, but I snatched my hand away.

"Margharita, listen!  I love you.  Why should you be angry?  I want you
to be my wife."

I believe he thought that I was won.  I had sunk down upon the music
stool, and covered my face with my hands.  My bosom was heaving with
sobs.  With all my strength I was battling with a strange bewildering
succession of feelings.  In reality I was more exquisitely and
perfectly happy than I had ever dreamed of.

I felt his strong hands close over my fingers, and remove them one by
one.  His head was quite close to mine, and suddenly I felt his
moustache brush my cheek.

I sprang to my feet, wildly, fiercely angry.  My eyes were flashing,
and I had drawn myself up until I seemed almost as tall as he was.  If
he had dared to kiss me.  Oh! if he had dared!

"Let me pass!" I cried passionately.  "Let me pass at once, I say."

He fell back immediately.  He was half frightened, half puzzled.

"Lord Lumley, I never wish you to speak to me again," I cried,
trembling all over with passionate indignation, and dashing the tears
from my eyes.  "I hate you!  Do you hear?  I hate you!"

He ought to have been abashed, but he was not.

"You have no cause to hate me!" he said proudly.  "Surely a man does
not insult a woman by offering her his love, as I have offered you
mine.  I scarcely see at least how I have deserved your anger."

Suddenly his voice broke down, and he went on in a very altered tone.

"Oh, Margharita, my love, my love!  Give me one word of hope!  Tell me
at least that you are not really angry with me."

And then, without a moment's warning, the fire of indignation which had
leapt up to help me suddenly died out.  He was standing respectfully
away from me, pale and dignified.  His face was full of emotion, and
his hands were trembling; but some instinct seemed to have told him how
I hated his touch, and he did not attempt even to hold my hand.  Oh!
that moment, terrible as it was at the time, will be very sweet to
think upon in after days.

My strength had come to an end.  I knew that I was in terrible risk of
undoing all that I had done, but I could not help it.  That moment
seemed somehow sacred.  Although my whole life was itself a lie, I
could not then have looked in his eyes and spoken falsely.  If I had
let him see my face, though only for an instant, he would have known my
secret; so I buried it in my hands, and swept from the room before he
could stop me.

Am I more happy or more miserable, I wonder, since he has spoken those
words which seem to be ever ringing in my ears?  Both, I think!  Life
is more intense; it has other depths now besides that well of hate and
pity which has brought me into this household.  At any rate, I have
felt emotions to-night which I never dreamed of before.

If only he knew--knew all, how he would scorn, hate, despise me!  How
he would hasten to drive me out of his memory, to crush every tender
thought of me, to purge his heart of love for me, to pluck it up by the
roots and cast it away for ever!  Would he find it an easy task, I
wonder?  Perhaps.  He loves his mother so much.  Why should he not?  So
far as he is concerned, she deserves it.  She is a good mother, and a
good wife.  If it were not for the past I would call her a good woman.
Sometimes I wish that she were not so, that she was still vain and
heartless, the same woman who, for the sake of an alien and a stranger,
brought down a living death upon the man who had trusted her with his
most sacred secrets; and that man the last of the Marionis, my uncle.
I think of it, and coldness steals once more into my heart.  What she
is now is of no account.  It is the past for which she must suffer.




CHAPTER III

AMONGST THE PINE TREES

This morning I heard noises about the house quite early, and heavy
footsteps in the drive.  I was awake--it was only a few minutes since I
had been sitting at the window watching the day break over the sea, and
I had the curiosity to look out.  I think that something must have told
me what it meant, for my heart sank even before I had any idea of what
was going on.  There were two sailors from Lord Lumley's yacht in the
bay, carrying great hampers down from the house.  I guessed it all in a
moment; he was going away.

I put on my dressing-gown, and sat down in a low chair to watch.
Through a chink in the blind I could keep it lowered and still see
quite plainly.  Presently I saw him appear in his yachting clothes,
with oil-skins on his arm.  Would he glance up at all?  I wondered.
Yes; at the bend in the shrubbery he turned and looked for a full
minute up at my window.  It was all I could do to keep from waving him
to come back.  How pale he was, and how dejected his walk seemed.  My
eyes grew dim, and there was a lump in my throat as he turned and
walked away.  Would it have made any difference, I wonder, if he had
known of my being there; if he could have seen my poor, sad,
tear-stained face?  I think that it would.

He has gone.  I have seen the last of him.  Am I glad or sorry, I
wonder?  Glad that my task has become so much the easier, or sorry for
my own unreasoning, selfish sake.  Why should I be a hypocrite?  These
pages are to be the mirror of my heart.  To others my whole life is a
lie.  I write here so that I may retain some faint knowledge of what
truth really is.  I am sorry--desperately, foolishly sorry.  I know
that my cheeks are leaden, and my heart is heavy.  There is no light in
the day; none of that swift, keen struggling with myself which his
presence always imposed.  He is gone, and I miss them; I should have
laughed a few short days ago to have believed this true.  But it is
true!

The first bell has gone, and I have drawn up my blind.  The promise of
that blood-red sunrise has been fulfilled.  I wish that he had waited
another day.  I have an idea that there is going to be a storm.  There
is a pale yellow light in the sky which I do not like, and, as far as
one can see, the waves are crested with white foam.  It is an ugly sea,
and an ugly sky.  I wish that I were going with him, and that a storm
might come, and we might die together.  I would not mind his holding me
in his arms then.  We would die like that, and death would be joy.

At breakfast I was able to take the news of his departure without
making any sign.  I fancy that Lady St. Maurice was watching me when
she made the announcement.  If she was expecting to read my thoughts
and fears, she was disappointed.  She could have seen nothing but the
most utter indifference.  I felt that my mask was perfect.

But as the day wore on my task grew harder.  The wind, which had been
blowing hard all the morning, became a hurricane, and even in the
house, with closed doors and windows, we could hear the far-off thunder
of the sea sweeping in against the cliffs.  Every one in the household
became strangely restless and anxious.  Lord St. Maurice, with a
field-glass under his arm, went out upon the cliffs, and he returned
hatless and with his coat ripped up, shaking his head with ill-affected
cheerfulness.  There was no sign of the _Stormy Petrel_.

"Lumley would make for Yarmouth harbour directly he saw this beast of a
gale blowing up," he declared, walking up and down the morning-room
with troubled face.  "He is a little careless, but he is an excellent
sailor, and he must have seen that there was dirty weather brewing.  It
isn't as though it were a sudden squall, you know, or anything of that
sort.  There was plenty of warning.  All the same, I wish he hadn't
started.  It was very foolish, and I don't like such whims.  I didn't
hear him say anything about a cruise yesterday.  Did you, Adrienne?"

Was it my fancy, or did Lady St. Maurice indeed glance at me as she
answered?

"No, I heard nothing.  Late last night he came to my room and told me
that he had given Groves some orders, and that he should leave quite
early this morning."

Lord St. Maurice frowned.

"It is most extraordinary," he said.  "He gave you no reason whatever,
then?"

"None!"

"Did he say where he was going to?  We were shooting together all
yesterday afternoon, and he said not a word about going away.  On the
contrary, he arranged to go to Norwich on Thursday to look at some
horses."

The Countess shook her head.

"I know no more than you do, Geoffrey.  I asked him where he was going,
and he did not seem at all sure.  He said that he would write if he
remained away more than a day or two.  You know how uncertain he is."

"It is very inconsiderate of him," Lord St. Maurice declared, leaving
the room abruptly.  "I am surprised at Lumley."

Lady St. Maurice and I were alone.  She was pretending to read and I to
work.  So far as she was concerned, I could see that it was a pretence,
for she held her book upside down, and for my part, I did not make a
correct stitch.  I knew that I ought to have been calm, that I was
imperilling my secret every moment.  When at last she spoke to me, I
made a great effort to control my tone.

"Lord Lumley said nothing to you, I suppose, Margharita, about going
away?"

"Nothing whatever," I answered quietly.  "He would be scarcely likely
to mention his plans to me and not to you or Lord St. Maurice."

I was forced to look up, and I met her eyes fixed upon me with a look
which I had seen there once or twice before.  It was almost a look of
fear, as though she saw in my face something which aroused a host of
sad, dimly-veiled memories.  Was she wondering whether the presence of
a Marioni in her house boded ill-fortune to herself and those who were
dear to her?  It may have been so.

She did not answer immediately, and I took advantage of the pause to
leave the room.  I could not bear to talk to her.

Ought I not to have been glad at all this--to have watched her pale,
suffering face with satisfaction, and even with inward joy?  Was she
not in trouble greater than any I could bring upon her, and, indeed,
had I not had a hand in it?  Was it not I who had driven her son out
into this danger?  Should I not have rejoiced?  Alas, alas, how could
I, when my own heart was beating fast in a very agony of sickening fear?

My little pupil was away for the day--gone to play with the clergyman's
children down in the village, and my time was my own.  I was thankful,
for I could not possibly have forced myself into the wearisome routine
of lesson hearing and teaching.  Solitude was my only relief.

The day wore on.  Servants had been sent to every point along the
coast, and the harbour-master at Yarmouth had been telegraphed to every
hour.  I stood by my window, looking out in the fast-gathering
twilight, until I could bear it no longer.  Dashing the tears from my
face, I caught up a thick cloak, and running softly down the back
stairs, left the house unobserved.

At first I could scarcely stand, and, indeed, as I turned the corner of
the avenue and faced the sea, a gust of wind carried me off my feet,
and I had to cling to the low iron railings for support.  The thunder
of the storm and the waves seemed to shake the air around me.  The sky
was dark, and riven with faint flashes of stormlight, which slanted
down to the sea.  By hard struggling I managed to make my way on to the
cliffs, and stood there, looking downwards, with my arm passed round a
tall fir sapling for support.  What a night it was!  The spray of the
waves breaking against the cliff leaped up into my face mingled with
the blinding rain, and dimmed my vision so that I could only catch a
faint view of the boiling, seething gulf below.  Beyond, all was chaos;
for a grey haze floated upon the water and met the low-hanging clouds.
And clear above the deep thunder of the sea came the shrill yelling of
the wind in the pine groves which fringed the cliffs, sounding like the
demoniacal laughter of an army of devils.  Shall I ever forget the
horror of that day, I wonder?  I think not!  It is written upon a page
of my memory in characters over which time can have no power.

And in that moment of agony, when my thoughts were full of his peril, I
wrestled no longer with my secret; I knew that I loved him.  I knew
that he was dear to me as no other man could be.  I knew that I was
face to face with a misery unchanging and unending.

Were not the fates themselves fighting against me in my task?  That it
should be, of all men upon this earth, he, the son of the woman whose
death would be at my door.  A murderess!  Should I be that?  The wind
caught up the word which had burst from my pale lips, and I seemed to
hear it echoed with fiendish mirth amongst the bending tree-tops of the
plantation.  A murderess! and of his mother, the mother whom he loved
so fondly!  If he should know it!  If the day should come when my sin
should be laid bare, and he should know that he had given his love to
such an one!  Sin!  Was it a sin?  Was my love turning the whole world
upside down?  Had it seemed so to me before?  Was it sin or justice?
Oh! to whom should I look for strength to hold me to my purpose?  To
pray would be blasphemous.  For me there was no God, no friend on
earth, no heaven!  I could only think of that one shattered life, and
hug it to my memory.

I wandered backwards and forwards in the storm, drenched and cold, yet
all unmindful of my state.  I could have borne no roof over my head in
those hours of my agony.  The thought of his danger maddened me.  Even
though I knew so well that he could be nothing to me; that if he knew
the truth, he would loathe me; that soon the day would come when I
should scarcely dare to raise my eyes to his before we parted for ever.
All these things seemed to make me long the more passionately to look
once more into his face, to know that he was safe.  It was my fault
that he was in this danger.  Horrible thought!

I was exhausted; worn out in body and mind by the sickening fears which
no effort of will seemed able to quell.  Even my limbs at last gave way
beneath me, and I sank upon my knees, holding my face in my hands.  Had
the edge of the cliff been a little nearer, could I have done it
without any physical effort, I had been content to close my eyes, and
throw myself into the sea.  If there are no joys in death, at least
there is rest.

Then a voice came to me.

"Margharita!"

I leaped up from the wet ground with wildly-beating heart.  Was it some
mocking trick of the storm--that voice in my ears, that dear, dear
voice?  My eyes seemed dilated, and through the deep gloom I saw a tall
figure striding towards me.  Then I know that I cried out and called to
him by his name; and alas, by the tone of my voice and the light that
flashed into my face, my secret was gone!  For evil or for good he knew
then that I loved him!




CHAPTER IV

STORMS

There came a time then of blessed and grateful unconsciousness.  The
tumult of the storm was reduced to a mere singing in my ears, and
darkness seemed to have closed in around me.  When I opened my eyes, I
was resting in his arms, and a delicious sense of happiness was
stealing through me.  Sensation had overpowered memory, and I was
happy.  Ah! if life could have ended then--that was how I felt.  If
only the future and that shrunken relentless figure pointing me on to
tragedy--if only they could have melted away!  Alas! alas!

He had become bold at my mute self-yielding, and at something which he
must have seen in my face.  I felt him bending down over me, and
suddenly my lips partly opened to frame the feeblest of protests were
closed in a long passionate kiss, and his arms drew me towards him.
Still I made no effort to release myself.  A desperate self-abandonment
had crept in upon me.  The happiness of that moment should recompense
me for the misery to come.  Time took to itself wings then; I had no
power or will to measure it.  If hell itself had been yawning at my
feet, I was content.

It was he who spoke at last, still clasping my hands, and looking
eagerly into my face.

"Margharita, my love, I have come back to you.  How shall I bless this
storm?"

"Have you been in danger?" I asked softly.

"Nothing to speak of," he laughed.  "We ran for Yarmouth harbour
directly we saw what was coming, and only lost a few spars.  What a sea
it was, though!  Wave after wave broke over our bows and swept the
deck.  It was a miracle we lost no men."

"And how is it that you are home so quickly?"

"I took the first train from Yarmouth, and wired for a special from the
junction.  I knew that my mother would be anxious, and they told me
that there was very little chance of telegrams being delivered safely;
so much damage had been done to the wires."

"You thought of no one but your mother?" I whispered, a little
reproachfully.

"My darling! how was I to know that any one else cared?"

"Ah!"

The sense of relief in my heart was overpowering.  I seemed to have no
desire for speech.  The sound of his voice was like music to me, and I
preferred to listen.

"It seems to me that I have had no thought save of you, Margharita," he
went on slowly.  "In all that storm, when flying clouds and spray and
driving rain shut us in on every side, I thought of nothing else save
of you.  No one knows the boat so well as I, and for the last four
hours I was lashed to a board, steering.  Margharita, all that time,
and all the time I stood on the bridge, I seemed to see you always.
Sometimes it was the mist of rain and spray which opened to let you
through; and sometimes--sometimes I almost fancied that you were by my
side.  Think of you, Margharita!  Why, I was a haunted man.  In all
that thunder of sea and wind, when I had to use a speaking trumpet to
make my men hear me a few yards away, I could only hear your voice in
my ears as distinctly as you hear me now.  They say that when one is in
danger, or near death, the imagination is quickened.  It must have been
so with me, for your presence and the sound of your voice were very
real to me."

"How did you find me here?" I asked.

"Well, as soon as I could decently get away from my people, I asked for
you.  They sent to your room, and could not find you.  Then one of the
servants thought that she had seen you leave the house and come this
way.  So I started off in search."

"It was foolish of me to come out.  I could not rest indoors."

"Why?" eagerly.

"The storm was so dreadful."

"And so you came out into it.  A bad reason.  Was there no other?"

"I was anxious, too, I think.  I wanted to see what the sea looked
like."

"Why were you anxious; what about?"

"Somebody was in danger."

"My darling!"

His lips met mine again.  My strength seemed altogether gone.  I made
no effort to escape.

"I didn't say who 'somebody' was," I protested weakly.

He laughed gaily.

"But I know."

"Sure?"

"Quite sure."

"I may have relatives who are sailors."

"You may have, but you haven't."

I considered for a moment.

"It was purely a matter of responsibility, you know.  I felt that I had
something to do with your going away.  I was disagreeable last night,
and you were offended.  See?"

"Not a bit."

"You are very stupid."

"I am not now; I was last night."

"What do you mean?"

"I will answer you by asking a question.  Will you promise to reply to
it?"

"_Cela dpend_.  I won't be rash."

"Do you care for me--just a little?" he asked, tenderly but hopefully.

Oh, horrible!  A vision seemed to float suddenly before my eyes.  The
darkness faded away, to be replaced by a little white-washed chamber in
a distant land.  I saw an old man dying, with his eyes fixed upon me
full of mute reproach, his trembling fingers pointed at me with scorn,
and his lips framing a feeble curse.  Suddenly his look changed, his
arm fell, his face grew suddenly bright and joyful, and the curse
changed into a fervent blessing.  Then the room widened, and the little
figure under that spotless coverlet faded away.  It was a chamber in a
palace, and I saw Lady St. Maurice, also on her death-bed.  Her husband
and her son knelt by her side with bared heads, and the air was laden
and heavy with the sound of their sobs.  She alone did not weep, and
her pale, spiritualised face glowed like the face of a martyred saint.
And as I watched, I seemed to hear one word constantly escaping from
those who watched by her side, and caught up and echoed a thousand
times by the sad wailing wind until it rang in my ears unceasingly--and
the word was "Murderess!"

It passed away--vanished in a phantom of mist, like some weird morbid
fancy, but the joy of those last few minutes was quenched.  I drew
myself from his arms, and pressed my hand to my side.  There was a
sharp pain there.

"We must go back to the house," I said.  "I have been a little mad, I
think, and I am very wet."

He looked at me, amazed.

"Won't you answer my question first?" he pleaded.  "Margharita, make me
very happy.  Be my wife."

His wife.  Oh, the grim grotesque agony of it all.  My strength would
never be sufficient to carry me through all this.  My heart was faint,
and my speech was low; yet it was as cold and resolute as I could make
it.

"Never! never!  I would sooner die than that.  Let us go back at
once--at once!"

He caught me by the wrist, and forced me to look into his face.  It was
unwise of him to touch me against my will, for the fire flashed into my
eyes, and my anger gave me strength.

"Margharita, what does this mean?  You do care for me a little, don't
you?"

"No!"

I lied, God knows, and all in vain.

"Perhaps not so very much now," he said, with a little sigh, "but you
will some day.  I know that you will.  Be generous, Margharita, give me
a little hope."

I laid my hand upon his arm.  How could I convince him?  Anger, lies,
reasoning, all seemed so weak and ineffective; and he was so
strong--strong in his own love, strong unconsciously in mine.

"Lord Lumley, I can only give you one answer, and that is--'No.'
Nothing can change me.  I would sooner throw myself from these cliffs
than become your wife."

He considered for a moment, while I watched him anxiously.

"I have a right to know your reason for that speech," he said in a low
but firm tone.  "Give me your hands for one moment, Margharita--so!
Now, look me in the eyes, and tell me that you do not care for me!"

I was a fool to try.  I might have known that after all I had passed
through that day, it was beyond my strength.  I got as far as the first
three words, and then I burst into tears.  His whole face lit up with
joy at my failure.

"I am satisfied!" he said, drawing my hand through his arm.  "Come! we
will go back to the house.  I must not have you catch cold!"

Me spoke with an air of fond proprietorship which made my heart
tremble, but I had no more words left with which to fight my battle.
My strength was gone; I did not even try to withdraw my hand.

We walked away, and I did my best to choke the hysterical sobs which
threatened me.  Directly we left the shelter of the pine grove, speech
became impossible.  We had to fight our way along, step by step, with
the wind and rain beating in our faces.  I was thankful for it, for the
physical effort seemed to stimulate and calm me.

When at last we reached the house and stood inside the hall, he turned
to me and spoke for the first time.

"That walk was quite an event, wasn't it?  Let me feel how wet you are."

He ran his fingers down my arm and back, and then rang the hall bell
violently.

"You are wet through," he said gravely.  "And it is my fault.  Instead
of bringing you home at once, as I ought to have done, I kept you out
there talking.  Run upstairs at once, Margharita, please, and change
all your things.  I will send up hot water."

He had been hurrying me to the stairs all the time, and I began slowly
to ascend them.  He stood down in the white stone hall, watching me
anxiously.

"You won't be long, will you?" he said, as I reached the corner.  "I
want to talk to you before dinner."

I answered him mechanically, and turning away, went along the corridor
to my room, and flung myself upon the bed.  I had scarcely been there
five minutes when there was a knock at the door.

"Who is there?" I asked, sitting up and hastily drying my eyes.

A servant's voice answered, and I recognised Cecile, the Countess's own
maid.

"Her ladyship has sent you a cup of tea, miss, and hopes you will be
sure to change all your clothes.  There is a letter for you, too, miss."

I bade the girl come in and put the tea down.  When she had gone, I
stretched out my hand, and took up the letter with trembling fingers.
It was from my uncle, and the post-mark was Rome.




CHAPTER V

A LIFE IN THE BALANCE

I suppose it is absurd to talk about presentiments, and yet I knew what
was in that letter.  As plainly as though I saw it written up in
characters of fire, I knew its contents and my doom.  The climax of all
things was at hand.  The time was approaching when I must keep my vow,
or confess myself forsworn--an unworthy daughter of the Marionis.  It
was a bitter choice, for there was a life in either balance; the life
of this traitress of five-and-twenty years ago, or of an old man sick
to the heart with disappointment; deceived by a woman in his youth, and
a woman again in his old age.

I bathed my eyes and face, and, throwing off my wet things, wrapped
myself in a dressing robe.  Then I poured out a cup of tea and drank it
over the fire.  All the while that letter lay before me on the tray,
face upwards, and my eyes kept straying unwillingly towards it.  It had
a sort of fascination for me, and in the end it conquered.  I had meant
to give myself a few hours' more freedom--to have put it away until
bedtime, but a sudden impulse came to me, and I yielded.  I caught it
up with firm fingers and tore it open.


"PALAZZO CARLOTTI, ROME.

"MARGHARITA,--Beloved.  Success! success!  My search is over, my
purpose is accomplished.  I have found Paschuli.  Enclosed in this
letter you will find a smaller envelope.  It contains the powder.

"Can you wonder that my hand is shaking, and that there is a mist
before my eyes!  I am an old man, and great joy is hard to bear; harder
still after a weary, wretched life such as mine.  You will understand,
though--you will be able to decipher this faint, uncertain handwriting,
and you will forgive me if it tires you.  Ay, you will do that,
Margharita, I know!

"Let me tell you how I found him.  It was by the purest accident.  I
turned aside into an old curio shop to buy some trifle for you which
took my fancy, and it was Paschuli himself who served me.  Thus you see
how indirectly even your star always shines over mine and leads me
aright.  If it had not been for you I should never have dreamed of
entering the place, but I thought of you and your taste for Roman
jewellery, and, behold, I found myself in the presence of the man for
whom I was making vain search.  My Margharita! my good angel!  I have
you to thank even for the successful accomplishment of my part in that
edict of our Order which you and I are banded together to carry out.

"At first, Paschuli did not recognise me, and it was long before I
could make him believe that I was indeed that most unfortunate of men,
Leonardo di Marioni.  But when he was convinced, he promised me what I
sought.  That same evening he gave it to me.

"Margharita, there is no poison in the world like that which I send you
in this letter.  The merest grain of it is sufficient, in wine or
water, or food of any sort.  There is no art of medicine which could
detect it--no means by which the death, which will surely follow, can
be averted; so you run no risk, my child!  Bide your time, and
then--then!

"Margharita, I am coming to you.  Nay, do not be alarmed, I run no
risk.  I shall come disguised, and no one will know me, but I must see
something of the end with my own eyes, or half its sweetness would be
untasted.  I would see her face and die!  I would trace, day by day,
the workings of the poison; and in the last moments of her agony I
would reveal myself, and would point to my withered frame and the hand
of death upon my forehead, and cry out to her that the Order of the
White Hyacinth had kept its vow.  I would have her eyes meet mine as
the mists of death closed in upon her.  I would have her know that the
oath of a Marioni, in friendship or in hate, in protection or in
vengeance, is one with his honour.  This may not be, Margharita!  I
cannot see all this!  I cannot even stand by her bedside for a moment
and show her my face, that she might know whose hand it is which has
stricken her down.  Yet, I must be near!  Fear not but that I shall
manage it safely!  I would not bring danger or the shadow of danger
upon you, my beloved!

"I leave Rome to-night, and I leave it with joy.  You cannot imagine
how inexpressibly sad it has been for me to find myself in the place
where the greater part of my youth--my too ambitious youth--was spent.
All is changed and strange to me.  There are new streets and many
innovations which puzzle me; and although my friends are kind,
twenty-five years have crushed our sympathies.  To them I am like a sad
figure from a bygone world, a Banquo at the feast, something to pity a
little--no more.  I am nothing to anybody beyond that.  I am a
wearisome old man, whose mind is a blank, and who only cumbers the way.
Ah, well, it is not for long.  The day of my desire is at hand, and God
has given me you, Margharita, to accomplish it, and to close my eyes in
peace.  Bless you, my dear, dear child!  You have sweetened the end of
a marred and wretched life!  Yours has been an angel's task, and you
will have an angel's reward.

"We shall meet before long, but of the manner of our meeting I cannot
tell you yet.  Till then adieu!--Yours in hope,

"LEONARDO DI MARIONI.

"P.S.--I forgot to say that the whole of the poison, or even half a
teaspoonful, would produce sudden and abrupt death.  Just a pinch,
administered twice, perhaps, in order to be quite secure, would be
sufficient."


Enclosed in the letter was the oblong envelope he spoke of, which I
carefully opened.  It contained only a small quantity of pale pink
powder, which emitted a faint pungent odour.  I locked it up in my
desk, and destroyed the letter.

All my strength had returned.  I felt myself free from the madness of
this overmastering love.  Another passion for the moment had taken its
place.  The vision of that old man, wandering about the streets of
Rome, with a sad, weary heart and tottering limbs out of touch with the
times, a figure for a half-contemptuous pity; that is the picture which
I saw steadily before me to nerve my heart and purpose, and well it
succeeded.

The second bell aroused me from my thoughts.  I hastily rose from my
chair, and attired myself in the plainest gown which I possessed.  I
unlocked my desk, and thrust the little packet into my pocket.  Then,
without jewellery or flowers, and with my hair plainly coiled upon my
head, I went downstairs.

They had commenced dinner when I arrived, and Lord Lumley glanced
reproachfully at me as I took my seat.  From the sudden silence
directly I entered, I imagined they had been talking of me, and I made
my excuses with a momentary nervousness.  There was something unusual
in the air.  It seemed to me that Lady St. Maurice was regarding me
with a new and kindly interest.  She said nothing, as I had dreaded she
would, of my long absence from the house, and Lord St. Maurice, with a
courtesy unusual even for him, rose when I entered, and motioning the
butler away, himself held my chair.  What did it all mean?  At another
time I might have wondered more, but just then there were other
thoughts in my mind.  Should I have an opportunity to commit my crime
that night?  I feared not.

I gave no one any chance for sentimental conversation during
dinner-time, for I talked more than usual, and in a lighter vein.  I
wanted nothing said which could bring back to my memory that wild scene
on the cliffs, or the hours of agony which I had been through.  All
such things were of the past.  I desired to be able to look back upon
them as upon some strange night-dream--fair enough of itself, but gone
with the first breath of morning.  To my relief, the others, too,
avoided the subject.  There was nothing said about Lord Lumley's
escape, which even bordered upon the pathetic.

Dinner, which seemed to me to last longer than usual, came to an end at
last.  I had planned to make some excuse to the Countess, and leave the
drawing-room before Lord Lumley could follow, but, as I had half
expected that he might, Lord Lumley accompanied us there without
waiting to smoke.  To my surprise Lady St. Maurice, before I could
frame an excuse to her for my own departure, left us alone.  Lord
Lumley held the door open for her, and it seemed to me that a meaning
glance passed between them.  It was beyond my understanding.  I could
only see that my plans were frustrated, and that I must prepare for
another struggle.

He shut the door carefully, and then came back and stood over me.  I
looked at him calmly.  How could he read the agony in my heart?

"I am waiting for my answer, Margharita!" he said simply.

"You have had the only answer which I can ever give you, Lord Lumley!"
I answered--"No!"

Then he did a thing which sounds very absurd, but which did not indeed
seem so.  He sank on one knee and took possession of my hand.  I was on
a low chair, and his face now was on a level with mine.

"Margharita, my love," he whispered, "'no' is an answer which I shall
never take.  Yesterday I went away and left you, to-day I am wiser.
Nothing can undo those few minutes on the cliffs, dearest.  You love
me!  Ah! you cannot deny it!  Have I not read it in your face, and in
your eyes?  Take back your 'no,' Margharita.  By the memory of those
few minutes, you are mine for ever!  You have not the power or the
right to deny yourself to me.  You are mine!  You belong to me!"

I shrank back.  I began to be frightened at his earnestness--at the
note of triumph in his voice.  How strong and masterful he was.  Should
I be able to hold out against him?  Only my will and the memory of a
wasted life against my heart and such pleading as this.  It was a hard,
unequal battle.

"Margharita, I love you all the more that you are not lightly won!" he
continued, drawing me closer to him--almost into his arms.  "Listen!  I
believe that I have some idea as to the reason of your answer.  You
think, perhaps, that my people might not be willing.  You are
proud--too proud.  Tell me, is this not so?"

"A governess is no fitting wife for you.  You should choose one from
amongst the noble-women of your country.  I----"

He interrupted me.  If I had not drawn back quickly he would have
stopped my lips with a kiss.

"No one in this world could be as fit as you, for it is you, and you
only, whom I love.  But listen!  I have spoken to my mother.  I have
told her."

"You have told her what?" I cried.

"That I love you.  That I have asked you to be my wife."

"What did she say?"

"What a true woman and good mother should say; that if you were indeed
my choice, then she was ready to welcome you as her daughter, and my
wife."

"You cannot mean it!" I cried.  "She knows nothing of me, and I am
penniless."

"She knows that I love you, and that would be sufficient, dearest.
But, as it happens, she knew more about you than I did.  From her I
learned, for the first time, that your mother came from a family which
was great and noble before ours was ever founded.  She told me a sad
story of your uncle, Margharita, which you, too, doubtless know of, and
she seemed glad to think that our marriage would be, in a certain
sense, an act of poetic justice.  She told me, too, Margharita, that if
your uncle died unmarried, you could, if you chose, take his name and
call yourself the Countess di Marioni.  Why, sweetheart, I am not sure
that I ought to aspire to the hand of so great a lady."

"Your mother, the Countess of St. Maurice, told you all this?  She
desires our marriage?  She knows what you are asking me?" I repeated
breathlessly.

"Most certainly!  Shall I call her?  She will tell you so herself."

"Do not speak to me for a moment, please."

I was an idiot, but I could not help it.  I buried my head in the sofa
cushion, and sobbed.  Everything seemed fighting against me, to make my
purpose more difficult.

I think that tears have a softening effect.  I had steeled my heart
against my lover, and yet he conquered.  I felt his strong arms around
me, and his lips were pressed against my wet cheeks.  Oh! for strength
to thrust him from me--to deny my love, but I could not.

Why should I try to recall his words?  Nay! if I could, I would not set
them down here!  I felt every fibre of my nature glowing with delight
as I listened; every chord seemed quivering with heart-stirring music.
I had given up all idea of resistance.  A strange drowsy peace had
stolen in upon me.  One of his arms was around my waist, and my hand
was imprisoned in his.  So we sat, and the moments became golden.

Interruption came at last.  The door opened, and Lady St. Maurice
entered.  My lover rose at once, still holding my hand.

"Mother," he said, "Margharita has made me very happy.  Will you speak
to her?"

She came to us, and bent over me, her face looking very soft and sweet
in the shaded light.  In another moment she would have kissed me.  I
sprang to my feet, pale with horror.

"No, no, it cannot be!" I cried.  "I am not fit to be his wife--to be
anybody's wife!  Lady St. Maurice, will you not tell him so for me?
Let me go away!"

She looked surprised at my agitation, but she little guessed its cause.
How was she to know anything of that little packet which seemed to be
burning a hole in my heart?

"No!  I will not tell him that!" she said, smiling.  "He loves you, and
I believe that you are worthy of his love.  That is quite sufficient.
I shall be glad to have you for a daughter, Margharita."

Lord Lumley thanked her with a look, and took her hand.  They stood
together on the hearthrug, and I was on the other side facing the
window.  Suddenly my heart gave a great leap, and the colour died out
of my face.  Pressed against the dark pane I could see a pale, white
face watching us.  It was the face of my uncle, Count di Marioni.

I stood swaying backwards and forwards for a moment, sick and dizzy
with the horror of it.  My eyes grew dim, and a mist seemed to fill the
room.  Then I felt myself sink back into my lover's arms, and memory
became a blank.  I had fainted.




CHAPTER VI

ONE DAY'S RESPITE

The sun has risen upon the last day which I shall spend on earth; and I
sit down calmly to write all that happened to me yesterday, and my
reason for the step which I am about to take.

It is a fair still morning, and the birds are singing gaily in the
grove.  My window is open, and the early freshness of the autumnal air
is filling the room.  For hours I have been on my bed there, hot and
restless, praying for the dawn, that I might carry out my purpose; and
as soon as the first faint gleam of light in the east broke through the
dark night clouds, I arose and bathed my eyes and sat down here to
wait.  I have watched the sun rise up from the ocean, slowly gathering
strength until its first quivering beams glanced across the dull grey
sea, and even penetrated into my chamber.  And with the dawn has come
peace.  I sit here calm and prepared for the trial to come.

It was the evening before yesterday when I saw my uncle's face pressed
against the window-pane, and fainted with the shock.  Early on the
following morning a note from him was brought up to me, having been
left by a messenger from the village.  Here it is:--


"MY BELOVED MARGHARITA,--Many a time have I reproached myself for my
imprudence last night, and the effects which I fear it had upon you.
It was thoughtless and rash of me to come near the house at all; but,
indeed, I meant only to watch from a safe distance; only, as I crouched
behind a shrub upon the lawn, I saw her face, and the sight drew me
nearer against my better judgment.  I met your eyes, and I knew that
you were overcome with fright; but I feared to linger lest they might
ask what it was that alarmed you, and seek for me.  And although I
fancy that I am altered past recognition, yet I would run no risks.

"I, too, had a great surprise, Margharita.  You will not wonder what I
mean by that when I tell you that in the light which streamed from the
uncurtained window everything in the room was distinctly visible to me.
Was I dreaming, child, or were you indeed assenting to the embrace of
the man whose arms were surely around you?  Him, I could not see, for
his back was turned to the window; but will you laugh at me, I wonder,
if I tell you that I felt strangely jealous of him?  I am a foolish old
man, Margharita, but all the love of my heart is yours, and I had begun
almost to look upon you--in my thoughts--as my own child.  I cannot
bear the thought of giving you up to any one.  You will not think me
very, very selfish.  I have only a few more months to live, and I know
that you will not grudge that much out of your future, that you will
stay by me to the end.  Afterwards, I have no wish save for your
happiness; and although I must confess that I had hoped you might have
married one of the sons of our own country, still it is you who must
choose, and I owe you, or shall owe you soon, too great a debt to press
upon you any desire of mine which is not at one with your wishes.  But
tell me this--Is he an Englishman?  Alas!  I fear so.  Send me a word
by the bearer, and tell me; tell me, too, of what family he is, and
whether he is noble.  But of that I feel already assured, if he be
indeed the man to whom your love is given.

"You must surely have sustained a shock at my sudden and rash
appearance.  Doubtless you wonder at seeing me here at all.  I could
not keep away.  I must have news day by day, almost hour by hour.  It
is all that keeps me alive.  I must be near to feel that I am breathing
the same air as the woman on whom a long-delayed vengeance is about to
fall.

"I have taken a furnished cottage on the outskirts of this village, and
a little more than a mile from Mallory Grange.  But do not come to me.
Dearly as I would love to have you talk to me, and hear from your own
lips that all goes well, yet at present it were better not.  I will
devise some means of communication, and let you know of it shortly.  I
am living here as Mr. Angus.--Yours ever,

"L.M."


I folded up this letter with a shudder, and sitting down dashed off my
reply.  It is here:--


"MY DEAR UNCLE,--I am a culprit--a miserable, pleading culprit.  It is
true that I love an Englishman--the man who was standing by my side
last night; and it is true that he has asked me to marry him.  But I
have not told him so, and I have not promised to marry him.  That is
not all of my confession.  Not only is he an Englishman, but his name
is Lord Lumley St. Maurice, and he is her son.

"Now you know the terrible trouble I am in.  Last night he was telling
me of his love, and assuring me of his mother's sanction and approval,
when your face appeared at the window.  Can you wonder at my start, and
that I fainted?  Can you wonder that I sit here, after a sleepless
night, with eyes that are dim and a heart that has become a stone?

"I dread to stir from the room.  My position is horrible.  I have tried
my utmost to avoid him, to treat him with disdain, to send him away
from me.  I have steeled my heart and clothed my face with frowns--in
vain!  The bald fact remains that I love him.  Do you despise me,
uncle?  Sometimes I feel that I deserve it; but I have suffered, I am
suffering now.  I am punished.  Do not add your anger to my load!

"Immediately you get this, sit down and write to me.  Write to me just
what is in your heart.  Your words I shall set before me as my law.  Do
not delay, and, if you blame, do not fail to pity me.--Yours ever
unchanged,

"MARGHARITA."


I sent this letter off with a certain sense of relief, and then,
finding by my watch that it was late, finished dressing hastily, and
went down into the schoolroom.  Instead of my pupil, Lord Lumley was
there lounging in my low basket-chair, yawning over a German grammar.
He sprang up as I entered, and throwing the book into a corner of the
room, advanced towards me with outstretched hands.

"Margharita, you are better, dear?  I have been waiting here more than
an hour for you."

Then, before I could prevent him, he had kissed me.  Let me be honest,
though, here, at any rate.  Did I really try to prevent him?  I think
not.

"Where is Gracie?" I asked, looking round.  "And what have you done to
my _Ottos_?"

"Gracie has gone out with the nurse," he answered, laughing, "and as
for that wretched volume, well, I've got a good mind to send the rest
after it.  You've a nasty brain-worrying lot of lesson books here.
I've been looking through them."

"One cannot teach without them.  Elementary books always look tiresome,
but they are indispensable."

"Not for you any longer, I'm glad to say," he remarked.

"Why not?"

He looked at me, surprised.

"Surely you don't expect to go on teaching that child?" he asked.  "You
are a visitor here now, and I am responsible for your entertainment.
To commence with, I have invited myself to breakfast with you.  The
tray is here, as you perceive, and the kettle is boiling.  Kindly make
the tea."

I did as I was bid, with a meekness which astonished myself, and he sat
opposite to me.  The servant brought in the remainder of the things,
and closed the door.  Gracie was not coming.

"Well, how do you like the first item in my programme?" he asked,
taking my hand for a moment between his.  "A _tte--tte_ breakfast
was not a bad idea, was it?"

"Does Lady St. Maurice know?" I asked, suddenly conscious of the utter
impropriety of what we were doing.

He laughed reassuringly.

"Of course she does, sweetheart.  In fact, she as good as suggested it.
She thinks you feel a little strange about it all, and that a long,
quiet day alone with me would help you to realise matters.
Accordingly, I am having a luncheon basket packed, and after breakfast
we are going for a sail, just you and I.  You see the sea is as calm as
a duck-pond this morning.  Shall you like it, do you think?"

Like it!  Oh! how long was this mockery to go on?  How long before I
could find strength to tell him the truth--that this thing could never
be?  I tried to tell him then, but the words died away upon my lips.  I
would give myself one more day.  After that there must be action of
some sort or other.  My uncle's reply would have come, and I should
know exactly what lay before me.

"I should like it, yes," I answered, looking into my lover's handsome,
glowing face.  "You are sure that your mother will not mind--that she
approves?"

"Quite," he answered confidently.  "We talked it over together for some
time.  To-night I am going to speak to my father.  He has an inkling of
it already, but he will expect me to tell him.  Dearest, there is
nothing to be frightened about.  Why should you tremble so?  You are
not well."

"I shall be better out of doors," I answered.  "I will get my hat, and
we will start."

He rose up at once, and opened the door for me.

"Do.  There must be a little pink colouring in those cheeks before we
get back," he said fondly.  "Let us meet at the boat-house in a quarter
of an hour.  Shall you be ready by then?"

"Yes," I answered.  "I will be there."




CHAPTER VII

"THERE IS DEATH BEFORE US"

I did not give myself time to think.  I had made up my mind with a sort
of desperate determination that this day should be my very own, my own
to spend in paradise, without scruples or after-thought.  In a few
minutes my black dress was changed for a navy blue one and a straw hat,
and I was hurrying down to the beach.  Our boat, a dainty little skiff,
only large enough for two, was ready when I got there, and Lord Lumley
was standing up unfurling the sail.

I settled myself down comfortably in the cushioned seat, and we were
off almost at once, gliding over the smooth surface of the water with a
scarcely perceptible motion.  We were about a quarter of a mile from
the shore when we met Lord Lumley's yacht, rounding the point on her
way back from Yarmouth.  Lord Lumley stood up in the bows and hailed
her.

"All well, Dyson?" he cried, as she swept past.

"All well, my Lord!" was the prompt reply.

"Is the breeze stiffening, do you think?  It's calm enough here, but I
see the white horses are showing their heads outside the bay."

"Ay! ay! my Lord, it's blowing hard round the headland.  You'll have to
keep her well away.  Shall we take you up?"

Lord Lumley shook his head.

"You would not prefer the yacht?" he asked, turning to me.

"I like this best," I answered.  "It is more exciting."

"We'll stick to the skiff, Dyson," Lord Lumley called out.

The man looked doubtful; but while he hesitated, we shot far ahead, so
that his voice only reached us faintly.

"There's a heavy sea running, my Lord, and it'll blow great guns before
night."

"Are you nervous, Margharita?" he asked tenderly.

"Not in the least," I answered, carelessly wiping the spray from my
face.  "I like it, and hope it will be rougher."

"Can't say that I do," he laughed.  "What a plucky girl you are.  Now
that we're in a quieter sea, I think that I may venture to come and
talk to you."

So he came and sat by my side.  It is not my purpose to set down all
that passed between us that day.  There are pages in our lives which we
never willingly open; which have for us a peculiar sacredness, and a
sweetness which never altogether fades away.  There came a sort of
abandon upon me, the forerunner of a fit of nervous desperation which
well-nigh sent us both, hand in hand, into another world--closed the
gates of my memory upon the past, and withdrew my shuddering thoughts
from the future, to steep them in the delight of the present.  My lover
sat by my side, and his words were filling my heart with music.  The
strong sea breeze blew in our faces, and the salt spray leaped like
glittering silver into the sunlight.  Over our heads the sea-gulls
screamed, and the coast-line grew faint in the distance.  So we sailed
on, hand in hand, heart whispering to heart in the golden silence, till
the sun lay low in the west, and our tiny craft pitched and tossed in
the trough of the ocean waves.

Then my lover suddenly became conscious of time and place, and he
sprang up bewildered.

"A miracle!" he cried.  "The sun is low, and it cannot yet be
afternoon."

"Flatterer," I laughed, showing him my watch.  "It is past five
o'clock."

He looked round as he gathered in the sail, and a shade of anxiety
crept into his face.  Especially he looked with bewildered eyes at the
faint blue line where land lay.

"What an idiot I have been," he said, knitting his brows.  "Port,
Margharita!  The left string!  That's right!  Now, sit firm, and when
we go down, lean to the other side.  You mustn't mind if you get a
little wet.  We are running in the teeth of the wind, and it will be
roughish."

It was deliciously exhilarating.  The breeze, without our noticing it,
had been gradually freshening, and now it was almost a gale.  The sky
above was mackerel-hued and wind-swept.  The sea seemed to be getting
rougher every minute.  Lord Lumley had to pass his arm round the frail
mast which creaked and bent with the straining of the sail.  Once we
heeled right over, and were within an ace of being capsized.  I only
laughed, and the colour came into my cheeks.  Death would be a sweet
and welcome thing, I thought--death here on the ocean, with my lover's
arms around me.  So I had no fear, and Lord Lumley found time to glance
at me admiringly.

"You're the pluckiest woman I ever knew in all my life!" he exclaimed
lightly.  "Gad! that was a shave!  It's no use, dear, we must tack.
This is too good to last."

Round we swept, first one way, then another, but we made no headway.
In an hour's time we were no nearer land, and in the gathering twilight
the coast-line was dim and blurred.  Here and there we could see a few
lights burning from the villages along the shore, and away northwards
the revolving light from Gorton headland shone out like a beacon.

"What will become of us?" I asked softly, for Lord Lumley had ceased
his exertions for a moment with a little gesture of despair.  His face
was very pale, but it might have been from fatigue.

"Nothing very serious.  Fortunately the sail is a new one, and very
strong.  I think it will hold, and while it does, I can keep her in
position.  We shall be tacking about most of the night, though, I am
afraid.  It is such a provoking shifty wind.  I can't depend upon it
for a moment."

"And supposing the sail went?"

"We have the oars.  It would be uncommonly hard work, rowing, but it
would keep us afloat.  It was just a chance that I put them in--a lucky
one as it happens."

"Supposing you had forgotten them, and that we had no oars?"

Lord Lumley shook his head.

"Don't add to the horrors," he said, smiling.  "I'd rather not suppose
anything of the kind.  It's bad enough as it is."

"There would be danger, then?"

"Yes."

"In what way?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Do you really want to know?"

"Yes, please."

"Well, we should drift out to sea, and the first heavy wave that caught
us broadside would probably swamp us.  The great thing is, you see, to
keep our head to the waves.  Are you cold, love?"

I shook my head.  I had not thought of it.

"Frightened?"

"Not a bit of it.  Do I look it?"

"That you don't," he answered, smiling.  "You are brave, dearest.  I
shall never forgive myself for being so careless, though."

I think that it was then that the madness first came to me.  I held my
hands up to my head, and strove to fight against that frantic impulse.
The air seemed full of voices whispering to me to end by one swift
stroke this hideous dilemma into which I had drifted of my own foolish
will.  It was so simple; so easy a manner of escape.  And she, too,
would be punished.  In a manner, my oath would have been accomplished.
What vengeance could be sweeter to the heart of that desolate old man
than the death of her son--her only son?  It could be done so easily,
so secretly.  And as for me, should I not die in his arms with his dear
face pressed close to mine, his kisses upon my cold lips, and his voice
the last to fall upon my ears?  What was life to me, a pledged
murderess?  Would not such a death be a thousand times better?  The
wind rushing across the waters seemed to bring mocking whispers to my
ears.  I seemed to read it in the silent stars, and in the voices of
the night.  Death, painless and sudden.  Death, in my lover's arms.  My
heart yearned for it.

In the darkness I stretched down my hand, and felt for the oars.  My
lover's back was turned to me, for he was on his knees in the bows,
gazing ahead with strained eyesight.  One oar I raised and balanced on
the side of the boat.  A quick push, and it was gone.  The dull splash
in the water was lost in the rushing of the wind and the creaking of
the ropes.  I watched it drift away from us with anxious eyes.  It was
gone, irrevocably gone.  There was only the sail now.  I had not meant
to touch that, to leave so much to chance, but the desire for death had
grown.  I was no longer mistress of myself.  A small pocket-knife was
lying in the bottom of the boat, and I stooped down cautiously and
picked it up.  Just as my fingers closed upon it, Lord Lumley looked
round.  My eyes fell before his, and I trembled, thankful for the
darkness.

"Frightened yet, dearest?" he asked tenderly.

I laughed.  There was no fear in my heart.  If only he had known!

"No!  I am not afraid!  I am happy!"

He looked at me, wondering.  Well he might!

"How your eyes are gleaming, love!  After all, I don't think that we
need a lantern!"

"A lantern!  What use would it have been to us?"

"To warn anything off from running us down.  If the sail holds till
morning, and I think it will, we shall be all right if we escape
collisions."

"Is that what you are fearing?" I asked.

"Yes.  I fancy that we must be getting in the track of the coal
steamers.  If only the moon would rise!  This darkness is our greatest
danger!  Even if they had a smart look-out man, I am afraid that they
would never see us."

He turned round again, and remained gazing with fixed eyes into the
darkness.  Then I held my breath, and stooping forward, with the
penknife in my hand, commenced steadily sawing at the bottom knot which
bound the sail to the mast.  Directly it parted I cut a great slit in
the sail itself.

The knife was sharp, and my task was over in less than a minute.  I
dropped it into the sea, and leaned back breathless.  The wind was
coming.

"Lumley!" I faltered, "will you come to me?  I am afraid!"

He turned round with a quick loving word.  At that moment the
catastrophe happened.  A sudden gust of wind filled out the sail.
There was a crash as it parted from the mast, a confused mass of canvas
and limp rope.  The whole of the strain for a moment was upon the
topmost portion of the mast, and the result was inevitable.  It snapped
short, and the whole tangled heap fell down, half in the bottom of the
boat, half in the sea.

We heeled right over, and it seemed as if we must be capsized.  But my
lover had presence of mind, and a strong desire to live.  He leaned
heavily on the other side of the boat, and whipping a large sailor's
knife from his pocket, cut away the whole of the wreckage from the
stump of the mast with a few lightning-like strokes.  It fell away
overboard at once, and though we shipped a lot of water, the boat
righted itself again.  While it was yet trembling with the shock he
leaned across to me, pale, but with no fear in his set face or his
clear, resolute tone.

"Courage, Margharita!  The oars!  Quick, dear!"

Then for the first time my heart smote me for what I had done; for the
passionate desire of life was alight in his eyes.  What right had I to
make him share my fate?  My deep joy was suddenly numbed.  I was a
murderess!

I handed him the remaining one, and pretended to feel about in the
bottom of the boat.  In that moment I recovered myself.

"There is only one here," I announced calmly.

"Impossible!" he cried.  "I saw the pair laid out myself."

He dropped on his knee and felt anxiously around.  Then he struck a
match; with the same result.  The oar was gone.

He knew then that my words were true, and he came over to my side with
a great despair in his dark eyes.

"Margharita!" he cried, taking me into his arms, "there is death before
us, and it is I who have brought it upon you.  Oh, my love, my love!"

His kisses fell upon my lips, and my head fell upon his shoulder.  Then
I drew a sigh of deep content, and I felt that I had done well.

"I do not mind," I whispered softly.  "Let us stay like this.  I am
happy."

"My darling!"




CHAPTER VIII

THE DAWN OF A NEW LIFE

To desire death is to live, and to desire life is to die.  It is the
mockery of human existence, the experience of all.  I had willed to die
at that moment, without further speech or opportunity for thought, and
death seemed to have turned his back upon me.

We drifted on, tossed high and low by the tall waves which rose around
us like black shadows, threatening destruction at every moment.  Often
when we had seen one towering above us we had thought that the end had
come, and I had felt my lover's arms tighten around me, and my lips had
clung close to his.  But again and again a reprieve was granted to us.
Although every timber in our frail craft shivered, we survived the
shock and drifted into smoother water.

A little before midnight the wind dropped, although there was a heavy
sea still running.  Through a dimly woven mist we could see the stars
faintly shining between the masses of black clouds rolling across the
wind-swept sky.  But there was no moon; nothing to show us whither we
were drifting upon the waste of waters.  There was something
inexpressibly weird in that darkness.  It seemed less a blank darkness
than a darkness of moving shapes and figures--a living darkness,
somehow suggesting death.  It will live in my memory for ever.

"Do you mind dying, Lumley?" I asked him once.

"Yes," he answered solemnly, "I do.  I am just learning how sweet it
would be to live."

I held him tighter, for at that moment a great wave had broken over us.
I dreaded nothing but separation.

"Supposing that, if we lived, something came between us?" I whispered.
"Suppose there was something between us which nothing could alter
nothing could move--what then?"

"I cannot suppose it," he answered.  "Nothing could come between us
that I would not overcome--nothing in life."

"Still, if it were so?" I persisted.

"Then I would sooner die like this if we are to die.  We are in God's
hands."

I shuddered at that last sentence.  If indeed we were on the threshold
of eternity, what had I to hope from God?  Alas! at that moment my
earthly love was so strong that the fear of death was weak and faint.

We sat there silent and full of strange emotions, and expecting every
moment the end to come.  All of a sudden, we both of us gave a great
cry, and my lover leaped up so that our boat rocked violently and
nearly capsized.  For my part, I sat still, gazing, with distended eyes
and parted lips, upon the strangest sight which I had ever seen.

A great blaze of brilliant light seemed suddenly to flash into the
horizon, and falling into one long level ray, to travel slowly across
the surface of the water towards us.  Everything which lay in its path
was revealed to us with minute and wonderful distinctness.  So vivid
was the illumination that we could see the white foam on the top of the
green waves, and the floating seaweed rising and falling.  Outside that
one level blaze, more brilliant even than the sunlight, the darkness
seemed blacker and more impenetrable than ever.  It was a sight so
marvellous that I held my breath, awed and wondering.  Then my lover
gave a great cry.

"Margharita, my love, my love, we are saved!"

"What is it?" I whispered.

"The electric searchlight.  I had it fitted to the _Stormy Petrel_ by
the purest chance a few months ago.  Here it comes.  Put your hand
before your eyes, sweetheart.  Oh, God, that they may see us!"

Swiftly it passed across the great desert of waters, and reached us.
We seemed suddenly bathed in a blinding glare of white light, and,
notwithstanding our anxiety, were forced to cover our eyes.  There was
a moment's suspense.  Then the sound of a cannon came booming across
the sea, and a rocket sped up into the air.

"Thank God! thank God!" my lover cried, "they have seen us.  Look up,
Margharita!  They are more than a mile away now, but they will be here
in a quarter of an hour.  We are saved!"

He was right.  In less than that time a boat from the _Stormy Petrel_
had picked us up, and we were standing in for land, firing rockets all
the way to announce the news to Lord and Lady St. Maurice.  So ended
this, the most eventful day of my life.

And with its close has ended that sworn purpose which has brought me
here.  I, Margharita di Marioni, as one day I had hoped to call myself,
am about to disgrace the traditions and honour of my race.  I am going
to break my faith with a suffering old man.  I am going to tell my
uncle that my hand can work no harm upon any of this family.

Before me here lies his answer to my letter--my confession to him.  How
he trusts me, when even now he never doubts.


"MARGHARITA,--I have received your letter, and I have pondered over it.
You are young to have such a sorrow, yet I do not doubt but that you
will act as becomes your race.  You can never think of marriage with
this man; you a Marioni, he a St. Maurice!  Yet I grieve that you have
let such a feeling steal into your heart.  Pluck it out, Margharita, I
charge you; pluck it out by the roots!  Think not of the wrong done to
me, or, if you do, think of me not as a man and your uncle, but as
Count Leonardo di Marioni, the head of my family, the head of your
family.  We have been the victims, but the day of our vengeance is at
hand.  There is no life without its sorrows, child!  In the days to
come, happiness will teach you to forget this one.

"Farewell, my child.  I shall send you no more notes.  Write or come to
me the moment the deed is done!  Come to me, if you can; I would hear
your own lips tell me the news.  Yet do as seems best to you.  In
sympathy and love,

"L. DI M.

"One word more, child.  Do not for a moment imagine that I blame you
for what has happened.  Old man though I am, I too know something of
the marvels and the vagaries of this same love.  Will can have little
to do with its course.  I, who have suffered so deeply, Margharita, can
and do sympathise and feel for you."


This is the letter, I shall seal it up with the others, and this little
record of my life, on the last page of which I am now writing.  When I
leave here they will go with me.

Yes, it is the dawn of a new day.  Shall I ever see another, I wonder?
I think not!  For me, no longer will the sun rise and set, the breezes
blow, and the earth be fair and sweet.  All these things might have
been so much to me, for I held in my hand the key to an everlasting
happiness--that deathless love which opens the gates to heaven; which
sanctifies life and hallows death.  Oh! forgive me that I leave you, my
love!  There was no other way.  Only I pray that in that other world we
may meet again in the days to come, and that the music of our love may
ring once more through heart and soul.  Farewell!  Farewell!




CHAPTER IX

AN OLD MAN'S HATE

"Margharita!  You have come at last.  It is done, then.  Say that it is
done!"

She stood quite still in the humble red-tiled sitting-room, and looked
at him with a great compassion shining out of her dark, clear eyes.  He
was worn almost to a shadow, and his limbs were shaking with weakness,
as he half rose to greet her.  Only his eyes were still alight and
burning.  Save for them he might have been a corpse.

Something of the old passionate pity swept through her as she stood
there, but its fierceness had died away.  Her heart leaped no longer in
quick response to the fire in those still undimmed eyes.  She had been
a girl then, a girl with all the fierce untrained nature of her
mother's race; she was a woman now, a sad-faced, sorrowful woman.  He
was quick to see the change.

"Margharita, my child, you have been ill."

Still she did not answer.  Silently she knelt down by the side of his
arm-chair and took his withered, delicate hand in hers.  A great bowl
of white hyacinths stood on a table by the window, and the air was
faint with their perfume.

"I am not ill," she said gently.  "I was frightened on my way here, and
had to run.  There was a fire last night at the lunatic asylum at
Fritton, and some of the mad people have escaped.  I saw one of them in
the distance, and the keepers after him.  They wanted me to go back,
but I would come."

He stooped down and kissed her forehead, with cold, dry lips.

"I knew that you would be here soon," he said.  "My letters reached you
safely?"

"Yes."

She shuddered at the gathering strength in his tone, and the fierce
light which had swept into his face.

"It is done, child?  Say that it is done!"

"No."

Something in her sad tone and subdued manner seemed to strike a note of
fear in his heart.  He leaned forward, grasping the sides of his chair
with nervous, quivering fingers, and looked hurriedly into her face.

"No; you have had no chance, then?  But you will have soon?  Is it not
so?  Soon, very soon?"

She threw her arms around his neck.  He made no response, nor did he
thrust her away.  He remained quite passive.

"It is not that, uncle.  Oh, listen to me.  Do not thrust me away.  I
cannot do this thing."

He sat as still as marble.  There was no change, no emotion in his
face.  Yet her heart sank within her.

"Oh, listen to me," she pleaded passionately.  "You do not know her as
she is now.  She is good and kind--a gentle-hearted woman.  It was so
long ago; and it was not out of malice to you, but to save the man she
loved.  You hear me, do you not?  You are listening.  She has not
forgotten you.  Often she sorrows for you.  It was cruel--I know that
it was cruel--but she was a woman, and she loved him.  Let us steal
away together and bury these dark dreams of the past.  I will never
leave you; I will wait upon you always; I will be your slave.
Forgiveness is more sweet than vengeance.  Oh, tell me that it shall be
so.  Why do you not speak to me?"

He sat quite still, like a man who is stunned by some sudden and
unexpected blow.  He seemed dazed.  She wondered, even, whether he had
heard her.

"Uncle, shall it not be so?" she whispered.  "Let us go away from here
and leave her.  I am not thinking about him.  I will not see him again.
I will never dream of marrying him.  Let us go this very day, this very
hour!"

Then he turned slowly towards her, thrust her hand from around his
neck, and stood up.

"You have been false to me, Margharita," he said, in a slow, quiet
tone.  "After all, it is only natural.  When you first came to me, I
thought I saw your mother's spirit blazing in your dark eyes, and I
trusted you.  I was to blame.  I forgot the tradesman's blood.  I do
not curse you.  You do not understand, that is all.  Learn now that the
oath of a Marioni is as deathless and unchangeable as the hills of his
native land.  Will you go away at once, please?  I do not wish to see
you again."

His speech so quiet, so self-contained, bewildered her.  There was not
a single trace of passion or bitterness in it.  She stretched out her
hands towards him, but she felt chilled.

"Uncle, you----"

"Will you go away, please?" he interrupted coldly.

She turned towards the door, weeping.  She had not meant to go
far--only out on to the garden-seat, where she might sit and think.
But he saw another purpose in her departure, and a sudden passion fired
him.  She heard his step as he rose hastily, and she felt his cold
fingers upon her wrist.

"You would go to warn her!" he cried, his voice trembling with anger;
"I read it in your face.  You are as false as sin, but you shall not
rob me of the crown of my life!  No one shall rob me of it!  Vengeance
belongs to me, and by this symbol of my oath I will have it!"

He snatched a handful of white blossoms from the bowl, and crushed them
in his fingers.  Then he threw them upon the ground and trampled upon
them.

"Thus did she betray the sacred bonds of our Order when, for her
lover's sake, she added treachery to cunning, and wrecked my life, made
Leonardo, Count of the Marionis, the lonely inmate of prison walls, the
scorn and pity of all men.  Thus did she write her own fate upon a far
future page of the tablets of time.  Talk to me not of forgiveness or
mercy, girl!  My hate lives in me as the breath of my body, and with my
body alone will it die!"

His withered figure seemed to have gathered strength and dignity, and
his appearance and tone, as he gazed scornfully down at the girl at his
feet, was full of a strange dramatic force.  Her heart sank as she
listened to him.  This was no idle, vulgar passion, no morbid craving
for evil, which animated him.  It was a purpose which had become
hallowed to him; something which he had come to look upon as his sacred
right.  She understood how her drawing back must seem to him.  As
though a flash of light had laid bare his mind, she saw how weak, how
pitifully weak, any words of hers must sound, so she was silent.

He had commenced walking up and down the room; and, watching him
fearfully, she saw that his manner was gradually changing.  The
unnatural calm into which he had momentarily relapsed was leaving him,
and he was becoming every moment more and more excited.  Fire flashed
in his eyes, and he was muttering broken words and sentences to
himself.  Once he raised his clasped hands to the roof in a threatening
gesture, and in the act of doing so she saw the blue flash of a
stiletto in his breast pocket.  It frightened her, and she moved
towards the door.

It seemed almost as though he read her purpose in her terror-stricken
face, and it maddened him.  He caught her by the wrist and thrust her
back.

"You shall not leave this room, girl!" he cried.  "Wait, and soon I
will bring you news!"

She stood, still panting, overcome for a moment by the strength of his
grip.  Before she could recover herself, he had caught up his hat and
was gone.  Outside, she heard the sound of a key in the lock.  She was
a prisoner!

Her first thought was the window.  Alas! it was too small even for her
to get her head through.  She cried out.  No one answered; there was no
one to answer.  She was alone in the cottage, and helpless, and away
over the cliffs, towards Mallory Grange, she could see a small, dark
figure walking steadily along, with bent head and swift steps.  The
cottage stood by itself, a mile from the village, and was approached
only by a cliff path.  She turned away from the window in despair.  It
seemed to her then that the time for her final sacrifice had indeed
come.

It was a warm, drowsy morning, and the air which floated in through the
open lattice window was heavy with the perfume of flowers, mingled with
the faint ozone of the sea.  Outside, the placid silence was broken
only by the murmurous buzzing of insects and the soft lapping of the
tide upon the shingly sands.  Within the room, a pale-faced girl knelt
upon the floor, with her long, slim fingers stretched upwards, and the
passionate despair of death in her cold, white features.  The sunshine
laughed upon her hair, and glanced around her, bathing her beautiful
face in its fresh, bright glory.  Was it an answer to her prayer, she
wondered--her prayer for peace and forgiveness?  Oh, that it might be
so!  God grant it!

There was no fear in her face, though only a moment before she had
taken out and swallowed the contents of that little packet of poison
which had burned in her bosom for those last few days.  But there had
been just one passing shade of bitterness.  Her life had been so short,
so joyless, until there had come to her that brief taste of wonderful,
amazing happiness.  She was young to die--to die with the delirium of
that passionate joy still burning in her veins.

"Yet, after all, it is best!" she whispered softly, at the end of that
unspoken prayer; and with those words of calm resignation, a change
crept softly in upon her face.  It seemed almost as though, while yet
on earth, there had come to her a touch of that exquisite spiritual
beauty which follows only upon the extinction of all earthly passion,
and the uplifting into a purer, sweeter life.  And her eyes closed upon
the sunlight, and darkness stole in upon her senses.  She lay quite
still upon the floor; but the smile, still lingered upon her lips,
making her face more lovely even in its cold repose than when the glow
of youth and life had shone in her dark, clear eyes, and lent
expression to her features.  Saints like St. Francis of Assisi may die
thus, but seldom women.




CHAPTER X

THE KEEPING OF THE OATH

"Help!  For God's sake, help!"

A woman's cry of agony rang out upon the sweet morning stillness.
Count Marioni, who had been hurrying on with downcast head, stood still
in the cliff path and lifted his head.  It was the woman whose memory
he had cursed who stood before him--the woman on whom his vengeance was
to fall.

Her face was as white as his own, and in the swiftness of her flight
her hat had fallen away and her hair was streaming in the breeze.  Yet
in that moment of her awful fear she recognised him, and shrank back
trembling, as though some unseen hand had palsied her tongue, and laid
a cold weight upon her heart.  They stood face to face, breathless and
speechless.  A host of forgotten sensations, kindled by her appearance,
had leaped up within the Sicilian's heart.  He had indeed loved this
woman.

"Merciful God! to meet you here," she faltered.  "You will help me?
Oh, you will help me?  My husband is being murdered there on the cliff
by an escaped lunatic.  Oh!  Leonardo, save him, and you may strike me
dead at your feet.  It is I whom you should hate, not him.  Oh, come!
Come, or it will be too late!"

He stood quite still, looking at her curiously.

"And it is I to whom you dare to come for help--I whom you ask to save
him--your husband?  Adrienne, do you remember my words on the sands at
Palermo?"

She wrung her hands, frantically imploring.

"How can I remember anything--think of anything, now?  For the love of
God, help him," she begged, seizing his hand.  "That was all so long
ago.  You would not have him killed here before my eyes?  Come!  Oh, do
come!"

"Lead the way," he answered sternly.  "Call your loudest for other
help.  I make no promise, but I will see this tragedy."

She ran back along the path, and he followed her.  They turned suddenly
an abrupt corner, and came upon two men locked in one another's arms,
and swaying backwards and forwards upon the short green turf.  The
lunatic, an immense fellow, more than six feet high, was clutching his
opponent's throat with his left hand, whilst with his right he
brandished a long table-knife with keenly sharpened edge.  The struggle
was virtually over.  The madman's strength was more than human, and
desperately though he had struggled, Lord St. Maurice was lying
exhausted and overcome in his arms.

With a final effort he turned his head at the sound of footsteps, and
saw them come--his wife and this shrunken little old man.  But close at
hand though they were, nothing could help him now.  He saw the steel
flashing in the sunlight, and he closed his eyes.

The knife descended, but Lord St. Maurice remained unhurt.  With a
swiftness which seemed almost incredible, the Sicilian had sprung
between them, and the knife was quivering in his side.  Behind, the
lunatic was struggling helplessly in the grasp of three keepers.

There was a wild cry of horror from Lady St. Maurice, a choking gasp of
relief from her husband, and a horrid chuckle of triumph from the
madman as he gazed upon his handiwork.  But after that there was
silence--a deep, awe-stricken silence--the silence of those who stand
in the presence of death.

Count Marioni lay on the turf where he had sunk, very white and very
still, with the blood dropping slowly from his wound upon the grass,
and his eyes closed.  At first they thought that he was already dead;
but, as though aroused by Lady St. Maurice's broken sobs, he opened his
eyes and looked up.  His lips moved, and she stooped low down to catch
the sound.

"Will you tell Margharita that this was best?" he faltered.  "I have
heard a whisper from over the sea, and--and the White Hyacinth
forgives.  I forgive.  She will understand."

"Leonardo," she sobbed, "your vengeance----"

He interrupted her.

"This is my vengeance!" he said.  "I have kept my oath!"

Then he closed his eyes, and a grey shade stole into his pallid face.
A breeze sprung up from the sea, and the tall, blood-red poppies, which
stood up all around him like a regiment of soldiers, bent their
quivering heads till one or two of them actually touched his cheek.  He
did not move; he was dead.

      *      *      *      *      *

Lord and Lady Lumley had lingered long in Rome, and now, on the eve of
their departure, they had spent nearly the whole of a bright November
afternoon buying curios of a wizened old dealer, whose shop they had
found in one of the dark narrow streets at the back of the Piazza
Angelo.  Lady Lumley had taken up a curious old ring, and was examining
it with a vague sense of familiarity.

"Ten pounds for that ring, my lady," the curio dealer remarked, "and it
has a history.  You will see that it bears the arms and motto of the
Marionis, once the most powerful family in Sicily.  I had it from the
late Count himself."

Lady Lumley sank into the little chair by the counter, holding the ring
tightly in her hand.

"Will you tell us the history?" she asked in a low tone.

The man hesitated.

"If I do so," he said doubtfully, "will you promise to keep it
absolutely secret?"

"Yes."

"Well, then, I have told it to no one yet, but I will tell it to you.
Many years ago I was a chemist, and amongst my customers was Count
Leonardo di Marioni.  His history was a very sad one, as doubtless you
may have heard.  When he was quite a young man he was arrested on some
political charge, and imprisoned for five-and-twenty years--a cruel
time.  Well, scarcely more than twelve months ago he came to me here,
so altered that I found it hard indeed to recognise him.  Poor old
gentleman, when he had talked for a while, I felt quite sure that his
long confinement had affected his mind, and his errand with me made me
sure of it.  He came to buy a celebrated poison which I used at one
time to be secretly noted for, and I could tell from his manner that he
wanted it for some fatal use.  Well, I thought at first of refusing it
altogether, but what was the use of that?  Some one else would have
sold him an equally powerful poison, and the mischief would be done all
the same.  So, after a little consideration, I made up quite an
innocent powder, which might cause a little momentary faintness, but
which could do no further harm, and I gave it to him as the real thing.
I couldn't take money for doing a thing like that, so he pressed this
ring upon me.  You see, it really has a history."

Lord Lumley took his wife's hand and pressed it tenderly.  In the deep
gloom of the shop the curio dealer could not see the tears which
glistened in her dark eyes.

"We will have the ring!" Lord Lumley said, taking a note from his
pocket-book and handing it across the counter.

The man held it up to the light.

"One hundred pounds," he remarked.  "I shall owe your lordship ninety."

Lord Lumley shook his head.

"No, Signor Paschuli, you owe me nothing; it is I who owe you a wife.
Come, Margharita, let us get out into the sunshine again."

And Signor Paschuli kept the note.  But he has come to the conclusion
that all Englishmen travelling on their honeymoon are mad.




THE END






[End of A Daughter of the Marionis, by E. Phillips Oppenheim]
