The Gadfly - E. L. Voynich (Ruồi Trâu)

The Gadfly - E. L. Voynich (Ruồi Trâu)

"What have we to do with Thee, Thou Jesus of Nazareth?"

AUTHOR''S PREFACE.

MY most cordial thanks are due to the many
persons who helped me to collect, in Italy, the
materials for this story. I am especially indebted
to the officials of the Marucelliana Library of
Florence, and of the State Archives and Civic
Museum of Bologna, for their courtesy and
kindness.

PART I.

CHAPTER I.

Arthur sat in the library of the theological
seminary at Pisa, looking through a pile of manuscript
sermons. It was a hot evening in June, and
the windows stood wide open, with the shutters
half closed for coolness. The Father Director,
Canon Montanelli, paused a moment in his writing
to glance lovingly at the black head bent over
the papers.

"Can''t you find it, carino? Never mind; I
must rewrite the passage. Possibly it has got
torn up, and I have kept you all this time for
nothing."

Montanelli''s voice was rather low, but full and
resonant, with a silvery purity of tone that gave to
his speech a peculiar charm. It was the voice of a
born orator, rich in possible modulations. When
he spoke to Arthur its note was always that of a
caress.

"No, Padre, I must find it; I''m sure you put
it here. You will never make it the same by
rewriting."

Montanelli went on with his work. A sleepy
****chafer hummed drowsily outside the window,
and the long, melancholy call of a fruitseller echoed
down the street: "Fragola! fragola!"

"''On the Healing of the Leper''; here it is."
Arthur came across the room with the velvet tread
that always exasperated the good folk at home.
He was a slender little creature, more like an Italian
in a sixteenth-century portrait than a middle-class
English lad of the thirties. From the long
eyebrows and sensitive mouth to the small hands
and feet, everything about him was too much
chiseled, overdelicate. Sitting still, he might
have been taken for a very pretty girl masquerading
in male attire; but when he moved, his lithe
agility suggested a tame panther without the
claws.

"Is that really it? What should I do
without you, Arthur? I should always be losing
my things. No, I am not going to write any
more now. Come out into the garden, and I will
help you with your work. What is the bit you
couldn''t understand?"

They went out into the still, shadowy cloister
garden. The seminary occupied the buildings of
an old Dominican monastery, and two hundred
years ago the square courtyard had been stiff and
trim, and the rosemary and lavender had grown in
close-cut bushes between the straight box edgings.
Now the white-robed monks who had tended
them were laid away and forgotten; but the
scented herbs flowered still in the gracious mid-summer
evening, though no man gathered their
blossoms for simples any more. Tufts of wild
parsley and columbine filled the cracks between
the flagged footways, and the well in the middle
of the courtyard was given up to ferns and matted
stone-crop. The roses had run wild, and their
straggling suckers trailed across the paths; in the
box borders flared great red poppies; tall foxgloves
drooped above the tangled grasses; and the
old vine, untrained and barren of fruit, swayed
from the branches of the neglected medlar-tree,
shaking a leafy head with slow and sad persistence.

In one corner stood a huge summer-flowering
magnolia, a tower of dark foliage, splashed
here and there with milk-white blossoms. A
rough wooden bench had been placed against the
trunk; and on this Montanelli sat down. Arthur
was studying philosophy at the university; and,
coming to a difficulty with a book, had applied to
"the Padre" for an explanation of the point.
Montanelli was a universal encyclopaedia to him,
though he had never been a pupil of the seminary.

"I had better go now," he said when the passage
had been cleared up; "unless you want me for
anything."

"I don''t want to work any more, but I should
like you to stay a bit if you have time."

"Oh, yes!" He leaned back against the tree-trunk
and looked up through the dusky branches
at the first faint stars glimmering in a quiet sky.
The dreamy, mystical eyes, deep blue under black
lashes, were an inheritance from his Cornish
mother, and Montanelli turned his head away, that
he might not see them.

"You are looking tired, carino," he said.

"I can''t help it." There was a weary sound
in Arthur''s voice, and the Padre noticed it at
once.

"You should not have gone up to college so
soon; you were tired out with sick-nursing and
being up at night. I ought to have insisted on
your taking a thorough rest before you left
Leghorn."

"Oh, Padre, what''s the use of that? I couldn''t
stop in that miserable house after mother died.
Julia would have driven me mad!"

Julia was his eldest step-brother''s wife, and a
thorn in his side.

"I should not have wished you to stay with your
relatives," Montanelli answered gently. "I am
sure it would have been the worst possible thing
for you. But I wish you could have accepted the
invitation of your English doctor friend; if you had
spent a month in his house you would have been
more fit to study."

"No, Padre, I shouldn''t indeed! The Warrens
are very good and kind, but they don''t understand;
and then they are sorry for me,--I can see it in
all their faces,--and they would try to console me,
and talk about mother. Gemma wouldn''t, of
course; she always knew what not to say, even
when we were babies; but the others would.
And it isn''t only that----"

"What is it then, my son?"

Arthur pulled off some blossoms from a drooping
foxglove stem and crushed them nervously in
his hand.

"I can''t bear the town," he began after a moment''s
pause. "There are the shops where she
used to buy me toys when I was a little thing, and
the walk along the shore where I used to take her
until she got too ill. Wherever I go it''s the same
thing; every market-girl comes up to me with
bunches of flowers--as if I wanted them now!
And there''s the church-yard--I had to get away;
it made me sick to see the place----"

He broke off and sat tearing the foxglove bells
to pieces. The silence was so long and deep that
he looked up, wondering why the Padre did not
speak. It was growing dark under the branches
of the magnolia, and everything seemed dim and
indistinct; but there was light enough to show the
ghastly paleness of Montanelli''s face. He was
bending his head down, his right hand tightly
clenched upon the edge of the bench. Arthur
looked away with a sense of awe-struck wonder.
It was as though he had stepped unwittingly on to
holy ground.

"My God!" he thought; "how small and selfish
I am beside him! If my trouble were his own he
couldn''t feel it more."

Presently Montanelli raised his head and looked
round. "I won''t press you to go back there; at
all events, just now," he said in his most caressing
tone; "but you must promise me to take a
thorough rest when your vacation begins this
summer. I think you had better get a holiday
right away from the neighborhood of Leghorn. I
can''t have you breaking down in health."

"Where shall you go when the seminary closes,
Padre?"

"I shall have to take the pupils into the hills,
as usual, and see them settled there. But by the
middle of August the subdirector will be back
from his holiday. I shall try to get up into the
Alps for a little change. Will you come with me?
I could take you for some long mountain rambles,
and you would like to study the Alpine mosses and
lichens. But perhaps it would be rather dull for
you alone with me?"

"Padre!" Arthur clasped his hands in what
Julia called his "demonstrative foreign way." "I
would give anything on earth to go away with
you. Only--I am not sure----" He stopped.

"You don''t think Mr. Burton would allow
it?"

"He wouldn''t like it, of course, but he could
hardly interfere. I am eighteen now and can do
what I choose. After all, he''s only my step-brother;
I don''t see that I owe him obedience.
He was always unkind to mother."

"But if he seriously objects, I think you had
better not defy his wishes; you may find your
position at home made much harder if----"

"Not a bit harder!" Arthur broke in passionately.
"They always did hate me and always
will--it doesn''t matter what I do. Besides, how
can James seriously object to my going away with
you--with my father confessor?"

"He is a Protestant, remember. However, you
had better write to him, and we will wait to hear
what he thinks. But you must not be impatient,
my son; it matters just as much what you do,
whether people hate you or love you."

The rebuke was so gently given that Arthur
hardly coloured under it. "Yes, I know," he
answered, sighing; "but it is so difficult----"

"I was sorry you could not come to me on
Tuesday evening," Montanelli said, abruptly introducing
a new subject. "The Bishop of Arezzo
was here, and I should have liked you to meet
him."

"I had promised one of the students to go to a
meeting at his lodgings, and they would have been
expecting me."

"What sort of meeting?"

Arthur seemed embarrassed by the question.
"It--it was n-not a r-regular meeting," he said
with a nervous little stammer. "A student had
come from Genoa, and he made a speech to us--
a-a sort of--lecture."

"What did he lecture about?"

Arthur hesitated. "You won''t ask me his
name, Padre, will you? Because I promised----"

"I will ask you no questions at all, and if you
have promised secrecy of course you must not tell
me; but I think you can almost trust me by this
time."

"Padre, of course I can. He spoke about--us
and our duty to the people--and to--our own
selves; and about--what we might do to
help----"

"To help whom?"

"The contadini--and----"

"And?"

"Italy."

There was a long silence.

"Tell me, Arthur," said Montanelli, turning to
him and speaking very gravely, "how long have
you been thinking about this?"

"Since--last winter."

"Before your mother''s death? And did she
know of it?"

"N-no. I--I didn''t care about it then."

"And now you--care about it?"

Arthur pulled another handful of bells off the
foxglove.

"It was this way, Padre," he began, with his
eyes on the ground. "When I was preparing for
the entrance examination last autumn, I got to
know a good many of the students; you remember?
Well, some of them began to talk to me
about--all these things, and lent me books. But
I didn''t care much about it; I always wanted to
get home quick to mother. You see, she was quite
alone among them all in that dungeon of a house;
and Julia''s tongue was enough to kill her. Then,
in the winter, when she got so ill, I forgot all about
the students and their books; and then, you know,
I left off coming to Pisa altogether. I should have
talked to mother if I had thought of it; but it went
right out of my head. Then I found out that she
was going to die----You know, I was almost
constantly with her towards the end; often I would
sit up the night, and Gemma Warren would come
in the day to let me get to sleep. Well, it was in
those long nights; I got thinking about the books
and about what the students had said--and wondering--
whether they were right and--what--
Our Lord would have said about it all."

"Did you ask Him?" Montanelli''s voice was
not quite steady.

"Often, Padre. Sometimes I have prayed to
Him to tell me what I must do, or to let me die
with mother. But I couldn''t find any answer."

"And you never said a word to me. Arthur, I
hoped you could have trusted me."

"Padre, you know I trust you! But there are
some things you can''t talk about to anyone. I--it
seemed to me that no one could help me--not
even you or mother; I must have my own answer
straight from God. You see, it is for all my life
and all my soul."

Montanelli turned away and stared into the
dusky gloom of the magnolia branches. The
twilight was so dim that his figure had a shadowy
look, like a dark ghost among the darker boughs.

"And then?" he asked slowly.

"And then--she died. You know, I had been
up the last three nights with her----"

He broke off and paused a moment, but Montanelli
did not move.

"All those two days before they buried her,"
Arthur went on in a lower voice, "I couldn''t think
about anything. Then, after the funeral, I was ill;
you remember, I couldn''t come to confession."

"Yes; I remember."

"Well, in the night I got up and went into
mother''s room. It was all empty; there was only
the great crucifix in the alcove. And I thought
perhaps God would help me. I knelt down
and waited--all night. And in the morning
when I came to my senses--Padre, it isn''t any use;
I can''t explain. I can''t tell you what I saw--I
hardly know myself. But I know that God has
answered me, and that I dare not disobey Him."

For a moment they sat quite silent in the darkness.
Then Montanelli turned and laid his hand
on Arthur''s shoulder.

"My son," he said, "God forbid that I should
say He has not spoken to your soul. But remember
your con***ion when this thing happened, and
do not take the fancies of grief or illness for His
solemn call. And if, indeed, it has been His will
to answer you out of the shadow of death, be sure
that you put no false construction on His word.
What is this thing you have it in your heart
to do?"

Arthur stood up and answered slowly, as though
repeating a catechism:

"To give up my life to Italy, to help in freeing
her from all this slavery and wretchedness, and in
driving out the Austrians, that she may be a
free republic, with no king but Christ."

"Arthur, think a moment what you are saying!
You are not even an Italian."

"That makes no difference; I am myself. I
have seen this thing, and I belong to it."

There was silence again.

"You spoke just now of what Christ would have
said----" Montanelli began slowly; but Arthur
interrupted him:

"Christ said: ''He that loseth his life for my
sake shall find it.''"

Montanelli leaned his arm against a branch, and
shaded his eyes with one hand.

"Sit down a moment, my son," he said at
last.

Arthur sat down, and the Padre took both his
hands in a strong and steady clasp.

"I cannot argue with you to-night," he said;
"this has come upon me so suddenly--I had not
thought--I must have time to think it over.
Later on we will talk more definitely. But, for
just now, I want you to remember one thing. If
you get into trouble over this, if you--die, you
will break my heart."

"Padre----"

"No; let me finish what I have to say. I told
you once that I have no one in the world but you.
I think you do not fully understand what that
means. It is difficult when one is so young; at
your age I should not have understood. Arthur,
you are as my--as my--own son to me. Do you
see? You are the light of my eyes and the desire
of my heart. I would die to keep you from making
a false step and ruining your life. But there
is nothing I can do. I don''t ask you to make any
promises to me; I only ask you to remember this,
and to be careful. Think well before you take an
irrevocable step, for my sake, if not for the sake
of your mother in heaven."

"I will think--and--Padre, pray for me, and for
Italy."

He knelt down in silence, and in silence Montanelli
laid his hand on the bent head. A moment
later Arthur rose, kissed the hand, and went
softly away across the dewy grass. Montanelli
sat alone under the magnolia tree, looking straight
before him into the blackness.

"It is the vengeance of God that has fallen upon
me," he thought, "as it fell upon David. I, that
have defiled His sanctuary, and taken the Body of
the Lord into polluted hands,--He has been very
patient with me, and now it is come. ''For thou
didst it secretly, but I will do this thing before all
Israel, and before the sun; THE CHILD THAT IS BORN
UNTO THEE SHALL SURELY DIE.''"

CHAPTER II.
MR. JAMES BURTON did not at all like the idea
of his young step-brother "careering about Switzerland"
with Montanelli. But positively to forbid
a harmless botanizing tour with an elderly professor
of theology would seem to Arthur, who knew
nothing of the reason for the prohibition, absurdly
tyrannical. He would immediately attribute it to
religious or racial prejudice; and the Burtons
prided themselves on their enlightened tolerance.
The whole family had been staunch Protestants
and Conservatives ever since Burton & Sons, ship-owners,
of London and Leghorn, had first set up
in business, more than a century back. But they
held that English gentlemen must deal fairly, even
with Papists; and when the head of the house,
finding it dull to remain a widower, had married
the pretty Catholic governess of his younger children,
the two elder sons, James and Thomas, much
as they resented the presence of a step-mother
hardly older than themselves, had submitted with
sulky resignation to the will of Providence. Since
the father''s death the eldest brother''s marriage
had further complicated an already difficult position;
but both brothers had honestly tried to
protect Gladys, as long as she lived, from Julia''s
merciless tongue, and to do their duty, as they
understood it, by Arthur. They did not even pretend
to like the lad, and their generosity towards
him showed itself chiefly in providing him with
lavish supplies of pocket money and allowing him
to go his own way.
In answer to his letter, accordingly, Arthur received
a cheque to cover his expenses and a cold
permission to do as he pleased about his holidays.
He expended half his spare cash on botanical books
and pressing-cases, and started off with the Padre
for his first Alpine ramble.
Montanelli was in lighter spirits than Arthur
had seen him in for a long while. After the first
shock of the conversation in the garden he had
gradually recovered his mental balance, and now
looked upon the case more calmly. Arthur was
very young and inexperienced; his decision could
hardly be, as yet, irrevocable. Surely there was
still time to win him back by gentle persuasion and
reasoning from the dangerous path upon which
he had barely entered.
They had intended to stay a few days at Geneva;
but at the first sight of the glaring white streets
and dusty, tourist-crammed promenades, a little
frown appeared on Arthur''s face. Montanelli
watched him with quiet amusement.
"You don''t like it, carino?"
"I hardly know. It''s so different from what I
expected. Yes, the lake is beautiful, and I like the
shape of those hills." They were standing on
Rousseau''s Island, and he pointed to the long,
severe outlines of the Savoy side. "But the town
looks so stiff and tidy, somehow--so Protestant;
it has a self-satisfied air. No, I don''t like it; it
reminds me of Julia."
Montanelli laughed. "Poor boy, what a misfortune!
Well, we are here for our own amusement, so there
is no reason why we should stop. Suppose we take a
sail on the lake to-day, and go up into the mountains
to-morrow morning?"
"But, Padre, you wanted to stay here?"
"My dear boy, I have seen all these places a
dozen times. My holiday is to see your pleasure.
Where would you like to go?"
"If it is really the same to you, I should like to
follow the river back to its source."
"The Rhone?"
"No, the Arve; it runs so fast."
"Then we will go to Chamonix."
They spent the afternoon drifting about in a
little sailing boat. The beautiful lake produced
far less impression upon Arthur than the gray and
muddy Arve. He had grown up beside the Me***erranean,
and was accustomed to blue ripples;
but he had a positive passion for swiftly moving
water, and the hurried rushing of the glacier
stream delighted him beyond measure. "It is so
much in earnest," he said.
Early on the following morning they started for
Chamonix. Arthur was in very high spirits while
driving through the fertile valley country; but
when they entered upon the winding road near
Cluses, and the great, jagged hills closed in around
them, he became serious and silent. From St. Martin
they walked slowly up the valley, stopping to
sleep at wayside chalets or tiny mountain villages,
and wandering on again as their fancy directed.
Arthur was peculiarly sensitive to the influence of
scenery, and the first waterfall that they passed
threw him into an ecstacy which was delightful to
see; but as they drew nearer to the snow-peaks
he passed out of this rapturous mood into one of
dreamy exaltation that Montanelli had not seen
before. There seemed to be a kind of mystical relationship
between him and the mountains. He
would lie for hours motionless in the dark, secret,
echoing pine-forests, looking out between the
straight, tall trunks into the sunlit outer world of
flashing peaks and barren cliffs. Montanelli
watched him with a kind of sad envy.
"I wish you could show me what you see,
carino," he said one day as he looked up from his
book, and saw Arthur stretched beside him on the
moss in the same attitude as an hour before, gazing
out with wide, dilated eyes into the glittering
expanse of blue and white. They had turned aside
from the high-road to sleep at a quiet village near
the falls of the Diosaz, and, the sun being already
low in a cloudless sky, had mounted a point of pine-clad
rock to wait for the Alpine glow over the
dome and needles of the Mont Blanc chain. Arthur
raised his head with eyes full of wonder and
mystery.
"What I see, Padre? I see a great, white being
in a blue void that has no beginning and no end.
I see it waiting, age after age, for the coming of the
Spirit of God. I see it through a glass darkly."
Montanelli sighed.
"I used to see those things once."
"Do you never see them now?"
"Never. I shall not see them any more. They
are there, I know; but I have not the eyes to see
them. I see quite other things."
"What do you see?"
"I, carino? I see a blue sky and a snow-mountain
--that is all when I look up into the heights.
But down there it is different."
He pointed to the valley below them. Arthur
knelt down and bent over the sheer edge of the
precipice. The great pine trees, dusky in the gathering
shades of evening, stood like sentinels along
the narrow banks confining the river. Presently
the sun, red as a glowing coal, dipped behind a
jagged mountain peak, and all the life and light
deserted the face of nature. Straightway there
came upon the valley something dark and threatening
--sullen, terrible, full of spectral weapons.
The perpendicular cliffs of the barren western
mountains seemed like the teeth of a monster
lurking to snatch a victim and drag him down into
the maw of the deep valley, black with its moaning
forests. The pine trees were rows of knife-blades
whispering: "Fall upon us!" and in the
gathering darkness the torrent roared and howled,
beating against its rocky prison walls with the
frenzy of an everlasting despair.
"Padre!" Arthur rose, shuddering, and drew
back from the precipice. "It is like hell."
"No, my son," Montanelli answered softly, "it
is only like a human soul."
"The souls of them that sit in darkness and in
the shadow of death?"
"The souls of them that pass you day by day
in the street."
Arthur shivered, looking down into the shadows.
A dim white mist was hovering among the
pine trees, clinging faintly about the desperate
agony of the torrent, like a miserable ghost that
had no consolation to give.
"Look!" Arthur said suddenly. "The people
that walked in darkness have seen a great
light."
Eastwards the snow-peaks burned in the afterglow.
When the red light had faded from the
summits Montanelli turned and roused Arthur
with a touch on the shoulder.
"Come in, carino; all the light is gone. We
shall lose our way in the dark if we stay any
longer."
"It is like a corpse," Arthur said as he turned
away from the spectral face of the great snow-peak
glimmering through the twilight.
They descended cautiously among the black
trees to the chalet where they were to sleep.
As Montanelli entered the room where Arthur
was waiting for him at the supper table, he saw
that the lad seemed to have shaken off the ghostly
fancies of the dark, and to have changed into quite
another creature.
"Oh, Padre, do come and look at this absurd
dog! It can dance on its hind legs."
He was as much absorbed in the dog and its
accomplishments as he had been in the after-glow.
The woman of the chalet, red-faced and white-aproned,
with sturdy arms akimbo, stood by smiling,
while he put the animal through its tricks.
"One can see there''s not much on his mind if he
can carry on that way," she said in patois to her
daughter. "And what a handsome lad!"
Arthur coloured like a schoolgirl, and the
woman, seeing that he had understood, went away
laughing at his confusion. At supper he talked of
nothing but plans for excursions, mountain
ascents, and botanizing expe***ions. Evidently
his dreamy fancies had not interfered with either
his spirits or his appetite.
When Montanelli awoke the next morning Arthur
had disappeared. He had started before daybreak
for the higher pastures "to help Gaspard
drive up the goats."
Breakfast had not long been on the table, however,
when he came tearing into the room, hatless,
with a tiny peasant girl of three years old
perched on his shoulder, and a great bunch of wild
flowers in his hand.
Montanelli looked up, smiling. This was a curious
contrast to the grave and silent Arthur of Pisa
or Leghorn.
"Where have you been, you madcap? Scampering
all over the mountains without any breakfast?"
"Oh, Padre, it was so jolly! The mountains
look perfectly glorious at sunrise; and the dew is
so thick! Just look!"
He lifted for inspection a wet and muddy boot.
"We took some bread and cheese with us, and
got some goat''s milk up there on the pasture; oh, it
was nasty! But I''m hungry again, now; and I
want something for this little person, too.
Annette, won''t you have some honey?"
He had sat down with the child on his knee, and
was helping her to put the flowers in order.
"No, no!" Montanelli interposed. "I can''t
have you catching cold. Run and change your wet
things. Come to me, Annette. Where did you
pick her up?"
"At the top of the village. She belongs to the
man we saw yesterday--the man that cobbles the
commune''s boots. Hasn''t she lovely eyes? She''s
got a tortoise in her pocket, and she calls it
''Caroline.''"
When Arthur had changed his wet socks and
came down to breakfast he found the child seated
on the Padre''s knee, chattering volubly to him
about her tortoise, which she was holding upside
down in a chubby hand, that "monsieur" might
admire the wriggling legs.
"Look, monsieur!" she was saying gravely in
her half-intelligible patois: "Look at Caroline''s
boots!"
Montanelli sat playing with the child, stroking
her hair, admiring her darling tortoise, and telling
her wonderful stories. The woman of the
chalet, coming in to clear the table, stared in
amazement at the sight of Annette turning out
the pockets of the grave gentleman in clerical
dress.
"God teaches the little ones to know a good
man," she said. "Annette is always afraid of
strangers; and see, she is not shy with his reverence
at all. The wonderful thing! Kneel down,
Annette, and ask the good monsieur''s blessing
before he goes; it will bring thee luck."
"I didn''t know you could play with children
that way, Padre," Arthur said an hour later, as
they walked through the sunlit pasture-land.
"That child never took her eyes off you all the
time. Do you know, I think----"
"Yes?"
"I was only going to say--it seems to me
almost a pity that the Church should forbid priests
to marry. I cannot quite understand why. You
see, the training of children is such a serious thing,
and it means so much to them to be surrounded
from the very beginning with good influences, that
I should have thought the holier a man''s vocation
and the purer his life, the more fit he is to be a
father. I am sure, Padre, if you had not been
under a vow,--if you had married,--your children
would have been the very----"
"Hush!"
The word was uttered in a hasty whisper that
seemed to deepen the ensuing silence.
"Padre," Arthur began again, distressed by the
other''s sombre look, "do you think there is anything
wrong in what I said? Of course I may be
mistaken; but I must think as it comes natural to
me to think."
"Perhaps," Montanelli answered gently, "you
do not quite realize the meaning of what you just
said. You will see differently in a few years.
Meanwhile we had better talk about something
else."
It was the first break in the perfect ease and harmony
that reigned between them on this ideal holiday.
From Chamonix they went on by the Tete-Noire
to Martigny, where they stopped to rest,
as the weather was stiflingly hot. After dinner
they sat on the terrace of the hotel, which was
sheltered from the sun and commanded a good
view of the mountains. Arthur brought out his
specimen box and plunged into an earnest botanical
discussion in Italian.
Two English artists were sitting on the terrace;
one sketching, the other lazily chatting. It did
not seem to have occurred to him that the strangers
might understand English.
"Leave off daubing at the landscape, Willie,"
he said; "and draw that glorious Italian boy going
into ecstasies over those bits of ferns. Just look
at the line of his eyebrows! You only need to put
a crucifix for the magnifying-glass and a Roman
toga for the jacket and knickerbockers, and there''s
your Early Christian complete, expression and
all."
"Early Christian be hanged! I sat beside that
youth at dinner; he was just as ecstatic over the
roast fowl as over those grubby little weeds. He''s
pretty enough; that olive colouring is beautiful;
but he''s not half so picturesque as his father."
"His--who?"
"His father, sitting there straight in front of
you. Do you mean to say you''ve passed him over?
It''s a perfectly magnificent face."
"Why, you dunder-headed, go-to-meeting
Methodist! Don''t you know a Catholic priest
when you see one?"
"A priest? By Jove, so he is! Yes, I forgot;
vow of chastity, and all that sort of thing. Well
then, we''ll be charitable and suppose the boy''s his
nephew."
"What idiotic people!" Arthur whispered,
looking up with dancing eyes. "Still, it is kind of
them to think me like you; I wish I were really
your nephew----Padre, what is the matter?
How white you are!"
Montanelli was standing up, pressing one hand
to his forehead. "I am a little giddy," he said in
a curiously faint, dull tone. "Perhaps I was too
much in the sun this morning. I will go and lie
down, carino; it''s nothing but the heat."
. . . . .
After a fortnight beside the Lake of Lucerne
Arthur and Montanelli returned to Italy by the
St. Gothard Pass. They had been fortunate as
to weather and had made several very pleasant excursions;
but the first charm was gone out of their
enjoyment. Montanelli was continually haunted
by an uneasy thought of the "more definite talk"
for which this holiday was to have been the opportunity.
In the Arve valley he had purposely
put off all reference to the subject of which they
had spoken under the magnolia tree; it would be
cruel, he thought, to spoil the first delights of
Alpine scenery for a nature so artistic as Arthur''s
by associating them with a conversation which
must necessarily be painful. Ever since the day
at Martigny he had said to himself each morning;
"I will speak to-day," and each evening: "I will
speak to-morrow;" and now the holiday was over,
and he still repeated again and again: "To-morrow,
to-morrow." A chill, indefinable sense of
something not quite the same as it had been, of
an invisible veil falling between himself and
Arthur, kept him silent, until, on the last evening
of their holiday, he realized suddenly that
he must speak now if he would speak at all.
They were stopping for the night at Lugano,
and were to start for Pisa next morning. He
would at least find out how far his darling had
been drawn into the fatal quicksand of Italian
politics.
"The rain has stopped, carino," he said after
sunset; "and this is the only chance we shall have
to see the lake. Come out; I want to have a talk
with you."
They walked along the water''s edge to a quiet
spot and sat down on a low stone wall. Close
beside them grew a rose-bush, covered with scarlet
hips; one or two belated clusters of creamy
blossom still hung from an upper branch, swaying
mournfully and heavy with raindrops. On the
green surface of the lake a little boat, with white
wings faintly fluttering, rocked in the dewy breeze.
It looked as light and frail as a tuft of silvery
dandelion seed flung upon the water. High up
on Monte Salvatore the window of some shepherd''s
hut opened a golden eye. The roses hung
their heads and dreamed under the still September
clouds, and the water plashed and murmured
softly among the pebbles of the shore.
"This will be my only chance of a quiet talk
with you for a long time," Montanelli began.
"You will go back to your college work and
friends; and I, too, shall be very busy this winter.
I want to understand quite clearly what our position
as regards each other is to be; and so, if
you----" He stopped for a moment and then
continued more slowly: "If you feel that you can
still trust me as you used to do, I want you to tell
me more definitely than that night in the seminary
garden, how far you have gone."
Arthur looked out across the water, listened
quietly, and said nothing.
"I want to know, if you will tell me," Montanelli
went on; "whether you have bound yourself
by a vow, or--in any way."
"There is nothing to tell, dear Padre; I have
not bound myself, but I am bound."
"I don''t understand------"
"What is the use of vows? They are not what
binds people. If you feel in a certain way about
a thing, that binds you to it; if you don''t feel that
way, nothing else can bind you."
"Do you mean, then, that this thing--this--
feeling is quite irrevocable? Arthur, have you
thought what you are saying?"
Arthur turned round and looked straight into
Montanelli''s eyes.
"Padre, you asked me if I could trust you.
Can you not trust me, too? Indeed, if there were
anything to tell, I would tell it to you; but there
is no use in talking about these things. I have
not forgotten what you said to me that night; I
shall never forget it. But I must go my way and
follow the light that I see."
Montanelli picked a rose from the bush, pulled
off the petals one by one, and tossed them into
the water.
"You are right, carino. Yes, we will say no
more about these things; it seems there is indeed
no help in many words----Well, well, let us go
in."

CHAPTER III.
THE autumn and winter passed uneventfully.
Arthur was reading hard and had little spare time.
He contrived to get a glimpse of Montanelli once
or oftener in every week, if only for a few
minutes. From time to time he would come
in to ask for help with some difficult book; but
on these occasions the subject of study was
strictly adhered to. Montanelli, feeling, rather
than observing, the slight, impalpable barrier that
had come between them, shrank from everything
which might seem like an attempt to retain the
old close relationship. Arthur''s visits now caused
him more distress than pleasure, so trying was the
constant effort to appear at ease and to behave as
if nothing were altered. Arthur, for his part,
noticed, hardly understanding it, the subtle
change in the Padre''s manner; and, vaguely feeling
that it had some connection with the vexed
question of the "new ideas," avoided all mention
of the subject with which his thoughts were constantly
filled. Yet he had never loved Montanelli
so deeply as now. The dim, persistent sense of
dissatisfaction, of spiritual emptiness, which he
had tried so hard to stifle under a load of theology
and ritual, had vanished into nothing at the touch
of Young Italy. All the unhealthy fancies born of
loneliness and sick-room watching had passed
away, and the doubts against which he used to
pray had gone without the need of exorcism.
With the awakening of a new enthusiasm, a
clearer, fresher religious ideal (for it was more in
this light than in that of a political development
that the students'' movement had appeared to
him), had come a sense of rest and completeness,
of peace on earth and good will towards men; and
in this mood of solemn and tender exaltation all
the world seemed to him full of light. He found
a new element of something lovable in the persons
whom he had most disliked; and Montanelli, who
for five years had been his ideal hero, was now in
his eyes surrounded with an ad***ional halo, as a
potential prophet of the new faith. He listened
with passionate eagerness to the Padre''s sermons,
trying to find in them some trace of inner kinship
with the republican ideal; and pored over the
Gospels, rejoicing in the democratic tendencies of
Christianity at its origin.
One day in January he called at the seminary to
return a book which he had borrowed. Hearing
that the Father Director was out, he went up to
Montanelli''s private study, placed the volume on
its shelf, and was about to leave the room when
the title of a book lying on the table caught his
eyes. It was Dante''s "De Monarchia." He
began to read it and soon became so absorbed that
when the door opened and shut he did not hear.
He was aroused from his preoccupation by Montanelli''s
voice behind him.
"I did not expect you to-day," said the Padre,
glancing at the title of the book. "I was just
going to send and ask if you could come to me
this evening."
"Is it anything important? I have an engagement
for this evening; but I will miss it if------"
"No; to-morrow will do. I want to see you
because I am going away on Tuesday. I have
been sent for to Rome."
"To Rome? For long?"
"The letter says, ''till after Easter.'' It is from
the Vatican. I would have let you know at once,
but have been very busy settling up things about
the seminary and making arrangements for the new
Director."
"But, Padre, surely you are not giving up the
seminary?"
"It will have to be so; but I shall probably come
back to Pisa, for some time at least."
"But why are you giving it up?"
"Well, it is not yet officially announced;
but I am offered a bishopric."
"Padre! Where?"
"That is the point about which I have to go to
Rome. It is not yet decided whether I am to
take a see in the Apennines, or to remain here as
Suffragan."
"And is the new Director chosen yet?"
"Father Cardi has been nominated and arrives
here to-morrow."
"Is not that rather sudden?"
"Yes; but----The decisions of the Vatican
are sometimes not communicated till the last
moment."
"Do you know the new Director?"
"Not personally; but he is very highly spoken
of. Monsignor Belloni, who writes, says that he
is a man of great eru***ion."
"The seminary will miss you terribly."
"I don''t know about the seminary, but I am sure
you will miss me, carino; perhaps almost as much
as I shall miss you."
"I shall indeed; but I am very glad, for all
that."
"Are you? I don''t know that I am." He sat
down at the table with a weary look on his face;
not the look of a man who is expecting high
promotion.
"Are you busy this afternoon, Arthur?" he said
after a moment. "If not, I wish you would stay
with me for a while, as you can''t come to-night.
I am a little out of sorts, I think; and I want to
see as much of you as possible before leaving."
"Yes, I can stay a bit. I am due at six."
"One of your meetings?"
Arthur nodded; and Montanelli changed the
subject hastily.
"I want to speak to you about yourself," he
said. "You will need another confessor in my
absence."
"When you come back I may go on confessing
to you, may I not?"
"My dear boy, how can you ask? Of course I
am speaking only of the three or four months that
I shall be away. Will you go to one of the
Fathers of Santa Caterina?"
"Very well."
They talked of other matters for a little while;
then Arthur rose.
"I must go, Padre; the students will be waiting
for me."
The haggard look came back to Montanelli''s
face.
"Already? You had almost charmed away
my black mood. Well, good-bye."
"Good-bye. I will be sure to come to-morrow."
"Try to come early, so that I may have time
to see you alone. Father Cardi will be here.
Arthur, my dear boy, be careful while I am gone;
don''t be led into doing anything rash, at least before
I come back. You cannot think how anxious
I feel about leaving you."
"There is no need, Padre; everything is quite
quiet. It will be a long time yet."
"Good-bye," Montanelli said abruptly, and sat
down to his writing.
The first person upon whom Arthur''s eyes fell,
as he entered the room where the students'' little
gatherings were held, was his old playmate, Dr.
Warren''s daughter. She was sitting in a corner
by the window, listening with an absorbed and
earnest face to what one of the "initiators," a tall
young Lombard in a threadbare coat, was saying
to her. During the last few months she had
changed and developed greatly, and now looked a
grown-up young woman, though the dense black
plaits still hung down her back in school-girl
fashion. She was dressed all in black, and had
thrown a black scarf over her head, as the room
was cold and draughty. At her breast was a spray
of cypress, the emblem of Young Italy. The
initiator was passionately describing to her the
misery of the Calabrian peasantry; and she sat
listening silently, her chin resting on one hand
and her eyes on the ground. To Arthur she
seemed a melancholy vision of Liberty mourning
for the lost Republic. (Julia would have seen in
her only an overgrown hoyden, with a sallow complexion,
an irregular nose, and an old stuff frock
that was too short for her.)
"You here, Jim!" he said, coming up to her
when the initiator had been called to the other end
of the room. "Jim" was a childish corruption of
her curious baptismal name: Jennifer. Her Italian
schoolmates called her "Gemma."
She raised her head with a start.
"Arthur! Oh, I didn''t know you--belonged
here!"
"And I had no idea about you. Jim, since when
have you----?"
"You don''t understand!" she interposed
quickly. "I am not a member. It is only that
I have done one or two little things. You see, I
met Bini--you know Carlo Bini?"
"Yes, of course." Bini was the organizer of the
Leghorn branch; and all Young Italy knew him.
"Well, he began talking to me about these
things; and I asked him to let me go to a students''
meeting. The other day he wrote to me to
Florence------Didn''t you know I had been to
Florence for the Christmas holidays?"
"I don''t often hear from home now."
"Ah, yes! Anyhow, I went to stay with the
Wrights." (The Wrights were old schoolfellows
of hers who had moved to Florence.) "Then Bini
wrote and told me to pass through Pisa to-day on
my way home, so that I could come here. Ah!
they''re going to begin."
The lecture was upon the ideal Republic and
the duty of the young to fit themselves for it.
The lecturer''s comprehension of his subject was
somewhat vague; but Arthur listened with devout
admiration. His mind at this period was curiously
uncritical; when he accepted a moral ideal
he swallowed it whole without stopping to think
whether it was quite digestible. When the lecture
and the long discussion which followed it were
finished and the students began to disperse, he
went up to Gemma, who was still sitting in the
corner of the room.
"Let me walk with you, Jim. Where are you
staying?"
"With Marietta."
"Your father''s old housekeeper?"
"Yes; she lives a good way from here."
They walked for some time in silence. Then
Arthur said suddenly:
"You are seventeen, now, aren''t you?"
"I was seventeen in October."
"I always knew you would not grow up like
other girls and begin wanting to go to balls and
all that sort of thing. Jim, dear, I have so often
wondered whether you would ever come to be
one of us."
"So have I."
"You said you had done things for Bini; I
didn''t know you even knew him."
"It wasn''t for Bini; it was for the other one"
"Which other one?"
"The one that was talking to me to-night--
Bolla."
"Do you know him well?" Arthur put in with
a little touch of jealousy. Bolla was a sore subject
with him; there had been a rivalry between them
about some work which the committee of Young
Italy had finally intrusted to Bolla, declaring
Arthur too young and inexperienced.
"I know him pretty well; and I like him very
much. He has been staying in Leghorn."
"I know; he went there in November------"
"Because of the steamers. Arthur, don''t you
think your house would be safer than ours for that
work? Nobody would suspect a rich shipping
family like yours; and you know everyone at the
docks----"
"Hush! not so loud, dear! So it was in your
house the books from Marseilles were hidden?"
"Only for one day. Oh! perhaps I oughtn''t to
have told you."
"Why not? You know I belong to the society.
Gemma, dear, there is nothing in all the world that
would make me so happy as for you to join us--
you and the Padre."
"Your Padre! Surely he----"
"No; he thinks differently. But I have sometimes
fancied--that is--hoped--I don''t know----"
"But, Arthur! he''s a priest."
"What of that? There are priests in the society
--two of them write in the paper. And why
not? It is the mission of the priesthood to lead
the world to higher ideals and aims, and what else
does the society try to do? It is, after all, more
a religious and moral question than a political one.
If people are fit to be free and responsible citizens,
no one can keep them enslaved."
Gemma knit her brows. "It seems to me,
Arthur," she said, "that there''s a muddle somewhere
in your logic. A priest teaches religious
doctrine. I don''t see what that has to do with
getting rid of the Austrians."
"A priest is a teacher of Christianity, and the
greatest of all revolutionists was Christ."
"Do you know, I was talking about priests to
father the other day, and he said----"
"Gemma, your father is a Protestant."
After a little pause she looked round at him
frankly.
"Look here, we had better leave this subject
alone. You are always intolerant when you talk
about Protestants."
"I didn''t mean to be intolerant. But I think
Protestants are generally intolerant when they
talk about priests."
"I dare say. Anyhow, we have so often quarreled
over this subject that it is not worth while to
begin again. What did you think of the lecture?"
"I liked it very much--especially the last part.
I was glad he spoke so strongly about the
need of living the Republic, not dreaming of it.
It is as Christ said: ''The Kingdom of Heaven is
within you.''"
"It was just that part that I didn''t like. He
talked so much of the wonderful things we ought
to think and feel and be, but he never told us practically
what we ought to do."
"When the time of crisis comes there will be
plenty for us to do; but we must be patient; these
great changes are not made in a day."
"The longer a thing is to take doing, the more
reason to begin at once. You talk about being
fit for freedom--did you ever know anyone so fit
for it as your mother? Wasn''t she the most perfectly
angelic woman you ever saw? And what use
was all her goodness? She was a slave till the day
she died--bullied and worried and insulted by your
brother James and his wife. It would have been
much better for her if she had not been so sweet
and patient; they would never have treated her
so. That''s just the way with Italy; it''s not
patience that''s wanted--it''s for somebody to get
up and defend themselves------"
"Jim, dear, if anger and passion could have
saved Italy she would have been free long ago;
it is not hatred that she needs, it is love."
As he said the word a sudden flush went up
to his forehead and died out again. Gemma
did not see it; she was looking straight before
her with knitted brows and set mouth.
"You think I am wrong, Arthur," she said
after a pause; "but I am right, and you will grow
to see it some day. This is the house. Will you
come in?"
"No; it''s late. Good-night, dear!"
He was standing on the doorstep, clasping her
hand in both of his.
"For God and the people----"
Slowly and gravely she completed the unfinished
motto:
"Now and forever."
Then she pulled away her hand and ran into
the house. When the door had closed behind her
he stooped and picked up the spray of cypress
which had fallen from her breast.

CHAPTER IV.
ARTHUR went back to his lodgings feeling as
though he had wings. He was absolutely, cloudlessly
happy. At the meeting there had been
hints of preparations for armed insurrection; and
now Gemma was a comrade, and he loved her.
They could work together, possibly even die together,
for the Republic that was to be. The
blossoming time of their hope was come, and the
Padre would see it and believe.
The next morning, however, he awoke in a
soberer mood and remembered that Gemma was
going to Leghorn and the Padre to Rome. January,
February, March--three long months to
Easter! And if Gemma should fall under "Protestant"
influences at home (in Arthur''s vocabulary
"Protestant" stood for "Philistine")------
No, Gemma would never learn to flirt and simper
and captivate tourists and bald-headed shipowners,
like the other English girls in Leghorn; she was
made of different stuff. But she might be very
miserable; she was so young, so friendless, so
utterly alone among all those wooden people. If
only mother had lived----
In the evening he went to the seminary, where
he found Montanelli entertaining the new Director
and looking both tired and bored. Instead
of lighting up, as usual, at the sight of Arthur, the
Padre''s face grew darker.
"This is the student I spoke to you about," he
said, introducing Arthur stiffly. "I shall be much
obliged if you will allow him to continue using the
library."
Father Cardi, a benevolent-looking elderly
priest, at once began talking to Arthur about the
Sapienza, with an ease and familiarity which
showed him to be well acquainted with college
life. The conversation soon drifted into a discussion
of university regulations, a burning question
of that day. To Arthur''s great delight, the new
Director spoke strongly against the custom
adopted by the university authorities of constantly
worrying the students by senseless and vexatious
restrictions.
"I have had a good deal of experience in guiding
young people," he said; "and I make it a
rule never to prohibit anything without a good
reason. There are very few young men who will
give much trouble if proper consideration and respect
for their personality are shown to them.
But, of course, the most docile horse will kick if
you are always jerking at the rein."
Arthur opened his eyes wide; he had not expected
to hear the students'' cause pleaded by the
new Director. Montanelli took no part in the discussion;
its subject, apparently, did not interest
him. The expression of his face was so unutterably
hopeless and weary that Father Cardi broke
off suddenly.
"I am afraid I have overtired you, Canon. You
must forgive my talkativeness; I am hot upon this
subject and forget that others may grow weary
of it."
"On the contrary, I was much interested."
Montanelli was not given to stereotyped politeness,
and his tone jarred uncomfortably upon
Arthur.
When Father Cardi went to his own room
Montanelli turned to Arthur with the intent and
brooding look that his face had worn all the
evening.
"Arthur, my dear boy," he began slowly; "I
have something to tell you."
"He must have had bad news," flashed through
Arthur''s mind, as he looked anxiously at the haggard
face. There was a long pause.
"How do you like the new Director?" Montanelli
asked suddenly.
The question was so unexpected that, for a moment,
Arthur was at a loss how to reply to it.
"I--I like him very much, I think--at least--
no, I am not quite sure that I do. But it is difficult
to say, after seeing a person once."
Montanelli sat beating his hand gently on the
arm of his chair; a habit with him when anxious
or perplexed.
"About this journey to Rome," he began again;
"if you think there is any--well--if you wish it,
Arthur, I will write and say I cannot go."
"Padre! But the Vatican------"
"The Vatican will find someone else. I can
send apologies."
"But why? I can''t understand."
Montanelli drew one hand across his forehead.
"I am anxious about you. Things keep coming
into my head--and after all, there is no need
for me to go------"
"But the bishopric----"
"Oh, Arthur! what shall it profit me if I gain a
bishopric and lose----"
He broke off. Arthur had never seen him like
this before, and was greatly troubled.
"I can''t understand," he said. "Padre, if you
could explain to me more--more definitely, what
it is you think------"
"I think nothing; I am haunted with a horrible
fear. Tell me, is there any special danger?"
"He has heard something," Arthur thought,
remembering the whispers of a projected revolt.
But the secret was not his to tell; and he merely
answered: "What special danger should there be?"
"Don''t question me--answer me!" Montanelli''s
voice was almost harsh in its eagerness.
"Are you in danger? I don''t want to know your
secrets; only tell me that!"
"We are all in God''s hands, Padre; anything
may always happen. But I know of no reason
why I should not be here alive and safe when you
come back."
"When I come back----Listen, carino; I will
leave it in your hands. You need give me no
reason; only say to me, ''Stay,'' and I will give up
this journey. There will be no injury to anyone,
and I shall feel you are safer if I have you
beside me."
This kind of morbid fancifulness was so foreign
to Montanelli''s character that Arthur looked at
him with grave anxiety.
"Padre, I am sure you are not well. Of course
you must go to Rome, and try to have a thorough
rest and get rid of your sleeplessness and headaches."
"Very well," Montanelli interrupted, as if tired
of the subject; "I will start by the early coach
to-morrow morning."
Arthur looked at him, wondering.
"You had something to tell me?" he said.
"No, no; nothing more--nothing of any consequence."
There was a startled, almost terrified
look in his face.
A few days after Montanelli''s departure Arthur
went to fetch a book from the seminary library,
and met Father Cardi on the stairs.
"Ah, Mr. Burton!" exclaimed the Director;
"the very person I wanted. Please come in and
help me out of a difficulty."
He opened the study door, and Arthur followed
him into the room with a foolish, secret sense of
resentment. It seemed hard to see this dear
study, the Padre''s own private sanctum, invaded
by a stranger.
"I am a terrible book-worm," said the Director;
"and my first act when I got here was to examine
the library. It seems very interesting, but I do
not understand the system by which it is catalogued."
"The catalogue is imperfect; many of the
best books have been added to the collection
lately."
"Can you spare half an hour to explain the arrangement
to me?"
They went into the library, and Arthur carefully
explained the catalogue. When he rose to
take his hat, the Director interfered, laughing.
"No, no! I can''t have you rushing off in that
way. It is Saturday, and quite time for you to
leave off work till Monday morning. Stop and
have supper with me, now I have kept you so
late. I am quite alone, and shall be glad of
company."
His manner was so bright and pleasant that Arthur
felt at ease with him at once. After some
desultory conversation, the Director inquired how
long he had known Montanelli.
"For about seven years. He came back from
China when I was twelve years old."
"Ah, yes! It was there that he gained his reputation
as a missionary preacher. Have you been
his pupil ever since?"
"He began teaching me a year later, about the
time when I first confessed to him. Since I have
been at the Sapienza he has still gone on helping
me with anything I wanted to study that was not
in the regular course. He has been very kind to
me--you can hardly imagine how kind."
"I can well believe it; he is a man whom no one
can fail to admire--a most noble and beautiful
nature. I have met priests who were out in China
with him; and they had no words high enough to
praise his energy and courage under all hardships,
and his unfailing devotion. You are fortunate to
have had in your youth the help and guidance of
such a man. I understood from him that you have
lost both parents."
"Yes; my father died when I was a child, and
my mother a year ago."
"Have you brothers and sisters?"
"No; I have step-brothers; but they were business
men when I was in the nursery."
"You must have had a lonely childhood; perhaps
you value Canon Montanelli''s kindness the
more for that. By the way, have you chosen a
confessor for the time of his absence?"
"I thought of going to one of the fathers of
Santa Caterina, if they have not too many
penitents."
"Will you confess to me?"
Arthur opened his eyes in wonder.
"Reverend Father, of course I--should be glad;
only----"
"Only the Director of a theological seminary
does not usually receive lay penitents? That is
quite true. But I know Canon Montanelli takes
a great interest in you, and I fancy he is a little
anxious on your behalf--just as I should be if I
were leaving a favourite pupil--and would like to
know you were under the spiritual guidance of his
colleague. And, to be quite frank with you, my
son, I like you, and should be glad to give you
any help I can."
"If you put it that way, of course I shall be
very grateful for your guidance."
"Then you will come to me next month?
That''s right. And run in to see me, my lad, when
you have time any evening."
. . . . .
Shortly before Easter Montanelli''s appointment
to the little see of Brisighella, in the Etruscan
Apennines, was officially announced. He
wrote to Arthur from Rome in a cheerful and
tranquil spirit; evidently his depression was passing
over. "You must come to see me every vacation,"
he wrote; "and I shall often be coming to
Pisa; so I hope to see a good deal of you, if not
so much as I should wish."
Dr. Warren had invited Arthur to spend the
Easter holidays with him and his children, instead
of in the dreary, rat-ridden old place where Julia
now reigned supreme. Enclosed in the letter was
a short note, scrawled in Gemma''s childish, irregular
handwriting, begging him to come if possible,
"as I want to talk to you about something."
Still more encouraging was the whispered communication
passing around from student to student in the university;
everyone was to be prepared for great things after Easter.
All this had put Arthur into a state of rapturous
anticipation, in which the wildest improbabilities
hinted at among the students seemed to
him natural and likely to be realized within the
next two months.
He arranged to go home on Thursday in Passion
week, and to spend the first days of the
vacation there, that the pleasure of visiting the
Warrens and the delight of seeing Gemma might
not unfit him for the solemn religious me***ation
demanded by the Church from all her children at
this season. He wrote to Gemma, promising to
come on Easter Monday; and went up to his bedroom
on Wednesday night with a soul at peace.
He knelt down before the crucifix. Father
Cardi had promised to receive him in the morning;
and for this, his last confession before the
Easter communion, he must prepare himself by
long and earnest prayer. Kneeling with clasped
hands and bent head, he looked back over the
month, and reckoned up the miniature sins of
impatience, carelessness, hastiness of temper,
which had left their faint, small spots upon the
whiteness of his soul. Beyond these he could find
nothing; in this month he had been too happy
to sin much. He crossed himself, and, rising, began
to undress.
As he unfastened his shirt a scrap of paper
slipped from it and fluttered to the floor. It was
Gemma''s letter, which he had worn all day upon
his neck. He picked it up, unfolded it, and kissed
the dear scribble; then began folding the paper
up again, with a dim consciousness of having done
something very ridiculous, when he noticed on
the back of the sheet a postscript which he had
not read before. "Be sure and come as soon as
possible," it ran, "for I want you to meet Bolla.
He has been staying here, and we have read together
every day."
The hot colour went up to Arthur''s forehead as
he read.
Always Bolla! What was he doing in Leghorn
again? And why should Gemma want to read
with him? Had he bewitched her with his smuggling?
It had been quite easy to see at the meeting
in January that he was in love with her; that
was why he had been so earnest over his propaganda.
And now he was close to her--reading
with her every day.
Arthur suddenly threw the letter aside and knelt
down again before the crucifix. And this was the
soul that was preparing for absolution, for the
Easter sacrament--the soul at peace with God and
itself and all the world! A soul capable of sordid
jealousies and suspicions; of selfish animosities and
ungenerous hatred--and against a comrade! He covered
his face with both hands in bitter humiliation. Only
five minutes ago he had been dreaming of martyrdom; and
now he had been guilty of a mean and petty thought like this!
When he entered the seminary chapel on Thursday
morning he found Father Cardi alone. After
repeating the Confiteor, he plunged at once into
the subject of his last night''s backsliding.
"My father, I accuse myself of the sins of jealousy
and anger, and of unworthy thoughts against
one who has done me no wrong."
Farther Cardi knew quite well with what kind of
penitent he had to deal. He only said softly:
"You have not told me all, my son."
"Father, the man against whom I have thought
an unchristian thought is one whom I am
especially bound to love and honour."
"One to whom you are bound by ties of
blood?"
"By a still closer tie."
"By what tie, my son?"
"By that of comradeship."
"Comradeship in what?"
"In a great and holy work."
A little pause.
"And your anger against this--comrade, your
jealousy of him, was called forth by his success in
that work being greater than yours?"
"I--yes, partly. I envied him his experience--
his usefulness. And then--I thought--I feared--
that he would take from me the heart of the girl
I--love."
"And this girl that you love, is she a daughter
of the Holy Church?"
"No; she is a Protestant."
"A heretic?"
Arthur clasped his hands in great distress.
"Yes, a heretic," he repeated. "We were brought
up together; our mothers were friends--and I
--envied him, because I saw that he loves her,
too, and because--because----"
"My son," said Father Cardi, speaking after a
moment''s silence, slowly and gravely, "you have
still not told me all; there is more than this upon
your soul."
"Father, I----" He faltered and broke off
again.
The priest waited silently.
"I envied him because the society--the Young
Italy--that I belong to------"
"Yes?"
"Intrusted him with a work that I had hoped
--would be given to me, that I had thought myself
--specially adapted for."
"What work?"
"The taking in of books--political books--from
the steamers that bring them--and finding a hiding
place for them--in the town------"
"And this work was given by the party to your
rival?"
"To Bolla--and I envied him."
"And he gave you no cause for this feeling?
You do not accuse him of having neglected the
mission intrusted to him?"
"No, father; he has worked bravely and devotedly;
he is a true patriot and has deserved nothing
but love and respect from me."
Father Cardi pondered.
"My son, if there is within you a new light, a
dream of some great work to be accomplished for
your fellow-men, a hope that shall lighten the burdens
of the weary and oppressed, take heed how
you deal with the most precious blessing of God.
All good things are of His giving; and of His giving
is the new birth. If you have found the way
of sacrifice, the way that leads to peace; if you have
joined with loving comrades to bring deliverance
to them that weep and mourn in secret; then see
to it that your soul be free from envy and passion
and your heart as an altar where the sacred fire
burns eternally. Remember that this is a high and
holy thing, and that the heart which would receive
it must be purified from every selfish thought.
This vocation is as the vocation of a priest; it is
not for the love of a woman, nor for the moment
of a fleeting passion; it is FOR GOD AND THE PEOPLE;
it is NOW AND FOREVER."
"Ah!" Arthur started and clasped his hands;
he had almost burst out sobbing at the motto.
"Father, you give us the sanction of the Church!
Christ is on our side----"
"My son," the priest answered solemnly,
"Christ drove the moneychangers out of the
Temple, for His House shall be called a House
of Prayer, and they had made it a den of thieves."
After a long silence, Arthur whispered tremulously:
"And Italy shall be His Temple when they are
driven out----"
He stopped; and the soft answer came back:
"''The earth and the fulness thereof are mine,
saith the Lord.''"

CHAPTER V.
THAT afternoon Arthur felt the need of a long
walk. He intrusted his luggage to a fellow-student
and went to Leghorn on foot.
The day was damp and cloudy, but not cold; and
the low, level country seemed to him fairer than he
had ever known it to look before. He had a sense
of delight in the soft elasticity of the wet grass
under his feet and in the shy, wondering eyes of
the wild spring flowers by the roadside. In a
thorn-acacia bush at the edge of a little strip of
wood a bird was building a nest, and flew up as he
passed with a startled cry and a quick fluttering of
brown wings.
He tried to keep his mind fixed upon the devout
me***ations proper to the eve of Good Friday.
But thoughts of Montanelli and Gemma got so
much in the way of this devotional exercise that at
last he gave up the attempt and allowed his fancy
to drift away to the wonders and glories of the
coming insurrection, and to the part in it that he
had allotted to his two idols. The Padre was to
be the leader, the apostle, the prophet before
whose sacred wrath the powers of darkness were
to flee, and at whose feet the young defenders of
Liberty were to learn afresh the old doctrines,
the old truths in their new and unimagined
significance.
And Gemma? Oh, Gemma would fight at
the barricades. She was made of the clay from
which heroines are moulded; she would be the
perfect comrade, the maiden undefiled and unafraid,
of whom so many poets have dreamed. She
would stand beside him, shoulder to shoulder,
rejoicing under the winged death-storm; and they
would die together, perhaps in the moment of
victory--without doubt there would be a victory.
Of his love he would tell her nothing; he would say
no word that might disturb her peace or spoil her
tranquil sense of comradeship. She was to him a
holy thing, a spotless victim to be laid upon the
altar as a burnt-offering for the deliverance of the
people; and who was he that he should enter into
the white sanctuary of a soul that knew no other
love than God and Italy?
God and Italy----Then came a sudden drop
from the clouds as he entered the great, dreary
house in the "Street of Palaces," and Julia''s butler,
immaculate, calm, and politely disapproving as
ever, confronted him upon the stairs.
"Good-evening, Gibbons; are my brothers in?"
"Mr. Thomas is in, sir; and Mrs. Burton. They
are in the drawing room."
Arthur went in with a dull sense of oppression.
What a dismal house it was! The flood of life
seemed to roll past and leave it always just above
high-water mark. Nothing in it ever changed--
neither the people, nor the family portraits, nor the
heavy furniture and ugly plate, nor the vulgar
ostentation of riches, nor the lifeless aspect of
everything. Even the flowers on the brass stands
looked like painted metal flowers that had never
known the stirring of young sap within them in
the warm spring days. Julia, dressed for dinner,
and waiting for visitors in the drawing room which
was to her the centre of existence, might have sat
for a fashion-plate just as she was, with her wooden
smile and flaxen ringlets, and the lap-dog on her
knee.
"How do you do, Arthur?" she said stiffly, giving
him the tips of her fingers for a moment, and
then transferring them to the more congenial contact
of the lap-dog''s silken coat. "I hope you
are quite well and have made satisfactory progress
at college."
Arthur murmured the first commonplace that
he could think of at the moment, and relapsed into
uncomfortable silence. The arrival of James, in his
most pompous mood and accompanied by a stiff,
elderly shipping-agent, did not improve matters;
and when Gibbons announced that dinner was
served, Arthur rose with a little sigh of relief.
"I won''t come to dinner, Julia. If you''ll excuse
me I will go to my room."
"You''re overdoing that fasting, my boy," said
Thomas; "I am sure you''ll make yourself ill."
"Oh, no! Good-night."
In the corridor Arthur met the under housemaid
and asked her to knock at his door at six in
the morning.
"The signorino is going to church?"
"Yes. Good-night, Teresa."
He went into his room. It had belonged to his
mother, and the alcove opposite the window had
been fitted up during her long illness as an oratory.
A great crucifix on a black pedestal occupied the
middle of the altar; and before it hung a little
Roman lamp. This was the room where she had
died. Her portrait was on the wall beside the
bed; and on the table stood a china bowl which
had been hers, filled with a great bunch of her
favourite violets. It was just a year since her
death; and the Italian servants had not forgotten
her.
He took out of his portmanteau a framed picture,
carefully wrapped up. It was a crayon portrait
of Montanelli, which had come from Rome
only a few days before. He was unwrapping this
precious treasure when Julia''s page brought in a
supper-tray on which the old Italian cook, who had
served Gladys before the harsh, new mistress came,
had placed such little delicacies as she considered
her dear signorino might permit himself to eat
without infringing the rules of the Church.
Arthur refused everything but a piece of bread;
and the page, a nephew of Gibbons, lately arrived
from England, grinned significantly as he carried
out the tray. He had already joined the Protestant
camp in the servants'' hall.
Arthur went into the alcove and knelt down
before the crucifix, trying to compose his mind to
the proper attitude for prayer and me***ation.
But this he found difficult to accomplish. He had,
as Thomas said, rather overdone the Lenten privations,
and they had gone to his head like strong
wine. Little quivers of excitement went down his
back, and the crucifix swam in a misty cloud before
his eyes. It was only after a long litany, mechanically
repeated, that he succeeded in recalling his
wandering imagination to the mystery of the
Atonement. At last sheer physical weariness
conquered the feverish agitation of his nerves, and
he lay down to sleep in a calm and peaceful mood,
free from all unquiet or disturbing thoughts.
He was fast asleep when a sharp, impatient
knock came at his door. "Ah, Teresa!" he
thought, turning over lazily. The knock was
repeated, and he awoke with a violent start.
"Signorino! signorino!" cried a man''s voice in
Italian; "get up for the love of God!"
Arthur jumped out of bed.
"What is the matter? Who is it?"
"It''s I, Gian Battista. Get up, quick, for Our
Lady''s sake!"
Arthur hurriedly dressed and opened the door.
As he stared in perplexity at the coachman''s pale,
terrified face, the sound of tramping feet and
clanking metal came along the corridor, and he
suddenly realized the truth.
"For me?" he asked coolly.
"For you! Oh, signorino, make haste! What
have you to hide? See, I can put----"
"I have nothing to hide. Do my brothers
know?"
The first uniform appeared at the turn of the
passage.
"The signor has been called; all the house is
awake. Alas! what a misfortune--what a terrible
misfortune! And on Good Friday! Holy Saints,
have pity!"
Gian Battista burst into tears. Arthur moved
a few steps forward and waited for the gendarmes,
who came clattering along, followed by a shivering
crowd of servants in various impromptu costumes.
As the soldiers surrounded Arthur, the
master and mistress of the house brought up the
rear of this strange procession; he in dressing
gown and slippers, she in a long peignoir, with her
hair in curlpapers.
"There is, sure, another flood toward, and these
couples are coming to the ark! Here comes a
pair of very strange beasts!"
The quotation flashed across Arthur''s mind as
he looked at the grotesque figures. He checked
a laugh with a sense of its jarring incongruity--this
was a time for worthier thoughts. "Ave Maria,
Regina Coeli!" he whispered, and turned his eyes
away, that the bobbing of Julia''s curlpapers might
not again tempt him to levity.
"Kindly explain to me," said Mr. Burton, approaching
the officer of gendarmerie, "what is the
meaning of this violent intrusion into a private
house? I warn you that, unless you are prepared
to furnish me with a satisfactory explanation, I
shall feel bound to complain to the English
Ambassador."
"I presume," replied the officer stiffly, "that
you will recognize this as a sufficient explanation;
the English Ambassador certainly will." He
pulled out a warrant for the arrest of Arthur
Burton, student of philosophy, and, handing it to
James, added coldly: "If you wish for any further
explanation, you had better apply in person to the
chief of police."
Julia snatched the paper from her husband,
glanced over it, and flew at Arthur like nothing
else in the world but a fashionable lady in a
rage.
"So it''s you that have disgraced the family!"
she screamed; "setting all the rabble in the town
gaping and staring as if the thing were a show?
So you have turned jail-bird, now, with all your
piety! It''s what we might have expected from
that Popish woman''s child----"
"You must not speak to a prisoner in a foreign
language, madam," the officer interrupted; but
his remonstrance was hardly audible under the torrent
of Julia''s vociferous English.
"Just what we might have expected! Fasting
and prayer and saintly me***ation; and this is what
was underneath it all! I thought that would be
the end of it."
Dr. Warren had once compared Julia to a salad
into which the cook had upset the vinegar cruet.
The sound of her thin, hard voice set Arthur''s
teeth on edge, and the simile suddenly popped up
in his memory.
"There''s no use in this kind of talk," he said.
"You need not be afraid of any unpleasantness;
everyone will understand that you are all quite
innocent. I suppose, gentlemen, you want to
search my things. I have nothing to hide."
While the gendarmes ransacked the room, reading
his letters, examining his college papers, and
turning out drawers and boxes, he sat waiting on
the edge of the bed, a little flushed with excitement,
but in no way distressed. The search did
not disquiet him. He had always burned letters
which could possibly compromise anyone, and beyond
a few manuscript verses, half revolutionary,
half mystical, and two or three numbers of Young
Italy, the gendarmes found nothing to repay them
for their trouble. Julia, after a long resistance,
yielded to the entreaties of her brother-in-law and
went back to bed, sweeping past Arthur with
magnificent disdain, James meekly following.
When they had left the room, Thomas, who all
this while had been tramping up and down, trying
to look indifferent, approached the officer and
asked permission to speak to the prisoner.
Receiving a nod in answer, he went up to Arthur
and muttered in a rather husky voice:
"I say; this is an infernally awkward business.
I''m very sorry about it."
Arthur looked up with a face as serene as a summer
morning. "You have always been good to
me," he said. "There''s nothing to be sorry
about. I shall be safe enough."
"Look here, Arthur!" Thomas gave his moustache
a hard pull and plunged head first into the
awkward question. "Is--all this anything to do
with--money? Because, if it is, I----"
"With money! Why, no! What could it have
to do----"
"Then it''s some political tomfoolery? I
thought so. Well, don''t you get down in the
mouth--and never mind all the stuff Julia talks.
It''s only her spiteful tongue; and if you want
help,--cash, or anything,--let me know, will
you?"
Arthur held out his hand in silence, and Thomas
left the room with a carefully made-up expression
of unconcern that rendered his face more stolid
than ever.
The gendarmes, meanwhile, had finished their
search, and the officer in charge requested Arthur
to put on his outdoor clothes. He obeyed at once
and turned to leave the room; then stopped with
sudden hesitation. It seemed hard to take leave
of his mother''s oratory in the presence of these
officials.
"Have you any objection to leaving the room
for a moment?" he asked. "You see that I cannot
escape and that there is nothing to conceal."
"I am sorry, but it is forbidden to leave a
prisoner alone."
"Very well, it doesn''t matter."
He went into the alcove, and, kneeling down,
kissed the feet and pedestal of the crucifix, whispering
softly: "Lord, keep me faithful unto death."
When he rose, the officer was standing by the
table, examining Montanelli''s portrait. "Is this
a relative of yours?" he asked.
"No; it is my confessor, the new Bishop of
Brisighella."
On the staircase the Italian servants were waiting,
anxious and sorrowful. They all loved Arthur
for his own sake and his mother''s, and crowded
round him, kissing his hands and dress with
passionate grief. Gian Battista stood by, the
tears dripping down his gray moustache. None
of the Burtons came out to take leave of him.
Their coldness accentuated the tenderness and
sympathy of the servants, and Arthur was near to
breaking down as he pressed the hands held out
to him.
"Good-bye, Gian Battista. Kiss the little ones
for me. Good-bye, Teresa. Pray for me, all of
you; and God keep you! Good-bye, good-bye!"
He ran hastily downstairs to the front door. A
moment later only a little group of silent men and
sobbing women stood on the doorstep watching
the carriage as it drove away.

CHAPTER VI.
ARTHUR was taken to the huge mediaeval fortress
at the harbour''s mouth. He found prison life
fairly endurable. His cell was unpleasantly damp
and dark; but he had been brought up in a palace
in the Via Borra, and neither close air, rats, nor
foul smells were novelties to him. The food, also,
was both bad and insufficient; but James soon obtained
permission to send him all the necessaries of
life from home. He was kept in solitary confinement,
and, though the vigilance of the warders
was less strict than he had expected, he failed to
obtain any explanation of the cause of his arrest.
Nevertheless, the tranquil frame of mind in which
he had entered the fortress did not change. Not
being allowed books, he spent his time in prayer
and devout me***ation, and waited without impatience
or anxiety for the further course of events.
One day a soldier unlocked the door of his cell
and called to him: "This way, please!" After two
or three questions, to which he got no answer but,
"Talking is forbidden," Arthur resigned himself
to the inevitable and followed the soldier through
a labyrinth of courtyards, corridors, and stairs, all
more or less musty-smelling, into a large, light
room in which three persons in military uniform
sat at a long table covered with green baize and littered
with papers, chatting in a languid, desultory
way. They put on a stiff, business air as he came
in, and the oldest of them, a foppish-looking man
with gray whiskers and a colonel''s uniform,
pointed to a chair on the other side of the table
and began the preliminary interrogation.
Arthur had expected to be threatened, abused,
and sworn at, and had prepared himself to
answer with dignity and patience; but he was pleasantly
disappointed. The colonel was stiff, cold
and formal, but perfectly courteous. The usual
questions as to his name, age, nationality, and
social position were put and answered, and the
replies written down in monotonous succession.
He was beginning to feel bored and impatient,
when the colonel asked:
"And now, Mr. Burton, what do you know
about Young Italy?"
"I know that it is a society which publishes a
newspaper in Marseilles and circulates it in Italy,
with the object of inducing people to revolt and
drive the Austrian army out of the country."
"You have read this paper, I think?"
"Yes; I am interested in the subject."
"When you read it you realized that you were
committing an illegal action?"
"Certainly."
"Where did you get the copies which were
found in your room?"
"That I cannot tell you."
"Mr. Burton, you must not say ''I cannot tell''
here; you are bound to answer my questions."
"I will not, then, if you object to ''cannot.''"
"You will regret it if you permit yourself to
use such expressions," remarked the colonel. As
Arthur made no reply, he went on:
"I may as well tell you that evidence has come
into our hands proving your connection with this
society to be much more intimate than is implied
by the mere reading of forbidden literature. It
will be to your advantage to confess frankly. In
any case the truth will be sure to come out, and
you will find it useless to screen yourself behind
evasion and denials."
"I have no desire to screen myself. What is it
you want to know?"
"Firstly, how did you, a foreigner, come to be
implicated in matters of this kind?"
"I thought about the subject and read everything
I could get hold of, and formed my own
conclusions."
"Who persuaded you to join this society?"
"No one; I wished to join it."
"You are shilly-shallying with me," said the
colonel, sharply; his patience was evidently beginning
to give out. "No one can join a society by
himself. To whom did you communicate your wish
to join it?"
Silence.
"Will you have the kindness to answer me?"
"Not when you ask questions of that kind."
Arthur spoke sullenly; a curious, nervous irritability
was taking possession of him. He knew by
this time that many arrests had been made in both
Leghorn and Pisa; and, though still ignorant of
the extent of the calamity, he had already heard
enough to put him into a fever of anxiety for the
safety of Gemma and his other friends. The
studied politeness of the officers, the dull game of
fencing and parrying, of insidious questions and
evasive answers, worried and annoyed him, and the
clumsy tramping backward and forward of the
sentinel outside the door jarred detestably upon
his ear.
"Oh, by the bye, when did you last meet Giovanni
Bolla?" asked the colonel, after a little more
bandying of words. "Just before you left Pisa,
was it?"
"I know no one of that name."
"What! Giovanni Bolla? Surely you know him
--a tall young fellow, closely shaven. Why, he
is one of your fellow-students."
"There are many students in the university
whom I don''t know."
"Oh, but you must know Bolla, surely! Look,
this is his handwriting. You see, he knows you
well enough."
The colonel carelessly handed him a paper
headed: "Protocol," and signed: "Giovanni
Bolla." Glancing down it Arthur came upon his
own name. He looked up in surprise. "Am I to
read it?"
"Yes, you may as well; it concerns you."
He began to read, while the officers sat silently
watching his face. The document appeared to
consist of depositions in answer to a long string of
questions. Evidently Bolla, too, must have been
arrested. The first depositions were of the usual
stereotyped character; then followed a short account
of Bolla''s connection with the society, of the
dissemination of prohibited literature in Leghorn,
and of the students'' meetings. Next came
"Among those who joined us was a young Englishman,
Arthur Burton, who belongs to one of
the rich shipowning families."
The blood rushed into Arthur''s face. Bolla had
betrayed him! Bolla, who had taken upon himself
the solemn duties of an initiator--Bolla, who had
converted Gemma--who was in love with her!
He laid down the paper and stared at the floor.
"I hope that little document has refreshed
your memory?" hinted the colonel politely.
Arthur shook his head. "I know no one of that
name," he repeated in a dull, hard voice. "There
must be some mistake."
"Mistake? Oh, nonsense! Come, Mr. Burton,
chivalry and quixotism are very fine things in
their way; but there''s no use in overdoing them.
It''s an error all you young people fall into at first.
Come, think! What good is it for you to compromise
yourself and spoil your prospects in life over
a simple formality about a man that has betrayed
you? You see yourself, he wasn''t so particular
as to what he said about you."
A faint shade of something like mockery had
crept into the colonel''s voice. Arthur looked
up with a start; a sudden light flashed upon his
mind.
"It''s a lie!" he cried out. "It''s a forgery! I
can see it in your face, you cowardly----You''ve
got some prisoner there you want to compromise,
or a trap you want to drag me into. You are a forger,
and a liar, and a scoundrel----"
"Silence!" shouted the colonel, starting up in a
rage; his two colleagues were already on their
feet. "Captain Tommasi," he went on, turning to
one of them, "ring for the guard, if you please,
and have this young gentleman put in the punishment
cell for a few days. He wants a lesson, I see,
to bring him to reason."
The punishment cell was a dark, damp, filthy
hole under ground. Instead of bringing Arthur
"to reason," it thoroughly exasperated him. His
luxurious home had rendered him daintily fastidious
about personal cleanliness, and the first effect
of the slimy, vermin-covered walls, the floor
heaped with accumulations of filth and garbage,
the fearful stench of fungi and sewage and rotting
wood, was strong enough to have satisfied the
offended officer. When he was pushed in and the
door locked behind him he took three cautious
steps forward with outstretched hands, shuddering
with disgust as his fingers came into contact with
the slippery wall, and groped in the dense blackness
for some spot less filthy than the rest in which
to sit down.
The long day passed in unbroken blackness and
silence, and the night brought no change. In the
utter void and absence of all external impressions,
he gradually lost the consciousness of time; and
when, on the following morning, a key was turned
in the door lock, and the frightened rats scurried
past him squeaking, he started up in a sudden
panic, his heart throbbing furiously and a roaring
noise in his ears, as though he had been shut
away from light and sound for months instead of
hours.
The door opened, letting in a feeble lantern
gleam--a flood of blinding light, it seemed to him
--and the head warder entered, carrying a piece of
bread and a mug of water. Arthur made a step
forward; he was quite convinced that the man
had come to let him out. Before he had time to
speak, the warder put the bread and mug into his
hands, turned round and went away without a
word, locking the door again.
Arthur stamped his foot upon the ground. For
the first time in his life he was savagely angry.
But as the hours went by, the consciousness of time
and place gradually slipped further and further
away. The blackness seemed an illimitable thing,
with no beginning and no end, and life had, as it
were, stopped for him. On the evening of the
third day, when the door was opened and the head
warder appeared on the threshold with a soldier,
he looked up, dazed and bewildered, shading his
eyes from the unaccustomed light, and vaguely
wondering how many hours or weeks he had been
in this grave.
"This way, please," said the cool business voice
of the warder. Arthur rose and moved forward
mechanically, with a strange unsteadiness, swaying
and stumbling like a drunkard. He resented the
warder''s attempt to help him up the steep, narrow
steps leading to the courtyard; but as he reached
the highest step a sudden giddiness came over him,
so that he staggered and would have fallen backwards
had the warder not caught him by the shoulder.
. . . . .
"There, he''ll be all right now," said a cheerful
voice; "they most of them go off this way coming
out into the air."
Arthur struggled desperately for breath as another
handful of water was dashed into his face.
The blackness seemed to fall away from him in
pieces with a rushing noise; then he woke suddenly
into full consciousness, and, pushing aside
the warder''s arm, walked along the corridor and
up the stairs almost steadily. They stopped for a
moment in front of a door; then it opened, and before
he realized where they were taking him
he was in the brightly lighted interrogation
room, staring in confused wonder at the table and
the papers and the officers sitting in their accustomed places.
"Ah, it''s Mr. Burton!" said the colonel. "I
hope we shall be able to talk more comfortably
now. Well, and how do you like the dark cell?
Not quite so luxurious as your brother''s drawing
room, is it? eh?"
Arthur raised his eyes to the colonel''s smiling
face. He was seized by a frantic desire to spring
at the throat of this gray-whiskered fop and tear it
with his teeth. Probably something of this kind
was visible in his face, for the colonel added immediately,
in a quite different tone:
"Sit down, Mr. Burton, and drink some water;
you are excited."
Arthur pushed aside the glass of water held out
to him; and, leaning his arms on the table, rested
his forehead on one hand and tried to collect his
thoughts. The colonel sat watching him keenly,
noting with experienced eyes the unsteady hands
and lips, the hair dripping with water, the dim
gaze that told of physical prostration and disordered nerves.
"Now, Mr. Burton," he said after a few minutes;
"we will start at the point where we left off; and
as there has been a certain amount of unpleasantness
between us, I may as well begin by saying that
I, for my part, have no desire to be anything but
indulgent with you. If you will behave properly
and reasonably, I assure you that we shall not
treat you with any unnecessary harshness."
"What do you want me to do?"
Arthur spoke in a hard, sullen voice, quite different
from his natural tone.
"I only want you to tell us frankly, in a straightforward
and honourable manner, what you know
of this society and its adherents. First of all, how
long have you known Bolla?"
"I never met him in my life. I know nothing
whatever about him."
"Really? Well, we will return to that subject
presently. I think you know a young man named
Carlo Bini?"
"I never heard of such a person."
"That is very extraordinary. What about
Francesco Neri?"
"I never heard the name."
"But here is a letter in your handwriting, addressed
to him. Look!"
Arthur glanced carelessly at the letter and laid it
aside.
"Do you recognize that letter?"
"No."
"You deny that it is in your writing?"
"I deny nothing. I have no recollection of it."
"Perhaps you remember this one?"
A second letter was handed to him, and he saw
that it was one which he had written in the autumn
to a fellow-student.

"No."
"Nor the person to whom it is addressed?"
"Nor the person."
"Your memory is singularly short."
"It is a defect from which I have always
suffered."
"Indeed! And I heard the other day from a
university professor that you are considered by no
means deficient; rather clever in fact."
"You probably judge of cleverness by the police-spy
standard; university professors use words in a
different sense."
The note of rising irritation was plainly audible
in Arthur''s voice. He was physically exhausted
with hunger, foul air, and want of sleep; every bone
in his body seemed to ache separately; and the
colonel''s voice grated on his exasperated nerves,
setting his teeth on edge like the squeak of a slate
pencil.
"Mr. Burton," said the colonel, leaning back
in his chair and speaking gravely, "you are again
forgetting yourself; and I warn you once more
that this kind of talk will do you no good. Surely
you have had enough of the dark cell not to want
any more just for the present. I tell you plainly
that I shall use strong measures with you if you
persist in repulsing gentle ones. Mind, I have
proof--positive proof--that some of these young
men have been engaged in smuggling prohibited
literature into this port; and that you have been
in communication with them. Now, are you going
to tell me, without compulsion, what you know
about this affair?"
Arthur bent his head lower. A blind, senseless,
wild-beast fury was beginning to stir within him
like a live thing. The possibility of losing command
over himself was more appalling to him than
any threats. For the first time he began to realize
what latent potentialities may lie hidden beneath
the culture of any gentleman and the piety of any
Christian; and the terror of himself was strong
upon him.
"I am waiting for your answer," said the colonel.
"I have no answer to give."
"You positively refuse to answer?"
"I will tell you nothing at all."
"Then I must simply order you back into the
punishment cell, and keep you there till you change
your mind. If there is much more trouble with
you, I shall put you in irons."
Arthur looked up, trembling from head to foot.
"You will do as you please," he said slowly; "and
whether the English Ambassador will stand your
playing tricks of that kind with a British subject
who has not been convicted of any crime is for him
to decide."
At last Arthur was conducted back to his own
cell, where he flung himself down upon the bed
and slept till the next morning. He was not put
in irons, and saw no more of the dreaded dark cell;
but the feud between him and the colonel grew
more inveterate with every interrogation. It was
quite useless for Arthur to pray in his cell for grace
to conquer his evil passions, or to me***ate half the
night long upon the patience and meekness of
Christ. No sooner was he brought again into the
long, bare room with its baize-covered table, and
confronted with the colonel''s waxed moustache,
than the unchristian spirit would take possession of
him once more, suggesting bitter repartees and
contemptuous answers. Before he had been a
month in the prison the mutual irritation had
reached such a height that he and the colonel
could not see each other''s faces without losing
their temper.
The continual strain of this petty warfare was
beginning to tell heavily upon his nerves. Knowing
how closely he was watched, and remembering
certain dreadful rumours which he had heard of
prisoners secretly drugged with belladonna that
notes might be taken of their ravings, he gradually
became afraid to sleep or eat; and if a mouse ran
past him in the night, would start up drenched
with cold sweat and quivering with terror, fancying
that someone was hiding in the room to listen
if he talked in his sleep. The gendarmes were evidently
trying to entrap him into making some
admission which might compromise Bolla; and so
great was his fear of slipping, by any inadvertency,
into a pitfall, that he was really in danger of doing
so through sheer nervousness. Bolla''s name rang
in his ears night and day, interfering even with his
devotions, and forcing its way in among the beads
of the rosary instead of the name of Mary. But
the worst thing of all was that his religion, like the
outer world, seemed to be slipping away from him
as the days went by. To this last foothold he clung
with feverish tenacity, spending several hours of
each day in prayer and me***ation; but his
thoughts wandered more and more often to Bolla,
and the prayers were growing terribly mechanical.
His greatest comfort was the head warder of the
prison. This was a little old man, fat and bald,
who at first had tried his hardest to wear a severe
expression. Gradually the good nature which
peeped out of every dimple in his chubby face conquered
his official scruples, and he began carrying
messages for the prisoners from cell to cell.
One afternoon in the middle of May this
warder came into the cell with a face so scowling
and gloomy that Arthur looked at him in
astonishment.
"Why, Enrico!" he exclaimed; "what on earth
is wrong with you to-day?"
"Nothing," said Enrico snappishly; and, going
up to the pallet, he began pulling off the rug,
which was Arthur''s property.
"What do you want with my things? Am I to
be moved into another cell?"
"No; you''re to be let out."
"Let out? What--to-day? For altogether?
Enrico!"
In his excitement Arthur had caught hold of the
old man''s arm. It was angrily wrenched away.
"Enrico! What has come to you? Why don''t
you answer? Are we all going to be let out?"
A contemptuous grunt was the only reply.
"Look here!" Arthur again took hold of the
warder''s arm, laughing. "It is no use for you to
be cross to me, because I''m not going to get
offended. I want to know about the others."
"Which others?" growled Enrico, suddenly
laying down the shirt he was folding. "Not Bolla,
I suppose?"
"Bolla and all the rest, of course. Enrico, what
is the matter with you?"
"Well, he''s not likely to be let out in a hurry,
poor lad, when a comrade has betrayed him.
Ugh!" Enrico took up the shirt again in disgust.
"Betrayed him? A comrade? Oh, how dreadful!"
Arthur''s eyes dilated with horror. Enrico
turned quickly round.
"Why, wasn''t it you?"
"I? Are you off your head, man? I?"
"Well, they told him so yesterday at interrogation,
anyhow. I''m very glad if it wasn''t you, for I
always thought you were rather a decent young
fellow. This way!" Enrico stepped out into the
corridor and Arthur followed him, a light breaking
in upon the confusion of his mind.
"They told Bolla I''d betrayed him? Of course
they did! Why, man, they told me he had betrayed
me. Surely Bolla isn''t fool enough to
believe that sort of stuff?"
"Then it really isn''t true?" Enrico stopped at
the foot of the stairs and looked searchingly at
Arthur, who merely shrugged his shoulders.
"Of course it''s a lie."
"Well, I''m glad to hear it, my lad, and I''ll tell
him you said so. But you see what they told him
was that you had denounced him out of--well, out
of jealousy, because of your both being sweet on
the same girl."
"It''s a lie!" Arthur repeated the words in a
quick, breathless whisper. A sudden, paralyzing
fear had come over him. "The same girl--jealousy!"
How could they know--how could they know?
"Wait a minute, my lad." Enrico stopped in
the corridor leading to the interrogation room,
and spoke softly. "I believe you; but just tell me
one thing. I know you''re a Catholic; did you
ever say anything in the confessional------"
"It''s a lie!" This time Arthur''s voice had risen
to a stifled cry.
Enrico shrugged his shoulders and moved on
again. "You know best, of course; but you
wouldn''t be the only young fool that''s been taken
in that way. There''s a tremendous ado just now
about a priest in Pisa that some of your friends
have found out. They''ve printed a leaflet saying
he''s a spy."
He opened the door of the interrogation room,
and, seeing that Arthur stood motionless, staring
blankly before him, pushed him gently across the
threshold.
"Good-afternoon, Mr. Burton," said the colonel,
smiling and showing his teeth amiably. "I have
great pleasure in congratulating you. An order
for your release has arrived from Florence. Will
you kindly sign this paper?"
Arthur went up to him. "I want to know," he
said in a dull voice, "who it was that betrayed
me."
The colonel raised his eyebrows with a smile.
"Can''t you guess? Think a minute."
Arthur shook his head. The colonel put out
both hands with a gesture of polite surprise.
"Can''t guess? Really? Why, you yourself,
Mr. Burton. Who else could know your private
love affairs?"
Arthur turned away in silence. On the wall
hung a large wooden crucifix; and his eyes wandered
slowly to its face; but with no appeal in
them, only a dim wonder at this supine and patient
God that had no thunderbolt for a priest who betrayed
the confessional.
"Will you kindly sign this receipt for your
papers?" said the colonel blandly; "and then I
need not keep you any longer. I am sure you
must be in a hurry to get home; and my time is
very much taken up just now with the affairs of
that foolish young man, Bolla, who tried your
Christian forbearance so hard. I am afraid he
will get a rather heavy sentence. Good-afternoon!"
Arthur signed the receipt, took his papers, and
went out in dead silence. He followed Enrico to
the massive gate; and, without a word of farewell,
descended to the water''s edge, where a ferryman
was waiting to take him across the moat. As he
mounted the stone steps leading to the street, a
girl in a cotton dress and straw hat ran up to him
with outstretched hands.
"Arthur! Oh, I''m so glad--I''m so glad!"
He drew his hands away, shivering.
"Jim!" he said at last, in a voice that did not
seem to belong to him. "Jim!"
"I''ve been waiting here for half an hour. They
said you would come out at four. Arthur, why do
you look at me like that? Something has happened!
Arthur, what has come to you? Stop!"
He had turned away, and was walking slowly
down the street, as if he had forgotten her presence.
Thoroughly frightened at his manner, she
ran after him and caught him by the arm.
"Arthur!"
He stopped and looked up with bewildered eyes.
She slipped her arm through his, and they walked
on again for a moment in silence.
"Listen, dear," she began softly; "you mustn''t
get so upset over this wretched business. I know
it''s dreadfully hard on you, but everybody understands."
"What business?" he asked in the same dull
voice.
"I mean, about Bolla''s letter."
Arthur''s face contracted painfully at the name.
"I thought you wouldn''t have heard of it,"
Gemma went on; "but I suppose they''ve told
you. Bolla must be perfectly mad to have imagined
such a thing."
"Such a thing----?"
"You don''t know about it, then? He has
written a horrible letter, saying that you have told
about the steamers, and got him arrested. It''s
perfectly absurd, of course; everyone that knows
you sees that; it''s only the people who don''t know
you that have been upset by it. Really, that''s what
I came here for--to tell you that no one in our
group believes a word of it."
"Gemma! But it''s--it''s true!"
She shrank slowly away from him, and stood
quite still, her eyes wide and dark with horror, her
face as white as the kerchief at her neck. A great
icy wave of silence seemed to have swept round
them both, shutting them out, in a world apart,
from the life and movement of the street.
"Yes," he whispered at last; "the steamers--
I spoke of that; and I said his name--oh, my God!
my God! What shall I do?"
He came to himself suddenly, realizing her presence
and the mortal terror in her face. Yes, of
course, she must think------
"Gemma, you don''t understand!" he burst out,
moving nearer; but she recoiled with a sharp cry:
"Don''t touch me!"
Arthur seized her right hand with sudden
violence.
"Listen, for God''s sake! It was not my fault;
I----"
"Let go; let my hand go! Let go!"
The next instant she wrenched her fingers away
from his, and struck him across the cheek with her
open hand.
A kind of mist came over his eyes. For a little
while he was conscious of nothing but Gemma''s
white and desperate face, and the right hand which
she had fiercely rubbed on the skirt of her cotton
dress. Then the daylight crept back again, and he
looked round and saw that he was alone.

CHAPTER VII.
IT had long been dark when Arthur rang at the
front door of the great house in the Via Borra. He
remembered that he had been wandering about
the streets; but where, or why, or for how long, he
had no idea. Julia''s page opened the door, yawning,
and grinned significantly at the haggard,
stony face. It seemed to him a prodigious joke to
have the young master come home from jail like
a "drunk and disorderly" beggar. Arthur went
upstairs. On the first floor he met Gibbons coming
down with an air of lofty and solemn disapproval.
He tried to pass with a muttered "Good
evening"; but Gibbons was no easy person to get
past against his will.
"The gentlemen are out, sir," he said, looking
critically at Arthur''s rather neglected dress and
hair. "They have gone with the mistress to an
evening party, and will not be back till nearly
twelve."
Arthur looked at his watch; it was nine o''clock.
Oh, yes! he would have time--plenty of time------
"My mistress desired me to ask whether you
would like any supper, sir; and to say that she
hopes you will sit up for her, as she particularly
wishes to speak to you this evening."
"I don''t want anything, thank you; you can
tell her I have not gone to bed."
He went up to his room. Nothing in it had
been changed since his arrest; Montanelli''s portrait
was on the table where he had placed it, and
the crucifix stood in the alcove as before. He
paused a moment on the threshold, listening; but
the house was quite still; evidently no one was
coming to disturb him. He stepped softly into the
room and locked the door.
And so he had come to the end. There was
nothing to think or trouble about; an importunate
and useless consciousness to get rid of--and nothing
more. It seemed a stupid, aimless kind of
thing, somehow.
He had not formed any resolve to commit suicide,
nor indeed had he thought much about it;
the thing was quite obvious and inevitable. He
had even no definite idea as to what manner of
death to choose; all that mattered was to be done
with it quickly--to have it over and forget. He
had no weapon in the room, not even a pocketknife;
but that was of no consequence--a towel
would do, or a sheet torn into strips.
There was a large nail just over the window.
That would do; but it must be firm to bear his
weight. He got up on a chair to feel the nail; it
was not quite firm, and he stepped down again and
took a hammer from a drawer. He knocked in the
nail, and was about to pull a sheet off his bed,
when he suddenly remembered that he had not
said his prayers. Of course, one must pray before
dying; every Christian does that. There are even
special prayers for a departing soul.
He went into the alcove and knelt down before
the crucifix. "Almighty and merciful God----"
he began aloud; and with that broke off and said
no more. Indeed, the world was grown so dull
that there was nothing left to pray for--or against.
And then, what did Christ know about a trouble
of this kind--Christ, who had never suffered it?
He had only been betrayed, like Bolla; He had
never been tricked into betraying.
Arthur rose, crossing himself from old habit.
Approaching the table, he saw lying upon it a
letter addressed to him, in Montanelli''s handwriting.
It was in pencil:
"My Dear Boy: It is a great disappointment
to me that I cannot see you on the day of your
release; but I have been sent for to visit a dying
man. I shall not get back till late at night. Come
to me early to-morrow morning. In great haste,
"L. M."
He put down the letter with a sigh; it did seem
hard on the Padre.
How the people had laughed and gossiped in the
streets! Nothing was altered since the days when
he had been alive. Not the least little one of all
the daily trifles round him was changed because a
human soul, a living human soul, had been struck
down dead. It was all just the same as before.
The water had plashed in the fountains; the sparrows
had twittered under the eaves; just as they
had done yesterday, just as they would do to-morrow.
And as for him, he was dead--quite dead.
He sat down on the edge of the bed, crossed his
arms along the foot-rail, and rested his forehead
upon them. There was plenty of time; and his
head ached so--the very middle of the brain
seemed to ache; it was all so dull and stupid--so
utterly meaningless----
. . . . .
The front-door bell rang sharply, and he started
up in a breathless agony of terror, with both hands
at his throat. They had come back--he had sat
there dreaming, and let the precious time slip
away--and now he must see their faces and hear
their cruel tongues--their sneers and comments--
If only he had a knife------
He looked desperately round the room. His
mother''s work-basket stood in a little cupboard;
surely there would be scissors; he might sever an
artery. No; the sheet and nail were safer, if he
had time.
He dragged the counterpane from his bed, and
with frantic haste began tearing off a strip. The
sound of footsteps came up the stairs. No; the
strip was too wide; it would not tie firmly; and
there must be a noose. He worked faster as the
footsteps drew nearer; and the blood throbbed in
his temples and roared in his ears. Quicker--
quicker! Oh, God! five minutes more!
There was a knock at the door. The strip of
torn stuff dropped from his hands, and he sat quite
still, holding his breath to listen. The handle of
the door was tried; then Julia''s voice called:
"Arthur!"
He stood up, panting.
"Arthur, open the door, please; we are waiting."
He gathered up the torn counterpane, threw it
into a drawer, and hastily smoothed down the
bed.
"Arthur!" This time it was James who called,
and the door-handle was shaken impatiently.
"Are you asleep?"
Arthur looked round the room, saw that everything
was hidden, and unlocked the door.
"I should think you might at least have obeyed
my express request that you should sit up for us,
Arthur," said Julia, sweeping into the room in a
towering passion. "You appear to think it the
proper thing for us to dance attendance for half
an hour at your door----"
"Four minutes, my dear," James mildly corrected,
stepping into the room at the end of his
wife''s pink satin train. "I certainly think, Arthur,
that it would have been more--becoming if----"
"What do you want?" Arthur interrupted. He
was standing with his hand upon the door, glancing
furtively from one to the other like a trapped
animal. But James was too obtuse and Julia too
angry to notice the look.
Mr. Burton placed a chair for his wife and sat
down, carefully pulling up his new trousers at the
knees. "Julia and I," he began, "feel it to be our
duty to speak to you seriously about----"
"I can''t listen to-night; I--I''m not well. My
head aches--you must wait."
Arthur spoke in a strange, indistinct voice, with
a confused and rambling manner. James looked
round in surprise.
"Is there anything the matter with you?" he
asked anxiously, suddenly remembering that Arthur
had come from a very hotbed of infection.
"I hope you''re not sickening for anything. You
look quite feverish."
"Nonsense!" Julia interrupted sharply. "It''s
only the usual theatricals, because he''s ashamed to
face us. Come here and sit down, Arthur."
Arthur slowly crossed the room and sat down on
the bed. "Yes?" he said wearily.
Mr. Burton coughed, cleared his throat,
smoothed his already immaculate beard, and began
the carefully prepared speech over again:
"I feel it to be my duty--my painful duty--to
speak very seriously to you about your extraordinary
behaviour in connecting yourself with--a--
law-breakers and incendiaries and--a--persons of
disreputable character. I believe you to have been,
perhaps, more foolish than depraved--a----"
He paused.
"Yes?" Arthur said again.
"Now, I do not wish to be hard on you," James
went on, softening a little in spite of himself
before the weary hopelessness of Arthur''s manner.
"I am quite willing to believe that you have been
led away by bad companions, and to take into
account your youth and inexperience and the--a--
a--imprudent and--a--impulsive character which
you have, I fear, inherited from your mother."
Arthur''s eyes wandered slowly to his mother''s
portrait and back again, but he did not speak.
"But you will, I feel sure, understand," James
continued, "that it is quite impossible for me to
keep any longer in my house a person who has
brought public disgrace upon a name so highly
respected as ours."
"Yes?" Arthur repeated once more.
"Well?" said Julia sharply, closing her fan with
a snap and laying it across her knee. "Are you
going to have the goodness to say anything but
''Yes,'' Arthur?"
"You will do as you think best, of course," he
answered slowly, without moving. "It doesn''t
matter much either way."
"Doesn''t--matter?" James repeated, aghast;
and his wife rose with a laugh.
"Oh, it doesn''t matter, doesn''t it? Well, James,
I hope you understand now how much gratitude
you may expect in that quarter. I told you what
would come of showing charity to Papist adventuresses
and their----"
"Hush, hush! Never mind that, my dear!"
"It''s all nonsense, James; we''ve had more than
enough of this sentimentality! A love-child setting
himself up as a member of the family--it''s
quite time he did know what his mother was!
Why should we be saddled with the child of
a Popish priest''s amourettes? There, then--
look!"
She pulled a crumpled sheet of paper out of her
pocket and tossed it across the table to Arthur.
He opened it; the writing was in his mother''s
hand, and was dated four months before his birth.
It was a confession, addressed to her husband, and
with two signatures.
Arthur''s eyes travelled slowly down the page,
past the unsteady letters in which her name was
written, to the strong, familiar signature: "Lorenzo
Montanelli." For a moment he stared at
the writing; then, without a word, refolded the
paper and laid it down. James rose and took his
wife by the arm.
"There, Julia, that will do. Just go downstairs
now; it''s late, and I want to talk a little business
with Arthur. It won''t interest you."
She glanced up at her husband; then back at
Arthur, who was silently staring at the floor.
"He seems half stupid," she whispered.
When she had gathered up her train and left the
room, James carefully shut the door and went back
to his chair beside the table. Arthur sat as before,
perfectly motionless and silent.
"Arthur," James began in a milder tone, now
Julia was not there to hear, "I am very sorry that
this has come out. You might just as well not
have known it. However, all that''s over; and I
am pleased to see that you can behave with such
self-control. Julia is a--a little excited; ladies
often--anyhow, I don''t want to be too hard on
you."
He stopped to see what effect the kindly words
had produced; but Arthur was quite motionless.
"Of course, my dear boy," James went on after
a moment, "this is a distressing story altogether,
and the best thing we can do is to hold our tongues
about it. My father was generous enough not to
divorce your mother when she confessed her fall to
him; he only demanded that the man who had led
her astray should leave the country at once; and,
as you know, he went to China as a missionary.
For my part, I was very much against your having
anything to do with him when he came back; but
my father, just at the last, consented to let him
teach you, on con***ion that he never attempted to
see your mother. I must, in justice, acknowledge
that I believe they both observed that con***ion
faithfully to the end. It is a very deplorable
business; but----"
Arthur looked up. All the life and expression
had gone out of his face; it was like a waxen
mask.
"D-don''t you think," he said softly, with a curious
stammering hesitation on the words, "th-that--all
this--is--v-very--funny?"
"FUNNY?" James pushed his chair away from
the table, and sat staring at him, too much petrified
for anger. "Funny! Arthur, are you mad?"
Arthur suddenly threw back his head, and burst
into a frantic fit of laughing.
"Arthur!" exclaimed the shipowner, rising with
dignity, "I am amazed at your levity!"
There was no answer but peal after peal of
laughter, so loud and boisterous that even James
began to doubt whether there was not something
more the matter here than levity.
"Just like a hysterical woman," he muttered,
turning, with a contemptuous shrug of his shoulders,
to tramp impatiently up and down the room.
"Really, Arthur, you''re worse than Julia; there,
stop laughing! I can''t wait about here all night."
He might as well have asked the crucifix to come
down from its pedestal. Arthur was past caring
for remonstrances or exhortations; he only
laughed, and laughed, and laughed without end.
"This is absurd!" said James, stopping at last
in his irritated pacing to and fro. "You are evidently
too much excited to be reasonable to-night.
I can''t talk business with you if you''re going on
that way. Come to me to-morrow morning after
breakfast. And now you had better go to bed.
Good-night."
He went out, slamming the door. "Now for the
hysterics downstairs," he muttered as he tramped
noisily away. "I suppose it''ll be tears there!"
. . . . .
The frenzied laughter died on Arthur''s lips.
He snatched up the hammer from the table and
flung himself upon the crucifix.
With the crash that followed he came suddenly
to his senses, standing before the empty pedestal,
the hammer still in his hand, and the fragments of
the broken image scattered on the floor about his
feet.

He threw down the hammer. "So easy!" he
said, and turned away. "And what an idiot
I am!"
He sat down by the table, panting heavily for
breath, and rested his forehead on both hands.
Presently he rose, and, going to the wash-stand,
poured a jugful of cold water over his head and
face. He came back quite composed, and sat down
to think.
And it was for such things as these--for these
false and slavish people, these dumb and soulless
gods--that he had suffered all these tortures of
shame and passion and despair; had made a rope
to hang himself, forsooth, because one priest was
a liar. As if they were not all liars! Well, all that
was done with; he was wiser now. He need only
shake off these vermin and begin life afresh.
There were plenty of goods vessels in the docks;
it would be an easy matter to stow himself away
in one of them, and get across to Canada, Australia,
Cape Colony--anywhere. It was no matter
for the country, if only it was far enough; and, as
for the life out there, he could see, and if it did not
suit him he could try some other place.
He took out his purse. Only thirty-three paoli;
but his watch was a good one. That would help
him along a bit; and in any case it was of no
consequence--he should pull through somehow. But
they would search for him, all these people; they
would be sure to make inquiries at the docks. No;
he must put them on a false scent--make them
believe him dead; then he should be quite free--
quite free. He laughed softly to himself at the
thought of the Burtons searching for his corpse.
What a farce the whole thing was!
Taking a sheet of paper, he wrote the first words
that occurred to him:
"I believed in you as I believed in God. God
is a thing made of clay, that I can smash with a
hammer; and you have fooled me with a lie."
He folded up the paper, directed it to Montanelli,
and, taking another sheet, wrote across it:
"Look for my body in Darsena." Then he put on
his hat and went out of the room. Passing his
mother''s portrait, he looked up with a laugh
and a shrug of his shoulders. She, too, had lied
to him.
He crept softly along the corridor, and, slipping
back the door-bolts, went out on to the great,
dark, echoing marble staircase. It seemed to
yawn beneath him like a black pit as he descended.
He crossed the courtyard, treading cautiously
for fear of waking Gian Battista, who slept on the
ground floor. In the wood-cellar at the back was
a little grated window, opening on the canal and
not more than four feet from the ground. He
remembered that the rusty grating had broken away
on one side; by pushing a little he could make an
aperture wide enough to climb out by.
The grating was strong, and he grazed his
hands badly and tore the sleeve of his coat; but
that was no matter. He looked up and down the
street; there was no one in sight, and the canal
lay black and silent, an ugly trench between two
straight and slimy walls. The untried universe
might prove a dismal hole, but it could hardly be
more flat and sordid than the corner which he was
leaving behind him. There was nothing to regret;
nothing to look back upon. It had been a pestilent
little stagnant world, full of squalid lies and clumsy
cheats and foul-smelling ***ches that were not
even deep enough to drown a man.
He walked along the canal bank, and came out
upon the tiny square by the Medici palace. It was
here that Gemma had run up to him with her vivid
face, her outstretched hands. Here was the little
flight of wet stone steps leading down to the moat;
and there the fortress scowling across the strip of
dirty water. He had never noticed before how
squat and mean it looked.
Passing through the narrow streets he reached
the Darsena shipping-basin, where he took off his
hat and flung it into the water. It would be
found, of course, when they dragged for his body.
Then he walked on along the water''s edge, considering
perplexedly what to do next. He must
contrive to hide on some ship; but it was a difficult
thing to do. His only chance would be to
get on to the huge old Medici breakwater and
walk along to the further end of it. There was a
low-class tavern on the point; probably he should
find some sailor there who could be bribed.
But the dock gates were closed. How should
he get past them, and past the customs officials?
His stock of money would not furnish the high
bribe that they would demand for letting him
through at night and without a passport. Besides
they might recognize him.
As he passed the bronze statue of the "Four
Moors," a man''s figure emerged from an old house
on the opposite side of the shipping basin and
approached the bridge. Arthur slipped at once
into the deep shadow behind the group of statuary
and crouched down in the darkness, peeping
cautiously round the corner of the pedestal.
It was a soft spring night, warm and starlit.
The water lapped against the stone walls of the
basin and swirled in gentle eddies round the steps
with a sound as of low laughter. Somewhere near
a chain creaked, swinging slowly to and fro. A
huge iron crane towered up, tall and melancholy
in the dimness. Black on a shimmering expanse of
starry sky and pearly cloud-wreaths, the figures
of the fettered, struggling slaves stood out in
vain and vehement protest against a merciless
doom.
The man approached unsteadily along the water
side, shouting an English street song. He was
evidently a sailor returning from a carouse at some
tavern. No one else was within sight. As he
drew near, Arthur stood up and stepped into the
middle of the roadway. The sailor broke off in
his song with an oath, and stopped short.
"I want to speak to you," Arthur said in
Italian. "Do you understand me?"
The man shook his head. "It''s no use talking
that patter to me," he said; then, plunging into
bad French, asked sullenly: "What do you want?
Why can''t you let me pass?"
"Just come out of the light here a minute; I
want to speak to you."
"Ah! wouldn''t you like it? Out of the light!
Got a knife anywhere about you?"
"No, no, man! Can''t you see I only want your
help? I''ll pay you for it?"
"Eh? What? And dressed like a swell,
too------" The sailor had relapsed into English.
He now moved into the shadow and leaned against
the railing of the pedestal.
"Well," he said, returning to his atrocious
French; "and what is it you want?"
"I want to get away from here----"
"Aha! Stowaway! Want me to hide you?
Been up to something, I suppose. Stuck a knife
into somebody, eh? Just like these foreigners!
And where might you be wanting to go? Not
to the police station, I fancy?"
He laughed in his tipsy way, and winked one eye.
"What vessel do you belong to?"
"Carlotta--Leghorn to Buenos Ayres; shipping
oil one way and hides the other. She''s over
there"--pointing in the direction of the breakwater
--"beastly old hulk!"
"Buenos Ayres--yes! Can you hide me anywhere on board?"
"How much can you give?"
"Not very much; I have only a few paoli."
"No. Can''t do it under fifty--and cheap at
that, too--a swell like you."
"What do you mean by a swell? If you like my
clothes you may change with me, but I can''t give
you more money than I have got."
"You have a watch there. Hand it over."
Arthur took out a lady''s gold watch, delicately
chased and enamelled, with the initials "G. B." on
the back. It had been his mother''s--but what
did that matter now?
"Ah!" remarked the sailor with a quick glance
at it. "Stolen, of course! Let me look!"
Arthur drew his hand away. "No," he said.
"I will give you the watch when we are on board;
not before."
"You''re not such a fool as you look, after all!
I''ll bet it''s your first scrape, though, eh?"
"That is my business. Ah! there comes the
watchman."
They crouched down behind the group of statuary
and waited till the watchman had passed.
Then the sailor rose, and, telling Arthur to follow
him, walked on, laughing foolishly to himself.
Arthur followed in silence.
The sailor led him back to the little irregular
square by the Medici palace; and, stopping in a
dark corner, mumbled in what was intended for a
cautious whisper:
"Wait here; those soldier fellows will see you
if you come further."
"What are you going to do?"
"Get you some clothes. I''m not going to take
you on board with that bloody coatsleeve."
Arthur glanced down at the sleeve which had
been torn by the window grating. A little blood
from the grazed hand had fallen upon it. Evidently
the man thought him a murderer. Well,
it was of no consequence what people thought.
After some time the sailor came back, triumphant,
with a bundle under his arm.
"Change," he whispered; "and make haste
about it. I must get back, and that old Jew has
kept me bargaining and haggling for half an
hour."
Arthur obeyed, shrinking with instinctive disgust
at the first touch of second-hand clothes.
Fortunately these, though rough and coarse, were
fairly clean. When he stepped into the light in
his new attire, the sailor looked at him with tipsy
solemnity and gravely nodded his approval.
"You''ll do," he said. "This way, and don''t
make a noise." Arthur, carrying his discarded
clothes, followed him through a labyrinth of winding
canals and dark narrow alleys; the mediaeval
slum quarter which the people of Leghorn call
"New Venice." Here and there a gloomy old
palace, solitary among the squalid houses and
filthy courts, stood between two noisome ***ches,
with a forlorn air of trying to preserve its ancient
dignity and yet of knowing the effort to be a hopeless
one. Some of the alleys, he knew, were
notorious dens of thieves, cut-throats, and smugglers;
others were merely wretched and poverty-stricken.
Beside one of the little bridges the sailor
stopped, and, looking round to see that they were
not observed, descended a flight of stone steps to
a narrow landing stage. Under the bridge was a
dirty, crazy old boat. Sharply ordering Arthur
to jump in and lie down, he seated himself in the
boat and began rowing towards the harbour''s
mouth. Arthur lay still on the wet and leaky
planks, hidden by the clothes which the man had
thrown over him, and peeping out from under
them at the familiar streets and houses.
Presently they passed under a bridge and
entered that part of the canal which forms a moat
for the fortress. The massive walls rose out of
the water, broad at the base and narrowing upward
to the frowning turrets. How strong, how
threatening they had seemed to him a few hours
ago! And now----
He laughed softly as he lay in the bottom of the
boat.
"Hold your noise," the sailor whispered, "and
keep your head covered! We''re close to the
custom house."
Arthur drew the clothes over his head. A few
yards further on the boat stopped before a row of
masts chained together, which lay across the surface
of the canal, blocking the narrow waterway
between the custom house and the fortress wall.
A sleepy official came out yawning and bent over
the water''s edge with a lantern in his hand.
"Passports, please."
The sailor handed up his official papers.
Arthur, half stifled under the clothes, held his
breath, listening.
"A nice time of night to come back to your
ship!" grumbled the customs official. "Been out
on the spree, I suppose. What''s in your boat?"
"Old clothes. Got them cheap." He held up
the waistcoat for inspection. The official, lowering
his lantern, bent over, straining his eyes to see.
"It''s all right, I suppose. You can pass."
He lifted the barrier and the boat moved slowly
out into the dark, heaving water. At a little distance
Arthur sat up and threw off the clothes.
"Here she is," the sailor whispered, after rowing
for some time in silence. "Keep close behind me
and hold your tongue."
He clambered up the side of a huge black monster,
swearing under his breath at the clumsiness
of the landsman, though Arthur''s natural agility
rendered him less awkward than most people
would have been in his place. Once safely on
board, they crept cautiously between dark masses
of rigging and machinery, and came at last to a
hatchway, which the sailor softly raised.
"Down here!" he whispered. "I''ll be back in
a minute."
The hold was not only damp and dark, but intolerably
foul. At first Arthur instinctively drew
back, half choked by the stench of raw hides and
rancid oil. Then he remembered the "punishment
cell," and descended the ladder, shrugging
his shoulders. Life is pretty much the same
everywhere, it seemed; ugly, putrid, infested with
vermin, full of shameful secrets and dark corners.
Still, life is life, and he must make the best of it.
In a few minutes the sailor came back with
something in his hands which Arthur could not
distinctly see for the darkness.
"Now, give me the watch and money. Make
haste!"
Taking advantage of the darkness, Arthur succeeded
in keeping back a few coins.
"You must get me something to eat," he said;
"I am half starved."
"I''ve brought it. Here you are." The sailor
handed him a pitcher, some hard biscuit, and a
piece of salt pork. "Now mind, you must hide
in this empty barrel, here, when the customs officers
come to examine to-morrow morning. Keep
as still as a mouse till we''re right out at sea. I''ll
let you know when to come out. And won''t you
just catch it when the captain sees you--that''s
all! Got the drink safe? Good-night!"
The hatchway closed, and Arthur, setting the
precious "drink" in a safe place, climbed on to an
oil barrel to eat his pork and biscuit. Then he
curled himself up on the dirty floor; and, for the
first time since his babyhood, settled himself to
sleep without a prayer. The rats scurried round
him in the darkness; but neither their persistent
noise nor the swaying of the ship, nor the nauseating
stench of oil, nor the prospect of to-morrow''s
sea-sickness, could keep him awake. He
cared no more for them all than for the broken and
dishonoured idols that only yesterday had been
the gods of his adoration.

PART II.
THIRTEEN YEARS LATER.
CHAPTER I.
ONE evening in July, 1846, a few acquaintances
met at Professor Fabrizi''s house in Florence to
discuss plans for future political work.
Several of them belonged to the Mazzinian
party and would have been satisfied with nothing
less than a democratic Republic and a United
Italy. Others were Constitutional Monarchists
and Liberals of various shades. On one point,
however, they were all agreed; that of dissatisfaction
with the Tuscan censorship; and the popular
professor had called the meeting in the hope that,
on this one subject at least, the representatives
of the dissentient parties would be able to get
through an hour''s discussion without quarrelling.
Only a fortnight had elapsed since the famous
amnesty which Pius IX. had granted, on his accession,
to political offenders in the Papal States; but
the wave of liberal enthusiasm caused by it was
already spreading over Italy. In Tuscany even
the government appeared to have been affected
by the astounding event. It had occurred to
Fabrizi and a few other leading Florentines that
this was a propitious moment for a bold effort to
reform the press-laws.
"Of course," the dramatist Lega had said, when
the subject was first broached to him; "it would
be impossible to start a newspaper till we can
get the press-law changed; we should not bring
out the first number. But we may be able to run
some pamphlets through the censorship already;
and the sooner we begin the sooner we shall get
the law changed."
He was now explaining in Fabrizi''s library his
theory of the line which should be taken by liberal
writers at the moment.
"There is no doubt," interposed one of the
company, a gray-haired barrister with a rather
drawling manner of speech, "that in some way
we must take advantage of the moment. We
shall not see such a favourable one again for bringing
forward serious reforms. But I doubt the
pamphlets doing any good. They will only irritate
and frighten the government instead of winning
it over to our side, which is what we really
want to do. If once the authorities begin to think
of us as dangerous agitators our chance of getting
their help is gone."
"Then what would you have us do?"
"Petition."
"To the Grand Duke?"
"Yes; for an augmentation of the liberty of the
press."
A keen-looking, dark man sitting by the window
turned his head round with a laugh.
"You''ll get a lot out of petitioning!" he said.
"I should have thought the result of the Renzi
case was enough to cure anybody of going to work
that way."
"My dear sir, I am as much grieved as you are
that we did not succeed in preventing the extra***ion
of Renzi. But really--I do not wish to
hurt the sensibilities of anyone, but I cannot help
thinking that our failure in that case was largely
due to the impatience and vehemence of some
persons among our number. I should certainly
hesitate----"
"As every Piedmontese always does," the dark
man interrupted sharply. "I don''t know where
the vehemence and impatience lay, unless you
found them in the strings of meek petitions we
sent in. That may be vehemence for Tuscany or
Piedmont, but we should not call it particularly
vehement in Naples."
"Fortunately," remarked the Piedmontese,
"Neapolitan vehemence is peculiar to Naples."
"There, there, gentlemen, that will do!" the
professor put in. "Neapolitan customs are very
good things in their way and Piedmontese customs
in theirs; but just now we are in Tuscany,
and the Tuscan custom is to stick to the
matter in hand. Grassini votes for petitions and
Galli against them. What do you think, Dr.
Riccardo?"
"I see no harm in petitions, and if Grassini gets
one up I''ll sign it with all the pleasure in life.
But I don''t think mere petitioning and nothing
else will accomplish much. Why can''t we have
both petitions and pamphlets?"
"Simply because the pamphlets will put the
government into a state of mind in which it won''t
grant the petitions," said Grassini.
"It won''t do that anyhow." The Neapolitan
rose and came across to the table. "Gentlemen,
you''re on the wrong tack. Conciliating the government
will do no good. What we must do is to
rouse the people."
"That''s easier said than done; how are you
going to start?"
"Fancy asking Galli that! Of course he''d start
by knocking the censor on the head."
"No, indeed, I shouldn''t," said Galli stoutly.
"You always think if a man comes from down
south he must believe in no argument but cold
steel."
"Well, what do you propose, then? Sh! Attention,
gentlemen! Galli has a proposal to make."
The whole company, which had broken up into
little knots of twos and threes, carrying on separate
discussions, collected round the table to
listen. Galli raised his hands in expostulation.
"No, gentlemen, it is not a proposal; it is merely
a suggestion. It appears to me that there is a
great practical danger in all this rejoicing over
the new Pope. People seem to think that, because
he has struck out a new line and granted
this amnesty, we have only to throw ourselves--
all of us, the whole of Italy--into his arms and he
will carry us to the promised land. Now, I am
second to no one in admiration of the Pope''s
behaviour; the amnesty was a splendid action."
"I am sure His Holiness ought to feel flattered----"
Grassini began contemptuously.
"There, Grassini, do let the man speak!"
Riccardo interrupted in his turn. "It''s a most
extraordinary thing that you two never can
keep from sparring like a cat and dog. Get on,
Galli!"
"What I wanted to say is this," continued the
Neapolitan. "The Holy Father, undoubtedly, is
acting with the best intentions; but how far he
will succeed in carrying his reforms is another
question. Just now it''s smooth enough and, of
course, the reactionists all over Italy will lie quiet
for a month or two till the excitement about the
amnesty blows over; but they are not likely to
let the power be taken out of their hands without
a fight, and my own belief is that before the winter
is half over we shall have Jesuits and Gregorians
and Sanfedists and all the rest of the crew about
our ears, plotting and intriguing, and poisoning
off everybody they can''t bribe."
"That''s likely enough."
"Very well, then; shall we wait here, meekly
sending in petitions, till Lambruschini and his
pack have persuaded the Grand Duke to put us
bodily under Jesuit rule, with perhaps a few Austrian
hussars to patrol the streets and keep us
in order; or shall we forestall them and take advantage
of their momentary discomfiture to strike
the first blow?"
"Tell us first what blow you propose?"
"I would suggest that we start an organized
propaganda and agitation against the Jesuits."
"A pamphleteering declaration of war, in
fact?"
"Yes; exposing their intrigues, ferreting out
their secrets, and calling upon the people to make
common cause against them."
"But there are no Jesuits here to expose."
"Aren''t there? Wait three months and see
how many we shall have. It''ll be too late to keep
them out then."
"But really to rouse the town against the
Jesuits one must speak plainly; and if you do that
how will you evade the censorship?"
"I wouldn''t evade it; I would defy it."
"You would print the pamphlets anonymously?
That''s all very well, but the fact is, we have all
seen enough of the clandestine press to know----"
"I did not mean that. I would print the pamphlets
openly, with our names and addresses, and
let them prosecute us if they dare."
"The project is a perfectly mad one," Grassini
exclaimed. "It is simply putting one''s head into
the lion''s mouth out of sheer wantonness."
"Oh, you needn''t be afraid!" Galli cut in
sharply; "we shouldn''t ask you to go to prison
for our pamphlets."
"Hold your tongue, Galli!" said Riccardo.
"It''s not a question of being afraid; we''re all as
ready as you are to go to prison if there''s any good
to be got by it, but it is childish to run into danger
for nothing. For my part, I have an amendment
to the proposal *****ggest."
"Well, what is it?"
"I think we might contrive, with care, to fight
the Jesuits without coming into collision with the
censorship."
"I don''t see how you are going to manage it."
"I think that it is possible to clothe what one
has to say in so roundabout a form that----"
"That the censorship won''t understand it?
And then you''ll expect every poor artisan and
labourer to find out the meaning by the light of
the ignorance and stupi***y that are in him! That
doesn''t sound very practicable."
"Martini, what do you think?" asked the professor,
turning to a broad-shouldered man with
a great brown beard, who was sitting beside him.
"I think that I will reserve my opinion till I
have more facts to go upon. It''s a question of
trying experiments and seeing what comes of them."
"And you, Sacconi?"
"I should like to hear what Signora Bolla has
to say. Her suggestions are always valuable."
Everyone turned to the only woman in the
room, who had been sitting on the sofa, resting
her chin on one hand and listening in silence to
the discussion. She had deep, serious black eyes,
but as she raised them now there was an unmistakable
gleam of amusement in them.
"I am afraid," she said; "that I disagree with
everybody."
"You always do, and the worst of it is that you
are always right," Riccardo put in.
"I think it is quite true that we must fight the
Jesuits somehow; and if we can''t do it with one
weapon we must with another. But mere defiance
is a feeble weapon and evasion a cumbersome
one. As for petitioning, that is a child''s toy."
"I hope, signora," Grassini interposed, with
a solemn face; "that you are not suggesting such
methods as--assassination?"
Martini tugged at his big moustache and Galli
sniggered outright. Even the grave young
woman could not repress a smile.
"Believe me," she said, "that if I were ferocious
enough to think of such things I should not be
childish enough to talk about them. But the
deadliest weapon I know is ridicule. If you can
once succeed in rendering the Jesuits ludicrous,
in making people laugh at them and their claims,
you have conquered them without bloodshed."
"I believe you are right, as far as that goes,"
Fabrizi said; "but I don''t see how you are going
to carry the thing through."
"Why should we not be able to carry it
through?" asked Martini. "A satirical thing has
a better chance of getting over the censorship
difficulty than a serious one; and, if it must be
cloaked, the average reader is more likely to find
out the double meaning of an apparently silly joke
than of a scientific or economic treatise."