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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Gadfly, by E. L. Voynich
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Gadfly
+
+Author: E. L. Voynich
+
+Posting Date: February 1, 2009 [EBook #3431]
+Release Date: September, 2002
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GADFLY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Judy Boss
+
+
+
+
+
+THE GADFLY
+
+By E. L. Voynich
+
+
+"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.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE GADFLY
+
+
+
+
+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 cockchafer 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 condition 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 Mediterranean, 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
+expeditions. 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 additional 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 erudition."
+
+"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 meditation 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 meditations 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 meditation.
+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
+meditation; 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 meditation, 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 meditate 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 meditation; 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 condition
+that he never attempted to see your mother. I must, in justice,
+acknowledge that I believe they both observed that condition 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 ditches 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 ditches, 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 extradition 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 to suggest."
+
+"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 stupidity 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."
+
+"Then is your suggestion, signora, that we should issue satirical
+pamphlets, or attempt to run a comic paper? That last, I am sure, the
+censorship would never allow."
+
+"I don't mean exactly either. I believe a series of small satirical
+leaflets, in verse or prose, to be sold cheap or distributed free about
+the streets, would be very useful. If we could find a clever artist
+who would enter into the spirit of the thing, we might have them
+illustrated."
+
+"It's a capital idea, if only one could carry it out; but if the thing
+is to be done at all it must be well done. We should want a first-class
+satirist; and where are we to get him?"
+
+"You see," added Lega, "most of us are serious writers; and, with
+all respect to the company, I am afraid that a general attempt to be
+humorous would present the spectacle of an elephant trying to dance the
+tarantella."
+
+"I never suggested that we should all rush into work for which we
+are unfitted. My idea was that we should try to find a really gifted
+satirist--there must be one to be got somewhere in Italy, surely--and
+offer to provide the necessary funds. Of course we should have to know
+something of the man and make sure that he would work on lines with
+which we could agree."
+
+"But where are you going to find him? I can count up the satirists
+of any real talent on the fingers of one hand; and none of them are
+available. Giusti wouldn't accept; he is fully occupied as it is. There
+are one or two good men in Lombardy, but they write only in the Milanese
+dialect----"
+
+"And moreover," said Grassini, "the Tuscan people can be influenced in
+better ways than this. I am sure that it would be felt as, to say the
+least, a want of political savoir faire if we were to treat this solemn
+question of civil and religious liberty as a subject for trifling.
+Florence is not a mere wilderness of factories and money-getting like
+London, nor a haunt of idle luxury like Paris. It is a city with a great
+history------"
+
+"So was Athens," she interrupted, smiling; "but it was 'rather sluggish
+from its size and needed a gadfly to rouse it'----"
+
+Riccardo struck his hand upon the table. "Why, we never thought of the
+Gadfly! The very man!"
+
+"Who is that?"
+
+"The Gadfly--Felice Rivarez. Don't you remember him? One of Muratori's
+band that came down from the Apennines three years ago?"
+
+"Oh, you knew that set, didn't you? I remember your travelling with them
+when they went on to Paris."
+
+"Yes; I went as far as Leghorn to see Rivarez off for Marseilles. He
+wouldn't stop in Tuscany; he said there was nothing left to do but
+laugh, once the insurrection had failed, and so he had better go to
+Paris. No doubt he agreed with Signor Grassini that Tuscany is the wrong
+place to laugh in. But I am nearly sure he would come back if we asked
+him, now that there is a chance of doing something in Italy."
+
+"What name did you say?"
+
+"Rivarez. He's a Brazilian, I think. At any rate, I know he has lived
+out there. He is one of the wittiest men I ever came across. Heaven
+knows we had nothing to be merry over, that week in Leghorn; it was
+enough to break one's heart to look at poor Lambertini; but there was
+no keeping one's countenance when Rivarez was in the room; it was one
+perpetual fire of absurdities. He had a nasty sabre-cut across the face,
+too; I remember sewing it up. He's an odd creature; but I believe he
+and his nonsense kept some of those poor lads from breaking down
+altogether."
+
+"Is that the man who writes political skits in the French papers under
+the name of 'Le Taon'?"
+
+"Yes; short paragraphs mostly, and comic feuilletons. The smugglers up
+in the Apennines called him 'the Gadfly' because of his tongue; and he
+took the nickname to sign his work with."
+
+"I know something about this gentleman," said Grassini, breaking in upon
+the conversation in his slow and stately manner; "and I cannot say that
+what I have heard is much to his credit. He undoubtedly possesses a
+certain showy, superficial cleverness, though I think his abilities have
+been exaggerated; and possibly he is not lacking in physical courage;
+but his reputation in Paris and Vienna is, I believe, very far from
+spotless. He appears to be a gentleman of--a--a--many adventures and
+unknown antecedents. It is said that he was picked up out of charity by
+Duprez's expedition somewhere in the wilds of tropical South America,
+in a state of inconceivable savagery and degradation. I believe he has
+never satisfactorily explained how he came to be in such a condition. As
+for the rising in the Apennines, I fear it is no secret that persons of
+all characters took part in that unfortunate affair. The men who were
+executed in Bologna are known to have been nothing but common
+malefactors; and the character of many who escaped will hardly bear
+description. Without doubt, SOME of the participators were men of high
+character----"
+
+"Some of them were the intimate friends of several persons in this
+room!" Riccardo interrupted, with an angry ring in his voice. "It's all
+very well to be particular and exclusive, Grassini; but these 'common
+malefactors' died for their belief, which is more than you or I have
+done as yet."
+
+"And another time when people tell you the stale gossip of Paris,"
+added Galli, "you can tell them from me that they are mistaken about
+the Duprez expedition. I know Duprez's adjutant, Martel, personally, and
+have heard the whole story from him. It's true that they found Rivarez
+stranded out there. He had been taken prisoner in the war, fighting
+for the Argentine Republic, and had escaped. He was wandering about the
+country in various disguises, trying to get back to Buenos Ayres. But
+the story of their taking him on out of charity is a pure fabrication.
+Their interpreter had fallen ill and been obliged to turn back; and not
+one of the Frenchmen could speak the native languages; so they offered
+him the post, and he spent the whole three years with them, exploring
+the tributaries of the Amazon. Martel told me he believed they never
+would have got through the expedition at all if it had not been for
+Rivarez."
+
+"Whatever he may be," said Fabrizi; "there must be something remarkable
+about a man who could lay his 'come hither' on two old campaigners like
+Martel and Duprez as he seems to have done. What do you think, signora?"
+
+"I know nothing about the matter; I was in England when the fugitives
+passed through Tuscany. But I should think that if the companions who
+were with a man on a three years' expedition in savage countries, and
+the comrades who were with him through an insurrection, think well of
+him, that is recommendation enough to counterbalance a good deal of
+boulevard gossip."
+
+"There is no question about the opinion his comrades had of him,"
+said Riccardo. "From Muratori and Zambeccari down to the roughest
+mountaineers they were all devoted to him. Moreover, he is a personal
+friend of Orsini. It's quite true, on the other hand, that there are
+endless cock-and-bull stories of a not very pleasant kind going about
+concerning him in Paris; but if a man doesn't want to make enemies he
+shouldn't become a political satirist."
+
+"I'm not quite sure," interposed Lega; "but it seems to me that I
+saw him once when the refugees were here. Was he not hunchbacked, or
+crooked, or something of that kind?"
+
+The professor had opened a drawer in his writing-table and was turning
+over a heap of papers. "I think I have his police description somewhere
+here," he said. "You remember when they escaped and hid in the mountain
+passes their personal appearance was posted up everywhere, and that
+Cardinal--what's the scoundrel's name?--Spinola, offered a reward for
+their heads."
+
+"There was a splendid story about Rivarez and that police paper, by the
+way. He put on a soldier's old uniform and tramped across country as a
+carabineer wounded in the discharge of his duty and trying to find his
+company. He actually got Spinola's search-party to give him a lift,
+and rode the whole day in one of their waggons, telling them harrowing
+stories of how he had been taken captive by the rebels and dragged off
+into their haunts in the mountains, and of the fearful tortures that he
+had suffered at their hands. They showed him the description paper, and
+he told them all the rubbish he could think of about 'the fiend they
+call the Gadfly.' Then at night, when they were asleep, he poured a
+bucketful of water into their powder and decamped, with his pockets full
+of provisions and ammunition------"
+
+"Ah, here's the paper," Fabrizi broke in: "'Felice Rivarez, called: The
+Gadfly. Age, about 30; birthplace and parentage, unknown, probably South
+American; profession, journalist. Short; black hair; black beard; dark
+skin; eyes, blue; forehead, broad and square; nose, mouth, chin------'
+Yes, here it is: 'Special marks: right foot lame; left arm twisted; two
+ringers missing on left hand; recent sabre-cut across face; stammers.'
+Then there's a note put: 'Very expert shot; care should be taken in
+arresting.'"
+
+"It's an extraordinary thing that he can have managed to deceive the
+search-party with such a formidable list of identification marks."
+
+"It was nothing but sheer audacity that carried him through, of course.
+If it had once occurred to them to suspect him he would have been lost.
+But the air of confiding innocence that he can put on when he chooses
+would bring a man through anything. Well, gentlemen, what do you think
+of the proposal? Rivarez seems to be pretty well known to several of the
+company. Shall we suggest to him that we should be glad of his help here
+or not?"
+
+"I think," said Fabrizi, "that he might be sounded upon the subject,
+just to find out whether he would be inclined to think of the plan."
+
+"Oh, he'll be inclined, you may be sure, once it's a case of fighting
+the Jesuits; he is the most savage anti-clerical I ever met; in fact,
+he's rather rabid on the point."
+
+"Then will you write, Riccardo?"
+
+"Certainly. Let me see, where is he now? In Switzerland, I think. He's
+the most restless being; always flitting about. But as for the pamphlet
+question----"
+
+They plunged into a long and animated discussion. When at last the
+company began to disperse Martini went up to the quiet young woman.
+
+"I will see you home, Gemma."
+
+"Thanks; I want to have a business talk with you."
+
+"Anything wrong with the addresses?" he asked softly.
+
+"Nothing serious; but I think it is time to make a few alterations. Two
+letters have been stopped in the post this week. They were both quite
+unimportant, and it may have been accidental; but we cannot afford to
+have any risks. If once the police have begun to suspect any of our
+addresses, they must be changed immediately."
+
+"I will come in about that to-morrow. I am not going to talk business
+with you to-night; you look tired."
+
+"I am not tired."
+
+"Then you are depressed again."
+
+"Oh, no; not particularly."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+"Is the mistress in, Katie?"
+
+"Yes, sir; she is dressing. If you'll just step into the parlour she
+will be down in a few minutes."
+
+Katie ushered the visitor in with the cheerful friendliness of a true
+Devonshire girl. Martini was a special favourite of hers. He spoke
+English, like a foreigner, of course, but still quite respectably; and
+he never sat discussing politics at the top of his voice till one in
+the morning, when the mistress was tired, as some visitors had a way of
+doing. Moreover, he had come to Devonshire to help the mistress in her
+trouble, when her baby was dead and her husband dying there; and ever
+since that time the big, awkward, silent man had been to Katie as much
+"one of the family" as was the lazy black cat which now ensconced itself
+upon his knee. Pasht, for his part, regarded Martini as a useful piece
+of household furniture. This visitor never trod upon his tail, or
+puffed tobacco smoke into his eyes, or in any way obtruded upon his
+consciousness an aggressive biped personality. He behaved as a mere man
+should: provided a comfortable knee to lie upon and purr, and at
+table never forgot that to look on while human beings eat fish is not
+interesting for a cat. The friendship between them was of old date.
+Once, when Pasht was a kitten and his mistress too ill to think about
+him, he had come from England under Martini's care, tucked away in a
+basket. Since then, long experience had convinced him that this clumsy
+human bear was no fair-weather friend.
+
+"How snug you look, you two!" said Gemma, coming into the room. "One
+would think you had settled yourselves for the evening."
+
+Martini carefully lifted the cat off his knee. "I came early," he said,
+"in the hope that you will give me some tea before we start. There will
+probably be a frightful crush, and Grassini won't give us any sensible
+supper--they never do in those fashionable houses."
+
+"Come now!" she said, laughing; "that's as bad as Galli! Poor Grassini
+has quite enough sins of his own to answer for without having his wife's
+imperfect housekeeping visited upon his head. As for the tea, it will be
+ready in a minute. Katie has been making some Devonshire cakes specially
+for you."
+
+"Katie is a good soul, isn't she, Pasht? By the way, so are you to have
+put on that pretty dress. I was afraid you would forget."
+
+"I promised you I would wear it, though it is rather warm for a hot
+evening like this."
+
+"It will be much cooler up at Fiesole; and nothing else ever suits you
+so well as white cashmere. I have brought you some flowers to wear with
+it."
+
+"Oh, those lovely cluster roses; I am so fond of them! But they had much
+better go into water. I hate to wear flowers."
+
+"Now that's one of your superstitious fancies."
+
+"No, it isn't; only I think they must get so bored, spending all the
+evening pinned to such a dull companion."
+
+"I am afraid we shall all be bored to-night. The conversazione will be
+dull beyond endurance."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Partly because everything Grassini touches becomes as dull as himself."
+
+"Now don't be spiteful. It is not fair when we are going to be a man's
+guests."
+
+"You are always right, Madonna. Well then, it will be dull because half
+the interesting people are not coming."
+
+"How is that?"
+
+"I don't know. Out of town, or ill, or something. Anyway, there will
+be two or three ambassadors and some learned Germans, and the usual
+nondescript crowd of tourists and Russian princes and literary club
+people, and a few French officers; nobody else that I know of--except,
+of course, the new satirist, who is to be the attraction of the
+evening."
+
+"The new satirist? What, Rivarez? But I thought Grassini disapproved of
+him so strongly."
+
+"Yes; but once the man is here and is sure to be talked about, of course
+Grassini wants his house to be the first place where the new lion will
+be on show. You may be sure Rivarez has heard nothing of Grassini's
+disapproval. He may have guessed it, though; he's sharp enough."
+
+"I did not even know he had come."
+
+"He only arrived yesterday. Here comes the tea. No, don't get up; let me
+fetch the kettle."
+
+He was never so happy as in this little study. Gemma's friendship, her
+grave unconsciousness of the charm she exercised over him, her frank and
+simple comradeship were the brightest things for him in a life that
+was none too bright; and whenever he began to feel more than usually
+depressed he would come in here after business hours and sit with her,
+generally in silence, watching her as she bent over her needlework or
+poured out tea. She never questioned him about his troubles or expressed
+any sympathy in words; but he always went away stronger and calmer,
+feeling, as he put it to himself, that he could "trudge through another
+fortnight quite respectably." She possessed, without knowing it, the
+rare gift of consolation; and when, two years ago, his dearest friends
+had been betrayed in Calabria and shot down like wolves, her steady
+faith had been perhaps the thing which had saved him from despair.
+
+On Sunday mornings he sometimes came in to "talk business," that
+expression standing for anything connected with the practical work of
+the Mazzinian party, of which they both were active and devoted members.
+She was quite a different creature then; keen, cool, and logical,
+perfectly accurate and perfectly neutral. Those who saw her only at her
+political work regarded her as a trained and disciplined conspirator,
+trustworthy, courageous, in every way a valuable member of the
+party, but somehow lacking in life and individuality. "She's a born
+conspirator, worth any dozen of us; and she is nothing more," Galli had
+said of her. The "Madonna Gemma" whom Martini knew was very difficult to
+get at.
+
+"Well, and what is your 'new satirist' like?" she asked, glancing back
+over her shoulder as she opened the sideboard. "There, Cesare, there
+are barley-sugar and candied angelica for you. I wonder, by the way, why
+revolutionary men are always so fond of sweets."
+
+"Other men are, too, only they think it beneath their dignity to confess
+it. The new satirist? Oh, the kind of man that ordinary women will
+rave over and you will dislike. A sort of professional dealer in sharp
+speeches, that goes about the world with a lackadaisical manner and a
+handsome ballet-girl dangling on to his coat-tails."
+
+"Do you mean that there is really a ballet-girl, or simply that you feel
+cross and want to imitate the sharp speeches?"
+
+"The Lord defend me! No; the ballet-girl is real enough and handsome
+enough, too, for those who like shrewish beauty. Personally, I don't.
+She's a Hungarian gipsy, or something of that kind, so Riccardo says;
+from some provincial theatre in Galicia. He seems to be rather a cool
+hand; he has been introducing the girl to people just as if she were his
+maiden aunt."
+
+"Well, that's only fair if he has taken her away from her home."
+
+"You may look at things that way, dear Madonna, but society won't. I
+think most people will very much resent being introduced to a woman whom
+they know to be his mistress."
+
+"How can they know it unless he tells them so?"
+
+"It's plain enough; you'll see if you meet her. But I should think even
+he would not have the audacity to bring her to the Grassinis'."
+
+"They wouldn't receive her. Signora Grassini is not the woman to do
+unconventional things of that kind. But I wanted to hear about Signor
+Rivarez as a satirist, not as a man. Fabrizi told me he had been written
+to and had consented to come and take up the campaign against the
+Jesuits; and that is the last I have heard. There has been such a rush
+of work this week."
+
+"I don't know that I can tell you much more. There doesn't seem to have
+been any difficulty over the money question, as we feared there would
+be. He's well off, it appears, and willing to work for nothing."
+
+"Has he a private fortune, then?" "Apparently he has; though it seems
+rather odd--you heard that night at Fabrizi's about the state the Duprez
+expedition found him in. But he has got shares in mines somewhere out in
+Brazil; and then he has been immensely successful as a feuilleton writer
+in Paris and Vienna and London. He seems to have half a dozen languages
+at his finger-tips; and there's nothing to prevent his keeping up his
+newspaper connections from here. Slanging the Jesuits won't take all his
+time."
+
+"That's true, of course. It's time to start, Cesare. Yes, I will wear
+the roses. Wait just a minute."
+
+She ran upstairs, and came back with the roses in the bosom of her
+dress, and a long scarf of black Spanish lace thrown over her head.
+Martini surveyed her with artistic approval.
+
+"You look like a queen, Madonna mia; like the great and wise Queen of
+Sheba."
+
+"What an unkind speech!" she retorted, laughing; "when you know how hard
+I've been trying to mould myself into the image of the typical society
+lady! Who wants a conspirator to look like the Queen of Sheba? That's
+not the way to keep clear of spies."
+
+"You'll never be able to personate the stupid society woman if you try
+for ever. But it doesn't matter, after all; you're too fair to look upon
+for spies to guess your opinions, even though you can't simper and hide
+behind your fan like Signora Grassini."
+
+"Now Cesare, let that poor woman alone! There, take some more
+barley-sugar to sweeten your temper. Are you ready? Then we had better
+start."
+
+Martini had been quite right in saying that the conversazione would be
+both crowded and dull. The literary men talked polite small-talk and
+looked hopelessly bored, while the "nondescript crowd of tourists and
+Russian princes" fluttered up and down the rooms, asking each other
+who were the various celebrities and trying to carry on intellectual
+conversation. Grassini was receiving his guests with a manner as
+carefully polished as his boots; but his cold face lighted up at the
+sight of Gemma. He did not really like her and indeed was secretly a
+little afraid of her; but he realized that without her his drawing room
+would lack a great attraction. He had risen high in his profession, and
+now that he was rich and well known his chief ambition was to make of
+his house a centre of liberal and intellectual society. He was painfully
+conscious that the insignificant, overdressed little woman whom in his
+youth he had made the mistake of marrying was not fit, with her vapid
+talk and faded prettiness, to be the mistress of a great literary salon.
+When he could prevail upon Gemma to come he always felt that the evening
+would be a success. Her quiet graciousness of manner set the guests at
+their ease, and her very presence seemed to lay the spectre of vulgarity
+which always, in his imagination, haunted the house.
+
+Signora Grassini greeted Gemma affectionately, exclaiming in a loud
+whisper: "How charming you look to-night!" and examining the
+white cashmere with viciously critical eyes. She hated her visitor
+rancourously, for the very things for which Martini loved her; for her
+quiet strength of character; for her grave, sincere directness; for the
+steady balance of her mind; for the very expression of her face.
+And when Signora Grassini hated a woman, she showed it by effusive
+tenderness. Gemma took the compliments and endearments for what they
+were worth, and troubled her head no more about them. What is called
+"going into society" was in her eyes one of the wearisome and rather
+unpleasant tasks which a conspirator who wishes not to attract the
+notice of spies must conscientiously fulfil. She classed it together
+with the laborious work of writing in cipher; and, knowing how valuable
+a practical safeguard against suspicion is the reputation of being a
+well-dressed woman, studied the fashion-plates as carefully as she did
+the keys of her ciphers.
+
+The bored and melancholy literary lions brightened up a little at the
+sound of Gemma's name; she was very popular among them; and the radical
+journalists, especially, gravitated at once to her end of the long room.
+But she was far too practised a conspirator to let them monopolize her.
+Radicals could be had any day; and now, when they came crowding round
+her, she gently sent them about their business, reminding them with a
+smile that they need not waste their time on converting her when there
+were so many tourists in need of instruction. For her part, she devoted
+herself to an English M.P. whose sympathies the republican party was
+anxious to gain; and, knowing him to be a specialist on finance, she
+first won his attention by asking his opinion on a technical
+point concerning the Austrian currency, and then deftly turned the
+conversation to the condition of the Lombardo-Venetian revenue. The
+Englishman, who had expected to be bored with small-talk, looked askance
+at her, evidently fearing that he had fallen into the clutches of a
+blue-stocking; but finding that she was both pleasant to look at and
+interesting to talk to, surrendered completely and plunged into as grave
+a discussion of Italian finance as if she had been Metternich. When
+Grassini brought up a Frenchman "who wishes to ask Signora Bolla
+something about the history of Young Italy," the M. P. rose with
+a bewildered sense that perhaps there was more ground for Italian
+discontent than he had supposed.
+
+Later in the evening Gemma slipped out on to the terrace under the
+drawing-room windows to sit alone for a few moments among the great
+camellias and oleanders. The close air and continually shifting crowd in
+the rooms were beginning to give her a headache. At the further end of
+the terrace stood a row of palms and tree-ferns, planted in large tubs
+which were hidden by a bank of lilies and other flowering plants.
+The whole formed a complete screen, behind which was a little nook
+commanding a beautiful view out across the valley. The branches of a
+pomegranate tree, clustered with late blossoms, hung beside the narrow
+opening between the plants.
+
+In this nook Gemma took refuge, hoping that no one would guess her
+whereabouts until she had secured herself against the threatening
+headache by a little rest and silence. The night was warm and
+beautifully still; but coming out from the hot, close rooms she felt it
+cool, and drew her lace scarf about her head.
+
+Presently the sounds of voices and footsteps approaching along the
+terrace roused her from the dreamy state into which she had fallen. She
+drew back into the shadow, hoping to escape notice and get a few more
+precious minutes of silence before again having to rack her tired brain
+for conversation. To her great annoyance the footsteps paused near to
+the screen; then Signora Grassini's thin, piping little voice broke off
+for a moment in its stream of chatter.
+
+The other voice, a man's, was remarkably soft and musical; but its
+sweetness of tone was marred by a peculiar, purring drawl, perhaps mere
+affectation, more probably the result of a habitual effort to conquer
+some impediment of speech, but in any case very unpleasant.
+
+"English, did you say?" it asked. "But surely the name is quite Italian.
+What was it--Bolla?"
+
+"Yes; she is the widow of poor Giovanni Bolla, who died in England
+about four years ago,--don't you remember? Ah, I forgot--you lead such a
+wandering life; we can't expect you to know of all our unhappy country's
+martyrs--they are so many!"
+
+Signora Grassini sighed. She always talked in this style to strangers;
+the role of a patriotic mourner for the sorrows of Italy formed an
+effective combination with her boarding-school manner and pretty
+infantine pout.
+
+"Died in England!" repeated the other voice. "Was he a refugee, then?
+I seem to recognize the name, somehow; was he not connected with Young
+Italy in its early days?"
+
+"Yes; he was one of the unfortunate young men who were arrested in
+'33--you remember that sad affair? He was released in a few months;
+then, two or three years later, when there was a warrant out against him
+again, he escaped to England. The next we heard was that he was married
+there. It was a most romantic affair altogether, but poor Bolla always
+was romantic."
+
+"And then he died in England, you say?"
+
+"Yes, of consumption; he could not stand that terrible English climate.
+And she lost her only child just before his death; it caught scarlet
+fever. Very sad, is it not? And we are all so fond of dear Gemma! She
+is a little stiff, poor thing; the English always are, you know; but I
+think her troubles have made her melancholy, and----"
+
+Gemma stood up and pushed back the boughs of the pomegranate tree. This
+retailing of her private sorrows for purposes of small-talk was almost
+unbearable to her, and there was visible annoyance in her face as she
+stepped into the light.
+
+"Ah! here she is!" exclaimed the hostess, with admirable coolness.
+"Gemma, dear, I was wondering where you could have disappeared to.
+Signor Felice Rivarez wishes to make your acquaintance."
+
+"So it's the Gadfly," thought Gemma, looking at him with some curiosity.
+He bowed to her decorously enough, but his eyes glanced over her
+face and figure with a look which seemed to her insolently keen and
+inquisitorial.
+
+"You have found a d-d-delightful little nook here," he remarked, looking
+at the thick screen; "and w-w-what a charming view!"
+
+"Yes; it's a pretty corner. I came out here to get some air."
+
+"It seems almost ungrateful to the good God to stay indoors on such a
+lovely night," said the hostess, raising her eyes to the stars. (She had
+good eyelashes and liked to show them.) "Look, signore! Would not our
+sweet Italy be heaven on earth if only she were free? To think that she
+should be a bond-slave, with such flowers and such skies!"
+
+"And such patriotic women!" the Gadfly murmured in his soft, languid
+drawl.
+
+Gemma glanced round at him in some trepidation; his impudence was too
+glaring, surely, to deceive anyone. But she had underrated Signora
+Grassini's appetite for compliments; the poor woman cast down her lashes
+with a sigh.
+
+"Ah, signore, it is so little that a woman can do! Perhaps some day I
+may prove my right to the name of an Italian--who knows? And now I must
+go back to my social duties; the French ambassador has begged me to
+introduce his ward to all the notabilities; you must come in presently
+and see her. She is a most charming girl. Gemma, dear, I brought Signor
+Rivarez out to show him our beautiful view; I must leave him under your
+care. I know you will look after him and introduce him to everyone. Ah!
+there is that delightful Russian prince! Have you met him? They say he
+is a great favourite of the Emperor Nicholas. He is military commander
+of some Polish town with a name that nobody can pronounce. Quelle nuit
+magnifique! N'est-ce-pas, mon prince?"
+
+She fluttered away, chattering volubly to a bull-necked man with a heavy
+jaw and a coat glittering with orders; and her plaintive dirges for
+"notre malheureuse patrie," interpolated with "charmant" and "mon
+prince," died away along the terrace.
+
+Gemma stood quite still beside the pomegranate tree. She was sorry
+for the poor, silly little woman, and annoyed at the Gadfly's languid
+insolence. He was watching the retreating figures with an expression
+of face that angered her; it seemed ungenerous to mock at such pitiable
+creatures.
+
+"There go Italian and--Russian patriotism," he said, turning to her with
+a smile; "arm in arm and mightily pleased with each other's company.
+Which do you prefer?"
+
+She frowned slightly and made no answer.
+
+"Of c-course," he went on; "it's all a question of p-personal taste; but
+I think, of the two, I like the Russian variety best--it's so thorough.
+If Russia had to depend on flowers and skies for her supremacy instead
+of on powder and shot, how long do you think 'mon prince' would k-keep
+that Polish fortress?"
+
+"I think," she answered coldly, "that we can hold our personal opinions
+without ridiculing a woman whose guests we are."
+
+"Ah, yes! I f-forgot the obligations of hospitality here in Italy;
+they are a wonderfully hospitable people, these Italians. I'm sure the
+Austrians find them so. Won't you sit down?"
+
+He limped across the terrace to fetch a chair for her, and placed
+himself opposite to her, leaning against the balustrade. The light from
+a window was shining full on his face; and she was able to study it at
+her leisure.
+
+She was disappointed. She had expected to see a striking and powerful,
+if not pleasant face; but the most salient points of his appearance were
+a tendency to foppishness in dress and rather more than a tendency to a
+certain veiled insolence of expression and manner. For the rest, he was
+as swarthy as a mulatto, and, notwithstanding his lameness, as agile as
+a cat. His whole personality was oddly suggestive of a black jaguar.
+The forehead and left cheek were terribly disfigured by the long crooked
+scar of the old sabre-cut; and she had already noticed that, when he
+began to stammer in speaking, that side of his face was affected with a
+nervous twitch. But for these defects he would have been, in a certain
+restless and uncomfortable way, rather handsome; but it was not an
+attractive face.
+
+Presently he began again in his soft, murmuring purr ("Just the voice
+a jaguar would talk in, if it could speak and were in a good humour,"
+Gemma said to herself with rising irritation).
+
+"I hear," he said, "that you are interested in the radical press, and
+write for the papers."
+
+"I write a little; I have not time to do much."
+
+"Ah, of course! I understood from Signora Grassini that you undertake
+other important work as well."
+
+Gemma raised her eyebrows slightly. Signora Grassini, like the silly
+little woman she was, had evidently been chattering imprudently to this
+slippery creature, whom Gemma, for her part, was beginning actually to
+dislike.
+
+"My time is a good deal taken up," she said rather stiffly; "but Signora
+Grassini overrates the importance of my occupations. They are mostly of
+a very trivial character."
+
+"Well, the world would be in a bad way if we ALL of us spent our time in
+chanting dirges for Italy. I should think the neighbourhood of our
+host of this evening and his wife would make anybody frivolous,
+in self-defence. Oh, yes, I know what you're going to say; you are
+perfectly right, but they are both so deliciously funny with their
+patriotism.--Are you going in already? It is so nice out here!"
+
+"I think I will go in now. Is that my scarf? Thank you."
+
+He had picked it up, and now stood looking at her with wide eyes as blue
+and innocent as forget-me-nots in a brook.
+
+"I know you are offended with me," he said penitently, "for fooling that
+painted-up wax doll; but what can a fellow do?"
+
+"Since you ask me, I do think it an ungenerous and--well--cowardly thing
+to hold one's intellectual inferiors up to ridicule in that way; it is
+like laughing at a cripple, or------"
+
+He caught his breath suddenly, painfully; and shrank back, glancing at
+his lame foot and mutilated hand. In another instant he recovered his
+self-possession and burst out laughing.
+
+"That's hardly a fair comparison, signora; we cripples don't flaunt our
+deformities in people's faces as she does her stupidity. At least give
+us credit for recognizing that crooked backs are no pleasanter than
+crooked ways. There is a step here; will you take my arm?"
+
+She re-entered the house in embarrassed silence; his unexpected
+sensitiveness had completely disconcerted her.
+
+Directly he opened the door of the great reception room she realized
+that something unusual had happened in her absence. Most of the
+gentlemen looked both angry and uncomfortable; the ladies, with hot
+cheeks and carefully feigned unconsciousness, were all collected at one
+end of the room; the host was fingering his eye-glasses with suppressed
+but unmistakable fury, and a little group of tourists stood in a
+corner casting amused glances at the further end of the room. Evidently
+something was going on there which appeared to them in the light of a
+joke, and to most of the guests in that of an insult. Signora Grassini
+alone did not appear to have noticed anything; she was fluttering her
+fan coquettishly and chattering to the secretary of the Dutch embassy,
+who listened with a broad grin on his face.
+
+Gemma paused an instant in the doorway, turning to see if the Gadfly,
+too, had noticed the disturbed appearance of the company. There was no
+mistaking the malicious triumph in his eyes as he glanced from the face
+of the blissfully unconscious hostess to a sofa at the end of the room.
+She understood at once; he had brought his mistress here under some
+false colour, which had deceived no one but Signora Grassini.
+
+The gipsy-girl was leaning back on the sofa, surrounded by a group
+of simpering dandies and blandly ironical cavalry officers. She was
+gorgeously dressed in amber and scarlet, with an Oriental brilliancy
+of tint and profusion of ornament as startling in a Florentine
+literary salon as if she had been some tropical bird among sparrows and
+starlings. She herself seemed to feel out of place, and looked at the
+offended ladies with a fiercely contemptuous scowl. Catching sight of
+the Gadfly as he crossed the room with Gemma, she sprang up and came
+towards him, with a voluble flood of painfully incorrect French.
+
+"M. Rivarez, I have been looking for you everywhere! Count Saltykov
+wants to know whether you can go to his villa to-morrow night. There
+will be dancing."
+
+"I am sorry I can't go; but then I couldn't dance if I did. Signora
+Bolla, allow me to introduce to you Mme. Zita Reni."
+
+The gipsy glanced round at Gemma with a half defiant air and bowed
+stiffly. She was certainly handsome enough, as Martini had said, with a
+vivid, animal, unintelligent beauty; and the perfect harmony and freedom
+of her movements were delightful to see; but her forehead was low and
+narrow, and the line of her delicate nostrils was unsympathetic, almost
+cruel. The sense of oppression which Gemma had felt in the Gadfly's
+society was intensified by the gypsy's presence; and when, a moment
+later, the host came up to beg Signora Bolla to help him entertain some
+tourists in the other room, she consented with an odd feeling of relief.
+
+    *****
+
+"Well, Madonna, and what do you think of the Gadfly?" Martini asked as
+they drove back to Florence late at night. "Did you ever see anything
+quite so shameless as the way he fooled that poor little Grassini
+woman?"
+
+"About the ballet-girl, you mean?"
+
+"Yes, he persuaded her the girl was going to be the lion of the season.
+Signora Grassini would do anything for a celebrity."
+
+"I thought it an unfair and unkind thing to do; it put the Grassinis
+into a false position; and it was nothing less than cruel to the girl
+herself. I am sure she felt ill at ease."
+
+"You had a talk with him, didn't you? What did you think of him?"
+
+"Oh, Cesare, I didn't think anything except how glad I was to see
+the last of him. I never met anyone so fearfully tiring. He gave me a
+headache in ten minutes. He is like an incarnate demon of unrest."
+
+"I thought you wouldn't like him; and, to tell the truth, no more do I.
+The man's as slippery as an eel; I don't trust him."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE Gadfly took lodgings outside the Roman gate, near to which Zita was
+boarding. He was evidently somewhat of a sybarite; and, though nothing
+in the rooms showed any serious extravagance, there was a tendency to
+luxuriousness in trifles and to a certain fastidious daintiness in the
+arrangement of everything which surprised Galli and Riccardo. They
+had expected to find a man who had lived among the wildernesses of the
+Amazon more simple in his tastes, and wondered at his spotless ties and
+rows of boots, and at the masses of flowers which always stood upon
+his writing table. On the whole they got on very well with him. He was
+hospitable and friendly to everyone, especially to the local members
+of the Mazzinian party. To this rule Gemma, apparently, formed an
+exception; he seemed to have taken a dislike to her from the time of
+their first meeting, and in every way avoided her company. On two or
+three occasions he was actually rude to her, thus bringing upon himself
+Martini's most cordial detestation. There had been no love lost between
+the two men from the beginning; their temperaments appeared to be too
+incompatible for them to feel anything but repugnance for each other. On
+Martini's part this was fast developing into hostility.
+
+"I don't care about his not liking me," he said one day to Gemma with
+an aggrieved air. "I don't like him, for that matter; so there's no harm
+done. But I can't stand the way he behaves to you. If it weren't for the
+scandal it would make in the party first to beg a man to come and then
+to quarrel with him, I should call him to account for it."
+
+"Let him alone, Cesare; it isn't of any consequence, and after all, it's
+as much my fault as his."
+
+"What is your fault?"
+
+"That he dislikes me so. I said a brutal thing to him when we first met,
+that night at the Grassinis'."
+
+"YOU said a brutal thing? That's hard to believe, Madonna."
+
+"It was unintentional, of course, and I was very sorry. I said something
+about people laughing at cripples, and he took it personally. It had
+never occurred to me to think of him as a cripple; he is not so badly
+deformed."
+
+"Of course not. He has one shoulder higher than the other, and his
+left arm is pretty badly disabled, but he's neither hunchbacked nor
+clubfooted. As for his lameness, it isn't worth talking about."
+
+"Anyway, he shivered all over and changed colour. Of course it was
+horribly tactless of me, but it's odd he should be so sensitive. I
+wonder if he has ever suffered from any cruel jokes of that kind."
+
+"Much more likely to have perpetrated them, I should think. There's a
+sort of internal brutality about that man, under all his fine manners,
+that is perfectly sickening to me."
+
+"Now, Cesare, that's downright unfair. I don't like him any more than
+you do, but what is the use of making him out worse than he is? His
+manner is a little affected and irritating--I expect he has been too
+much lionized--and the everlasting smart speeches are dreadfully tiring;
+but I don't believe he means any harm."
+
+"I don't know what he means, but there's something not clean about a
+man who sneers at everything. It fairly disgusted me the other day at
+Fabrizi's debate to hear the way he cried down the reforms in Rome, just
+as if he wanted to find a foul motive for everything."
+
+Gemma sighed. "I am afraid I agreed better with him than with you on
+that point," she said. "All you good people are so full of the most
+delightful hopes and expectations; you are always ready to think that
+if one well-meaning middle-aged gentleman happens to get elected Pope,
+everything else will come right of itself. He has only got to throw open
+the prison doors and give his blessing to everybody all round, and we
+may expect the millennium within three months. You never seem able to
+see that he can't set things right even if he would. It's the principle
+of the thing that's wrong, not the behaviour of this man or that."
+
+"What principle? The temporal power of the Pope?"
+
+"Why that in particular? That's merely a part of the general wrong. The
+bad principle is that any man should hold over another the power to bind
+and loose. It's a false relationship to stand in towards one's fellows."
+
+Martini held up his hands. "That will do, Madonna," he said, laughing.
+"I am not going to discuss with you, once you begin talking rank
+Antinomianism in that fashion. I'm sure your ancestors must have been
+English Levellers in the seventeenth century. Besides, what I came round
+about is this MS."
+
+He pulled it out of his pocket.
+
+"Another new pamphlet?"
+
+"A stupid thing this wretched man Rivarez sent in to yesterday's
+committee. I knew we should come to loggerheads with him before long."
+
+"What is the matter with it? Honestly, Cesare, I think you are a little
+prejudiced. Rivarez may be unpleasant, but he's not stupid."
+
+"Oh, I don't deny that this is clever enough in its way; but you had
+better read the thing yourself."
+
+The pamphlet was a skit on the wild enthusiasm over the new Pope with
+which Italy was still ringing. Like all the Gadfly's writing, it was
+bitter and vindictive; but, notwithstanding her irritation at the
+style, Gemma could not help recognizing in her heart the justice of the
+criticism.
+
+"I quite agree with you that it is detestably malicious," she said,
+laying down the manuscript. "But the worst thing about it is that it's
+all true."
+
+"Gemma!"
+
+"Yes, but it is. The man's a cold-blooded eel, if you like; but he's
+got the truth on his side. There is no use in our trying to persuade
+ourselves that this doesn't hit the mark--it does!"
+
+"Then do you suggest that we should print it?"
+
+"Ah! that's quite another matter. I certainly don't think we ought to
+print it as it stands; it would hurt and alienate everybody and do no
+good. But if he would rewrite it and cut out the personal attacks,
+I think it might be made into a really valuable piece of work. As
+political criticism it is very fine. I had no idea he could write so
+well. He says things which need saying and which none of us have had
+the courage to say. This passage, where he compares Italy to a tipsy
+man weeping with tenderness on the neck of the thief who is picking his
+pocket, is splendidly written."
+
+"Gemma! The very worst bit in the whole thing! I hate that ill-natured
+yelping at everything and everybody!"
+
+"So do I; but that's not the point. Rivarez has a very disagreeable
+style, and as a human being he is not attractive; but when he says that
+we have made ourselves drunk with processions and embracing and shouting
+about love and reconciliation, and that the Jesuits and Sanfedists are
+the people who will profit by it all, he's right a thousand times. I
+wish I could have been at the committee yesterday. What decision did you
+finally arrive at?"
+
+"What I have come here about: to ask you to go and talk it over with him
+and persuade him to soften the thing."
+
+"Me? But I hardly know the man; and besides that, he detests me. Why
+should I go, of all people?"
+
+"Simply because there's no one else to do it to-day. Besides, you
+are more reasonable than the rest of us, and won't get into useless
+arguments and quarrel with him, as we should."
+
+"I shan't do that, certainly. Well, I will go if you like, though I have
+not much hope of success."
+
+"I am sure you will be able to manage him if you try. Yes, and tell him
+that the committee all admired the thing from a literary point of view.
+That will put him into a good humour, and it's perfectly true, too."
+
+    *****
+
+The Gadfly was sitting beside a table covered with flowers and ferns,
+staring absently at the floor, with an open letter on his knee. A shaggy
+collie dog, lying on a rug at his feet, raised its head and growled as
+Gemma knocked at the open door, and the Gadfly rose hastily and bowed
+in a stiff, ceremonious way. His face had suddenly grown hard and
+expressionless.
+
+"You are too kind," he said in his most chilling manner. "If you had let
+me know that you wanted to speak to me I would have called on you."
+
+Seeing that he evidently wished her at the end of the earth, Gemma
+hastened to state her business. He bowed again and placed a chair for
+her.
+
+"The committee wished me to call upon you," she began, "because there
+has been a certain difference of opinion about your pamphlet."
+
+"So I expected." He smiled and sat down opposite to her, drawing a large
+vase of chrysanthemums between his face and the light.
+
+"Most of the members agreed that, however much they may admire the
+pamphlet as a literary composition, they do not think that in its
+present form it is quite suitable for publication. They fear that the
+vehemence of its tone may give offence, and alienate persons whose help
+and support are valuable to the party."
+
+He pulled a chrysanthemum from the vase and began slowly plucking
+off one white petal after another. As her eyes happened to catch the
+movement of the slim right hand dropping the petals, one by one, an
+uncomfortable sensation came over Gemma, as though she had somewhere
+seen that gesture before.
+
+"As a literary composition," he remarked in his soft, cold voice, "it is
+utterly worthless, and could be admired only by persons who know nothing
+about literature. As for its giving offence, that is the very thing I
+intended it to do."
+
+"That I quite understand. The question is whether you may not succeed in
+giving offence to the wrong people."
+
+He shrugged his shoulders and put a torn-off petal between his teeth. "I
+think you are mistaken," he said. "The question is: For what purpose
+did your committee invite me to come here? I understood, to expose and
+ridicule the Jesuits. I fulfil my obligation to the best of my ability."
+
+"And I can assure you that no one has any doubt as to either the ability
+or the good-will. What the committee fears is that the liberal party may
+take offence, and also that the town workmen may withdraw their
+moral support. You may have meant the pamphlet for an attack upon the
+Sanfedists: but many readers will construe it as an attack upon the
+Church and the new Pope; and this, as a matter of political tactics, the
+committee does not consider desirable."
+
+"I begin to understand. So long as I keep to the particular set of
+clerical gentlemen with whom the party is just now on bad terms, I
+may speak sooth if the fancy takes me; but directly I touch upon the
+committee's own pet priests--'truth's a dog must to kennel; he must be
+whipped out, when the--Holy Father may stand by the fire and-----' Yes,
+the fool was right; I'd rather be any kind of a thing than a fool. Of
+course I must bow to the committee's decision, but I continue to
+think that it has pared its wit o' both sides and left--M-mon-signor
+M-m-montan-n-nelli in the middle."
+
+"Montanelli?" Gemma repeated. "I don't understand you. Do you mean the
+Bishop of Brisighella?"
+
+"Yes; the new Pope has just created him a Cardinal, you know. I have a
+letter about him here. Would you care to hear it? The writer is a friend
+of mine on the other side of the frontier."
+
+"The Papal frontier?"
+
+"Yes. This is what he writes----" He took up the letter which had been
+in his hand when she entered, and read aloud, suddenly beginning to
+stammer violently:
+
+"'Y-o-you will s-s-s-soon have the p-pleasure of m-m-meeting one of our
+w-w-worst enemies, C-cardinal Lorenzo M-montan-n-nelli, the B-b-bishop
+of Brisig-g-hella. He int-t----'"
+
+He broke off, paused a moment, and began again, very slowly and drawling
+insufferably, but no longer stammering:
+
+"'He intends to visit Tuscany during the coming month on a mission of
+reconciliation. He will preach first in Florence, where he will stay for
+about three weeks; then will go on to Siena and Pisa, and return to the
+Romagna by Pistoja. He ostensibly belongs to the liberal party in the
+Church, and is a personal friend of the Pope and Cardinal Feretti. Under
+Gregory he was out of favour, and was kept out of sight in a little
+hole in the Apennines. Now he has come suddenly to the front. Really,
+of course, he is as much pulled by Jesuit wires as any Sanfedist in the
+country. This mission was suggested by some of the Jesuit fathers. He is
+one of the most brilliant preachers in the Church, and as mischievous
+in his way as Lambruschini himself. His business is to keep the popular
+enthusiasm over the Pope from subsiding, and to occupy the public
+attention until the Grand Duke has signed a project which the agents of
+the Jesuits are preparing to lay before him. What this project is I have
+been unable to discover.' Then, further on, it says: 'Whether Montanelli
+understands for what purpose he is being sent to Tuscany, or whether
+the Jesuits are playing on him, I cannot make out. He is either an
+uncommonly clever knave, or the biggest ass that was ever foaled. The
+odd thing is that, so far as I can discover, he neither takes bribes nor
+keeps mistresses--the first time I ever came across such a thing.'"
+
+He laid down the letter and sat looking at her with half-shut eyes,
+waiting, apparently, for her to speak.
+
+"Are you satisfied that your informant is correct in his facts?" she
+asked after a moment.
+
+"As to the irreproachable character of Monsignor M-mon-t-tan-nelli's
+private life? No; but neither is he. As you will observe, he puts in the
+s-s-saving clause: 'So far as I c-can discover----
+
+"I was not speaking of that," she interposed coldly, "but of the part
+about this mission."
+
+"I can fully trust the writer. He is an old friend of mine--one of my
+comrades of '43, and he is in a position which gives him exceptional
+opportunities for finding out things of that kind."
+
+"Some official at the Vatican," thought Gemma quickly. "So that's the
+kind of connections you have? I guessed there was something of that
+sort."
+
+"This letter is, of course, a private one," the Gadfly went on; "and you
+understand that the information is to be kept strictly to the members of
+your committee."
+
+"That hardly needs saying. Then about the pamphlet: may I tell the
+committee that you consent to make a few alterations and soften it a
+little, or that----"
+
+"Don't you think the alterations may succeed in spoiling the beauty
+of the 'literary composition,' signora, as well as in reducing the
+vehemence of the tone?"
+
+"You are asking my personal opinion. What I have come here to express is
+that of the committee as a whole."
+
+"Does that imply that y-y-you disagree with the committee as a whole?"
+He had put the letter into his pocket and was now leaning forward
+and looking at her with an eager, concentrated expression which quite
+changed the character of his face. "You think----"
+
+"If you care to know what I personally think--I disagree with the
+majority on both points. I do not at all admire the pamphlet from a
+literary point of view, and I do think it true as a presentation of
+facts and wise as a matter of tactics."
+
+"That is------"
+
+"I quite agree with you that Italy is being led away by a
+will-o'-the-wisp and that all this enthusiasm and rejoicing will
+probably land her in a terrible bog; and I should be most heartily glad
+to have that openly and boldly said, even at the cost of offending or
+alienating some of our present supporters. But as a member of a body the
+large majority of which holds the opposite view, I cannot insist upon my
+personal opinion; and I certainly think that if things of that kind are
+to be said at all, they should be said temperately and quietly; not in
+the tone adopted in this pamphlet."
+
+"Will you wait a minute while I look through the manuscript?"
+
+He took it up and glanced down the pages. A dissatisfied frown settled
+on his face.
+
+"Yes, of course, you are perfectly right. The thing's written like a
+cafe chantant skit, not a political satire. But what's a man to do? If
+I write decently the public won't understand it; they will say it's dull
+if it isn't spiteful enough."
+
+"Don't you think spitefulness manages to be dull when we get too much of
+it?"
+
+He threw a keen, rapid glance at her, and burst out laughing.
+
+"Apparently the signora belongs to the dreadful category of people who
+are always right! Then if I yield to the temptation to be spiteful,
+I may come in time to be as dull as Signora Grassini? Heavens, what a
+fate! No, you needn't frown. I know you don't like me, and I am going to
+keep to business. What it comes to, then, is practically this: if I cut
+out the personalities and leave the essential part of the thing as
+it is, the committee will very much regret that they can't take the
+responsibility of printing it. If I cut out the political truth and
+make all the hard names apply to no one but the party's enemies, the
+committee will praise the thing up to the skies, and you and I will know
+it's not worth printing. Rather a nice point of metaphysics: Which is
+the more desirable condition, to be printed and not be worth it, or to
+be worth it and not be printed? Well, signora?"
+
+"I do not think you are tied to any such alternative. I believe that
+if you were to cut out the personalities the committee would consent to
+print the pamphlet, though the majority would, of course, not agree with
+it; and I am convinced that it would be very useful. But you would
+have to lay aside the spitefulness. If you are going to say a thing the
+substance of which is a big pill for your readers to swallow, there is
+no use in frightening them at the beginning by the form."
+
+He sighed and shrugged his shoulders resignedly. "I submit, signora; but
+on one condition. If you rob me of my laugh now, I must have it out
+next time. When His Eminence, the irreproachable Cardinal, turns up
+in Florence, neither you nor your committee must object to my being as
+spiteful as I like. It's my due!"
+
+He spoke in his lightest, coldest manner, pulling the chrysanthemums
+out of their vase and holding them up to watch the light through the
+translucent petals. "What an unsteady hand he has," she thought, seeing
+how the flowers shook and quivered. "Surely he doesn't drink!"
+
+"You had better discuss the matter with the other members of the
+committee," she said, rising. "I cannot form any opinion as to what they
+will think about it."
+
+"And you?" He had risen too, and was leaning against the table, pressing
+the flowers to his face.
+
+She hesitated. The question distressed her, bringing up old and
+miserable associations. "I--hardly know," she said at last. "Many years
+ago I used to know something about Monsignor Montanelli. He was only
+a canon at that time, and Director of the theological seminary in
+the province where I lived as a girl. I heard a great deal about him
+from--someone who knew him very intimately; and I never heard anything
+of him that was not good. I believe that, in those days at least, he
+was really a most remarkable man. But that was long ago, and he may have
+changed. Irresponsible power corrupts so many people."
+
+The Gadfly raised his head from the flowers, and looked at her with a
+steady face.
+
+"At any rate," he said, "if Monsignor Montanelli is not himself a
+scoundrel, he is a tool in scoundrelly hands. It is all one to me which
+he is--and to my friends across the frontier. A stone in the path may
+have the best intentions, but it must be kicked out of the path, for all
+that. Allow me, signora!" He rang the bell, and, limping to the door,
+opened it for her to pass out.
+
+"It was very kind of you to call, signora. May I send for a vettura? No?
+Good-afternoon, then! Bianca, open the hall-door, please."
+
+Gemma went out into the street, pondering anxiously. "My friends across
+the frontier"--who were they? And how was the stone to be kicked out of
+the path? If with satire only, why had he said it with such dangerous
+eyes?
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+MONSIGNOR MONTANELLI arrived in Florence in the first week of October.
+His visit caused a little flutter of excitement throughout the town. He
+was a famous preacher and a representative of the reformed Papacy; and
+people looked eagerly to him for an exposition of the "new doctrine,"
+the gospel of love and reconciliation which was to cure the sorrows of
+Italy. The nomination of Cardinal Gizzi to the Roman State Secretaryship
+in place of the universally detested Lambruschini had raised the public
+enthusiasm to its highest pitch; and Montanelli was just the man who
+could most easily sustain it. The irreproachable strictness of his life
+was a phenomenon sufficiently rare among the high dignitaries of the
+Roman Church to attract the attention of people accustomed to regard
+blackmailing, peculation, and disreputable intrigues as almost
+invariable adjuncts to the career of a prelate. Moreover, his talent as
+a preacher was really great; and with his beautiful voice and magnetic
+personality, he would in any time and place have made his mark.
+
+Grassini, as usual, strained every nerve to get the newly arrived
+celebrity to his house; but Montanelli was no easy game to catch. To
+all invitations he replied with the same courteous but positive refusal,
+saying that his health was bad and his time fully occupied, and that he
+had neither strength nor leisure for going into society.
+
+"What omnivorous creatures those Grassinis are!" Martini said
+contemptuously to Gemma as they crossed the Signoria square one bright,
+cold Sunday morning. "Did you notice the way Grassini bowed when the
+Cardinal's carriage drove up? It's all one to them who a man is, so long
+as he's talked about. I never saw such lion-hunters in my life. Only
+last August it was the Gadfly; now it's Montanelli. I hope His Eminence
+feels flattered at the attention; a precious lot of adventurers have
+shared it with him."
+
+They had been hearing Montanelli preach in the Cathedral; and the great
+building had been so thronged with eager listeners that Martini, fearing
+a return of Gemma's troublesome headaches, had persuaded her to come
+away before the Mass was over. The sunny morning, the first after a week
+of rain, offered him an excuse for suggesting a walk among the garden
+slopes by San Niccolo.
+
+"No," she answered; "I should like a walk if you have time; but not to
+the hills. Let us keep along the Lung'Arno; Montanelli will pass on
+his way back from church and I am like Grassini--I want to see the
+notability."
+
+"But you have just seen him."
+
+"Not close. There was such a crush in the Cathedral, and his back was
+turned to us when the carriage passed. If we keep near to the bridge
+we shall be sure to see him well--he is staying on the Lung'Arno, you
+know."
+
+"But what has given you such a sudden fancy to see Montanelli? You never
+used to care about famous preachers."
+
+"It is not famous preachers; it is the man himself; I want to see how
+much he has changed since I saw him last."
+
+"When was that?"
+
+"Two days after Arthur's death."
+
+Martini glanced at her anxiously. They had come out on to the Lung'Arno,
+and she was staring absently across the water, with a look on her face
+that he hated to see.
+
+"Gemma, dear," he said after a moment; "are you going to let that
+miserable business haunt you all your life? We have all made mistakes
+when we were seventeen."
+
+"We have not all killed our dearest friend when we were seventeen," she
+answered wearily; and, leaning her arm on the stone balustrade of the
+bridge, looked down into the river. Martini held his tongue; he was
+almost afraid to speak to her when this mood was on her.
+
+"I never look down at water without remembering," she said, slowly
+raising her eyes to his; then with a nervous little shiver: "Let us walk
+on a bit, Cesare; it is chilly for standing."
+
+They crossed the bridge in silence and walked on along the river-side.
+After a few minutes she spoke again.
+
+"What a beautiful voice that man has! There is something about it that I
+have never heard in any other human voice. I believe it is the secret of
+half his influence."
+
+"It is a wonderful voice," Martini assented, catching at a subject of
+conversation which might lead her away from the dreadful memory called
+up by the river, "and he is, apart from his voice, about the finest
+preacher I have ever heard. But I believe the secret of his influence
+lies deeper than that. It is the way his life stands out from that of
+almost all the other prelates. I don't know whether you could lay your
+hand on one other high dignitary in all the Italian Church--except the
+Pope himself--whose reputation is so utterly spotless. I remember, when
+I was in the Romagna last year, passing through his diocese and seeing
+those fierce mountaineers waiting in the rain to get a glimpse of him or
+touch his dress. He is venerated there almost as a saint; and that means
+a good deal among the Romagnols, who generally hate everything that
+wears a cassock. I remarked to one of the old peasants,--as typical a
+smuggler as ever I saw in my life,--that the people seemed very much
+devoted to their bishop, and he said: 'We don't love bishops, they are
+liars; we love Monsignor Montanelli. Nobody has ever known him to tell a
+lie or do an unjust thing.'"
+
+"I wonder," Gemma said, half to herself, "if he knows the people think
+that about him."
+
+"Why shouldn't he know it? Do you think it is not true?"
+
+"I know it is not true."
+
+"How do you know it?"
+
+"Because he told me so."
+
+"HE told you? Montanelli? Gemma, what do you mean?"
+
+She pushed the hair back from her forehead and turned towards him. They
+were standing still again, he leaning on the balustrade and she slowly
+drawing lines on the pavement with the point of her umbrella.
+
+"Cesare, you and I have been friends for all these years, and I have
+never told you what really happened about Arthur."
+
+"There is no need to tell me, dear," he broke in hastily; "I know all
+about it already."
+
+"Giovanni told you?"
+
+"Yes, when he was dying. He told me about it one night when I was
+sitting up with him. He said---- Gemma, dear, I had better tell you the
+truth, now we have begun talking about it--he said that you were always
+brooding over that wretched story, and he begged me to be as good a
+friend to you as I could and try to keep you from thinking of it. And I
+have tried to, dear, though I may not have succeeded--I have, indeed."
+
+"I know you have," she answered softly, raising her eyes for a moment;
+"I should have been badly off without your friendship. But--Giovanni did
+not tell you about Monsignor Montanelli, then?"
+
+"No, I didn't know that he had anything to do with it. What he told me
+was about--all that affair with the spy, and about----"
+
+"About my striking Arthur and his drowning himself. Well, I will tell
+you about Montanelli."
+
+They turned back towards the bridge over which the Cardinal's carriage
+would have to pass. Gemma looked out steadily across the water as she
+spoke.
+
+"In those days Montanelli was a canon; he was Director of the
+Theological Seminary at Pisa, and used to give Arthur lessons in
+philosophy and read with him after he went up to the Sapienza. They were
+perfectly devoted to each other; more like two lovers than teacher and
+pupil. Arthur almost worshipped the ground that Montanelli walked on,
+and I remember his once telling me that if he lost his 'Padre'--he
+always used to call Montanelli so--he should go and drown himself. Well,
+then you know what happened about the spy. The next day, my father and
+the Burtons--Arthur's step-brothers, most detestable people--spent the
+whole day dragging the Darsena basin for the body; and I sat in my room
+alone and thought of what I had done----"
+
+She paused a moment, and went on again:
+
+"Late in the evening my father came into my room and said: 'Gemma,
+child, come downstairs; there's a man I want you to see.' And when we
+went down there was one of the students belonging to the group sitting
+in the consulting room, all white and shaking; and he told us about
+Giovanni's second letter coming from the prison to say that they had
+heard from the jailer about Cardi, and that Arthur had been tricked in
+the confessional. I remember the student saying to me: 'It is at least
+some consolation that we know he was innocent' My father held my hands
+and tried to comfort me; he did not know then about the blow. Then I
+went back to my room and sat there all night alone. In the morning my
+father went out again with the Burtons to see the harbour dragged. They
+had some hope of finding the body there."
+
+"It was never found, was it?"
+
+"No; it must have got washed out to sea; but they thought there was a
+chance. I was alone in my room and the servant came up to say that a
+'reverendissimo padre' had called and she had told him my father was at
+the docks and he had gone away. I knew it must be Montanelli; so I ran
+out at the back door and caught him up at the garden gate. When I said:
+'Canon Montanelli, I want to speak to you,' he just stopped and waited
+silently for me to speak. Oh, Cesare, if you had seen his face--it
+haunted me for months afterwards! I said: 'I am Dr. Warren's daughter,
+and I have come to tell you that it is I who have killed Arthur.' I told
+him everything, and he stood and listened, like a figure cut in stone,
+till I had finished; then he said: 'Set your heart at rest, my child; it
+is I that am a murderer, not you. I deceived him and he found it out.'
+And with that he turned and went out at the gate without another word."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"I don't know what happened to him after that; I heard the same evening
+that he had fallen down in the street in a kind of fit and had been
+carried into a house near the docks; but that is all I know. My father
+did everything he could for me; when I told him about it he threw up
+his practice and took me away to England at once, so that I should never
+hear anything that could remind me. He was afraid I should end in the
+water, too; and indeed I believe I was near it at one time. But then,
+you know, when we found out that my father had cancer I was obliged to
+come to myself--there was no one else to nurse him. And after he died
+I was left with the little ones on my hands until my elder brother was
+able to give them a home. Then there was Giovanni. Do you know, when
+he came to England we were almost afraid to meet each other with that
+frightful memory between us. He was so bitterly remorseful for his share
+in it all--that unhappy letter he wrote from prison. But I believe,
+really, it was our common trouble that drew us together."
+
+Martini smiled and shook his head.
+
+"It may have been so on your side," he said; "but Giovanni had made up
+his mind from the first time he ever saw you. I remember his coming back
+to Milan after that first visit to Leghorn and raving about you to me
+till I was perfectly sick of hearing of the English Gemma. I thought I
+should hate you. Ah! there it comes!"
+
+The carriage crossed the bridge and drove up to a large house on the
+Lung'Arno. Montanelli was leaning back on the cushions as if too tired
+to care any longer for the enthusiastic crowd which had collected round
+the door to catch a glimpse of him. The inspired look that his face had
+worn in the Cathedral had faded quite away and the sunlight showed the
+lines of care and fatigue. When he had alighted and passed, with the
+heavy, spiritless tread of weary and heart-sick old age, into the house,
+Gemma turned away and walked slowly to the bridge. Her face seemed for
+a moment to reflect the withered, hopeless look of his. Martini walked
+beside her in silence.
+
+"I have so often wondered," she began again after a little pause; "what
+he meant about the deception. It has sometimes occurred to me----"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Well, it is very strange; there was the most extraordinary personal
+resemblance between them."
+
+"Between whom?"
+
+"Arthur and Montanelli. It was not only I who noticed it. And there was
+something mysterious in the relationship between the members of that
+household. Mrs. Burton, Arthur's mother, was one of the sweetest women
+I ever knew. Her face had the same spiritual look as Arthur's, and I
+believe they were alike in character, too. But she always seemed half
+frightened, like a detected criminal; and her step-son's wife used to
+treat her as no decent person treats a dog. And then Arthur himself was
+such a startling contrast to all those vulgar Burtons. Of course, when
+one is a child one takes everything for granted; but looking back on it
+afterwards I have often wondered whether Arthur was really a Burton."
+
+"Possibly he found out something about his mother--that may easily
+have been the cause of his death, not the Cardi affair at all," Martini
+interposed, offering the only consolation he could think of at the
+moment. Gemma shook her head.
+
+"If you could have seen his face after I struck him, Cesare, you would
+not think that. It may be all true about Montanelli--very likely it
+is--but what I have done I have done."
+
+They walked on a little way without speaking.
+
+"My dear," Martini said at last; "if there were any way on earth to undo
+a thing that is once done, it would be worth while to brood over our old
+mistakes; but as it is, let the dead bury their dead. It is a terrible
+story, but at least the poor lad is out of it now, and luckier than some
+of those that are left--the ones that are in exile and in prison. You
+and I have them to think of, we have no right to eat out our hearts for
+the dead. Remember what your own Shelley says: 'The past is Death's,
+the future is thine own.' Take it, while it is still yours, and fix your
+mind, not on what you may have done long ago to hurt, but on what you
+can do now to help."
+
+In his earnestness he had taken her hand. He dropped it suddenly and
+drew back at the sound of a soft, cold, drawling voice behind him.
+
+"Monsignor Montan-n-nelli," murmured this languid voice, "is undoubtedly
+all you say, my dear doctor. In fact, he appears to be so much too good
+for this world that he ought to be politely escorted into the next. I
+am sure he would cause as great a sensation there as he has done here;
+there are p-p-probably many old-established ghosts who have never seen
+such a thing as an honest cardinal. And there is nothing that ghosts
+love as they do novelties----"
+
+"How do you know that?" asked Dr. Riccardo's voice in a tone of
+ill-suppressed irritation.
+
+"From Holy Writ, my dear sir. If the Gospel is to be trusted, even the
+most respectable of all Ghosts had a f-f-fancy for capricious alliances.
+Now, honesty and c-c-cardinals--that seems to me a somewhat capricious
+alliance, and rather an uncomfortable one, like shrimps and liquorice.
+Ah, Signor Martini, and Signora Bolla! Lovely weather after the rain, is
+it not? Have you been to hear the n-new Savonarola, too?"
+
+Martini turned round sharply. The Gadfly, with a cigar in his mouth and
+a hot-house flower in his buttonhole, was holding out to him a slender,
+carefully-gloved hand. With the sunlight reflected in his immaculate
+boots and glancing back from the water on to his smiling face, he looked
+to Martini less lame and more conceited than usual. They were shaking
+hands, affably on the one side and rather sulkily on the other, when
+Riccardo hastily exclaimed:
+
+"I am afraid Signora Bolla is not well!"
+
+She was so pale that her face looked almost livid under the shadow of
+her bonnet, and the ribbon at her throat fluttered perceptibly from the
+violent beating of the heart.
+
+"I will go home," she said faintly.
+
+A cab was called and Martini got in with her to see her safely home. As
+the Gadfly bent down to arrange her cloak, which was hanging over the
+wheel, he raised his eyes suddenly to her face, and Martini saw that she
+shrank away with a look of something like terror.
+
+"Gemma, what is the matter with you?" he asked, in English, when they
+had started. "What did that scoundrel say to you?"
+
+"Nothing, Cesare; it was no fault of his. I--I--had a fright----"
+
+"A fright?"
+
+"Yes; I fancied----" She put one hand over her eyes, and he waited
+silently till she should recover her self-command. Her face was already
+regaining its natural colour.
+
+"You are quite right," she said at last, turning to him and speaking in
+her usual voice; "it is worse than useless to look back at a horrible
+past. It plays tricks with one's nerves and makes one imagine all sorts
+of impossible things. We will NEVER talk about that subject again,
+Cesare, or I shall see fantastic likenesses to Arthur in every face I
+meet. It is a kind of hallucination, like a nightmare in broad daylight.
+Just now, when that odious little fop came up, I fancied it was Arthur."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE Gadfly certainly knew how to make personal enemies. He had arrived
+in Florence in August, and by the end of October three-fourths of the
+committee which had invited him shared Martini's opinion. His savage
+attacks upon Montanelli had annoyed even his admirers; and Galli
+himself, who at first had been inclined to uphold everything the witty
+satirist said or did, began to acknowledge with an aggrieved air that
+Montanelli had better have been left in peace. "Decent cardinals are
+none so plenty. One might treat them politely when they do turn up."
+
+The only person who, apparently, remained quite indifferent to the storm
+of caricatures and pasquinades was Montanelli himself. It seemed, as
+Martini said, hardly worth while to expend one's energy in ridiculing
+a man who took it so good-humouredly. It was said in the town that
+Montanelli, one day when the Archbishop of Florence was dining with
+him, had found in the room one of the Gadfly's bitter personal lampoons
+against himself, had read it through and handed the paper to the
+Archbishop, remarking: "That is rather cleverly put, is it not?"
+
+One day there appeared in the town a leaflet, headed: "The Mystery
+of the Annunciation." Even had the author omitted his now familiar
+signature, a sketch of a gadfly with spread wings, the bitter, trenchant
+style would have left in the minds of most readers no doubt as to his
+identity. The skit was in the form of a dialogue between Tuscany as
+the Virgin Mary, and Montanelli as the angel who, bearing the lilies of
+purity and crowned with the olive branch of peace, was announcing the
+advent of the Jesuits. The whole thing was full of offensive personal
+allusions and hints of the most risky nature, and all Florence felt the
+satire to be both ungenerous and unfair. And yet all Florence laughed.
+There was something so irresistible in the Gadfly's grave absurdities
+that those who most disapproved of and disliked him laughed as
+immoderately at all his squibs as did his warmest partisans. Repulsive
+in tone as the leaflet was, it left its trace upon the popular feeling
+of the town. Montanelli's personal reputation stood too high for any
+lampoon, however witty, seriously to injure it, but for a moment the
+tide almost turned against him. The Gadfly had known where to sting;
+and, though eager crowds still collected before the Cardinal's house
+to see him enter or leave his carriage, ominous cries of "Jesuit!" and
+"Sanfedist spy!" often mingled with the cheers and benedictions.
+
+But Montanelli had no lack of supporters. Two days after the publication
+of the skit, the Churchman, a leading clerical paper, brought out
+a brilliant article, called: "An Answer to 'The Mystery of the
+Annunciation,'" and signed: "A Son of the Church." It was an impassioned
+defence of Montanelli against the Gadfly's slanderous imputations. The
+anonymous writer, after expounding, with great eloquence and fervour,
+the doctrine of peace on earth and good will towards men, of which the
+new Pontiff was the evangelist, concluded by challenging the Gadfly
+to prove a single one of his assertions, and solemnly appealing to the
+public not to believe a contemptible slanderer. Both the cogency of
+the article as a bit of special pleading and its merit as a literary
+composition were sufficiently far above the average to attract much
+attention in the town, especially as not even the editor of the
+newspaper could guess the author's identity. The article was soon
+reprinted separately in pamphlet form; and the "anonymous defender" was
+discussed in every coffee-shop in Florence.
+
+The Gadfly responded with a violent attack on the new Pontificate and
+all its supporters, especially on Montanelli, who, he cautiously
+hinted, had probably consented to the panegyric on himself. To this
+the anonymous defender again replied in the Churchman with an indignant
+denial. During the rest of Montanelli's stay the controversy raging
+between the two writers occupied more of the public attention than did
+even the famous preacher himself.
+
+Some members of the liberal party ventured to remonstrate with the
+Gadfly about the unnecessary malice of his tone towards Montanelli; but
+they did not get much satisfaction out of him. He only smiled affably
+and answered with a languid little stammer: "R-really, gentlemen, you
+are rather unfair. I expressly stipulated, when I gave in to Signora
+Bolla, that I should be allowed a l-l-little chuckle all to myself now.
+It is so nominated in the bond!"
+
+At the end of October Montanelli returned to his see in the Romagna,
+and, before leaving Florence, preached a farewell sermon in which he
+spoke of the controversy, gently deprecating the vehemence of both
+writers and begging his unknown defender to set an example of tolerance
+by closing a useless and unseemly war of words. On the following day the
+Churchman contained a notice that, at Monsignor Montanelli's publicly
+expressed desire, "A Son of the Church" would withdraw from the
+controversy.
+
+The last word remained with the Gadfly. He issued a little leaflet,
+in which he declared himself disarmed and converted by Montanelli's
+Christian meekness and ready to weep tears of reconciliation upon the
+neck of the first Sanfedist he met. "I am even willing," he concluded;
+"to embrace my anonymous challenger himself; and if my readers knew, as
+his Eminence and I know, what that implies and why he remains anonymous,
+they would believe in the sincerity of my conversion."
+
+In the latter part of November he announced to the literary committee
+that he was going for a fortnight's holiday to the seaside. He went,
+apparently, to Leghorn; but Dr. Riccardo, going there soon after and
+wishing to speak to him, searched the town for him in vain. On the 5th
+of December a political demonstration of the most extreme character
+burst out in the States of the Church, along the whole chain of the
+Apennines; and people began to guess the reason of the Gadfly's sudden
+fancy to take his holidays in the depth of winter. He came back to
+Florence when the riots had been quelled, and, meeting Riccardo in the
+street, remarked affably:
+
+"I hear you were inquiring for me in Leghorn; I was staying in Pisa.
+What a pretty old town it is! There's something quite Arcadian about
+it."
+
+In Christmas week he attended an afternoon meeting of the literary
+committee which was held in Dr. Riccardo's lodgings near the Porta alla
+Croce. The meeting was a full one, and when he came in, a little late,
+with an apologetic bow and smile, there seemed to be no seat empty.
+Riccardo rose to fetch a chair from the next room, but the Gadfly
+stopped him. "Don't trouble about it," he said; "I shall be quite
+comfortable here"; and crossing the room to a window beside which
+Gemma had placed her chair, he sat down on the sill, leaning his head
+indolently back against the shutter.
+
+As he looked down at Gemma, smiling with half-shut eyes, in the subtle,
+sphinx-like way that gave him the look of a Leonardo da Vinci portrait,
+the instinctive distrust with which he inspired her deepened into a
+sense of unreasoning fear.
+
+The proposal under discussion was that a pamphlet be issued setting
+forth the committee's views on the dearth with which Tuscany was
+threatened and the measures which should be taken to meet it. The
+matter was a somewhat difficult one to decide, because, as usual, the
+committee's views upon the subject were much divided. The more advanced
+section, to which Gemma, Martini, and Riccardo belonged, was in favour
+of an energetic appeal to both government and public to take adequate
+measures at once for the relief of the peasantry. The moderate
+division--including, of course, Grassini--feared that an over-emphatic
+tone might irritate rather than convince the ministry.
+
+"It is all very well, gentlemen, to want the people helped at once," he
+said, looking round upon the red-hot radicals with his calm and pitying
+air. "We most of us want a good many things that we are not likely to
+get; but if we start with the tone you propose to adopt, the government
+is very likely not to begin any relief measures at all till there is
+actual famine. If we could only induce the ministry to make an inquiry
+into the state of the crops it would be a step in advance."
+
+Galli, in his corner by the stove, jumped up to answer his enemy.
+
+"A step in advance--yes, my dear sir; but if there's going to be a
+famine, it won't wait for us to advance at that pace. The people might
+all starve before we got to any actual relief."
+
+"It would be interesting to know----" Sacconi began; but several voices
+interrupted him.
+
+"Speak up; we can't hear!"
+
+"I should think not, with such an infernal row in the street," said
+Galli, irritably. "Is that window shut, Riccardo? One can't hear one's
+self speak!"
+
+Gemma looked round. "Yes," she said, "the window is quite shut. I think
+there is a variety show, or some such thing, passing."
+
+The sounds of shouting and laughter, of the tinkling of bells and
+trampling of feet, resounded from the street below, mixed with the
+braying of a villainous brass band and the unmerciful banging of a drum.
+
+"It can't be helped these few days," said Riccardo; "we must expect
+noise at Christmas time. What were you saying, Sacconi?"
+
+"I said it would be interesting to hear what is thought about the matter
+in Pisa and Leghorn. Perhaps Signor Rivarez can tell us something; he
+has just come from there."
+
+The Gadfly did not answer. He was staring out of the window and appeared
+not to have heard what had been said.
+
+"Signor Rivarez!" said Gemma. She was the only person sitting near to
+him, and as he remained silent she bent forward and touched him on the
+arm. He slowly turned his face to her, and she started as she saw its
+fixed and awful immobility. For a moment it was like the face of a
+corpse; then the lips moved in a strange, lifeless way.
+
+"Yes," he whispered; "a variety show."
+
+Her first instinct was to shield him from the curiosity of the others.
+Without understanding what was the matter with him, she realized that
+some frightful fancy or hallucination had seized upon him, and that, for
+the moment, he was at its mercy, body and soul. She rose quickly and,
+standing between him and the company, threw the window open as if to
+look out. No one but herself had seen his face.
+
+In the street a travelling circus was passing, with mountebanks on
+donkeys and harlequins in parti-coloured dresses. The crowd of holiday
+masqueraders, laughing and shoving, was exchanging jests and showers of
+paper ribbon with the clowns and flinging little bags of sugar-plums to
+the columbine, who sat in her car, tricked out in tinsel and feathers,
+with artificial curls on her forehead and an artificial smile on her
+painted lips. Behind the car came a motley string of figures--street
+Arabs, beggars, clowns turning somersaults, and costermongers hawking
+their wares. They were jostling, pelting, and applauding a figure which
+at first Gemma could not see for the pushing and swaying of the crowd.
+The next moment, however, she saw plainly what it was--a hunchback,
+dwarfish and ugly, grotesquely attired in a fool's dress, with paper
+cap and bells. He evidently belonged to the strolling company, and was
+amusing the crowd with hideous grimaces and contortions.
+
+"What is going on out there?" asked Riccardo, approaching the window.
+"You seem very much interested."
+
+He was a little surprised at their keeping the whole committee waiting
+to look at a strolling company of mountebanks. Gemma turned round.
+
+"It is nothing interesting," she said; "only a variety show; but they
+made such a noise that I thought it must be something else."
+
+She was standing with one hand upon the window-sill, and suddenly felt
+the Gadfly's cold fingers press the hand with a passionate clasp. "Thank
+you!" he whispered softly; and then, closing the window, sat down again
+upon the sill.
+
+"I'm afraid," he said in his airy manner, "that I have interrupted you,
+gentlemen. I was l-looking at the variety show; it is s-such a p-pretty
+sight."
+
+"Sacconi was asking you a question," said Martini gruffly. The Gadfly's
+behaviour seemed to him an absurd piece of affectation, and he was
+annoyed that Gemma should have been tactless enough to follow his
+example. It was not like her.
+
+The Gadfly disclaimed all knowledge of the state of feeling in Pisa,
+explaining that he had been there "only on a holiday." He then plunged
+at once into an animated discussion, first of agricultural prospects,
+then of the pamphlet question; and continued pouring out a flood of
+stammering talk till the others were quite tired. He seemed to find some
+feverish delight in the sound of his own voice.
+
+When the meeting ended and the members of the committee rose to go,
+Riccardo came up to Martini.
+
+"Will you stop to dinner with me? Fabrizi and Sacconi have promised to
+stay."
+
+"Thanks; but I was going to see Signora Bolla home."
+
+"Are you really afraid I can't get home by myself?" she asked, rising
+and putting on her wrap. "Of course he will stay with you, Dr. Riccardo;
+it's good for him to get a change. He doesn't go out half enough."
+
+"If you will allow me, I will see you home," the Gadfly interposed; "I
+am going in that direction."
+
+"If you really are going that way----"
+
+"I suppose you won't have time to drop in here in the course of the
+evening, will you, Rivarez?" asked Riccardo, as he opened the door for
+them.
+
+The Gadfly looked back over his shoulder, laughing. "I, my dear fellow?
+I'm going to see the variety show!"
+
+"What a strange creature that is; and what an odd affection for
+mountebanks!" said Riccardo, coming back to his visitors.
+
+"Case of a fellow-feeling, I should think," said Martini; "the man's a
+mountebank himself, if ever I saw one."
+
+"I wish I could think he was only that," Fabrizi interposed, with a
+grave face. "If he is a mountebank I am afraid he's a very dangerous
+one."
+
+"Dangerous in what way?"
+
+"Well, I don't like those mysterious little pleasure trips that he is so
+fond of taking. This is the third time, you know; and I don't believe he
+has been in Pisa at all."
+
+"I suppose it is almost an open secret that it's into the mountains he
+goes," said Sacconi. "He has hardly taken the trouble to deny that he
+is still in relations with the smugglers he got to know in the Savigno
+affair, and it's quite natural he should take advantage of their
+friendship to get his leaflets across the Papal frontier."
+
+"For my part," said Riccardo; "what I wanted to talk to you about is
+this very question. It occurred to me that we could hardly do better
+than ask Rivarez to undertake the management of our own smuggling. That
+press at Pistoja is very inefficiently managed, to my thinking; and the
+way the leaflets are taken across, always rolled in those everlasting
+cigars, is more than primitive."
+
+"It has answered pretty well up till now," said Martini contumaciously.
+He was getting wearied of hearing Galli and Riccardo always put the
+Gadfly forward as a model to copy, and inclined to think that the world
+had gone well enough before this "lackadaisical buccaneer" turned up to
+set everyone to rights.
+
+"It has answered so far well that we have been satisfied with it for
+want of anything better; but you know there have been plenty of arrests
+and confiscations. Now I believe that if Rivarez undertook the business
+for us, there would be less of that."
+
+"Why do you think so?"
+
+"In the first place, the smugglers look upon us as strangers to do
+business with, or as sheep to fleece, whereas Rivarez is their personal
+friend, very likely their leader, whom they look up to and trust. You
+may be sure every smuggler in the Apennines will do for a man who was
+in the Savigno revolt what he will not do for us. In the next place,
+there's hardly a man among us that knows the mountains as Rivarez does.
+Remember, he has been a fugitive among them, and knows the smugglers'
+paths by heart. No smuggler would dare to cheat him, even if he wished
+to, and no smuggler could cheat him if he dared to try."
+
+"Then is your proposal that we should ask him to take over the
+whole management of our literature on the other side of the
+frontier--distribution, addresses, hiding-places, everything--or simply
+that we should ask him to put the things across for us?"
+
+"Well, as for addresses and hiding-places, he probably knows already
+all the ones that we have and a good many more that we have not. I
+don't suppose we should be able to teach him much in that line. As
+for distribution, it's as the others prefer, of course. The important
+question, to my mind, is the actual smuggling itself. Once the books are
+safe in Bologna, it's a comparatively simple matter to circulate them."
+
+"For my part," said Martini, "I am against the plan. In the first place,
+all this about his skilfulness is mere conjecture; we have not actually
+seen him engaged in frontier work and do not know whether he keeps his
+head in critical moments."
+
+"Oh, you needn't have any doubt of that!" Riccardo put in. "The history
+of the Savigno affair proves that he keeps his head."
+
+"And then," Martini went on; "I do not feel at all inclined, from what
+little I know of Rivarez, to intrust him with all the party's secrets.
+He seems to me feather-brained and theatrical. To give the whole
+management of a party's contraband work into a man's hands is a serious
+matter. Fabrizi, what do you think?"
+
+"If I had only such objections as yours, Martini," replied the
+professor, "I should certainly waive them in the case of a man really
+possessing, as Rivarez undoubtedly does, all the qualifications Riccardo
+speaks of. For my part, I have not the slightest doubt as to either his
+courage, his honesty, or his presence of mind; and that he knows both
+mountains and mountaineers we have had ample proof. But there is another
+objection. I do not feel sure that it is only for the smuggling of
+pamphlets he goes into the mountains. I have begun to doubt whether he
+has not another purpose. This is, of course, entirely between ourselves.
+It is a mere suspicion. It seems to me just possible that he is in
+connexion with some one of the 'sects,' and perhaps with the most
+dangerous of them."
+
+"Which one do you mean--the 'Red Girdles'?"
+
+"No; the 'Occoltellatori.'"
+
+"The 'Knifers'! But that is a little body of outlaws--peasants, most of
+them, with neither education nor political experience."
+
+"So were the insurgents of Savigno; but they had a few educated men as
+leaders, and this little society may have the same. And remember, it's
+pretty well known that most of the members of those more violent sects
+in the Romagna are survivors of the Savigno affair, who found themselves
+too weak to fight the Churchmen in open insurrection, and so have fallen
+back on assassination. Their hands are not strong enough for guns, and
+they take to knives instead."
+
+"But what makes you suppose Rivarez to be connected with them?"
+
+"I don't suppose, I merely suspect. In any case, I think we had better
+find out for certain before we intrust our smuggling to him. If he
+attempted to do both kinds of work at once he would injure our party
+most terribly; he would simply destroy its reputation and accomplish
+nothing. However, we will talk of that another time. I wanted to speak
+to you about the news from Rome. It is said that a commission is to be
+appointed to draw up a project for a municipal constitution."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+GEMMA and the Gadfly walked silently along the Lung'Arno. His feverish
+talkativeness seemed to have quite spent itself; he had hardly spoken a
+word since they left Riccardo's door, and Gemma was heartily glad of his
+silence. She always felt embarrassed in his company, and to-day more
+so than usual, for his strange behaviour at the committee meeting had
+greatly perplexed her.
+
+By the Uffizi palace he suddenly stopped and turned to her.
+
+"Are you tired?"
+
+"No; why?"
+
+"Nor especially busy this evening?"
+
+"No."
+
+"I want to ask a favour of you; I want you to come for a walk with me."
+
+"Where to?"
+
+"Nowhere in particular; anywhere you like."
+
+"But what for?"
+
+He hesitated.
+
+"I--can't tell you--at least, it's very difficult; but please come if
+you can."
+
+He raised his eyes suddenly from the ground, and she saw how strange
+their expression was.
+
+"There is something the matter with you," she said gently. He pulled a
+leaf from the flower in his button-hole, and began tearing it to pieces.
+Who was it that he was so oddly like? Someone who had that same trick of
+the fingers and hurried, nervous gesture.
+
+"I am in trouble," he said, looking down at his hands and speaking in a
+hardly audible voice. "I--don't want to be alone this evening. Will you
+come?"
+
+"Yes, certainly, unless you would rather go to my lodgings."
+
+"No; come and dine with me at a restaurant. There's one on the Signoria.
+Please don't refuse, now; you've promised!"
+
+They went into a restaurant, where he ordered dinner, but hardly touched
+his own share, and remained obstinately silent, crumbling the bread over
+the cloth, and fidgeting with the fringe of his table napkin. Gemma felt
+thoroughly uncomfortable, and began to wish she had refused to come; the
+silence was growing awkward; yet she could not begin to make small-talk
+with a person who seemed to have forgotten her presence. At last he
+looked up and said abruptly:
+
+"Would you like to see the variety show?"
+
+She stared at him in astonishment. What had he got into his head about
+variety shows?
+
+"Have you ever seen one?" he asked before she had time to speak.
+
+"No; I don't think so. I didn't suppose they were interesting."
+
+"They are very interesting. I don't think anyone can study the life of
+the people without seeing them. Let us go back to the Porta alla Croce."
+
+When they arrived the mountebanks had set up their tent beside the
+town gate, and an abominable scraping of fiddles and banging of drums
+announced that the performance had begun.
+
+The entertainment was of the roughest kind. A few clowns, harlequins,
+and acrobats, a circus-rider jumping through hoops, the painted
+columbine, and the hunchback performing various dull and foolish antics,
+represented the entire force of the company. The jokes were not, on the
+whole, coarse or offensive; but they were very tame and stale, and there
+was a depressing flatness about the whole thing. The audience laughed
+and clapped from their innate Tuscan courtesy; but the only part which
+they seemed really to enjoy was the performance of the hunchback, in
+which Gemma could find nothing either witty or skilful. It was merely
+a series of grotesque and hideous contortions, which the spectators
+mimicked, holding up children on their shoulders that the little ones
+might see the "ugly man."
+
+"Signor Rivarez, do you really think this attractive?" said Gemma,
+turning to the Gadfly, who was standing beside her, his arm round one of
+the wooden posts of the tent. "It seems to me----"
+
+She broke off and remained looking at him silently. Except when she had
+stood with Montanelli at the garden gate in Leghorn, she had never seen
+a human face express such fathomless, hopeless misery. She thought of
+Dante's hell as she watched him.
+
+Presently the hunchback, receiving a kick from one of the clowns,
+turned a somersault and tumbled in a grotesque heap outside the ring. A
+dialogue between two clowns began, and the Gadfly seemed to wake out of
+a dream.
+
+"Shall we go?" he asked; "or would you like to see more?"
+
+"I would rather go."
+
+They left the tent, and walked across the dark green to the river. For a
+few moments neither spoke.
+
+"What did you think of the show?" the Gadfly asked presently.
+
+"I thought it rather a dreary business; and part of it seemed to me
+positively unpleasant."
+
+"Which part?"
+
+"Well, all those grimaces and contortions. They are simply ugly; there
+is nothing clever about them."
+
+"Do you mean the hunchback's performance?"
+
+Remembering his peculiar sensitiveness on the subject of his own
+physical defects, she had avoided mentioning this particular bit of the
+entertainment; but now that he had touched upon the subject himself, she
+answered: "Yes; I did not like that part at all."
+
+"That was the part the people enjoyed most."
+
+"I dare say; and that is just the worst thing about it."
+
+"Because it was inartistic?"
+
+"N-no; it was all inartistic. I meant--because it was cruel."
+
+He smiled.
+
+"Cruel? Do you mean to the hunchback?"
+
+"I mean---- Of course the man himself was quite indifferent; no doubt,
+it is to him just a way of getting a living, like the circus-rider's
+way or the columbine's. But the thing makes one feel unhappy. It is
+humiliating; it is the degradation of a human being."
+
+"He probably is not any more degraded than he was to start with. Most of
+us are degraded in one way or another."
+
+"Yes; but this--I dare say you will think it an absurd prejudice; but
+a human body, to me, is a sacred thing; I don't like to see it treated
+irreverently and made hideous."
+
+"And a human soul?"
+
+He had stopped short, and was standing with one hand on the stone
+balustrade of the embankment, looking straight at her.
+
+"A soul?" she repeated, stopping in her turn to look at him in wonder.
+
+He flung out both hands with a sudden, passionate gesture.
+
+"Has it never occurred to you that that miserable clown may have a
+soul--a living, struggling, human soul, tied down into that crooked hulk
+of a body and forced to slave for it? You that are so tender-hearted to
+everything--you that pity the body in its fool's dress and bells--have
+you never thought of the wretched soul that has not even motley to cover
+its horrible nakedness? Think of it shivering with cold, stilled with
+shame and misery, before all those people--feeling their jeers that cut
+like a whip--their laughter, that burns like red-hot iron on the bare
+flesh! Think of it looking round--so helpless before them all--for the
+mountains that will not fall on it--for the rocks that have not the
+heart to cover it--envying the rats that can creep into some hole in the
+earth and hide; and remember that a soul is dumb--it has no voice to cry
+out--it must endure, and endure, and endure. Oh! I'm talking nonsense!
+Why on earth don't you laugh? You have no sense of humour!"
+
+Slowly and in dead silence she turned and walked on along the river
+side. During the whole evening it had not once occurred to her to
+connect his trouble, whatever it might be, with the variety show; and
+now that some dim picture of his inner life had been revealed to her by
+this sudden outburst, she could not find, in her overwhelming pity for
+him, one word to say. He walked on beside her, with his head turned
+away, and looked into the water.
+
+"I want you, please, to understand," he began suddenly, turning to her
+with a defiant air, "that everything I have just been saying to you is
+pure imagination. I'm rather given to romancing, but I don't like people
+to take it seriously."
+
+She made no answer, and they walked on in silence. As they passed by the
+gateway of the Uffizi, he crossed the road and stooped down over a dark
+bundle that was lying against the railings.
+
+"What is the matter, little one?" he asked, more gently than she had
+ever heard him speak. "Why don't you go home?"
+
+The bundle moved, and answered something in a low, moaning voice. Gemma
+came across to look, and saw a child of about six years old, ragged and
+dirty, crouching on the pavement like a frightened animal. The Gadfly
+was bending down with his hand on the unkempt head.
+
+"What is it?" he said, stooping lower to catch the unintelligible
+answer. "You ought to go home to bed; little boys have no business out
+of doors at night; you'll be quite frozen! Give me your hand and jump up
+like a man! Where do you live?"
+
+He took the child's arm to raise him. The result was a sharp scream and
+a quick shrinking away.
+
+"Why, what is it?" the Gadfly asked, kneeling down on the pavement. "Ah!
+Signora, look here!"
+
+The child's shoulder and jacket were covered with blood.
+
+"Tell me what has happened?" the Gadfly went on caressingly. "It wasn't
+a fall, was it? No? Someone's been beating you? I thought so! Who was
+it?"
+
+"My uncle."
+
+"Ah, yes! And when was it?"
+
+"This morning. He was drunk, and I--I----"
+
+"And you got in his way--was that it? You shouldn't get in people's way
+when they are drunk, little man; they don't like it. What shall we do
+with this poor mite, signora? Come here to the light, sonny, and let
+me look at that shoulder. Put your arm round my neck; I won't hurt you.
+There we are!"
+
+He lifted the boy in his arms, and, carrying him across the street, set
+him down on the wide stone balustrade. Then, taking out a pocket-knife,
+he deftly ripped up the torn sleeve, supporting the child's head against
+his breast, while Gemma held the injured arm. The shoulder was badly
+bruised and grazed, and there was a deep gash on the arm.
+
+"That's an ugly cut to give a mite like you," said the Gadfly, fastening
+his handkerchief round the wound to prevent the jacket from rubbing
+against it. "What did he do it with?"
+
+"The shovel. I went to ask him to give me a soldo to get some polenta at
+the corner shop, and he hit me with the shovel."
+
+The Gadfly shuddered. "Ah!" he said softly, "that hurts; doesn't it,
+little one?"
+
+"He hit me with the shovel--and I ran away--I ran away--because he hit
+me."
+
+"And you've been wandering about ever since, without any dinner?"
+
+Instead of answering, the child began to sob violently. The Gadfly
+lifted him off the balustrade.
+
+"There, there! We'll soon set all that straight. I wonder if we can
+get a cab anywhere. I'm afraid they'll all be waiting by the theatre;
+there's a grand performance going on to-night. I am sorry to drag you
+about so, signora; but----"
+
+"I would rather come with you. You may want help. Do you think you can
+carry him so far? Isn't he very heavy?"
+
+"Oh, I can manage, thank you."
+
+At the theatre door they found only a few cabs waiting, and these were
+all engaged. The performance was over, and most of the audience had
+gone. Zita's name was printed in large letters on the wall-placards; she
+had been dancing in the ballet. Asking Gemma to wait for him a moment,
+the Gadfly went round to the performers' entrance, and spoke to an
+attendant.
+
+"Has Mme. Reni gone yet?"
+
+"No, sir," the man answered, staring blankly at the spectacle of a
+well-dressed gentleman carrying a ragged street child in his arms, "Mme.
+Reni is just coming out, I think; her carriage is waiting for her. Yes;
+there she comes."
+
+Zita descended the stairs, leaning on the arm of a young cavalry
+officer. She looked superbly handsome, with an opera cloak of
+flame-coloured velvet thrown over her evening dress, and a great fan of
+ostrich plumes hanging from her waist. In the entry she stopped short,
+and, drawing her hand away from the officer's arm, approached the Gadfly
+in amazement.
+
+"Felice!" she exclaimed under her breath, "what HAVE you got there?"
+
+"I have picked up this child in the street. It is hurt and starving; and
+I want to get it home as quickly as possible. There is not a cab to be
+got anywhere, so I want to have your carriage."
+
+"Felice! you are not going to take a horrid beggar-child into your
+rooms! Send for a policeman, and let him carry it to the Refuge or
+whatever is the proper place for it. You can't have all the paupers in
+the town----"
+
+"It is hurt," the Gadfly repeated; "it can go to the Refuge to-morrow,
+if necessary, but I must see to the child first and give it some food."
+
+Zita made a little grimace of disgust. "You've got its head right
+against your shirt! How CAN you? It is dirty!"
+
+The Gadfly looked up with a sudden flash of anger.
+
+"It is hungry," he said fiercely. "You don't know what that means, do
+you?"
+
+"Signor Rivarez," interposed Gemma, coming forward, "my lodgings are
+quite close. Let us take the child in there. Then, if you cannot find a
+vettura, I will manage to put it up for the night."
+
+He turned round quickly. "You don't mind?"
+
+"Of course not. Good-night, Mme. Reni!"
+
+The gipsy, with a stiff bow and an angry shrug of her shoulders, took
+her officer's arm again, and, gathering up the train of her dress, swept
+past them to the contested carriage.
+
+"I will send it back to fetch you and the child, if you like, M.
+Rivarez," she said, pausing on the doorstep.
+
+"Very well; I will give the address." He came out on to the pavement,
+gave the address to the driver, and walked back to Gemma with his
+burden.
+
+Katie was waiting up for her mistress; and, on hearing what had
+happened, ran for warm water and other necessaries. Placing the child on
+a chair, the Gadfly knelt down beside him, and, deftly slipping off
+the ragged clothing, bathed and bandaged the wound with tender, skilful
+hands. He had just finished washing the boy, and was wrapping him in a
+warm blanket, when Gemma came in with a tray in her hands.
+
+"Is your patient ready for his supper?" she asked, smiling at the
+strange little figure. "I have been cooking it for him."
+
+The Gadfly stood up and rolled the dirty rags together. "I'm afraid we
+have made a terrible mess in your room," he said. "As for these, they
+had better go straight into the fire, and I will buy him some new
+clothes to-morrow. Have you any brandy in the house, signora? I think
+he ought to have a little. I will just wash my hands, if you will allow
+me."
+
+When the child had finished his supper, he immediately went to sleep in
+the Gadfly's arms, with his rough head against the white shirt-front.
+Gemma, who had been helping Katie to set the disordered room tidy again,
+sat down at the table.
+
+"Signor Rivarez, you must take something before you go home--you had
+hardly any dinner, and it's very late."
+
+"I should like a cup of tea in the English fashion, if you have it. I'm
+sorry to keep you up so late."
+
+"Oh! that doesn't matter. Put the child down on the sofa; he will tire
+you. Wait a minute; I will just lay a sheet over the cushions. What are
+you going to do with him?"
+
+"To-morrow? Find out whether he has any other relations except that
+drunken brute; and if not, I suppose I must follow Mme. Reni's advice,
+and take him to the Refuge. Perhaps the kindest thing to do would be to
+put a stone round his neck and pitch him into the river there; but that
+would expose me to unpleasant consequences. Fast asleep! What an odd
+little lump of ill-luck you are, you mite--not half as capable of
+defending yourself as a stray cat!"
+
+When Katie brought in the tea-tray, the boy opened his eyes and sat up
+with a bewildered air. Recognizing the Gadfly, whom he already regarded
+as his natural protector, he wriggled off the sofa, and, much encumbered
+by the folds of his blanket, came up to nestle against him. He was
+by now sufficiently revived to be inquisitive; and, pointing to the
+mutilated left hand, in which the Gadfly was holding a piece of cake,
+asked:
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"That? Cake; do you want some? I think you've had enough for now. Wait
+till to-morrow, little man."
+
+"No--that!" He stretched out his hand and touched the stumps of the
+amputated fingers and the great scar on the wrist. The Gadfly put down
+his cake.
+
+"Oh, that! It's the same sort of thing as what you have on your
+shoulder--a hit I got from someone stronger than I was."
+
+"Didn't it hurt awfully?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know--not more than other things. There, now, go to sleep
+again; you have no business asking questions at this time of night."
+
+When the carriage arrived the boy was again asleep; and the Gadfly,
+without awaking him, lifted him gently and carried him out on to the
+stairs.
+
+"You have been a sort of ministering angel to me to-day," he said to
+Gemma, pausing at the door. "But I suppose that need not prevent us from
+quarrelling to our heart's content in future."
+
+"I have no desire to quarrel with anyone."
+
+"Ah! but I have. Life would be unendurable without quarrels. A good
+quarrel is the salt of the earth; it's better than a variety show!"
+
+And with that he went downstairs, laughing softly to himself, with the
+sleeping child in his arms.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+ONE day in the first week of January Martini, who had sent round
+the forms of invitation to the monthly group-meeting of the literary
+committee, received from the Gadfly a laconic, pencil-scrawled "Very
+sorry: can't come." He was a little annoyed, as a notice of "important
+business" had been put into the invitation; this cavalier treatment
+seemed to him almost insolent. Moreover, three separate letters
+containing bad news arrived during the day, and the wind was in the
+east, so that Martini felt out of sorts and out of temper; and when, at
+the group meeting, Dr. Riccardo asked, "Isn't Rivarez here?" he answered
+rather sulkily: "No; he seems to have got something more interesting on
+hand, and can't come, or doesn't want to."
+
+"Really, Martini," said Galli irritably, "you are about the most
+prejudiced person in Florence. Once you object to a man, everything he
+does is wrong. How could Rivarez come when he's ill?"
+
+"Who told you he was ill?"
+
+"Didn't you know? He's been laid up for the last four days."
+
+"What's the matter with him?"
+
+"I don't know. He had to put off an appointment with me on Thursday on
+account of illness; and last night, when I went round, I heard that he
+was too ill to see anyone. I thought Riccardo would be looking after
+him."
+
+"I knew nothing about it. I'll go round to-night and see if he wants
+anything."
+
+The next morning Riccardo, looking very pale and tired, came into
+Gemma's little study. She was sitting at the table, reading out
+monotonous strings of figures to Martini, who, with a magnifying glass
+in one hand and a finely pointed pencil in the other, was making
+tiny marks in the pages of a book. She made with one hand a gesture
+requesting silence. Riccardo, knowing that a person who is writing in
+cipher must not be interrupted, sat down on the sofa behind her and
+yawned like a man who can hardly keep awake.
+
+"2, 4; 3, 7; 6, 1; 3, 5; 4, 1;" Gemma's voice went on with machine-like
+evenness. "8, 4; 7, 2; 5, 1; that finishes the sentence, Cesare."
+
+She stuck a pin into the paper to mark the exact place, and turned
+round.
+
+"Good-morning, doctor; how fagged you look! Are you well?"
+
+"Oh, I'm well enough--only tired out. I've had an awful night with
+Rivarez."
+
+"With Rivarez?"
+
+"Yes; I've been up with him all night, and now I must go off to my
+hospital patients. I just came round to know whether you can think of
+anyone that could look after him a bit for the next few days. He's in a
+devil of a state. I'll do my best, of course; but I really haven't the
+time; and he won't hear of my sending in a nurse."
+
+"What is the matter with him?"
+
+"Well, rather a complication of things. First of all----"
+
+"First of all, have you had any breakfast?"
+
+"Yes, thank you. About Rivarez--no doubt, it's complicated with a lot of
+nerve trouble; but the main cause of disturbance is an old injury
+that seems to have been disgracefully neglected. Altogether, he's in
+a frightfully knocked-about state; I suppose it was that war in South
+America--and he certainly didn't get proper care when the mischief was
+done. Probably things were managed in a very rough-and-ready fashion
+out there; he's lucky to be alive at all. However, there's a chronic
+tendency to inflammation, and any trifle may bring on an attack----"
+
+"Is that dangerous?"
+
+"N-no; the chief danger in a case of that kind is of the patient getting
+desperate and taking a dose of arsenic."
+
+"It is very painful, of course?"
+
+"It's simply horrible; I don't know how he manages to bear it. I was
+obliged to stupefy him with opium in the night--a thing I hate to do
+with a nervous patient; but I had to stop it somehow."
+
+"He is nervous, I should think."
+
+"Very, but splendidly plucky. As long as he was not actually
+light-headed with the pain last night, his coolness was quite wonderful.
+But I had an awful job with him towards the end. How long do you suppose
+this thing has been going on? Just five nights; and not a soul within
+call except that stupid landlady, who wouldn't wake if the house tumbled
+down, and would be no use if she did."
+
+"But what about the ballet-girl?"
+
+"Yes; isn't that a curious thing? He won't let her come near him. He
+has a morbid horror of her. Altogether, he's one of the most
+incomprehensible creatures I ever met--a perfect mass of
+contradictions."
+
+He took out his watch and looked at it with a preoccupied face. "I shall
+be late at the hospital; but it can't be helped. The junior will have
+to begin without me for once. I wish I had known of all this before--it
+ought not to have been let go on that way night after night."
+
+"But why on earth didn't he send to say he was ill?" Martini
+interrupted. "He might have guessed we shouldn't have left him stranded
+in that fashion."
+
+"I wish, doctor," said Gemma, "that you had sent for one of us last
+night, instead of wearing yourself out like this."
+
+"My dear lady, I wanted to send round to Galli; but Rivarez got so
+frantic at the suggestion that I didn't dare attempt it. When I asked
+him whether there was anyone else he would like fetched, he looked at me
+for a minute, as if he were scared out of his wits, and then put up
+both hands to his eyes and said: 'Don't tell them; they will laugh!'
+He seemed quite possessed with some fancy about people laughing at
+something. I couldn't make out what; he kept talking Spanish; but
+patients do say the oddest things sometimes."
+
+"Who is with him now?" asked Gemma.
+
+"No one except the landlady and her maid."
+
+"I'll go to him at once," said Martini.
+
+"Thank you. I'll look round again in the evening. You'll find a paper
+of written directions in the table-drawer by the large window, and the
+opium is on the shelf in the next room. If the pain comes on again, give
+him another dose--not more than one; but don't leave the bottle where he
+can get at it, whatever you do; he might be tempted to take too much."
+
+When Martini entered the darkened room, the Gadfly turned his head
+round quickly, and, holding out to him a burning hand, began, in a bad
+imitation of his usual flippant manner:
+
+"Ah, Martini! You have come to rout me out about those proofs. It's no
+use swearing at me for missing the committee last night; the fact is, I
+have not been quite well, and----"
+
+"Never mind the committee. I have just seen Riccardo, and have come to
+know if I can be of any use."
+
+The Gadfly set his face like a flint.
+
+"Oh, really! that is very kind of you; but it wasn't worth the trouble.
+I'm only a little out of sorts."
+
+"So I understood from Riccardo. He was up with you all night, I
+believe."
+
+The Gadfly bit his lip savagely.
+
+"I am quite comfortable, thank you, and don't want anything."
+
+"Very well; then I will sit in the other room; perhaps you would rather
+be alone. I will leave the door ajar, in case you call me."
+
+"Please don't trouble about it; I really shan't want anything. I should
+be wasting your time for nothing."
+
+"Nonsense, man!" Martini broke in roughly. "What's the use of trying
+to fool me that way? Do you think I have no eyes? Lie still and go to
+sleep, if you can."
+
+He went into the adjoining room, and, leaving the door open, sat down
+with a book. Presently he heard the Gadfly move restlessly two or three
+times. He put down his book and listened. There was a short silence,
+then another restless movement; then the quick, heavy, panting breath
+of a man clenching his teeth to suppress a groan. He went back into the
+room.
+
+"Can I do anything for you, Rivarez?"
+
+There was no answer, and he crossed the room to the bed-side. The
+Gadfly, with a ghastly, livid face, looked at him for a moment, and
+silently shook his head.
+
+"Shall I give you some more opium? Riccardo said you were to have it if
+the pain got very bad."
+
+"No, thank you; I can bear it a bit longer. It may be worse later on."
+
+Martini shrugged his shoulders and sat down beside the bed. For an
+interminable hour he watched in silence; then he rose and fetched the
+opium.
+
+"Rivarez, I won't let this go on any longer; if you can stand it, I
+can't. You must have the stuff."
+
+The Gadfly took it without speaking. Then he turned away and closed
+his eyes. Martini sat down again, and listened as the breathing became
+gradually deep and even.
+
+The Gadfly was too much exhausted to wake easily when once asleep. Hour
+after hour he lay absolutely motionless. Martini approached him several
+times during the day and evening, and looked at the still figure; but,
+except the breathing, there was no sign of life. The face was so wan and
+colourless that at last a sudden fear seized upon him; what if he had
+given too much opium? The injured left arm lay on the coverlet, and
+he shook it gently to rouse the sleeper. As he did so, the unfastened
+sleeve fell back, showing a series of deep and fearful scars covering
+the arm from wrist to elbow.
+
+"That arm must have been in a pleasant condition when those marks were
+fresh," said Riccardo's voice behind him.
+
+"Ah, there you are at last! Look here, Riccardo; ought this man to sleep
+forever? I gave him a dose about ten hours ago, and he hasn't moved a
+muscle since."
+
+Riccardo stooped down and listened for a moment.
+
+"No; he is breathing quite properly; it's nothing but sheer
+exhaustion--what you might expect after such a night. There may be
+another paroxysm before morning. Someone will sit up, I hope?"
+
+"Galli will; he has sent to say he will be here by ten."
+
+"It's nearly that now. Ah, he's waking! Just see the maidservant gets
+that broth hot. Gently--gently, Rivarez! There, there, you needn't
+fight, man; I'm not a bishop!"
+
+The Gadfly started up with a shrinking, scared look. "Is it my turn?" he
+said hurriedly in Spanish. "Keep the people amused a minute; I---- Ah! I
+didn't see you, Riccardo."
+
+He looked round the room and drew one hand across his forehead as if
+bewildered. "Martini! Why, I thought you had gone away. I must have been
+asleep."
+
+"You have been sleeping like the beauty in the fairy story for the last
+ten hours; and now you are to have some broth and go to sleep again."
+
+"Ten hours! Martini, surely you haven't been here all that time?"
+
+"Yes; I was beginning to wonder whether I hadn't given you an overdose
+of opium."
+
+The Gadfly shot a sly glance at him.
+
+"No such luck! Wouldn't you have nice quiet committee-meetings? What
+the devil do you want, Riccardo? Do for mercy's sake leave me in peace,
+can't you? I hate being mauled about by doctors."
+
+"Well then, drink this and I'll leave you in peace. I shall come round
+in a day or two, though, and give you a thorough overhauling. I think
+you have pulled through the worst of this business now; you don't look
+quite so much like a death's head at a feast."
+
+"Oh, I shall be all right soon, thanks. Who's that--Galli? I seem to
+have a collection of all the graces here to-night."
+
+"I have come to stop the night with you."
+
+"Nonsense! I don't want anyone. Go home, all the lot of you. Even if
+the thing should come on again, you can't help me; I won't keep taking
+opium. It's all very well once in a way."
+
+"I'm afraid you're right," Riccardo said. "But that's not always an easy
+resolution to stick to."
+
+The Gadfly looked up, smiling. "No fear! If I'd been going in for that
+sort of thing, I should have done it long ago."
+
+"Anyway, you are not going to be left alone," Riccardo answered drily.
+"Come into the other room a minute, Galli; I want to speak to you.
+Good-night, Rivarez; I'll look in to-morrow."
+
+Martini was following them out of the room when he heard his name softly
+called. The Gadfly was holding out a hand to him.
+
+"Thank you!"
+
+"Oh, stuff! Go to sleep."
+
+When Riccardo had gone, Martini remained a few minutes in the outer
+room, talking with Galli. As he opened the front door of the house he
+heard a carriage stop at the garden gate and saw a woman's figure get
+out and come up the path. It was Zita, returning, evidently, from some
+evening entertainment. He lifted his hat and stood aside to let her
+pass, then went out into the dark lane leading from the house to the
+Poggio Imperiale. Presently the gate clicked and rapid footsteps came
+down the lane.
+
+"Wait a minute!" she said.
+
+When he turned back to meet her she stopped short, and then came slowly
+towards him, dragging one hand after her along the hedge. There was a
+single street-lamp at the corner, and he saw by its light that she was
+hanging her head down as though embarrassed or ashamed.
+
+"How is he?" she asked without looking up.
+
+"Much better than he was this morning. He has been asleep most of the
+day and seems less exhausted. I think the attack is passing over."
+
+She still kept her eyes on the ground.
+
+"Has it been very bad this time?"
+
+"About as bad as it can well be, I should think."
+
+"I thought so. When he won't let me come into the room, that always
+means it's bad."
+
+"Does he often have attacks like this?"
+
+"That depends---- It's so irregular. Last summer, in Switzerland, he was
+quite well; but the winter before, when we were in Vienna, it was awful.
+He wouldn't let me come near him for days together. He hates to have me
+about when he's ill."
+
+She glanced up for a moment, and, dropping her eyes again, went on:
+
+"He always used to send me off to a ball, or concert, or something, on
+one pretext or another, when he felt it coming on. Then he would lock
+himself into his room. I used to slip back and sit outside the door--he
+would have been furious if he'd known. He'd let the dog come in if it
+whined, but not me. He cares more for it, I think."
+
+There was a curious, sullen defiance in her manner.
+
+"Well, I hope it won't be so bad any more," said Martini kindly. "Dr.
+Riccardo is taking the case seriously in hand. Perhaps he will be able
+to make a permanent improvement. And, in any case, the treatment gives
+relief at the moment. But you had better send to us at once, another
+time. He would have suffered very much less if we had known of it
+earlier. Good-night!"
+
+He held out his hand, but she drew back with a quick gesture of refusal.
+
+"I don't see why you want to shake hands with his mistress."
+
+"As you like, of course," he began in embarrassment.
+
+She stamped her foot on the ground. "I hate you!" she cried, turning on
+him with eyes like glowing coals. "I hate you all! You come here talking
+politics to him; and he lets you sit up the night with him and give him
+things to stop the pain, and I daren't so much as peep at him through
+the door! What is he to you? What right have you to come and steal him
+away from me? I hate you! I hate you! I HATE you!"
+
+She burst into a violent fit of sobbing, and, darting back into the
+garden, slammed the gate in his face.
+
+"Good Heavens!" said Martini to himself, as he walked down the lane.
+"That girl is actually in love with him! Of all the extraordinary
+things----"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE Gadfly's recovery was rapid. One afternoon in the following week
+Riccardo found him lying on the sofa in a Turkish dressing-gown,
+chatting with Martini and Galli. He even talked about going downstairs;
+but Riccardo merely laughed at the suggestion and asked whether he would
+like a tramp across the valley to Fiesole to start with.
+
+"You might go and call on the Grassinis for a change," he added
+wickedly. "I'm sure madame would be delighted to see you, especially
+now, when you look so pale and interesting."
+
+The Gadfly clasped his hands with a tragic gesture.
+
+"Bless my soul! I never thought of that! She'd take me for one of
+Italy's martyrs, and talk patriotism to me. I should have to act up to
+the part, and tell her I've been cut to pieces in an underground dungeon
+and stuck together again rather badly; and she'd want to know exactly
+what the process felt like. You don't think she'd believe it, Riccardo?
+I'll bet you my Indian dagger against the bottled tape-worm in your
+den that she'll swallow the biggest lie I can invent. That's a generous
+offer, and you'd better jump at it."
+
+"Thanks, I'm not so fond of murderous tools as you are."
+
+"Well, a tape-worm is as murderous as a dagger, any day, and not half so
+pretty."
+
+"But as it happens, my dear fellow, I don't want the dagger and I do
+want the tape-worm. Martini, I must run off. Are you in charge of this
+obstreperous patient?"
+
+"Only till three o'clock. Galli and I have to go to San Miniato, and
+Signora Bolla is coming till I can get back."
+
+"Signora Bolla!" the Gadfly repeated in a tone of dismay. "Why,
+Martini, this will never do! I can't have a lady bothered over me and my
+ailments. Besides, where is she to sit? She won't like to come in here."
+
+"Since when have you gone in so fiercely for the proprieties?" asked
+Riccardo, laughing. "My good man, Signora Bolla is head nurse in general
+to all of us. She has looked after sick people ever since she was in
+short frocks, and does it better than any sister of mercy I know. Won't
+like to come into your room! Why, you might be talking of the Grassini
+woman! I needn't leave any directions if she's coming, Martini. Heart
+alive, it's half-past two; I must be off!"
+
+"Now, Rivarez, take your physic before she comes," said Galli,
+approaching the sofa with a medicine glass.
+
+"Damn the physic!" The Gadfly had reached the irritable stage of
+convalescence, and was inclined to give his devoted nurses a bad time.
+"W-what do you want to d-d-dose me with all sorts of horrors for now the
+pain is gone?"
+
+"Just because I don't want it to come back. You wouldn't like it if you
+collapsed when Signora Bolla is here and she had to give you opium."
+
+"My g-good sir, if that pain is going to come back it will come; it's
+not a t-toothache to be frightened away with your trashy mixtures. They
+are about as much use as a t-toy squirt for a house on fire. However, I
+suppose you must have your way."
+
+He took the glass with his left hand, and the sight of the terrible
+scars recalled Galli to the former subject of conversation.
+
+"By the way," he asked; "how did you get so much knocked about? In the
+war, was it?"
+
+"Now, didn't I just tell you it was a case of secret dungeons and----"
+
+"Yes, that version is for Signora Grassini's benefit. Really, I suppose
+it was in the war with Brazil?"
+
+"Yes, I got a bit hurt there; and then hunting in the savage districts
+and one thing and another."
+
+"Ah, yes; on the scientific expedition. You can fasten your shirt; I
+have quite done. You seem to have had an exciting time of it out there."
+
+"Well, of course you can't live in savage countries without getting a
+few adventures once in a way," said the Gadfly lightly; "and you can
+hardly expect them all to be pleasant."
+
+"Still, I don't understand how you managed to get so much knocked about
+unless in a bad adventure with wild beasts--those scars on your left
+arm, for instance."
+
+"Ah, that was in a puma-hunt. You see, I had fired----"
+
+There was a knock at the door.
+
+"Is the room tidy, Martini? Yes? Then please open the door. This is
+really most kind, signora; you must excuse my not getting up."
+
+"Of course you mustn't get up; I have not come as a caller. I am a
+little early, Cesare. I thought perhaps you were in a hurry to go."
+
+"I can stop for a quarter of an hour. Let me put your cloak in the other
+room. Shall I take the basket, too?"
+
+"Take care; those are new-laid eggs. Katie brought them in from Monte
+Oliveto this morning. There are some Christmas roses for you, Signor
+Rivarez; I know you are fond of flowers."
+
+She sat down beside the table and began clipping the stalks of the
+flowers and arranging them in a vase.
+
+"Well, Rivarez," said Galli; "tell us the rest of the puma-hunt story;
+you had just begun."
+
+"Ah, yes! Galli was asking me about life in South America, signora; and
+I was telling him how I came to get my left arm spoiled. It was in Peru.
+We had been wading a river on a puma-hunt, and when I fired at the beast
+the powder wouldn't go off; it had got splashed with water. Naturally
+the puma didn't wait for me to rectify that; and this is the result."
+
+"That must have been a pleasant experience."
+
+"Oh, not so bad! One must take the rough with the smooth, of course; but
+it's a splendid life on the whole. Serpent-catching, for instance----"
+
+He rattled on, telling anecdote after anecdote; now of the Argentine
+war, now of the Brazilian expedition, now of hunting feats and
+adventures with savages or wild beasts. Galli, with the delight of
+a child hearing a fairy story, kept interrupting every moment to ask
+questions. He was of the impressionable Neapolitan temperament and loved
+everything sensational. Gemma took some knitting from her basket and
+listened silently, with busy fingers and downcast eyes. Martini frowned
+and fidgeted. The manner in which the anecdotes were told seemed to
+him boastful and self-conscious; and, notwithstanding his unwilling
+admiration for a man who could endure physical pain with the amazing
+fortitude which he had seen the week before, he genuinely disliked the
+Gadfly and all his works and ways.
+
+"It must have been a glorious life!" sighed Galli with naive envy. "I
+wonder you ever made up your mind to leave Brazil. Other countries must
+seem so flat after it!"
+
+"I think I was happiest in Peru and Ecuador," said the Gadfly. "That
+really is a magnificent tract of country. Of course it is very hot,
+especially the coast district of Ecuador, and one has to rough it a bit;
+but the scenery is superb beyond imagination."
+
+"I believe," said Galli, "the perfect freedom of life in a barbarous
+country would attract me more than any scenery. A man must feel his
+personal, human dignity as he can never feel it in our crowded towns."
+
+"Yes," the Gadfly answered; "that is----"
+
+Gemma raised her eyes from her knitting and looked at him. He flushed
+suddenly scarlet and broke off. There was a little pause.
+
+"Surely it is not come on again?" asked Galli anxiously.
+
+"Oh, nothing to speak of, thanks to your s-s-soothing application that I
+b-b-blasphemed against. Are you going already, Martini?"
+
+"Yes. Come along, Galli; we shall be late."
+
+Gemma followed the two men out of the room, and presently returned with
+an egg beaten up in milk.
+
+"Take this, please," she said with mild authority; and sat down again to
+her knitting. The Gadfly obeyed meekly.
+
+For half an hour, neither spoke. Then the Gadfly said in a very low
+voice:
+
+"Signora Bolla!"
+
+She looked up. He was tearing the fringe of the couch-rug, and kept his
+eyes lowered.
+
+"You didn't believe I was speaking the truth just now," he began.
+
+"I had not the smallest doubt that you were telling falsehoods," she
+answered quietly.
+
+"You were quite right. I was telling falsehoods all the time."
+
+"Do you mean about the war?"
+
+"About everything. I was not in that war at all; and as for the
+expedition, I had a few adventures, of course, and most of those stories
+are true, but it was not that way I got smashed. You have detected me in
+one lie, so I may as well confess the lot, I suppose."
+
+"Does it not seem to you rather a waste of energy to invent so many
+falsehoods?" she asked. "I should have thought it was hardly worth the
+trouble."
+
+"What would you have? You know your own English proverb: 'Ask no
+questions and you'll be told no lies.' It's no pleasure to me to fool
+people that way, but I must answer them somehow when they ask what made
+a cripple of me; and I may as well invent something pretty while I'm
+about it. You saw how pleased Galli was."
+
+"Do you prefer pleasing Galli to speaking the truth?"
+
+"The truth!" He looked up with the torn fringe in his hand. "You
+wouldn't have me tell those people the truth? I'd cut my tongue out
+first!" Then with an awkward, shy abruptness:
+
+"I have never told it to anybody yet; but I'll tell you if you care to
+hear."
+
+She silently laid down her knitting. To her there was something
+grievously pathetic in this hard, secret, unlovable creature, suddenly
+flinging his personal confidence at the feet of a woman whom he barely
+knew and whom he apparently disliked.
+
+A long silence followed, and she looked up. He was leaning his left arm
+on the little table beside him, and shading his eyes with the mutilated
+hand, and she noticed the nervous tension of the fingers and the
+throbbing of the scar on the wrist. She came up to him and called him
+softly by name. He started violently and raised his head.
+
+"I f-forgot," he stammered apologetically. "I was g-going to t-tell you
+about----"
+
+"About the--accident or whatever it was that caused your lameness. But
+if it worries you----"
+
+"The accident? Oh, the smashing! Yes; only it wasn't an accident, it was
+a poker."
+
+She stared at him in blank amazement. He pushed back his hair with a
+hand that shook perceptibly, and looked up at her, smiling.
+
+"Won't you sit down? Bring your chair close, please. I'm so sorry I
+can't get it for you. R-really, now I come to think of it, the case
+would have been a p-perfect t-treasure-trove for Riccardo if he had
+had me to treat; he has the true surgeon's love for broken bones, and
+I believe everything in me that was breakable was broken on that
+occasion--except my neck."
+
+"And your courage," she put in softly. "But perhaps you count that among
+your unbreakable possessions."
+
+He shook his head. "No," he said; "my courage has been mended up after
+a fashion, with the rest of me; but it was fairly broken then, like a
+smashed tea-cup; that's the horrible part of it. Ah---- Yes; well, I was
+telling you about the poker.
+
+"It was--let me see--nearly thirteen years ago, in Lima. I told you
+Peru was a delightful country to live in; but it's not quite so nice for
+people that happen to be at low water, as I was. I had been down in the
+Argentine, and then in Chili, tramping the country and starving, mostly;
+and had come up from Valparaiso as odd-man on a cattle-boat. I couldn't
+get any work in Lima itself, so I went down to the docks,--they're
+at Callao, you know,--to try there. Well of course in all those
+shipping-ports there are low quarters where the sea-faring people
+congregate; and after some time I got taken on as servant in one of the
+gambling hells there. I had to do the cooking and billiard-marking, and
+fetch drink for the sailors and their women, and all that sort of thing.
+Not very pleasant work; still I was glad to get it; there was at least
+food and the sight of human faces and sound of human tongues--of a
+kind. You may think that was no advantage; but I had just been down with
+yellow fever, alone in the outhouse of a wretched half-caste shanty, and
+the thing had given me the horrors. Well, one night I was told to put
+out a tipsy Lascar who was making himself obnoxious; he had come ashore
+and lost all his money and was in a bad temper. Of course I had to obey
+if I didn't want to lose my place and starve; but the man was twice as
+strong as I--I was not twenty-one and as weak as a cat after the fever.
+Besides, he had the poker."
+
+He paused a moment, glancing furtively at her; then went on:
+
+"Apparently he intended to put an end to me altogether; but somehow he
+managed to scamp his work--Lascars always do if they have a chance; and
+left just enough of me not smashed to go on living with."
+
+"Yes, but the other people, could they not interfere? Were they all
+afraid of one Lascar?"
+
+He looked up and burst out laughing.
+
+"THE OTHER PEOPLE? The gamblers and the people of the house? Why, you
+don't understand! They were negroes and Chinese and Heaven knows what;
+and I was their servant--THEIR PROPERTY. They stood round and enjoyed
+the fun, of course. That sort of thing counts for a good joke out there.
+So it is if you don't happen to be the subject practised on."
+
+She shuddered.
+
+"Then what was the end of it?"
+
+"That I can't tell you much about; a man doesn't remember the next
+few days after a thing of that kind, as a rule. But there was a ship's
+surgeon near, and it seems that when they found I was not dead, somebody
+called him in. He patched me up after a fashion--Riccardo seems to think
+it was rather badly done, but that may be professional jealousy. Anyhow,
+when I came to my senses, an old native woman had taken me in for
+Christian charity--that sounds queer, doesn't it? She used to sit
+huddled up in the corner of the hut, smoking a black pipe and spitting
+on the floor and crooning to herself. However, she meant well, and
+she told me I might die in peace and nobody should disturb me. But the
+spirit of contradiction was strong in me and I elected to live. It
+was rather a difficult job scrambling back to life, and sometimes I
+am inclined to think it was a great deal of cry for very little wool.
+Anyway that old woman's patience was wonderful; she kept me--how long
+was it?--nearly four months lying in her hut, raving like a mad thing at
+intervals, and as vicious as a bear with a sore ear between-whiles.
+The pain was pretty bad, you see, and my temper had been spoiled in
+childhood with overmuch coddling."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Oh, then--I got up somehow and crawled away. No, don't think it was
+any delicacy about taking a poor woman's charity--I was past caring for
+that; it was only that I couldn't bear the place any longer. You talked
+just now about my courage; if you had seen me then! The worst of the
+pain used to come on every evening, about dusk; and in the afternoon
+I used to lie alone, and watch the sun get lower and lower---- Oh, you
+can't understand! It makes me sick to look at a sunset now!"
+
+A long pause.
+
+"Well, then I went up country, to see if I could get work anywhere--it
+would have driven me mad to stay in Lima. I got as far as Cuzco, and
+there------ Really I don't know why I'm inflicting all this ancient
+history on you; it hasn't even the merit of being funny."
+
+She raised her head and looked at him with deep and serious eyes.
+"PLEASE don't talk that way," she said.
+
+He bit his lip and tore off another piece of the rug-fringe.
+
+"Shall I go on?" he asked after a moment.
+
+"If--if you will. I am afraid it is horrible to you to remember."
+
+"Do you think I forget when I hold my tongue? It's worse then. But
+don't imagine it's the thing itself that haunts me so. It is the fact of
+having lost the power over myself."
+
+"I--don't think I quite understand."
+
+"I mean, it is the fact of having come to the end of my courage, to the
+point where I found myself a coward."
+
+"Surely there is a limit to what anyone can bear."
+
+"Yes; and the man who has once reached that limit never knows when he
+may reach it again."
+
+"Would you mind telling me," she asked, hesitating, "how you came to be
+stranded out there alone at twenty?"
+
+"Very simply: I had a good opening in life, at home in the old country,
+and ran away from it."
+
+"Why?"
+
+He laughed again in his quick, harsh way.
+
+"Why? Because I was a priggish young cub, I suppose. I had been brought
+up in an over-luxurious home, and coddled and faddled after till I
+thought the world was made of pink cotton-wool and sugared almonds. Then
+one fine day I found out that someone I had trusted had deceived me.
+Why, how you start! What is it?"
+
+"Nothing. Go on, please."
+
+"I found out that I had been tricked into believing a lie; a common bit
+of experience, of course; but, as I tell you, I was young and priggish,
+and thought that liars go to hell. So I ran away from home and plunged
+into South America to sink or swim as I could, without a cent in my
+pocket or a word of Spanish in my tongue, or anything but white hands
+and expensive habits to get my bread with. And the natural result was
+that I got a dip into the real hell to cure me of imagining sham ones.
+A pretty thorough dip, too--it was just five years before the Duprez
+expedition came along and pulled me out."
+
+"Five years! Oh, that is terrible! And had you no friends?"
+
+"Friends! I"--he turned on her with sudden fierceness--"I have NEVER had
+a friend!"
+
+The next instant he seemed a little ashamed of his vehemence, and went
+on quickly:
+
+"You mustn't take all this too seriously; I dare say I made the worst
+of things, and really it wasn't so bad the first year and a half; I was
+young and strong and I managed to scramble along fairly well till the
+Lascar put his mark on me. But after that I couldn't get work. It's
+wonderful what an effectual tool a poker is if you handle it properly;
+and nobody cares to employ a cripple."
+
+"What sort of work did you do?"
+
+"What I could get. For some time I lived by odd-jobbing for the blacks
+on the sugar plantations, fetching and carrying and so on. It's one of
+the curious things in life, by the way, that slaves always contrive to
+have a slave of their own, and there's nothing a negro likes so much as
+a white fag to bully. But it was no use; the overseers always turned me
+off. I was too lame to be quick; and I couldn't manage the heavy loads.
+And then I was always getting these attacks of inflammation, or whatever
+the confounded thing is.
+
+"After some time I went down to the silver-mines and tried to get work
+there; but it was all no good. The managers laughed at the very notion
+of taking me on, and as for the men, they made a dead set at me."
+
+"Why was that?"
+
+"Oh, human nature, I suppose; they saw I had only one hand that I could
+hit back with. They're a mangy, half-caste lot; negroes and Zambos
+mostly. And then those horrible coolies! So at last I got enough of
+that, and set off to tramp the country at random; just wandering about,
+on the chance of something turning up."
+
+"To tramp? With that lame foot!"
+
+He looked up with a sudden, piteous catching of the breath.
+
+"I--I was hungry," he said.
+
+She turned her head a little away and rested her chin on one hand. After
+a moment's silence he began again, his voice sinking lower and lower as
+he spoke:
+
+"Well, I tramped, and tramped, till I was nearly mad with tramping, and
+nothing came of it. I got down into Ecuador, and there it was worse than
+ever. Sometimes I'd get a bit of tinkering to do,--I'm a pretty fair
+tinker,--or an errand to run, or a pigstye to clean out; sometimes I
+did--oh, I hardly know what. And then at last, one day------"
+
+The slender, brown hand clenched itself suddenly on the table, and
+Gemma, raising her head, glanced at him anxiously. His side-face was
+turned towards her, and she could see a vein on the temple beating like
+a hammer, with quick, irregular strokes. She bent forward and laid a
+gentle hand on his arm.
+
+"Never mind the rest; it's almost too horrible to talk about."
+
+He stared doubtfully at the hand, shook his head, and went on steadily:
+
+"Then one day I met a travelling variety show. You remember that one the
+other night; well, that sort of thing, only coarser and more indecent.
+The Zambos are not like these gentle Florentines; they don't care for
+anything that is not foul or brutal. There was bull-fighting, too, of
+course. They had camped out by the roadside for the night; and I went up
+to their tent to beg. Well, the weather was hot and I was half starved,
+and so--I fainted at the door of the tent. I had a trick of fainting
+suddenly at that time, like a boarding-school girl with tight stays. So
+they took me in and gave me brandy, and food, and so on; and then--the
+next morning--they offered me----"
+
+Another pause.
+
+"They wanted a hunchback, or monstrosity of some kind; for the boys
+to pelt with orange-peel and banana-skins--something to set the blacks
+laughing------ You saw the clown that night--well, I was that--for
+two years. I suppose you have a humanitarian feeling about negroes and
+Chinese. Wait till you've been at their mercy!
+
+"Well, I learned to do the tricks. I was not quite deformed enough; but
+they set that right with an artificial hump and made the most of
+this foot and arm---- And the Zambos are not critical; they're easily
+satisfied if only they can get hold of some live thing to torture--the
+fool's dress makes a good deal of difference, too.
+
+"The only difficulty was that I was so often ill and unable to play.
+Sometimes, if the manager was out of temper, he would insist on my
+coming into the ring when I had these attacks on; and I believe the
+people liked those evenings best. Once, I remember, I fainted right off
+with the pain in the middle of the performance---- When I came to my
+senses again, the audience had got round me--hooting and yelling and
+pelting me with------"
+
+"Don't! I can't hear any more! Stop, for God's sake!"
+
+She was standing up with both hands over her ears. He broke off, and,
+looking up, saw the glitter of tears in her eyes.
+
+"Damn it all, what an idiot I am!" he said under his breath.
+
+She crossed the room and stood for a little while looking out of the
+window. When she turned round, the Gadfly was again leaning on the table
+and covering his eyes with one hand. He had evidently forgotten her
+presence, and she sat down beside him without speaking. After a long
+silence she said slowly:
+
+"I want to ask you a question."
+
+"Yes?" without moving.
+
+"Why did you not cut your throat?"
+
+He looked up in grave surprise. "I did not expect YOU to ask that," he
+said. "And what about my work? Who would have done it for me?"
+
+"Your work---- Ah, I see! You talked just now about being a coward;
+well, if you have come through that and kept to your purpose, you are
+the very bravest man that I have ever met."
+
+He covered his eyes again, and held her hand in a close passionate
+clasp. A silence that seemed to have no end fell around them.
+
+Suddenly a clear and fresh soprano voice rang out from the garden below,
+singing a verse of a doggerel French song:
+
+
+  "Eh, Pierrot! Danse, Pierrot!
+   Danse un peu, mon pauvre Jeannot!
+   Vive la danse et l'allegresse!
+   Jouissons de notre bell' jeunesse!
+   Si moi je pleure ou moi je soupire,
+   Si moi je fais la triste figure--
+   Monsieur, ce n'est que pour rire!
+   Ha! Ha, ha, ha!
+   Monsieur, ce n'est que pour rire!"
+
+
+At the first words the Gadfly tore his hand from Gemma's and shrank away
+with a stifled groan. She clasped both hands round his arm and pressed
+it firmly, as she might have pressed that of a person undergoing a
+surgical operation. When the song broke off and a chorus of laughter and
+applause came from the garden, he looked up with the eyes of a tortured
+animal.
+
+"Yes, it is Zita," he said slowly; "with her officer friends. She tried
+to come in here the other night, before Riccardo came. I should have
+gone mad if she had touched me!"
+
+"But she does not know," Gemma protested softly. "She cannot guess that
+she is hurting you."
+
+"She is like a Creole," he answered, shuddering. "Do you remember her
+face that night when we brought in the beggar-child? That is how the
+half-castes look when they laugh."
+
+Another burst of laughter came from the garden. Gemma rose and opened
+the window. Zita, with a gold-embroidered scarf wound coquettishly
+round her head, was standing in the garden path, holding up a bunch
+of violets, for the possession of which three young cavalry officers
+appeared to be competing.
+
+"Mme. Reni!" said Gemma.
+
+Zita's face darkened like a thunder-cloud. "Madame?" she said, turning
+and raising her eyes with a defiant look.
+
+"Would your friends mind speaking a little more softly? Signor Rivarez
+is very unwell."
+
+The gipsy flung down her violets. "Allez-vous en!" she said, turning
+sharply on the astonished officers. "Vous m'embetez, messieurs!"
+
+She went slowly out into the road. Gemma closed the window.
+
+"They have gone away," she said, turning to him.
+
+"Thank you. I--I am sorry to have troubled you."
+
+"It was no trouble." He at once detected the hesitation in her voice.
+
+"'But?'" he said. "That sentence was not finished, signora; there was an
+unspoken 'but' in the back of your mind."
+
+"If you look into the backs of people's minds, you mustn't be offended
+at what you read there. It is not my affair, of course, but I cannot
+understand----"
+
+"My aversion to Mme. Reni? It is only when----"
+
+"No, your caring to live with her when you feel that aversion. It seems
+to me an insult to her as a woman and as----"
+
+"A woman!" He burst out laughing harshly. "Is THAT what you call a
+woman? 'Madame, ce n'est que pour rire!'"
+
+"That is not fair!" she said. "You have no right to speak of her in that
+way to anyone--especially to another woman!"
+
+He turned away, and lay with wide-open eyes, looking out of the window
+at the sinking sun. She lowered the blind and closed the shutters, that
+he might not see it set; then sat down at the table by the other window
+and took up her knitting again.
+
+"Would you like the lamp?" she asked after a moment.
+
+He shook his head.
+
+When it grew too dark to see, Gemma rolled up her knitting and laid
+it in the basket. For some time she sat with folded hands, silently
+watching the Gadfly's motionless figure. The dim evening light, falling
+on his face, seemed to soften away its hard, mocking, self-assertive
+look, and to deepen the tragic lines about the mouth. By some fanciful
+association of ideas her memory went vividly back to the stone cross
+which her father had set up in memory of Arthur, and to its inscription:
+
+
+  "All thy waves and billows have gone over me."
+
+
+An hour passed in unbroken silence. At last she rose and went softly out
+of the room. Coming back with a lamp, she paused for a moment, thinking
+that the Gadfly was asleep. As the light fell on his face he turned
+round.
+
+"I have made you a cup of coffee," she said, setting down the lamp.
+
+"Put it down a minute. Will you come here, please."
+
+He took both her hands in his.
+
+"I have been thinking," he said. "You are quite right; it is an ugly
+tangle I have got my life into. But remember, a man does not meet every
+day a woman whom he can--love; and I--I have been in deep waters. I am
+afraid----"
+
+"Afraid----"
+
+"Of the dark. Sometimes I DARE not be alone at night. I must have
+something living--something solid beside me. It is the outer darkness,
+where shall be---- No, no! It's not that; that's a sixpenny toy
+hell;--it's the INNER darkness. There's no weeping or gnashing of teeth
+there; only silence--silence----"
+
+His eyes dilated. She was quite still, hardly breathing till he spoke
+again.
+
+"This is all mystification to you, isn't it? You can't
+understand--luckily for you. What I mean is that I have a pretty fair
+chance of going mad if I try to live quite alone---- Don't think too
+hardly of me, if you can help it; I am not altogether the vicious brute
+you perhaps imagine me to be."
+
+"I cannot try to judge for you," she answered. "I have not suffered as
+you have. But--I have been in rather deep water too, in another way; and
+I think--I am sure--that if you let the fear of anything drive you to
+do a really cruel or unjust or ungenerous thing, you will regret it
+afterwards. For the rest--if you have failed in this one thing, I know
+that I, in your place, should have failed altogether,--should have
+cursed God and died."
+
+He still kept her hands in his.
+
+"Tell me," he said very softly; "have you ever in your life done a
+really cruel thing?"
+
+She did not answer, but her head sank down, and two great tears fell on
+his hand.
+
+"Tell me!" he whispered passionately, clasping her hands tighter. "Tell
+me! I have told you all my misery."
+
+"Yes,--once,--long ago. And I did it to the person I loved best in the
+world."
+
+The hands that clasped hers were trembling violently; but they did not
+loosen their hold.
+
+"He was a comrade," she went on; "and I believed a slander against
+him,--a common glaring lie that the police had invented. I struck him in
+the face for a traitor; and he went away and drowned himself. Then, two
+days later, I found out that he had been quite innocent. Perhaps that is
+a worse memory than any of yours. I would cut off my right hand to undo
+what it has done."
+
+Something swift and dangerous--something that she had not seen
+before,--flashed into his eyes. He bent his head down with a furtive,
+sudden gesture and kissed the hand.
+
+She drew back with a startled face. "Don't!" she cried out piteously.
+"Please don't ever do that again! You hurt me!"
+
+"Do you think you didn't hurt the man you killed?"
+
+"The man I--killed---- Ah, there is Cesare at the gate at last! I--I
+must go!"
+
+    *****
+
+When Martini came into the room he found the Gadfly lying alone with the
+untouched coffee beside him, swearing softly to himself in a languid,
+spiritless way, as though he got no satisfaction out of it.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+A FEW days later, the Gadfly, still rather pale and limping more than
+usual, entered the reading room of the public library and asked for
+Cardinal Montanelli's sermons. Riccardo, who was reading at a table near
+him, looked up. He liked the Gadfly very much, but could not digest this
+one trait in him--this curious personal maliciousness.
+
+"Are you preparing another volley against that unlucky Cardinal?" he
+asked half irritably.
+
+"My dear fellow, why do you a-a-always attribute evil m-m-motives to
+people? It's m-most unchristian. I am preparing an essay on contemporary
+theology for the n-n-new paper."
+
+"What new paper?" Riccardo frowned. It was perhaps an open secret that
+a new press-law was expected and that the Opposition was preparing to
+astonish the town with a radical newspaper; but still it was, formally,
+a secret.
+
+"The Swindlers' Gazette, of course, or the Church Calendar."
+
+"Sh-sh! Rivarez, we are disturbing the other readers."
+
+"Well then, stick to your surgery, if that's your subject, and l-l-leave
+me to th-theology--that's mine. I d-d-don't interfere with your
+treatment of broken bones, though I know a p-p-precious lot more about
+them than you do."
+
+He sat down to his volume of sermons with an intent and preoccupied
+face. One of the librarians came up to him.
+
+"Signor Rivarez! I think you were in the Duprez expedition, exploring
+the tributaries of the Amazon? Perhaps you will kindly help us in a
+difficulty. A lady has been inquiring for the records of the expedition,
+and they are at the binder's."
+
+"What does she want to know?"
+
+"Only in what year the expedition started and when it passed through
+Ecuador."
+
+"It started from Paris in the autumn of 1837, and passed through Quito
+in April, 1838. We were three years in Brazil; then went down to Rio and
+got back to Paris in the summer of 1841. Does the lady want the dates of
+the separate discoveries?"
+
+"No, thank you; only these. I have written them down. Beppo, take this
+paper to Signora Bolla, please. Many thanks, Signor Rivarez. I am sorry
+to have troubled you."
+
+The Gadfly leaned back in his chair with a perplexed frown. What did she
+want the dates for? When they passed through Ecuador----
+
+Gemma went home with the slip of paper in her hand. April, 1838--and
+Arthur had died in May, 1833. Five years--
+
+She began pacing up and down her room. She had slept badly the last few
+nights, and there were dark shadows under her eyes.
+
+Five years;--and an "overluxurious home"--and "someone he had trusted
+had deceived him"--had deceived him--and he had found it out----
+
+She stopped and put up both hands to her head. Oh, this was utterly
+mad--it was not possible--it was absurd----
+
+And yet, how they had dragged that harbour!
+
+Five years--and he was "not twenty-one" when the Lascar---- Then he must
+have been nineteen when he ran away from home. Had he not said: "A year
+and a half----" Where did he get those blue eyes from, and that
+nervous restlessness of the fingers? And why was he so bitter against
+Montanelli? Five years--five years------
+
+If she could but know that he was drowned--if she could but have seen
+the body; some day, surely, the old wound would have left off aching,
+the old memory would have lost its terrors. Perhaps in another twenty
+years she would have learned to look back without shrinking.
+
+All her youth had been poisoned by the thought of what she had done.
+Resolutely, day after day and year after year, she had fought against
+the demon of remorse. Always she had remembered that her work lay in the
+future; always had shut her eyes and ears to the haunting spectre of the
+past. And day after day, year after year, the image of the drowned body
+drifting out to sea had never left her, and the bitter cry that she
+could not silence had risen in her heart: "I have killed Arthur! Arthur
+is dead!" Sometimes it had seemed to her that her burden was too heavy
+to be borne.
+
+Now she would have given half her life to have that burden back again.
+If she had killed him--that was a familiar grief; she had endured it too
+long to sink under it now. But if she had driven him, not into the water
+but into------ She sat down, covering her eyes with both hands. And her
+life had been darkened for his sake, because he was dead! If she had
+brought upon him nothing worse than death----
+
+Steadily, pitilessly she went back, step by step, through the hell of
+his past life. It was as vivid to her as though she had seen and felt
+it all; the helpless shivering of the naked soul, the mockery that
+was bitterer than death, the horror of loneliness, the slow, grinding,
+relentless agony. It was as vivid as if she had sat beside him in the
+filthy Indian hut; as if she had suffered with him in the silver-mines,
+the coffee fields, the horrible variety show--
+
+The variety show---- No, she must shut out that image, at least; it was
+enough to drive one mad to sit and think of it.
+
+She opened a little drawer in her writing-desk. It contained the few
+personal relics which she could not bring herself to destroy. She
+was not given to the hoarding up of sentimental trifles; and the
+preservation of these keepsakes was a concession to that weaker side of
+her nature which she kept under with so steady a hand. She very seldom
+allowed herself to look at them.
+
+Now she took them out, one after another: Giovanni's first letter to
+her, and the flowers that had lain in his dead hand; a lock of her
+baby's hair and a withered leaf from her father's grave. At the back of
+the drawer was a miniature portrait of Arthur at ten years old--the only
+existing likeness of him.
+
+She sat down with it in her hands and looked at the beautiful childish
+head, till the face of the real Arthur rose up afresh before her. How
+clear it was in every detail! The sensitive lines of the mouth, the
+wide, earnest eyes, the seraphic purity of expression--they were graven
+in upon her memory, as though he had died yesterday. Slowly the blinding
+tears welled up and hid the portrait.
+
+Oh, how could she have thought such a thing! It was like sacrilege even
+to dream of this bright, far-off spirit, bound to the sordid miseries of
+life. Surely the gods had loved him a little, and had let him die young!
+Better a thousand times that he should pass into utter nothingness than
+that he should live and be the Gadfly--the Gadfly, with his faultless
+neckties and his doubtful witticisms, his bitter tongue and his ballet
+girl! No, no! It was all a horrible, senseless fancy; and she had vexed
+her heart with vain imaginings. Arthur was dead.
+
+"May I come in?" asked a soft voice at the door.
+
+She started so that the portrait fell from her hand, and the Gadfly,
+limping across the room, picked it up and handed it to her.
+
+"How you startled me!" she said.
+
+"I am s-so sorry. Perhaps I am disturbing you?"
+
+"No. I was only turning over some old things."
+
+She hesitated for a moment; then handed him back the miniature.
+
+"What do you think of that head?"
+
+While he looked at it she watched his face as though her life depended
+upon its expression; but it was merely negative and critical.
+
+"You have set me a difficult task," he said. "The portrait is faded,
+and a child's face is always hard to read. But I should think that child
+would grow into an unlucky man, and the wisest thing he could do would
+be to abstain from growing into a man at all."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Look at the line of the under-lip. Th-th-that is the sort of nature
+that feels pain as pain and wrong as wrong; and the world has no
+r-r-room for such people; it needs people who feel nothing but their
+work."
+
+"Is it at all like anyone you know?"
+
+He looked at the portrait more closely.
+
+"Yes. What a curious thing! Of course it is; very like."
+
+"Like whom?"
+
+"C-c-cardinal Montan-nelli. I wonder whether his irreproachable Eminence
+has any nephews, by the way? Who is it, if I may ask?"
+
+"It is a portrait, taken in childhood, of the friend I told you about
+the other day----"
+
+"Whom you killed?"
+
+She winced in spite of herself. How lightly, how cruelly he used that
+dreadful word!
+
+"Yes, whom I killed--if he is really dead."
+
+"If?"
+
+She kept her eyes on his face.
+
+"I have sometimes doubted," she said. "The body was never found. He may
+have run away from home, like you, and gone to South America."
+
+"Let us hope not. That would be a bad memory to carry about with you. I
+have d-d-done some hard fighting in my t-time, and have sent m-more than
+one man to Hades, perhaps; but if I had it on my conscience that I had
+sent any l-living thing to South America, I should sleep badly----"
+
+"Then do you believe," she interrupted, coming nearer to him with
+clasped hands, "that if he were not drowned,--if he had been through
+your experience instead,--he would never come back and let the past
+go? Do you believe he would NEVER forget? Remember, it has cost me
+something, too. Look!"
+
+She pushed back the heavy waves of hair from her forehead. Through the
+black locks ran a broad white streak.
+
+There was a long silence.
+
+"I think," the Gadfly said slowly, "that the dead are better dead.
+Forgetting some things is a difficult matter. And if I were in the place
+of your dead friend, I would s-s-stay dead. The REVENANT is an ugly
+spectre."
+
+She put the portrait back into its drawer and locked the desk.
+
+"That is hard doctrine," she said. "And now we will talk about something
+else."
+
+"I came to have a little business talk with you, if I may--a private
+one, about a plan that I have in my head."
+
+She drew a chair to the table and sat down. "What do you think of the
+projected press-law?" he began, without a trace of his usual stammer.
+
+"What I think of it? I think it will not be of much value, but half a
+loaf is better than no bread."
+
+"Undoubtedly. Then do you intend to work on one of the new papers these
+good folk here are preparing to start?"
+
+"I thought of doing so. There is always a great deal of practical work
+to be done in starting any paper--printing and circulation arrangements
+and----"
+
+"How long are you going to waste your mental gifts in that fashion?"
+
+"Why 'waste'?"
+
+"Because it is waste. You know quite well that you have a far better
+head than most of the men you are working with, and you let them make a
+regular drudge and Johannes factotum of you. Intellectually you are as
+far ahead of Grassini and Galli as if they were schoolboys; yet you sit
+correcting their proofs like a printer's devil."
+
+"In the first place, I don't spend all my time in correcting proofs; and
+moreover it seems to me that you exaggerate my mental capacities. They
+are by no means so brilliant as you think."
+
+"I don't think them brilliant at all," he answered quietly; "but I do
+think them sound and solid, which is of much more importance. At those
+dreary committee meetings it is always you who put your finger on the
+weak spot in everybody's logic."
+
+"You are not fair to the others. Martini, for instance, has a very
+logical head, and there is no doubt about the capacities of Fabrizi
+and Lega. Then Grassini has a sounder knowledge of Italian economic
+statistics than any official in the country, perhaps."
+
+"Well, that's not saying much; but let us lay them and their capacities
+aside. The fact remains that you, with such gifts as you possess,
+might do more important work and fill a more responsible post than at
+present."
+
+"I am quite satisfied with my position. The work I am doing is not of
+very much value, perhaps, but we all do what we can."
+
+"Signora Bolla, you and I have gone too far to play at compliments and
+modest denials now. Tell me honestly, do you recognize that you are
+using up your brain on work which persons inferior to you could do as
+well?"
+
+"Since you press me for an answer--yes, to some extent."
+
+"Then why do you let that go on?"
+
+No answer.
+
+"Why do you let it go on?"
+
+"Because--I can't help it."
+
+"Why?"
+
+She looked up reproachfully. "That is unkind--it's not fair to press me
+so."
+
+"But all the same you are going to tell me why."
+
+"If you must have it, then--because my life has been smashed into
+pieces, and I have not the energy to start anything REAL, now. I
+am about fit to be a revolutionary cab-horse, and do the party's
+drudge-work. At least I do it conscientiously, and it must be done by
+somebody."
+
+"Certainly it must be done by somebody; but not always by the same
+person."
+
+"It's about all I'm fit for."
+
+He looked at her with half-shut eyes, inscrutably. Presently she raised
+her head.
+
+"We are returning to the old subject; and this was to be a business
+talk. It is quite useless, I assure you, to tell me I might have done
+all sorts of things. I shall never do them now. But I may be able to
+help you in thinking out your plan. What is it?"
+
+"You begin by telling me that it is useless for me to suggest anything,
+and then ask what I want to suggest. My plan requires your help in
+action, not only in thinking out."
+
+"Let me hear it and then we will discuss."
+
+"Tell me first whether you have heard anything about schemes for a
+rising in Venetia."
+
+"I have heard of nothing but schemes for risings and Sanfedist plots
+ever since the amnesty, and I fear I am as sceptical about the one as
+about the other."
+
+"So am I, in most cases; but I am speaking of really serious
+preparations for a rising of the whole province against the Austrians.
+A good many young fellows in the Papal States--particularly in the
+Four Legations--are secretly preparing to get across there and join as
+volunteers. And I hear from my friends in the Romagna----"
+
+"Tell me," she interrupted, "are you quite sure that these friends of
+yours can be trusted?"
+
+"Quite sure. I know them personally, and have worked with them."
+
+"That is, they are members of the 'sect' to which you belong? Forgive
+my scepticism, but I am always a little doubtful as to the accuracy
+of information received from secret societies. It seems to me that the
+habit----"
+
+"Who told you I belonged to a 'sect'?" he interrupted sharply.
+
+"No one; I guessed it."
+
+"Ah!" He leaned back in his chair and looked at her, frowning. "Do you
+always guess people's private affairs?" he said after a moment.
+
+"Very often. I am rather observant, and have a habit of putting things
+together. I tell you that so that you may be careful when you don't want
+me to know a thing."
+
+"I don't mind your knowing anything so long as it goes no further. I
+suppose this has not----"
+
+She lifted her head with a gesture of half-offended surprise. "Surely
+that is an unnecessary question!" she said.
+
+"Of course I know you would not speak of anything to outsiders; but I
+thought that perhaps, to the members of your party----"
+
+"The party's business is with facts, not with my personal conjectures
+and fancies. Of course I have never mentioned the subject to anyone."
+
+"Thank you. Do you happen to have guessed which sect I belong to?"
+
+"I hope--you must not take offence at my frankness; it was you who
+started this talk, you know---- I do hope it is not the 'Knifers.'"
+
+"Why do you hope that?"
+
+"Because you are fit for better things."
+
+"We are all fit for better things than we ever do. There is your own
+answer back again. However, it is not the 'Knifers' that I belong to,
+but the 'Red Girdles.' They are a steadier lot, and take their work more
+seriously."
+
+"Do you mean the work of knifing?"
+
+"That, among other things. Knives are very useful in their way; but only
+when you have a good, organized propaganda behind them. That is what I
+dislike in the other sect. They think a knife can settle all the world's
+difficulties; and that's a mistake. It can settle a good many, but not
+all."
+
+"Do you honestly believe that it settles any?"
+
+He looked at her in surprise.
+
+"Of course," she went on, "it eliminates, for the moment, the practical
+difficulty caused by the presence of a clever spy or objectionable
+official; but whether it does not create worse difficulties in place of
+the one removed is another question. It seems to me like the parable of
+the swept and garnished house and the seven devils. Every assassination
+only makes the police more vicious and the people more accustomed to
+violence and brutality, and the last state of the community may be worse
+than the first."
+
+"What do you think will happen when the revolution comes? Do you suppose
+the people won't have to get accustomed to violence then? War is war."
+
+"Yes, but open revolution is another matter. It is one moment in the
+people's life, and it is the price we have to pay for all our progress.
+No doubt fearful things will happen; they must in every revolution.
+But they will be isolated facts--exceptional features of an exceptional
+moment. The horrible thing about this promiscuous knifing is that
+it becomes a habit. The people get to look upon it as an every-day
+occurrence, and their sense of the sacredness of human life gets
+blunted. I have not been much in the Romagna, but what little I have
+seen of the people has given me the impression that they have got, or
+are getting, into a mechanical habit of violence."
+
+"Surely even that is better than a mechanical habit of obedience and
+submission."
+
+"I don't think so. All mechanical habits are bad and slavish, and this
+one is ferocious as well. Of course, if you look upon the work of the
+revolutionist as the mere wresting of certain definite concessions from
+the government, then the secret sect and the knife must seem to you the
+best weapons, for there is nothing else which all governments so dread.
+But if you think, as I do, that to force the government's hand is not an
+end in itself, but only a means to an end, and that what we really
+need to reform is the relation between man and man, then you must go
+differently to work. Accustoming ignorant people to the sight of blood
+is not the way to raise the value they put on human life."
+
+"And the value they put on religion?"
+
+"I don't understand."
+
+He smiled.
+
+"I think we differ as to where the root of the mischief lies. You place
+it in a lack of appreciation of the value of human life."
+
+"Rather of the sacredness of human personality."
+
+"Put it as you like. To me the great cause of our muddles and mistakes
+seems to lie in the mental disease called religion."
+
+"Do you mean any religion in particular?"
+
+"Oh, no! That is a mere question of external symptoms. The disease
+itself is what is called a religious attitude of mind. It is the
+morbid desire to set up a fetich and adore it, to fall down and worship
+something. It makes little difference whether the something be Jesus or
+Buddha or a tum-tum tree. You don't agree with me, of course. You may be
+atheist or agnostic or anything you like, but I could feel the religious
+temperament in you at five yards. However, it is of no use for us to
+discuss that. But you are quite mistaken in thinking that I, for one,
+look upon the knifing as merely a means of removing objectionable
+officials--it is, above all, a means, and I think the best means, of
+undermining the prestige of the Church and of accustoming people to look
+upon clerical agents as upon any other vermin."
+
+"And when you have accomplished that; when you have roused the wild
+beast that sleeps in the people and set it on the Church; then----"
+
+"Then I shall have done the work that makes it worth my while to live."
+
+"Is THAT the work you spoke of the other day?"
+
+"Yes, just that."
+
+She shivered and turned away.
+
+"You are disappointed in me?" he said, looking up with a smile.
+
+"No; not exactly that. I am--I think--a little afraid of you."
+
+She turned round after a moment and said in her ordinary business voice:
+
+"This is an unprofitable discussion. Our standpoints are too different.
+For my part, I believe in propaganda, propaganda, and propaganda; and
+when you can get it, open insurrection."
+
+"Then let us come back to the question of my plan; it has something to
+do with propaganda and more with insurrection."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"As I tell you, a good many volunteers are going from the Romagna to
+join the Venetians. We do not know yet how soon the insurrection will
+break out. It may not be till the autumn or winter; but the volunteers
+in the Apennines must be armed and ready, so that they may be able to
+start for the plains directly they are sent for. I have undertaken to
+smuggle the firearms and ammunition on to Papal territory for them----"
+
+"Wait a minute. How do you come to be working with that set? The
+revolutionists in Lombardy and Venetia are all in favour of the new
+Pope. They are going in for liberal reforms, hand in hand with
+the progressive movement in the Church. How can a 'no-compromise'
+anti-clerical like you get on with them?"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders. "What is it to me if they like to amuse
+themselves with a rag-doll, so long as they do their work? Of course
+they will take the Pope for a figurehead. What have I to do with that,
+if only the insurrection gets under way somehow? Any stick will do
+to beat a dog with, I suppose, and any cry to set the people on the
+Austrians."
+
+"What is it you want me to do?"
+
+"Chiefly to help me get the firearms across."
+
+"But how could I do that?"
+
+"You are just the person who could do it best. I think of buying the
+arms in England, and there is a good deal of difficulty about bringing
+them over. It's impossible to get them through any of the Pontifical
+sea-ports; they must come by Tuscany, and go across the Apennines."
+
+"That makes two frontiers to cross instead of one."
+
+"Yes; but the other way is hopeless; you can't smuggle a big transport
+in at a harbour where there is no trade, and you know the whole shipping
+of Civita Vecchia amounts to about three row-boats and a fishing
+smack. If we once get the things across Tuscany, I can manage the Papal
+frontier; my men know every path in the mountains, and we have plenty of
+hiding-places. The transport must come by sea to Leghorn, and that is
+my great difficulty; I am not in with the smugglers there, and I believe
+you are."
+
+"Give me five minutes to think."
+
+She leaned forward, resting one elbow on her knee, and supporting the
+chin on the raised hand. After a few moments' silence she looked up.
+
+"It is possible that I might be of some use in that part of the work,"
+she said; "but before we go any further, I want to ask you a question.
+Can you give me your word that this business is not connected with any
+stabbing or secret violence of any kind?"
+
+"Certainly. It goes without saying that I should not have asked you to
+join in a thing of which I know you disapprove."
+
+"When do you want a definite answer from me?"
+
+"There is not much time to lose; but I can give you a few days to decide
+in."
+
+"Are you free next Saturday evening?"
+
+"Let me see--to-day is Thursday; yes."
+
+"Then come here. I will think the matter over and give you a final
+answer."
+
+    *****
+
+On the following Sunday Gemma sent in to the committee of the Florentine
+branch of the Mazzinian party a statement that she wished to undertake a
+special work of a political nature, which would for a few months prevent
+her from performing the functions for which she had up till now been
+responsible to the party.
+
+Some surprise was felt at this announcement, but the committee raised no
+objection; she had been known in the party for several years as a person
+whose judgment might be trusted; and the members agreed that if Signora
+Bolla took an unexpected step, she probably had good reasons for it.
+
+To Martini she said frankly that she had undertaken to help the Gadfly
+with some "frontier work." She had stipulated for the right to tell her
+old friend this much, in order that there might be no misunderstanding
+or painful sense of doubt and mystery between them. It seemed to her
+that she owed him this proof of confidence. He made no comment when she
+told him; but she saw, without knowing why, that the news had wounded
+him deeply.
+
+They were sitting on the terrace of her lodging, looking out over the
+red roofs to Fiesole. After a long silence, Martini rose and began
+tramping up and down with his hands in his pockets, whistling to
+himself--a sure sign with him of mental agitation. She sat looking at
+him for a little while.
+
+"Cesare, you are worried about this affair," she said at last. "I am
+very sorry you feel so despondent over it; but I could decide only as
+seemed right to me."
+
+"It is not the affair," he answered, sullenly; "I know nothing about
+it, and it probably is all right, once you have consented to go into it.
+It's the MAN I distrust."
+
+"I think you misunderstand him; I did till I got to know him better. He
+is far from perfect, but there is much more good in him than you think."
+
+"Very likely." For a moment he tramped to and fro in silence, then
+suddenly stopped beside her.
+
+"Gemma, give it up! Give it up before it is too late! Don't let that man
+drag you into things you will repent afterwards."
+
+"Cesare," she said gently, "you are not thinking what you are saying.
+No one is dragging me into anything. I have made this decision of my
+own will, after thinking the matter well over alone. You have a personal
+dislike to Rivarez, I know; but we are talking of politics now, not of
+persons."
+
+"Madonna! Give it up! That man is dangerous; he is secret, and cruel,
+and unscrupulous--and he is in love with you!"
+
+She drew back.
+
+"Cesare, how can you get such fancies into your head?"
+
+"He is in love with you," Martini repeated. "Keep clear of him,
+Madonna!"
+
+"Dear Cesare, I can't keep clear of him; and I can't explain to you why.
+We are tied together--not by any wish or doing of our own."
+
+"If you are tied, there is nothing more to say," Martini answered
+wearily.
+
+He went away, saying that he was busy, and tramped for hours up and down
+the muddy streets. The world looked very black to him that evening. One
+poor ewe-lamb--and this slippery creature had stepped in and stolen it
+away.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+TOWARDS the middle of February the Gadfly went to Leghorn. Gemma had
+introduced him to a young Englishman there, a shipping-agent of liberal
+views, whom she and her husband had known in England. He had on several
+occasions performed little services for the Florentine radicals: had
+lent money to meet an unforeseen emergency, had allowed his business
+address to be used for the party's letters, etc.; but always through
+Gemma's mediumship, and as a private friend of hers. She was, therefore,
+according to party etiquette, free to make use of the connexion in any
+way that might seem good to her. Whether any use could be got out of it
+was quite another question. To ask a friendly sympathizer to lend his
+address for letters from Sicily or to keep a few documents in a corner
+of his counting-house safe was one thing; to ask him to smuggle over a
+transport of firearms for an insurrection was another; and she had very
+little hope of his consenting.
+
+"You can but try," she had said to the Gadfly; "but I don't think
+anything will come of it. If you were to go to him with that
+recommendation and ask for five hundred scudi, I dare say he'd give them
+to you at once--he's exceedingly generous,--and perhaps at a pinch he
+would lend you his passport or hide a fugitive in his cellar; but if you
+mention such a thing as rifles he will stare at you and think we're both
+demented."
+
+"Perhaps he may give me a few hints, though, or introduce me to a
+friendly sailor or two," the Gadfly had answered. "Anyway, it's worth
+while to try."
+
+One day at the end of the month he came into her study less carefully
+dressed than usual, and she saw at once from his face that he had good
+news to tell.
+
+"Ah, at last! I was beginning to think something must have happened to
+you!"
+
+"I thought it safer not to write, and I couldn't get back sooner."
+
+"You have just arrived?"
+
+"Yes; I am straight from the diligence; I looked in to tell you that the
+affair is all settled."
+
+"Do you mean that Bailey has really consented to help?"
+
+"More than to help; he has undertaken the whole thing,--packing,
+transports,--everything. The rifles will be hidden in bales of
+merchandise and will come straight through from England. His partner,
+Williams, who is a great friend of his, has consented to see the
+transport off from Southampton, and Bailey will slip it through the
+custom house at Leghorn. That is why I have been such a long time;
+Williams was just starting for Southampton, and I went with him as far
+as Genoa."
+
+"To talk over details on the way?"
+
+"Yes, as long as I wasn't too sea-sick to talk about anything."
+
+"Are you a bad sailor?" she asked quickly, remembering how Arthur had
+suffered from sea-sickness one day when her father had taken them both
+for a pleasure-trip.
+
+"About as bad as is possible, in spite of having been at sea so much.
+But we had a talk while they were loading at Genoa. You know Williams,
+I think? He's a thoroughly good fellow, trustworthy and sensible; so is
+Bailey, for that matter; and they both know how to hold their tongues."
+
+"It seems to me, though, that Bailey is running a serious risk in doing
+a thing like this."
+
+"So I told him, and he only looked sulky and said: 'What business is
+that of yours?' Just the sort of thing one would expect him to say. If
+I met Bailey in Timbuctoo, I should go up to him and say: 'Good-morning,
+Englishman.'"
+
+"But I can't conceive how you managed to get their consent; Williams,
+too; the last man I should have thought of."
+
+"Yes, he objected strongly at first; not on the ground of danger,
+though, but because the thing is 'so unbusiness-like.' But I managed to
+win him over after a bit. And now we will go into details."
+
+    *****
+
+When the Gadfly reached his lodgings the sun had set, and the blossoming
+pyrus japonica that hung over the garden wall looked dark in the fading
+light. He gathered a few sprays and carried them into the house. As he
+opened the study door, Zita started up from a chair in the corner and
+ran towards him.
+
+"Oh, Felice; I thought you were never coming!"
+
+His first impulse was to ask her sharply what business she had in his
+study; but, remembering that he had not seen her for three weeks, he
+held out his hand and said, rather frigidly:
+
+"Good-evening, Zita; how are you?"
+
+She put up her face to be kissed, but he moved past as though he had
+not seen the gesture, and took up a vase to put the pyrus in. The next
+instant the door was flung wide open, and the collie, rushing into the
+room, performed an ecstatic dance round him, barking and whining with
+delight. He put down the flowers and stooped to pat the dog.
+
+"Well, Shaitan, how are you, old man? Yes, it's really I. Shake hands,
+like a good dog!"
+
+The hard, sullen look came into Zita's face.
+
+"Shall we go to dinner?" she asked coldly. "I ordered it for you at my
+place, as you wrote that you were coming this evening."
+
+He turned round quickly.
+
+"I am v-v-very sorry; you sh-should not have waited for me! I will just
+get a bit tidy and come round at once. P-perhaps you would not mind
+putting these into water."
+
+When he came into Zita's dining room she was standing before a mirror,
+fastening one of the sprays into her dress. She had apparently made up
+her mind to be good-humoured, and came up to him with a little cluster
+of crimson buds tied together.
+
+"Here is a buttonhole for you; let me put it in your coat."
+
+All through dinner-time he did his best to be amiable, and kept up a
+flow of small-talk, to which she responded with radiant smiles. Her
+evident joy at his return somewhat embarrassed him; he had grown so
+accustomed to the idea that she led her own life apart from his, among
+such friends and companions as were congenial to her, that it had never
+occurred to him to imagine her as missing him. And yet she must have
+felt dull to be so much excited now.
+
+"Let us have coffee up on the terrace," she said; "it is quite warm this
+evening."
+
+"Very well. Shall I take your guitar? Perhaps you will sing."
+
+She flushed with delight; he was critical about music and did not often
+ask her to sing.
+
+On the terrace was a broad wooden bench running round the walls. The
+Gadfly chose a corner with a good view of the hills, and Zita, seating
+herself on the low wall with her feet on the bench, leaned back against
+a pillar of the roof. She did not care much for scenery; she preferred
+to look at the Gadfly.
+
+"Give me a cigarette," she said. "I don't believe I have smoked once
+since you went away."
+
+"Happy thought! It's just s-s-smoke I want to complete my bliss."
+
+She leaned forward and looked at him earnestly.
+
+"Are you really happy?"
+
+The Gadfly's mobile brows went up.
+
+"Yes; why not? I have had a good dinner; I am looking at one of the
+m-most beautiful views in Europe; and now I'm going to have coffee and
+hear a Hungarian folk-song. There is nothing the matter with either my
+conscience or my digestion; what more can man desire?"
+
+"I know another thing you desire."
+
+"What?"
+
+"That!" She tossed a little cardboard box into his hand.
+
+"B-burnt almonds! Why d-didn't you tell me before I began to s-smoke?"
+he cried reproachfully.
+
+"Why, you baby! you can eat them when you have done smoking. There comes
+the coffee."
+
+The Gadfly sipped his coffee and ate his burnt almonds with the grave
+and concentrated enjoyment of a cat drinking cream.
+
+"How nice it is to come back to d-decent coffee, after the s-s-stuff one
+gets at Leghorn!" he said in his purring drawl.
+
+"A very good reason for stopping at home now you are here."
+
+"Not much stopping for me; I'm off again to-morrow."
+
+The smile died on her face.
+
+"To-morrow! What for? Where are you going to?"
+
+"Oh! two or three p-p-places, on business."
+
+It had been decided between him and Gemma that he must go in person into
+the Apennines to make arrangements with the smugglers of the frontier
+region about the transporting of the firearms. To cross the Papal
+frontier was for him a matter of serious danger; but it had to be done
+if the work was to succeed.
+
+"Always business!" Zita sighed under her breath; and then asked aloud:
+
+"Shall you be gone long?"
+
+"No; only a fortnight or three weeks, p-p-probably."
+
+"I suppose it's some of THAT business?" she asked abruptly.
+
+"'That' business?"
+
+"The business you're always trying to get your neck broken over--the
+everlasting politics."
+
+"It has something to do with p-p-politics."
+
+Zita threw away her cigarette.
+
+"You are fooling me," she said. "You are going into some danger or
+other."
+
+"I'm going s-s-straight into the infernal regions," he answered
+languidly. "D-do you happen to have any friends there you want to send
+that ivy to? You n-needn't pull it all down, though."
+
+She had fiercely torn off a handful of the climber from the pillar, and
+now flung it down with vehement anger.
+
+"You are going into danger," she repeated; "and you won't even say so
+honestly! Do you think I am fit for nothing but to be fooled and joked
+with? You will get yourself hanged one of these days, and never so
+much as say good-bye. It's always politics and politics--I'm sick of
+politics!"
+
+"S-so am I," said the Gadfly, yawning lazily; "and therefore we'll talk
+about something else--unless you will sing."
+
+"Well, give me the guitar, then. What shall I sing?"
+
+"The ballad of the lost horse; it suits your voice so well."
+
+She began to sing the old Hungarian ballad of the man who loses first
+his horse, then his home, and then his sweetheart, and consoles himself
+with the reflection that "more was lost at Mohacz field." The song was
+one of the Gadfly's especial favourites; its fierce and tragic melody
+and the bitter stoicism of the refrain appealed to him as no softer
+music ever did.
+
+Zita was in excellent voice; the notes came from her lips strong and
+clear, full of the vehement desire of life. She would have sung Italian
+or Slavonic music badly, and German still worse; but she sang the Magyar
+folk-songs splendidly.
+
+The Gadfly listened with wide-open eyes and parted lips; he had never
+heard her sing like this before. As she came to the last line, her voice
+began suddenly to shake.
+
+
+     "Ah, no matter! More was lost----"
+
+
+She broke down with a sob and hid her face among the ivy leaves.
+
+"Zita!" The Gadfly rose and took the guitar from her hand. "What is it?"
+
+She only sobbed convulsively, hiding her face in both hands. He touched
+her on the arm.
+
+"Tell me what is the matter," he said caressingly.
+
+"Let me alone!" she sobbed, shrinking away. "Let me alone!"
+
+He went quietly back to his seat and waited till the sobs died away.
+Suddenly he felt her arms about his neck; she was kneeling on the floor
+beside him.
+
+"Felice--don't go! Don't go away!"
+
+"We will talk about that afterwards," he said, gently extricating
+himself from the clinging arms. "Tell me first what has upset you so.
+Has anything been frightening you?"
+
+She silently shook her head.
+
+"Have I done anything to hurt you?"
+
+"No." She put a hand up against his throat.
+
+"What, then?"
+
+"You will get killed," she whispered at last. "I heard one of those men
+that come here say the other day that you will get into trouble--and
+when I ask you about it you laugh at me!"
+
+"My dear child," the Gadfly said, after a little pause of astonishment,
+"you have got some exaggerated notion into your head. Very likely I
+shall get killed some day--that is the natural consequence of being a
+revolutionist. But there is no reason to suppose I am g-g-going to get
+killed just now. I am running no more risk than other people."
+
+"Other people--what are other people to me? If you loved me you wouldn't
+go off this way and leave me to lie awake at night, wondering whether
+you're arrested, or dream you are dead whenever I go to sleep. You don't
+care as much for me as for that dog there!"
+
+The Gadfly rose and walked slowly to the other end of the terrace.
+He was quite unprepared for such a scene as this and at a loss how to
+answer her. Yes, Gemma was right; he had got his life into a tangle that
+he would have hard work to undo.
+
+"Sit down and let us talk about it quietly," he said, coming back after
+a moment. "I think we have misunderstood each other; of course I should
+not have laughed if I had thought you were serious. Try to tell
+me plainly what is troubling you; and then, if there is any
+misunderstanding, we may be able to clear it up."
+
+"There's nothing to clear up. I can see you don't care a brass farthing
+for me."
+
+"My dear child, we had better be quite frank with each other. I have
+always tried to be honest about our relationship, and I think I have
+never deceived you as to----"
+
+"Oh, no! you have been honest enough; you have never even pretended
+to think of me as anything else but a prostitute,--a trumpery bit of
+second-hand finery that plenty of other men have had before you--"
+
+"Hush, Zita! I have never thought that way about any living thing."
+
+"You have never loved me," she insisted sullenly.
+
+"No, I have never loved you. Listen to me, and try to think as little
+harm of me as you can."
+
+"Who said I thought any harm of you? I----"
+
+"Wait a minute. This is what I want to say: I have no belief whatever in
+conventional moral codes, and no respect for them. To me the relations
+between men and women are simply questions of personal likes and
+dislikes------"
+
+"And of money," she interrupted with a harsh little laugh. He winced and
+hesitated a moment.
+
+"That, of course, is the ugly part of the matter. But believe me, if I
+had thought that you disliked me, or felt any repulsion to the thing,
+I would never have suggested it, or taken advantage of your position to
+persuade you to it. I have never done that to any woman in my life, and
+I have never told a woman a lie about my feeling for her. You may trust
+me that I am speaking the truth----"
+
+He paused a moment, but she did not answer.
+
+"I thought," he went on; "that if a man is alone in the world and feels
+the need of--of a woman's presence about him, and if he can find a woman
+who is attractive to him and to whom he is not repulsive, he has a right
+to accept, in a grateful and friendly spirit, such pleasure as that
+woman is willing to give him, without entering into any closer bond. I
+saw no harm in the thing, provided only there is no unfairness or insult
+or deceit on either side. As for your having been in that relation with
+other men before I met you, I did not think about that. I merely thought
+that the connexion would be a pleasant and harmless one for both of us,
+and that either was free to break it as soon as it became irksome. If I
+was mistaken--if you have grown to look upon it differently--then----"
+
+He paused again.
+
+"Then?" she whispered, without looking up.
+
+"Then I have done you a wrong, and I am very sorry. But I did not mean
+to do it."
+
+"You 'did not mean' and you 'thought'----Felice, are you made of cast
+iron? Have you never been in love with a woman in your life that you
+can't see I love you?"
+
+A sudden thrill went through him; it was so long since anyone had said
+to him: "I love you." Instantly she started up and flung her arms round
+him.
+
+"Felice, come away with me! Come away from this dreadful country and all
+these people and their politics! What have we got to do with them? Come
+away, and we will be happy together. Let us go to South America, where
+you used to live."
+
+The physical horror of association startled him back into self-control;
+he unclasped her hands from his neck and held them in a steady grasp.
+
+"Zita! Try to understand what I am saying to you. I do not love you; and
+if I did I would not come away with you. I have my work in Italy, and my
+comrades----"
+
+"And someone else that you love better than me!" she cried out fiercely.
+"Oh, I could kill you! It is not your comrades you care about; it's----
+I know who it is!"
+
+"Hush!" he said quietly. "You are excited and imagining things that are
+not true."
+
+"You suppose I am thinking of Signora Bolla? I'm not so easily duped!
+You only talk politics with her; you care no more for her than you do
+for me. It's that Cardinal!"
+
+The Gadfly started as if he had been shot.
+
+"Cardinal?" he repeated mechanically.
+
+"Cardinal Montanelli, that came here preaching in the autumn. Do you
+think I didn't see your face when his carriage passed? You were as white
+as my pocket-handkerchief! Why, you're shaking like a leaf now because I
+mentioned his name!"
+
+He stood up.
+
+"You don't know what you are talking about," he said very slowly and
+softly. "I--hate the Cardinal. He is the worst enemy I have."
+
+"Enemy or no, you love him better than you love anyone else in the
+world. Look me in the face and say that is not true, if you can!"
+
+He turned away, and looked out into the garden. She watched him
+furtively, half-scared at what she had done; there was something
+terrifying in his silence. At last she stole up to him, like a
+frightened child, and timidly pulled his sleeve. He turned round.
+
+"It is true," he said.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+"BUT c-c-can't I meet him somewhere in the hills? Brisighella is a risky
+place for me."
+
+"Every inch of ground in the Romagna is risky for you; but just at this
+moment Brisighella is safer for you than any other place."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I'll tell you in a minute. Don't let that man with the blue jacket
+see your face; he's dangerous. Yes; it was a terrible storm; I don't
+remember to have seen the vines so bad for a long time."
+
+The Gadfly spread his arms on the table, and laid his face upon them,
+like a man overcome with fatigue or wine; and the dangerous new-comer in
+the blue jacket, glancing swiftly round, saw only two farmers discussing
+their crops over a flask of wine and a sleepy mountaineer with his head
+on the table. It was the usual sort of thing to see in little places
+like Marradi; and the owner of the blue jacket apparently made up his
+mind that nothing could be gained by listening; for he drank his wine at
+a gulp and sauntered into the outer room. There he stood leaning on the
+counter and gossiping lazily with the landlord, glancing every now and
+then out of the corner of one eye through the open door, beyond which
+sat the three figures at the table. The two farmers went on sipping
+their wine and discussing the weather in the local dialect, and the
+Gadfly snored like a man whose conscience is sound.
+
+At last the spy seemed to make up his mind that there was nothing in the
+wine-shop worth further waste of his time. He paid his reckoning, and,
+lounging out of the house, sauntered away down the narrow street. The
+Gadfly, yawning and stretching, lifted himself up and sleepily rubbed
+the sleeve of his linen blouse across his eyes.
+
+"Pretty sharp practice that," he said, pulling a clasp-knife out of his
+pocket and cutting off a chunk from the rye-loaf on the table. "Have
+they been worrying you much lately, Michele?"
+
+"They've been worse than mosquitos in August. There's no getting a
+minute's peace; wherever one goes, there's always a spy hanging
+about. Even right up in the hills, where they used to be so shy about
+venturing, they have taken to coming in bands of three or four--haven't
+they, Gino? That's why we arranged for you to meet Domenichino in the
+town."
+
+"Yes; but why Brisighella? A frontier town is always full of spies."
+
+"Brisighella just now is a capital place. It's swarming with pilgrims
+from all parts of the country."
+
+"But it's not on the way to anywhere."
+
+"It's not far out of the way to Rome, and many of the Easter Pilgrims
+are going round to hear Mass there."
+
+"I d-d-didn't know there was anything special in Brisighella."
+
+"There's the Cardinal. Don't you remember his going to Florence to
+preach last December? It's that same Cardinal Montanelli. They say he
+made a great sensation."
+
+"I dare say; I don't go to hear sermons."
+
+"Well, he has the reputation of being a saint, you see."
+
+"How does he manage that?"
+
+"I don't know. I suppose it's because he gives away all his income, and
+lives like a parish priest with four or five hundred scudi a year."
+
+"Ah!" interposed the man called Gino; "but it's more than that. He
+doesn't only give away money; he spends his whole life in looking
+after the poor, and seeing the sick are properly treated, and hearing
+complaints and grievances from morning till night. I'm no fonder of
+priests than you are, Michele, but Monsignor Montanelli is not like
+other Cardinals."
+
+"Oh, I dare say he's more fool than knave!" said Michele. "Anyhow, the
+people are mad after him, and the last new freak is for the pilgrims to
+go round that way to ask his blessing. Domenichino thought of going as a
+pedlar, with a basket of cheap crosses and rosaries. The people like to
+buy those things and ask the Cardinal to touch them; then they put them
+round their babies' necks to keep off the evil eye."
+
+"Wait a minute. How am I to go--as a pilgrim? This make-up suits me
+p-pretty well, I think; but it w-won't do for me to show myself
+in Brisighella in the same character that I had here; it would be
+ev-v-vidence against you if I get taken."
+
+"You won't get taken; we have a splendid disguise for you, with a
+passport and all complete."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"An old Spanish pilgrim--a repentant brigand from the Sierras. He fell
+ill in Ancona last year, and one of our friends took him on board a
+trading-vessel out of charity, and set him down in Venice, where he had
+friends, and he left his papers with us to show his gratitude. They will
+just do for you."
+
+"A repentant b-b-brigand? But w-what about the police?"
+
+"Oh, that's all right! He finished his term of the galleys some years
+ago, and has been going about to Jerusalem and all sorts of places
+saving his soul ever since. He killed his son by mistake for somebody
+else, and gave himself up to the police in a fit of remorse."
+
+"Was he quite old?"
+
+"Yes; but a white beard and wig will set that right, and the description
+suits you to perfection in every other respect. He was an old soldier,
+with a lame foot and a sabre-cut across the face like yours; and then
+his being a Spaniard, too--you see, if you meet any Spanish pilgrims,
+you can talk to them all right."
+
+"Where am I to meet Domenichino?"
+
+"You join the pilgrims at the cross-road that we will show you on the
+map, saying you had lost your way in the hills. Then, when you reach the
+town, you go with the rest of them into the marketplace, in front of the
+Cardinal's palace."
+
+"Oh, he manages to live in a p-palace, then, in s-spite of being a
+saint?"
+
+"He lives in one wing of it, and has turned the rest into a hospital.
+Well, you all wait there for him to come out and give his benediction,
+and Domenichino will come up with his basket and say: 'Are you one of
+the pilgrims, father?' and you answer: 'I am a miserable sinner.' Then
+he puts down his basket and wipes his face with his sleeve, and you
+offer him six soldi for a rosary."
+
+"Then, of course, he arranges where we can talk?"
+
+"Yes; he will have plenty of time to give you the address of the
+meeting-place while the people are gaping at Montanelli. That was our
+plan; but if you don't like it, we can let Domenichino know and arrange
+something else."
+
+"No; it will do; only see that the beard and wig look natural."
+
+    *****
+
+"Are you one of the pilgrims, father?"
+
+The Gadfly, sitting on the steps of the episcopal palace, looked up
+from under his ragged white locks, and gave the password in a husky,
+trembling voice, with a strong foreign accent. Domenichino slipped
+the leather strap from his shoulder, and set down his basket of pious
+gewgaws on the step. The crowd of peasants and pilgrims sitting on the
+steps and lounging about the market-place was taking no notice of
+them, but for precaution's sake they kept up a desultory conversation,
+Domenichino speaking in the local dialect and the Gadfly in broken
+Italian, intermixed with Spanish words.
+
+"His Eminence! His Eminence is coming out!" shouted the people by the
+door. "Stand aside! His Eminence is coming!"
+
+They both stood up.
+
+"Here, father," said Domenichino, putting into the Gadfly's hand a
+little image wrapped in paper; "take this, too, and pray for me when you
+get to Rome."
+
+The Gadfly thrust it into his breast, and turned to look at the figure
+in the violet Lenten robe and scarlet cap that was standing on the upper
+step and blessing the people with outstretched arms.
+
+Montanelli came slowly down the steps, the people crowding about him to
+kiss his hands. Many knelt down and put the hem of his cassock to their
+lips as he passed.
+
+"Peace be with you, my children!"
+
+At the sound of the clear, silvery voice, the Gadfly bent his head, so
+that the white hair fell across his face; and Domenichino, seeing the
+quivering of the pilgrim's staff in his hand, said to himself with
+admiration: "What an actor!"
+
+A woman standing near to them stooped down and lifted her child from the
+step. "Come, Cecco," she said. "His Eminence will bless you as the dear
+Lord blessed the children."
+
+The Gadfly moved a step forward and stopped. Oh, it was hard! All these
+outsiders--these pilgrims and mountaineers--could go up and speak to
+him, and he would lay his hand on their children's hair. Perhaps he
+would say "Carino" to that peasant boy, as he used to say----
+
+The Gadfly sank down again on the step, turning away that he might not
+see. If only he could shrink into some corner and stop his ears to shut
+out the sound! Indeed, it was more than any man should have to bear--to
+be so close, so close that he could have put out his arm and touched the
+dear hand.
+
+"Will you not come under shelter, my friend?" the soft voice said. "I am
+afraid you are chilled."
+
+The Gadfly's heart stood still. For a moment he was conscious of nothing
+but the sickening pressure of the blood that seemed as if it would tear
+his breast asunder; then it rushed back, tingling and burning through
+all his body, and he looked up. The grave, deep eyes above him grew
+suddenly tender with divine compassion at the sight of his face.
+
+"Stand bark a little, friends," Montanelli said, turning to the crowd;
+"I want to speak to him."
+
+The people fell slowly back, whispering to each other, and the Gadfly,
+sitting motionless, with teeth clenched and eyes on the ground, felt the
+gentle touch of Montanelli's hand upon his shoulder.
+
+"You have had some great trouble. Can I do anything to help you?"
+
+The Gadfly shook his head in silence.
+
+"Are you a pilgrim?"
+
+"I am a miserable sinner."
+
+The accidental similarity of Montanelli's question to the password came
+like a chance straw, that the Gadfly, in his desperation, caught at,
+answering automatically. He had begun to tremble under the soft pressure
+of the hand that seemed to burn upon his shoulder.
+
+The Cardinal bent down closer to him.
+
+"Perhaps you would care to speak to me alone? If I can be any help to
+you----"
+
+For the first time the Gadfly looked straight and steadily into
+Montanelli's eyes; he was already recovering his self-command.
+
+"It would be no use," he said; "the thing is hopeless."
+
+A police official stepped forward out of the crowd.
+
+"Forgive my intruding, Your Eminence. I think the old man is not quite
+sound in his mind. He is perfectly harmless, and his papers are in
+order, so we don't interfere with him. He has been in penal servitude
+for a great crime, and is now doing penance."
+
+"A great crime," the Gadfly repeated, shaking his head slowly.
+
+"Thank you, captain; stand aside a little, please. My friend, nothing is
+hopeless if a man has sincerely repented. Will you not come to me this
+evening?"
+
+"Would Your Eminence receive a man who is guilty of the death of his own
+son?"
+
+The question had almost the tone of a challenge, and Montanelli shrank
+and shivered under it as under a cold wind.
+
+"God forbid that I should condemn you, whatever you have done!" he said
+solemnly. "In His sight we are all guilty alike, and our righteousness
+is as filthy rags. If you will come to me I will receive you as I pray
+that He may one day receive me."
+
+The Gadfly stretched out his hands with a sudden gesture of passion.
+
+"Listen!" he said; "and listen all of you, Christians! If a man has
+killed his only son--his son who loved and trusted him, who was flesh of
+his flesh and bone of his bone; if he has led his son into a death-trap
+with lies and deceit--is there hope for that man in earth or heaven?
+I have confessed my sin before God and man, and I have suffered the
+punishment that men have laid on me, and they have let me go; but when
+will God say, 'It is enough'? What benediction will take away His curse
+from my soul? What absolution will undo this thing that I have done?"
+
+In the dead silence that followed the people looked at Montanelli, and
+saw the heaving of the cross upon his breast.
+
+He raised his eyes at last, and gave the benediction with a hand that
+was not quite steady.
+
+"God is merciful," he said. "Lay your burden before His throne; for it
+is written: 'A broken and contrite heart shalt thou not despise.'"
+
+He turned away and walked through the market-place, stopping everywhere
+to speak to the people, and to take their children in his arms.
+
+In the evening the Gadfly, following the directions written on the
+wrapping of the image, made his way to the appointed meeting-place. It
+was the house of a local doctor, who was an active member of the "sect."
+Most of the conspirators were already assembled, and their delight at
+the Gadfly's arrival gave him a new proof, if he had needed one, of his
+popularity as a leader.
+
+"We're glad enough to see you again," said the doctor; "but we shall be
+gladder still to see you go. It's a fearfully risky business, and I, for
+one, was against the plan. Are you quite sure none of those police rats
+noticed you in the market-place this morning?"
+
+"Oh, they n-noticed me enough, but they d-didn't recognize me.
+Domenichino m-managed the thing capitally. But where is he? I don't see
+him."
+
+"He has not come yet. So you got on all smoothly? Did the Cardinal give
+you his blessing?"
+
+"His blessing? Oh, that's nothing," said Domenichino, coming in at the
+door. "Rivarez, you're as full of surprises as a Christmas cake. How
+many more talents are you going to astonish us with?"
+
+"What is it now?" asked the Gadfly languidly. He was leaning back on a
+sofa, smoking a cigar. He still wore his pilgrim's dress, but the white
+beard and wig lay beside him.
+
+"I had no idea you were such an actor. I never saw a thing done so
+magnificently in my life. You nearly moved His Eminence to tears."
+
+"How was that? Let us hear, Rivarez."
+
+The Gadfly shrugged his shoulders. He was in a taciturn and laconic
+mood, and the others, seeing that nothing was to be got out of him,
+appealed to Domenichino to explain. When the scene in the market-place
+had been related, one young workman, who had not joined in the laughter
+of the rest, remarked abruptly:
+
+"It was very clever, of course; but I don't see what good all this
+play-acting business has done to anybody."
+
+"Just this much," the Gadfly put in; "that I can go where I like and do
+what I like anywhere in this district, and not a single man, woman, or
+child will ever think of suspecting me. The story will be all over the
+place by to-morrow, and when I meet a spy he will only think: 'It's
+mad Diego, that confessed his sins in the market-place.' That is an
+advantage gained, surely."
+
+"Yes, I see. Still, I wish the thing could have been done without
+fooling the Cardinal. He's too good to have that sort of trick played on
+him."
+
+"I thought myself he seemed fairly decent," the Gadfly lazily assented.
+
+"Nonsense, Sandro! We don't want Cardinals here!" said Domenichino.
+"And if Monsignor Montanelli had taken that post in Rome when he had the
+chance of getting it, Rivarez couldn't have fooled him."
+
+"He wouldn't take it because he didn't want to leave his work here."
+
+"More likely because he didn't want to get poisoned off by
+Lambruschini's agents. They've got something against him, you may depend
+upon it. When a Cardinal, especially such a popular one, 'prefers to
+stay' in a God-forsaken little hole like this, we all know what that
+means--don't we, Rivarez?"
+
+The Gadfly was making smoke-rings. "Perhaps it is a c-c-case of a
+'b-b-broken and contrite heart,'" he remarked, leaning his head back to
+watch them float away. "And now, men, let us get to business."
+
+They began to discuss in detail the various plans which had been formed
+for the smuggling and concealment of weapons. The Gadfly listened with
+keen attention, interrupting every now and then to correct sharply some
+inaccurate statement or imprudent proposal. When everyone had finished
+speaking, he made a few practical suggestions, most of which were
+adopted without discussion. The meeting then broke up. It had been
+resolved that, at least until he was safely back in Tuscany, very
+late meetings, which might attract the notice of the police, should
+be avoided. By a little after ten o'clock all had dispersed except the
+doctor, the Gadfly, and Domenichino, who remained as a sub-committee
+for the discussion of special points. After a long and hot dispute,
+Domenichino looked up at the clock.
+
+"Half-past eleven; we mustn't stop any longer or the night-watchman may
+see us."
+
+"When does he pass?" asked the Gadfly.
+
+"About twelve o'clock; and I want to be home before he comes.
+Good-night, Giordani. Rivarez, shall we walk together?"
+
+"No; I think we are safer apart. Then I shall see you again?"
+
+"Yes; at Castel Bolognese. I don't know yet what disguise I shall be in,
+but you have the password. You leave here to-morrow, I think?"
+
+The Gadfly was carefully putting on his beard and wig before the
+looking-glass.
+
+"To-morrow morning, with the pilgrims. On the next day I fall ill and
+stop behind in a shepherd's hut, and then take a short cut across the
+hills. I shall be down there before you will. Good-night!"
+
+Twelve o'clock was striking from the Cathedral bell-tower as the Gadfly
+looked in at the door of the great empty barn which had been thrown
+open as a lodging for the pilgrims. The floor was covered with
+clumsy figures, most of which were snoring lustily, and the air was
+insufferably close and foul. He drew back with a little shudder of
+repugnance; it would be useless to attempt to sleep in there; he would
+take a walk, and then find some shed or haystack which would, at least,
+be clean and quiet.
+
+It was a glorious night, with a great full moon gleaming in a purple
+sky. He began to wander through the streets in an aimless way, brooding
+miserably over the scene of the morning, and wishing that he had never
+consented to Domenichino's plan of holding the meeting in Brisighella.
+If at the beginning he had declared the project too dangerous, some
+other place would have been chosen; and both he and Montanelli would
+have been spared this ghastly, ridiculous farce.
+
+How changed the Padre was! And yet his voice was not changed at all; it
+was just the same as in the old days, when he used to say: "Carino."
+
+The lantern of the night-watchman appeared at the other end of the
+street, and the Gadfly turned down a narrow, crooked alley. After
+walking a few yards he found himself in the Cathedral Square, close
+to the left wing of the episcopal palace. The square was flooded with
+moonlight, and there was no one in sight; but he noticed that a side
+door of the Cathedral was ajar. The sacristan must have forgotten to
+shut it. Surely nothing could be going on there so late at night. He
+might as well go in and sleep on one of the benches instead of in the
+stifling barn; he could slip out in the morning before the sacristan
+came; and even if anyone did find him, the natural supposition would be
+that mad Diego had been saying his prayers in some corner, and had got
+shut in.
+
+He listened a moment at the door, and then entered with the noiseless
+step that he had retained notwithstanding his lameness. The moonlight
+streamed through the windows, and lay in broad bands on the marble
+floor. In the chancel, especially, everything was as clearly visible as
+by daylight. At the foot of the altar steps Cardinal Montanelli knelt
+alone, bare-headed, with clasped hands.
+
+The Gadfly drew back into the shadow. Should he slip away before
+Montanelli saw him? That, no doubt, would be the wisest thing to
+do--perhaps the most merciful. And yet, what harm could it do for him to
+go just a little nearer--to look at the Padre's face once more, now that
+the crowd was gone, and there was no need to keep up the hideous comedy
+of the morning? Perhaps it would be his last chance--and the Padre need
+not see him; he would steal up softly and look--just this once. Then he
+would go back to his work.
+
+Keeping in the shadow of the pillars, he crept softly up to the chancel
+rails, and paused at the side entrance, close to the altar. The shadow
+of the episcopal throne was broad enough to cover him, and he crouched
+down in the darkness, holding his breath.
+
+"My poor boy! Oh, God; my poor boy!"
+
+The broken whisper was full of such endless despair that the Gadfly
+shuddered in spite of himself. Then came deep, heavy, tearless sobs; and
+he saw Montanelli wring his hands together like a man in bodily pain.
+
+He had not thought it would be so bad as this. How often had he said to
+himself with bitter assurance: "I need not trouble about it; that wound
+was healed long ago." Now, after all these years, it was laid bare
+before him, and he saw it bleeding still. And how easy it would be to
+heal it now at last! He need only lift his hand--only step forward and
+say: "Padre, it is I." There was Gemma, too, with that white streak
+across her hair. Oh, if he could but forgive! If he could but cut out
+from his memory the past that was burned into it so deep--the Lascar,
+and the sugar-plantation, and the variety show! Surely there was no
+other misery like this--to be willing to forgive, to long to forgive;
+and to know that it was hopeless--that he could not, dared not forgive.
+
+Montanelli rose at last, made the sign of the cross, and turned
+away from the altar. The Gadfly shrank further back into the shadow,
+trembling with fear lest he should be seen, lest the very beating of
+his heart should betray him; then he drew a long breath of relief.
+Montanelli had passed him, so close that the violet robe had brushed
+against his cheek,--had passed and had not seen him.
+
+Had not seen him---- Oh, what had he done? This had been his last
+chance--this one precious moment--and he had let it slip away. He
+started up and stepped into the light.
+
+"Padre!"
+
+The sound of his own voice, ringing up and dying away along the arches
+of the roof, filled him with fantastic terror. He shrank back again into
+the shadow. Montanelli stood beside the pillar, motionless, listening
+with wide-open eyes, full of the horror of death. How long the silence
+lasted the Gadfly could not tell; it might have been an instant, or
+an eternity. He came to his senses with a sudden shock. Montanelli was
+beginning to sway as though he would fall, and his lips moved, at first
+silently.
+
+"Arthur!" the low whisper came at last; "yes, the water is deep----"
+
+The Gadfly came forward.
+
+"Forgive me, Your Eminence! I thought it was one of the priests."
+
+"Ah, it is the pilgrim?" Montanelli had at once recovered his
+self-control, though the Gadfly could see, from the restless glitter of
+the sapphire on his hand, that he was still trembling. "Are you in
+need of anything, my friend? It is late, and the Cathedral is closed at
+night."
+
+"I beg pardon, Your Eminence, if I have done wrong. I saw the door
+open, and came in to pray, and when I saw a priest, as I thought, in
+meditation, I waited to ask a blessing on this."
+
+He held up the little tin cross that he had bought from Domenichino.
+Montanelli took it from his hand, and, re-entering the chancel, laid it
+for a moment on the altar.
+
+"Take it, my son," he said, "and be at rest, for the Lord is tender
+and pitiful. Go to Rome, and ask the blessing of His minister, the Holy
+Father. Peace be with you!"
+
+The Gadfly bent his head to receive the benediction, and turned slowly
+away.
+
+"Stop!" said Montanelli.
+
+He was standing with one hand on the chancel rail.
+
+"When you receive the Holy Eucharist in Rome," he said, "pray for one in
+deep affliction--for one on whose soul the hand of the Lord is heavy."
+
+There were almost tears in his voice, and the Gadfly's resolution
+wavered. Another instant and he would have betrayed himself. Then the
+thought of the variety-show came up again, and he remembered, like
+Jonah, that he did well to be angry.
+
+"Who am I, that He should hear my prayers? A leper and an outcast! If I
+could bring to His throne, as Your Eminence can, the offering of a holy
+life--of a soul without spot or secret shame------"
+
+Montanelli turned abruptly away.
+
+"I have only one offering to give," he said; "a broken heart."
+
+    *****
+
+A few days later the Gadfly returned to Florence in the diligence from
+Pistoja. He went straight to Gemma's lodgings, but she was out. Leaving
+a message that he would return in the morning he went home, sincerely
+hoping that he should not again find his study invaded by Zita. Her
+jealous reproaches would act on his nerves, if he were to hear much of
+them to-night, like the rasping of a dentist's file.
+
+"Good-evening, Bianca," he said when the maid-servant opened the door.
+"Has Mme. Reni been here to-day?"
+
+She stared at him blankly
+
+"Mme. Reni? Has she come back, then, sir?"
+
+"What do you mean?" he asked with a frown, stopping short on the mat.
+
+"She went away quite suddenly, just after you did, and left all her
+things behind her. She never so much as said she was going."
+
+"Just after I did? What, a f-fortnight ago?"
+
+"Yes, sir, the same day; and her things are lying about
+higgledy-piggledy. All the neighbours are talking about it."
+
+He turned away from the door-step without speaking, and went hastily
+down the lane to the house where Zita had been lodging. In her rooms
+nothing had been touched; all the presents that he had given her were in
+their usual places; there was no letter or scrap of writing anywhere.
+
+"If you please, sir," said Bianca, putting her head in at the door,
+"there's an old woman----"
+
+He turned round fiercely.
+
+"What do you want here--following me about?"
+
+"An old woman wishes to see you."
+
+"What does she want? Tell her I c-can't see her; I'm busy."
+
+"She has been coming nearly every evening since you went away, sir,
+always asking when you would come back."
+
+"Ask her w-what her business is. No; never mind; I suppose I must go
+myself."
+
+The old woman was waiting at his hall door. She was very poorly dressed,
+with a face as brown and wrinkled as a medlar, and a bright-coloured
+scarf twisted round her head. As he came in she rose and looked at him
+with keen black eyes.
+
+"You are the lame gentleman," she said, inspecting him critically from
+head to foot. "I have brought you a message from Zita Reni."
+
+He opened the study door, and held it for her to pass in; then followed
+her and shut the door, that Bianca might not hear.
+
+"Sit down, please. N-now, tell me who you are."
+
+"It's no business of yours who I am. I have come to tell you that Zita
+Reni has gone away with my son."
+
+"With--your--son?"
+
+"Yes, sir; if you don't know how to keep your mistress when you've got
+her, you can't complain if other men take her. My son has blood in his
+veins, not milk and water; he comes of the Romany folk."
+
+"Ah, you are a gipsy! Zita has gone back to her own people, then?"
+
+She looked at him in amazed contempt. Apparently, these Christians had
+not even manhood enough to be angry when they were insulted.
+
+"What sort of stuff are you made of, that she should stay with you? Our
+women may lend themselves to you a bit for a girl's fancy, or if you pay
+them well; but the Romany blood comes back to the Romany folk."
+
+The Gadfly's face remained as cold and steady as before.
+
+"Has she gone away with a gipsy camp, or merely to live with your son?"
+
+The woman burst out laughing.
+
+"Do you think of following her and trying to win her back? It's too
+late, sir; you should have thought of that before!"
+
+"No; I only want to know the truth, if you will tell it to me."
+
+She shrugged her shoulders; it was hardly worth while to abuse a person
+who took it so meekly.
+
+"The truth, then, is that she met my son in the road the day you left
+her, and spoke to him in the Romany tongue; and when he saw she was
+one of our folk, in spite of her fine clothes, he fell in love with her
+bonny face, as OUR men fall in love, and took her to our camp. She told
+us all her trouble, and sat crying and sobbing, poor lassie, till our
+hearts were sore for her. We comforted her as best we could; and at last
+she took off her fine clothes and put on the things our lasses wear, and
+gave herself to my son, to be his woman and to have him for her man. He
+won't say to her: 'I don't love you,' and: 'I've other things to do.'
+When a woman is young, she wants a man; and what sort of man are you,
+that you can't even kiss a handsome girl when she puts her arms round
+your neck?"
+
+"You said," he interrupted, "that you had brought me a message from
+her."
+
+"Yes; I stopped behind when the camp went on, so as to give it. She told
+me to say that she has had enough of your folk and their hair-splitting
+and their sluggish blood; and that she wants to get back to her own
+people and be free. 'Tell him,' she said, 'that I am a woman, and that
+I loved him; and that is why I would not be his harlot any longer.' The
+lassie was right to come away. There's no harm in a girl getting a bit
+of money out of her good looks if she can--that's what good looks are
+for; but a Romany lass has nothing to do with LOVING a man of your
+race."
+
+The Gadfly stood up.
+
+"Is that all the message?" he said. "Then tell her, please, that I think
+she has done right, and that I hope she will be happy. That is all I
+have to say. Good-night!"
+
+He stood perfectly still until the garden gate closed behind her; then
+he sat down and covered his face with both hands.
+
+Another blow on the cheek! Was no rag of pride to be left him--no shred
+of self-respect? Surely he had suffered everything that man can endure;
+his very heart had been dragged in the mud and trampled under the
+feet of the passers-by; there was no spot in his soul where someone's
+contempt was not branded in, where someone's mockery had not left
+its iron trace. And now this gipsy girl, whom he had picked up by the
+wayside--even she had the whip in her hand.
+
+Shaitan whined at the door, and the Gadfly rose to let him in. The
+dog rushed up to his master with his usual frantic manifestations of
+delight, but soon, understanding that something was wrong, lay down on
+the rug beside him, and thrust a cold nose into the listless hand.
+
+An hour later Gemma came up to the front door. No one appeared in answer
+to her knock; Bianca, finding that the Gadfly did not want any dinner,
+had slipped out to visit a neighbour's cook. She had left the door open,
+and a light burning in the hall. Gemma, after waiting for some time,
+decided to enter and try if she could find the Gadfly, as she wished to
+speak to him about an important message which had come from Bailey. She
+knocked at the study door, and the Gadfly's voice answered from within:
+"You can go away, Bianca. I don't want anything."
+
+She softly opened the door. The room was quite dark, but the passage
+lamp threw a long stream of light across it as she entered, and she
+saw the Gadfly sitting alone, his head sunk on his breast, and the dog
+asleep at his feet.
+
+"It is I," she said.
+
+He started up. "Gemma,---- Gemma! Oh, I have wanted you so!"
+
+Before she could speak he was kneeling on the floor at her feet and
+hiding his face in the folds of her dress. His whole body was shaken
+with a convulsive tremor that was worse to see than tears.
+
+She stood still. There was nothing she could do to help him--nothing.
+This was the bitterest thing of all. She must stand by and look on
+passively--she who would have died to spare him pain. Could she but dare
+to stoop and clasp her arms about him, to hold him close against her
+heart and shield him, were it with her own body, from all further harm
+or wrong; surely then he would be Arthur to her again; surely then the
+day would break and the shadows flee away.
+
+Ah, no, no! How could he ever forget? Was it not she who had cast him
+into hell--she, with her own right hand?
+
+She had let the moment slip by. He rose hastily and sat down by the
+table, covering his eyes with one hand and biting his lip as if he would
+bite it through.
+
+Presently he looked up and said quietly:
+
+"I am afraid I startled you."
+
+She held out both her hands to him. "Dear," she said, "are we not
+friends enough by now for you to trust me a little bit? What is it?"
+
+"Only a private trouble of my own. I don't see why you should be worried
+over it."
+
+"Listen a moment," she went on, taking his hand in both of hers to
+steady its convulsive trembling. "I have not tried to lay hands on a
+thing that is not mine to touch. But now that you have given me, of your
+own free will, so much of your confidence, will you not give me a little
+more--as you would do if I were your sister. Keep the mask on your face,
+if it is any consolation to you, but don't wear a mask on your soul, for
+your own sake."
+
+He bent his head lower. "You must be patient with me," he said. "I am
+an unsatisfactory sort of brother to have, I'm afraid; but if you only
+knew---- I have been nearly mad this last week. It has been like South
+America again. And somehow the devil gets into me and----" He broke off.
+
+"May I not have my share in your trouble?" she whispered at last.
+
+His head sank down on her arm. "The hand of the Lord is heavy."
+
+
+
+
+
+PART III.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE next five weeks were spent by Gemma and the Gadfly in a whirl
+of excitement and overwork which left them little time or energy for
+thinking about their personal affairs. When the arms had been safely
+smuggled into Papal territory there remained a still more difficult and
+dangerous task: that of conveying them unobserved from the secret stores
+in the mountain caverns and ravines to the various local centres and
+thence to the separate villages. The whole district was swarming with
+spies; and Domenichino, to whom the Gadfly had intrusted the ammunition,
+sent into Florence a messenger with an urgent appeal for either help or
+extra time. The Gadfly had insisted that the work should be finished
+by the middle of June; and what with the difficulty of conveying heavy
+transports over bad roads, and the endless hindrances and delays caused
+by the necessity of continually evading observation, Domenichino was
+growing desperate. "I am between Scylla and Charybdis," he wrote. "I
+dare not work quickly, for fear of detection, and I must not work slowly
+if we are to be ready in time. Either send me efficient help at once, or
+let the Venetians know that we shall not be ready till the first week in
+July."
+
+The Gadfly carried the letter to Gemma and, while she read it, sat
+frowning at the floor and stroking the cat's fur the wrong way.
+
+"This is bad," she said. "We can hardly keep the Venetians waiting for
+three weeks."
+
+"Of course we can't; the thing is absurd. Domenichino m-might
+unders-s-stand that. We must follow the lead of the Venetians, not they
+ours."
+
+"I don't see that Domenichino is to blame; he has evidently done his
+best, and he can't do impossibilities."
+
+"It's not in Domenichino that the fault lies; it's in the fact of
+his being one person instead of two. We ought to have at least one
+responsible man to guard the store and another to see the transports
+off. He is quite right; he must have efficient help."
+
+"But what help are we going to give him? We have no one in Florence to
+send."
+
+"Then I m-must go myself."
+
+She leaned back in her chair and looked at him with a little frown.
+
+"No, that won't do; it's too risky."
+
+"It will have to do if we can't f-f-find any other way out of the
+difficulty."
+
+"Then we must find another way, that's all. It's out of the question for
+you to go again just now."
+
+An obstinate line appeared at the corners of his under lip.
+
+"I d-don't see that it's out of the question."
+
+"You will see if you think about the thing calmly for a minute. It is
+only five weeks since you got back; the police are on the scent about
+that pilgrim business, and scouring the country to find a clue. Yes, I
+know you are clever at disguises; but remember what a lot of people saw
+you, both as Diego and as the countryman; and you can't disguise your
+lameness or the scar on your face."
+
+"There are p-plenty of lame people in the world."
+
+"Yes, but there are not plenty of people in the Romagna with a lame foot
+and a sabre-cut across the cheek and a left arm injured like yours, and
+the combination of blue eyes with such dark colouring."
+
+"The eyes don't matter; I can alter them with belladonna."
+
+"You can't alter the other things. No, it won't do. For you to go there
+just now, with all your identification-marks, would be to walk into a
+trap with your eyes open. You would certainly be taken."
+
+"But s-s-someone must help Domenichino."
+
+"It will be no help to him to have you caught at a critical moment like
+this. Your arrest would mean the failure of the whole thing."
+
+But the Gadfly was difficult to convince, and the discussion went on
+and on without coming nearer to any settlement. Gemma was beginning to
+realize how nearly inexhaustible was the fund of quiet obstinacy in
+his character; and, had the matter not been one about which she felt
+strongly, she would probably have yielded for the sake of peace. This,
+however, was a case in which she could not conscientiously give way; the
+practical advantage to be gained from the proposed journey seemed to her
+not sufficiently important to be worth the risk, and she could not help
+suspecting that his desire to go was prompted less by a conviction of
+grave political necessity than by a morbid craving for the excitement of
+danger. He had got into the habit of risking his neck, and his tendency
+to run into unnecessary peril seemed to her a form of intemperance
+which should be quietly but steadily resisted. Finding all her arguments
+unavailing against his dogged resolve to go his own way, she fired her
+last shot.
+
+"Let us be honest about it, anyway," she said; "and call things by
+their true names. It is not Domenichino's difficulty that makes you so
+determined to go. It is your own personal passion for----"
+
+"It's not true!" he interrupted vehemently. "He is nothing to me; I
+don't care if I never see him again."
+
+He broke off, seeing in her face that he had betrayed himself. Their
+eyes met for an instant, and dropped; and neither of them uttered the
+name that was in both their minds.
+
+"It--it is not Domenichino I want to save," he stammered at last, with
+his face half buried in the cat's fur; "it is that I--I understand the
+danger of the work failing if he has no help."
+
+She passed over the feeble little subterfuge, and went on as if there
+had been no interruption:
+
+"It is your passion for running into danger which makes you want to go
+there. You have the same craving for danger when you are worried that
+you had for opium when you were ill."
+
+"It was not I that asked for the opium," he said defiantly; "it was the
+others who insisted on giving it to me."
+
+"I dare say. You plume yourself a little on your stoicism, and to
+ask for physical relief would have hurt your pride; but it is rather
+flattered than otherwise when you risk your life to relieve the
+irritation of your nerves. And yet, after all, the distinction is a
+merely conventional one."
+
+He drew the cat's head back and looked down into the round, green eyes.
+"Is it true, Pasht?" he said. "Are all these unkind things true that
+your mistress is s-saying about me? Is it a case of mea culpa; mea
+m-maxima culpa? You wise beast, you never ask for opium, do you? Your
+ancestors were gods in Egypt, and no man t-trod on their tails. I
+wonder, though, what would become of your calm superiority to earthly
+ills if I were to take this paw of yours and hold it in the c-candle.
+Would you ask me for opium then? Would you? Or perhaps--for death? No,
+pussy, we have no right to die for our personal convenience. We may spit
+and s-swear a bit, if it consoles us; but we mustn't pull the paw away."
+
+"Hush!" She took the cat off his knee and put it down on a footstool.
+"You and I will have time for thinking about those things later on. What
+we have to think of now is how to get Domenichino out of his difficulty.
+What is it, Katie; a visitor? I am busy."
+
+"Miss Wright has sent you this, ma'am, by hand."
+
+The packet, which was carefully sealed, contained a letter, addressed
+to Miss Wright, but unopened and with a Papal stamp. Gemma's old school
+friends still lived in Florence, and her more important letters were
+often received, for safety, at their address.
+
+"It is Michele's mark," she said, glancing quickly over the letter,
+which seemed to be about the summer-terms at a boarding house in the
+Apennines, and pointing to two little blots on a corner of the page.
+"It is in chemical ink; the reagent is in the third drawer of the
+writing-table. Yes; that is it."
+
+He laid the letter open on the desk and passed a little brush over its
+pages. When the real message stood out on the paper in a brilliant blue
+line, he leaned back in his chair and burst out laughing.
+
+"What is it?" she asked hurriedly. He handed her the paper.
+
+"DOMENICHINO HAS BEEN ARRESTED. COME AT ONCE."
+
+She sat down with the paper in her hand and stared hopelessly at the
+Gadfly.
+
+"W-well?" he said at last, with his soft, ironical drawl; "are you
+satisfied now that I must go?"
+
+"Yes, I suppose you must," she answered, sighing. "And I too."
+
+He looked up with a little start. "You too? But----"
+
+"Of course. It will be very awkward, I know, to be left without anyone
+here in Florence; but everything must go to the wall now except the
+providing of an extra pair of hands."
+
+"There are plenty of hands to be got there."
+
+"They don't belong to people whom you can trust thoroughly, though. You
+said yourself just now that there must be two responsible persons
+in charge; and if Domenichino couldn't manage alone it is evidently
+impossible for you to do so. A person as desperately compromised as you
+are is very much handicapped, remember, in work of that kind, and
+more dependent on help than anyone else would be. Instead of you and
+Domenichino, it must be you and I."
+
+He considered for a moment, frowning.
+
+"Yes, you are quite right," he said; "and the sooner we go the better.
+But we must not start together. If I go off to-night, you can take, say,
+the afternoon coach to-morrow."
+
+"Where to?"
+
+"That we must discuss. I think I had b-b-better go straight in to
+Faenza. If I start late to-night and ride to Borgo San Lorenzo I can get
+my disguise arranged there and go straight on."
+
+"I don't see what else we can do," she said, with an anxious little
+frown; "but it is very risky, your going off in such a hurry and
+trusting to the smugglers finding you a disguise at Borgo. You ought to
+have at least three clear days to double on your trace before you cross
+the frontier."
+
+"You needn't be afraid," he answered, smiling; "I may get taken further
+on, but not at the frontier. Once in the hills I am as safe as here;
+there's not a smuggler in the Apennines that would betray me. What I am
+not quite sure about is how you are to get across."
+
+"Oh, that is very simple! I shall take Louisa Wright's passport and go
+for a holiday. No one knows me in the Romagna, but every spy knows you."
+
+"F-fortunately, so does every smuggler."
+
+She took out her watch.
+
+"Half-past two. We have the afternoon and evening, then, if you are to
+start to-night."
+
+"Then the best thing will be for me to go home and settle everything
+now, and arrange about a good horse. I shall ride in to San Lorenzo; it
+will be safer."
+
+"But it won't be safe at all to hire a horse. The owner will-----"
+
+"I shan't hire one. I know a man that will lend me a horse, and that can
+be trusted. He has done things for me before. One of the shepherds
+will bring it back in a fortnight. I shall be here again by five or
+half-past, then; and while I am gone, I w-want you to go and find
+Martini and exp-plain everything to him."
+
+"Martini!" She turned round and looked at him in astonishment.
+
+"Yes; we must take him into confidence--unless you can think of anyone
+else."
+
+"I don't quite understand what you mean."
+
+"We must have someone here whom we can trust, in case of any special
+difficulty; and of all the set here Martini is the man in whom I have
+most confidence. Riccardo would do anything he could for us, of course;
+but I think Martini has a steadier head. Still, you know him better than
+I do; it is as you think."
+
+"I have not the slightest doubt as to Martini's trustworthiness and
+efficiency in every respect; and I think he would probably consent to
+give us any help he could. But----"
+
+He understood at once.
+
+"Gemma, what would you feel if you found out that a comrade in bitter
+need had not asked you for help you might have given, for fear of
+hurting or distressing you? Would you say there was any true kindness in
+that?"
+
+"Very well," she said, after a little pause; "I will send Katie round at
+once and ask him to come; and while she is gone I will go to Louisa for
+her passport; she promised to lend it whenever I want one. What about
+money? Shall I draw some out of the bank?"
+
+"No; don't waste time on that; I can draw enough from my account to last
+us for a bit. We will fall back on yours later on if my balance runs
+short. Till half-past five, then; I shall be sure to find you here, of
+course?"
+
+"Oh, yes! I shall be back long before then."
+
+Half an hour after the appointed time he returned, and found Gemma
+and Martini sitting on the terrace together. He saw at once that their
+conversation had been a distressing one; the traces of agitation were
+visible in both of them, and Martini was unusually silent and glum.
+
+"Have you arranged everything?" she asked, looking up.
+
+"Yes; and I have brought you some money for the journey. The horse will
+be ready for me at the Ponte Rosso barrier at one in the night."
+
+"Is not that rather late? You ought to get into San Lorenzo before the
+people are up in the morning."
+
+"So I shall; it's a very fast horse; and I don't want to leave here
+when there's a chance of anyone noticing me. I shan't go home any more;
+there's a spy watching at the door, and he thinks me in."
+
+"How did you get out without his seeing you?"
+
+"Out of the kitchen window into the back garden and over the neighbour's
+orchard wall; that's what makes me so late; I had to dodge him. I left
+the owner of the horse to sit in the study all the evening with the lamp
+lighted. When the spy sees the light in the window and a shadow on
+the blind he will be quite satisfied that I am writing at home this
+evening."
+
+"Then you will stay here till it is time to go to the barrier?"
+
+"Yes; I don't want to be seen in the street any more to-night. Have a
+cigar, Martini? I know Signora Bolla doesn't mind smoke."
+
+"I shan't be here to mind; I must go downstairs and help Katie with the
+dinner."
+
+When she had gone Martini got up and began to pace to and fro with his
+hands behind his back. The Gadfly sat smoking and looking silently out
+at the drizzling rain.
+
+"Rivarez!" Martini began, stopping in front of him, but keeping his eyes
+on the ground; "what sort of thing are you going to drag her into?"
+
+The Gadfly took the cigar from his mouth and blew away a long trail of
+smoke.
+
+"She has chosen for herself," he said, "without compulsion on anyone's
+part."
+
+"Yes, yes--I know. But tell me----"
+
+He stopped.
+
+"I will tell you anything I can."
+
+"Well, then--I don't know much about the details of these affairs in the
+hills,--are you going to take her into any very serious danger?"
+
+"Do you want the truth?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then--yes."
+
+Martini turned away and went on pacing up and down. Presently he stopped
+again.
+
+"I want to ask you another question. If you don't choose to answer it,
+you needn't, of course; but if you do answer, then answer honestly. Are
+you in love with her?"
+
+The Gadfly deliberately knocked the ash from his cigar and went on
+smoking in silence.
+
+"That means--that you don't choose to answer?"
+
+"No; only that I think I have a right to know why you ask me that."
+
+"Why? Good God, man, can't you see why?"
+
+"Ah!" He laid down his cigar and looked steadily at Martini. "Yes," he
+said at last, slowly and softly. "I am in love with her. But you needn't
+think I am going to make love to her, or worry about it. I am only going
+to----"
+
+His voice died away in a strange, faint whisper. Martini came a step
+nearer.
+
+"Only going--to----"
+
+"To die."
+
+He was staring straight before him with a cold, fixed look, as if he
+were dead already. When he spoke again his voice was curiously lifeless
+and even.
+
+"You needn't worry her about it beforehand," he said; "but there's not
+the ghost of a chance for me. It's dangerous for everyone; that she
+knows as well as I do; but the smugglers will do their best to prevent
+her getting taken. They are good fellows, though they are a bit rough.
+As for me, the rope is round my neck, and when I cross the frontier I
+pull the noose."
+
+"Rivarez, what do you mean? Of course it's dangerous, and particularly
+so for you; I understand that; but you have often crossed the frontier
+before and always been successful."
+
+"Yes, and this time I shall fail."
+
+"But why? How can you know?"
+
+The Gadfly smiled drearily.
+
+"Do you remember the German legend of the man that died when he met his
+own Double? No? It appeared to him at night in a lonely place, wringing
+its hands in despair. Well, I met mine the last time I was in the hills;
+and when I cross the frontier again I shan't come back."
+
+Martini came up to him and put a hand on the back of his chair.
+
+"Listen, Rivarez; I don't understand a word of all this metaphysical
+stuff, but I do understand one thing: If you feel about it that way, you
+are not in a fit state to go. The surest way to get taken is to go with
+a conviction that you will be taken. You must be ill, or out of sorts
+somehow, to get maggots of that kind into your head. Suppose I go
+instead of you? I can do any practical work there is to be done, and you
+can send a message to your men, explaining------"
+
+"And let you get killed instead? That would be very clever."
+
+"Oh, I'm not likely to get killed! They don't know me as they do you.
+And, besides, even if I did------"
+
+He stopped, and the Gadfly looked up with a slow, inquiring gaze.
+Martini's hand dropped by his side.
+
+"She very likely wouldn't miss me as much as she would you," he said
+in his most matter-of-fact voice. "And then, besides, Rivarez, this is
+public business, and we have to look at it from the point of view
+of utility--the greatest good of the greatest number. Your 'final
+value'---isn't that what the economists call it?--is higher than mine;
+I have brains enough to see that, though I haven't any cause to be
+particularly fond of you. You are a bigger man than I am; I'm not sure
+that you are a better one, but there's more of you, and your death would
+be a greater loss than mine."
+
+From the way he spoke he might have been discussing the value of shares
+on the Exchange. The Gadfly looked up, shivering as if with cold.
+
+"Would you have me wait till my grave opens of itself to swallow me up?
+
+
+                "If I must die,
+    I will encounter darkness as a bride----
+
+Look here, Martini, you and I are talking nonsense."
+
+"You are, certainly," said Martini gruffly.
+
+"Yes, and so are you. For Heaven's sake, don't let's go in for romantic
+self-sacrifice, like Don Carlos and Marquis Posa. This is the nineteenth
+century; and if it's my business to die, I have got to do it."
+
+"And if it's my business to live, I have got to do that, I suppose.
+You're the lucky one, Rivarez."
+
+"Yes," the Gadfly assented laconically; "I was always lucky."
+
+They smoked in silence for a few minutes, and then began to talk of
+business details. When Gemma came up to call them to dinner, neither of
+them betrayed in face or manner that their conversation had been in any
+way unusual. After dinner they sat discussing plans and making necessary
+arrangements till eleven o'clock, when Martini rose and took his hat.
+
+"I will go home and fetch that riding-cloak of mine, Rivarez. I think
+you will be less recognizable in it than in your light suit. I want to
+reconnoitre a bit, too, and make sure there are no spies about before we
+start."
+
+"Are you coming with me to the barrier?"
+
+"Yes; it's safer to have four eyes than two in case of anyone following
+you. I'll be back by twelve. Be sure you don't start without me. I had
+better take the key, Gemma, so as not to wake anyone by ringing."
+
+She raised her eyes to his face as he took the keys. She understood that
+he had invented a pretext in order to leave her alone with the Gadfly.
+
+"You and I will talk to-morrow," she said. "We shall have time in the
+morning, when my packing is finished."
+
+"Oh, yes! Plenty of time. There are two or three little things I want
+to ask you about, Rivarez; but we can talk them over on our way to the
+barrier. You had better send Katie to bed, Gemma; and be as quiet as you
+can, both of you. Good-bye till twelve, then."
+
+He went away with a little nod and smile, banging the door after him to
+let the neighbours hear that Signora Bolla's visitor was gone.
+
+Gemma went out into the kitchen to say good-night to Katie, and came
+back with black coffee on a tray.
+
+"Would you like to lie down a bit?" she said. "You won't have any sleep
+the rest of the night."
+
+"Oh, dear no! I shall sleep at San Lorenzo while the men are getting my
+disguise ready."
+
+"Then have some coffee. Wait a minute; I will get you out the biscuits."
+
+As she knelt down at the side-board he suddenly stooped over her
+shoulder.
+
+"Whatever have you got there? Chocolate creams and English toffee! Why,
+this is l-luxury for a king!"
+
+She looked up, smiling faintly at his enthusiastic tone.
+
+"Are you fond of sweets? I always keep them for Cesare; he is a perfect
+baby over any kind of lollipops."
+
+"R-r-really? Well, you must get him s-some more to-morrow and give me
+these to take with me. No, let me p-p-put the toffee in my pocket; it
+will console me for all the lost joys of life. I d-do hope they'll give
+me a bit of toffee to suck the day I'm hanged."
+
+"Oh, do let me find a cardboard box for it, at least, before you put it
+in your pocket! You will be so sticky! Shall I put the chocolates in,
+too?"
+
+"No, I want to eat them now, with you."
+
+"But I don't like chocolate, and I want you to come and sit down like
+a reasonable human being. We very likely shan't have another chance to
+talk quietly before one or other of us is killed, and------"
+
+"She d-d-doesn't like chocolate!" he murmured under his breath. "Then
+I must be greedy all by myself. This is a case of the hangman's supper,
+isn't it? You are going to humour all my whims to-night. First of all, I
+want you to sit on this easy-chair, and, as you said I might lie down, I
+shall lie here and be comfortable."
+
+He threw himself down on the rug at her feet, leaning his elbow on the
+chair and looking up into her face.
+
+"How pale you are!" he said. "That's because you take life sadly, and
+don't like chocolate----"
+
+"Do be serious for just five minutes! After all, it is a matter of life
+and death."
+
+"Not even for two minutes, dear; neither life nor death is worth it."
+
+He had taken hold of both her hands and was stroking them with the tips
+of his fingers.
+
+"Don't look so grave, Minerva! You'll make me cry in a minute, and
+then you'll be sorry. I do wish you'd smile again; you have such a
+d-delightfully unexpected smile. There now, don't scold me, dear! Let us
+eat our biscuits together, like two good children, without quarrelling
+over them--for to-morrow we die."
+
+He took a sweet biscuit from the plate and carefully halved it, breaking
+the sugar ornament down the middle with scrupulous exactness.
+
+"This is a kind of sacrament, like what the goody-goody people have in
+church. 'Take, eat; this is my body.' And we must d-drink the wine
+out of the s-s-same glass, you know--yes, that is right. 'Do this in
+remembrance----'"
+
+She put down the glass.
+
+"Don't!" she said, with almost a sob. He looked up, and took her hands
+again.
+
+"Hush, then! Let us be quiet for a little bit. When one of us dies, the
+other will remember this. We will forget this loud, insistent world that
+howls about our ears; we will go away together, hand in hand; we will
+go away into the secret halls of death, and lie among the poppy-flowers.
+Hush! We will be quite still."
+
+He laid his head down against her knee and covered his face. In the
+silence she bent over him, her hand on the black head. So the time
+slipped on and on; and they neither moved nor spoke.
+
+"Dear, it is almost twelve," she said at last. He raised his head.
+
+"We have only a few minutes more; Martini will be back presently.
+Perhaps we shall never see each other again. Have you nothing to say to
+me?"
+
+He slowly rose and walked away to the other side of the room. There was
+a moment's silence.
+
+"I have one thing to say," he began in a hardly audible voice; "one
+thing--to tell you----"
+
+He stopped and sat down by the window, hiding his face in both hands.
+
+"You have been a long time deciding to be merciful," she said softly.
+
+"I have not seen much mercy in my life; and I thought--at first--you
+wouldn't care----"
+
+"You don't think that now."
+
+She waited a moment for him to speak and then crossed the room and stood
+beside him.
+
+"Tell me the truth at last," she whispered. "Think, if you are killed
+and I not--I should have to go through all my life and never know--never
+be quite sure----"
+
+He took her hands and clasped them tightly.
+
+"If I am killed---- You see, when I went to South America---- Ah,
+Martini!"
+
+He broke away with a violent start and threw open the door of the room.
+Martini was rubbing his boots on the mat.
+
+"Punctual to the m-m-minute, as usual! You're an an-n-nimated
+chronometer, Martini. Is that the r-r-riding-cloak?"
+
+"Yes; and two or three other things. I have kept them as dry as I could,
+but it's pouring with rain. You will have a most uncomfortable ride, I'm
+afraid."
+
+"Oh, that's no matter. Is the street clear?"
+
+"Yes; all the spies seem to have gone to bed. I don't much wonder
+either, on such a villainous night. Is that coffee, Gemma? He ought to
+have something hot before he goes out into the wet, or he will catch
+cold."
+
+"It is black coffee, and very strong. I will boil some milk."
+
+She went into the kitchen, passionately clenching her teeth and hands to
+keep from breaking down. When she returned with the milk the Gadfly
+had put on the riding-cloak and was fastening the leather gaiters which
+Martini had brought. He drank a cup of coffee, standing, and took up the
+broad-brimmed riding hat.
+
+"I think it's time to start, Martini; we must make a round before we go
+to the barrier, in case of anything. Good-bye, for the present, signora;
+I shall meet you at Forli on Friday, then, unless anything special turns
+up. Wait a minute; th-this is the address."
+
+He tore a leaf out of his pocket-book and wrote a few words in pencil.
+
+"I have it already," she said in a dull, quiet voice.
+
+"H-have you? Well, there it is, anyway. Come, Martini. Sh-sh-sh! Don't
+let the door creak!"
+
+They crept softly downstairs. When the street door clicked behind them
+she went back into the room and mechanically unfolded the paper he had
+put into her hand. Underneath the address was written:
+
+"I will tell you everything there."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+IT was market-day in Brisighella, and the country folk had come in from
+the villages and hamlets of the district with their pigs and poultry,
+their dairy produce and droves of half-wild mountain cattle. The
+market-place was thronged with a perpetually shifting crowd, laughing,
+joking, bargaining for dried figs, cheap cakes, and sunflower seeds. The
+brown, bare-footed children sprawled, face downward, on the pavement in
+the hot sun, while their mothers sat under the trees with their baskets
+of butter and eggs.
+
+Monsignor Montanelli, coming out to wish the people "Good-morning," was
+at once surrounded by a clamourous throng of children, holding up for
+his acceptance great bunches of irises and scarlet poppies and sweet
+white narcissus from the mountain slopes. His passion for wild flowers
+was affectionately tolerated by the people, as one of the little follies
+which sit gracefully on very wise men. If anyone less universally
+beloved had filled his house with weeds and grasses they would have
+laughed at him; but the "blessed Cardinal" could afford a few harmless
+eccentricities.
+
+"Well, Mariuccia," he said, stopping to pat one of the children on the
+head; "you have grown since I saw you last. And how is the grandmother's
+rheumatism?"
+
+"She's been better lately, Your Eminence; but mother's bad now."
+
+"I'm sorry to hear that; tell the mother to come down here some day and
+see whether Dr. Giordani can do anything for her. I will find somewhere
+to put her up; perhaps the change will do her good. You are looking
+better, Luigi; how are your eyes?"
+
+He passed on, chatting with the mountaineers. He always remembered
+the names and ages of the children, their troubles and those of their
+parents; and would stop to inquire, with sympathetic interest, for the
+health of the cow that fell sick at Christmas, or of the rag-doll that
+was crushed under a cart-wheel last market-day.
+
+When he returned to the palace the marketing began. A lame man in a blue
+shirt, with a shock of black hair hanging into his eyes and a deep scar
+across the left cheek, lounged up to one of the booths and, in very bad
+Italian, asked for a drink of lemonade.
+
+"You're not from these parts," said the woman who poured it out,
+glancing up at him.
+
+"No. I come from Corsica."
+
+"Looking for work?"
+
+"Yes; it will be hay-cutting time soon, and a gentleman that has a farm
+near Ravenna came across to Bastia the other day and told me there's
+plenty of work to be got there."
+
+"I hope you'll find it so, I'm sure, but times are bad hereabouts."
+
+"They're worse in Corsica, mother. I don't know what we poor folk are
+coming to."
+
+"Have you come over alone?"
+
+"No, my mate is with me; there he is, in the red shirt. Hola, Paolo!"
+
+Michele hearing himself called, came lounging up with his hands in his
+pockets. He made a fairly good Corsican, in spite of the red wig which
+he had put on to render himself unrecognizable. As for the Gadfly, he
+looked his part to perfection.
+
+They sauntered through the market-place together, Michele whistling
+between his teeth, and the Gadfly trudging along with a bundle over his
+shoulder, shuffling his feet on the ground to render his lameness
+less observable. They were waiting for an emissary, to whom important
+directions had to be given.
+
+"There's Marcone, on horseback, at that corner," Michele whispered
+suddenly. The Gadfly, still carrying his bundle, shuffled towards the
+horseman.
+
+"Do you happen to be wanting a hay-maker, sir?" he said, touching his
+ragged cap and running one finger along the bridle. It was the signal
+agreed upon, and the rider, who from his appearance might have been a
+country squire's bailiff, dismounted and threw the reins on the horse's
+neck.
+
+"What sort of work can you do, my man?"
+
+The Gadfly fumbled with his cap.
+
+"I can cut grass, sir, and trim hedges"--he began; and without any break
+in his voice, went straight on: "At one in the morning at the mouth of
+the round cave. You must have two good horses and a cart. I shall be
+waiting inside the cave---- And then I can dig, sir, and----"
+
+"That will do, I only want a grass-cutter. Have you ever been out
+before?"
+
+"Once, sir. Mind, you must come well-armed; we may meet a flying
+squadron. Don't go by the wood-path; you're safer on the other side. If
+you meet a spy, don't stop to argue with him; fire at once---- I should
+be very glad of work, sir."
+
+"Yes, I dare say, but I want an experienced grass-cutter. No, I haven't
+got any coppers to-day."
+
+A very ragged beggar had slouched up to them, with a doleful, monotonous
+whine.
+
+"Have pity on a poor blind man, in the name of the Blessed Virgin------
+Get out of this place at once; there's a flying squadron coming
+along----Most Holy Queen of Heaven, Maiden undefiled--It's you they're
+after, Rivarez; they'll be here in two minutes---- And so may the saints
+reward you---- You'll have to make a dash for it; there are spies at all
+the corners. It's no use trying to slip away without being seen."
+
+Marcone slipped the reins into the Gadfly's hand.
+
+"Make haste! Ride out to the bridge and let the horse go; you can hide
+in the ravine. We're all armed; we can keep them back for ten minutes."
+
+"No. I won't have you fellows taken. Stand together, all of you, and
+fire after me in order. Move up towards our horses; there they are,
+tethered by the palace steps; and have your knives ready. We retreat
+fighting, and when I throw my cap down, cut the halters and jump every
+man on the nearest horse. We may all reach the wood that way."
+
+They had spoken in so quiet an undertone that even the nearest
+bystanders had not supposed their conversation to refer to anything
+more dangerous than grass-cutting. Marcone, leading his own mare by the
+bridle, walked towards the tethered horses, the Gadfly slouching along
+beside him, and the beggar following them with an outstretched hand and
+a persistent whine. Michele came up whistling; the beggar had warned him
+in passing, and he quietly handed on the news to three countrymen who
+were eating raw onions under a tree. They immediately rose and followed
+him; and before anyone's notice had been attracted to them, the whole
+seven were standing together by the steps of the palace, each man with
+one hand on the hidden pistol, and the tethered horses within easy
+reach.
+
+"Don't betray yourselves till I move," the Gadfly said softly and
+clearly. "They may not recognize us. When I fire, then begin in order.
+Don't fire at the men; lame their horses--then they can't follow us.
+Three of you fire, while the other three reload. If anyone comes between
+you and our horses, kill him. I take the roan. When I throw down my cap,
+each man for himself; don't stop for anything."
+
+"Here they come," said Michele; and the Gadfly turned round, with an air
+of naive and stupid wonder, as the people suddenly broke off in their
+bargaining.
+
+Fifteen armed men rode slowly into the marketplace. They had great
+difficulty to get past the throng of people at all, and, but for the
+spies at the corners of the square, all the seven conspirators could
+have slipped quietly away while the attention of the crowd was fixed
+upon the soldiers. Michele moved a little closer to the Gadfly.
+
+"Couldn't we get away now?"
+
+"No; we're surrounded with spies, and one of them has recognized me. He
+has just sent a man to tell the captain where I am. Our only chance is
+to lame their horses."
+
+"Which is the spy?"
+
+"The first man I fire at. Are you all ready? They have made a lane to
+us; they are going to come with a rush."
+
+"Out of the way there!" shouted the captain. "In the name of His
+Holiness!"
+
+The crowd had drawn back, startled and wondering; and the soldiers made
+a quick dash towards the little group standing by the palace steps. The
+Gadfly drew a pistol from his blouse and fired, not at the advancing
+troops, but at the spy, who was approaching the horses, and who fell
+back with a broken collar-bone. Immediately after the report, six more
+shots were fired in quick succession, as the conspirators moved steadily
+closer to the tethered horses.
+
+One of the cavalry horses stumbled and plunged; another fell to
+the ground with a fearful cry. Then, through the shrieking of the
+panic-stricken people, came the loud, imperious voice of the officer in
+command, who had risen in the stirrups and was holding a sword above his
+head.
+
+"This way, men!"
+
+He swayed in the saddle and sank back; the Gadfly had fired again
+with his deadly aim. A little stream of blood was trickling down the
+captain's uniform; but he steadied himself with a violent effort, and,
+clutching at his horse's mane, cried out fiercely:
+
+"Kill that lame devil if you can't take him alive! It's Rivarez!"
+
+"Another pistol, quick!" the Gadfly called to his men; "and go!"
+
+He flung down his cap. It was only just in time, for the swords of the
+now infuriated soldiers were flashing close in front of him.
+
+"Put down your weapons, all of you!"
+
+Cardinal Montanelli had stepped suddenly between the combatants; and one
+of the soldiers cried out in a voice sharp with terror:
+
+"Your Eminence! My God, you'll be murdered!"
+
+Montanelli only moved a step nearer, and faced the Gadfly's pistol.
+
+Five of the conspirators were already on horseback and dashing up the
+hilly street. Marcone sprang on to the back of his mare. In the moment
+of riding away, he glanced back to see whether his leader was in need of
+help. The roan was close at hand, and in another instant all would have
+been safe; but as the figure in the scarlet cassock stepped forward,
+the Gadfly suddenly wavered and the hand with the pistol sank down.
+The instant decided everything. Immediately he was surrounded and flung
+violently to the ground, and the weapon was dashed out of his hand by a
+blow from the flat of a soldier's sword. Marcone struck his mare's flank
+with the stirrup; the hoofs of the cavalry horses were thundering up the
+hill behind him; and it would have been worse than useless to stay and
+be taken too. Turning in the saddle as he galloped away, to fire a last
+shot in the teeth of the nearest pursuer, he saw the Gadfly, with blood
+on his face, trampled under the feet of horses and soldiers and spies;
+and heard the savage curses of the captors, the yells of triumph and
+rage.
+
+Montanelli did not notice what had happened; he had moved away from the
+steps, and was trying to calm the terrified people. Presently, as he
+stooped over the wounded spy, a startled movement of the crowd made him
+look up. The soldiers were crossing the square, dragging their prisoner
+after them by the rope with which his hands were tied. His face was
+livid with pain and exhaustion, and he panted fearfully for breath; but
+he looked round at the Cardinal, smiling with white lips, and whispered:
+
+"I c-cong-gratulate your Eminence."
+
+   *****
+
+Five days later Martini reached Forli. He had received from Gemma by
+post a bundle of printed circulars, the signal agreed upon in case
+of his being needed in any special emergency; and, remembering the
+conversation on the terrace, he guessed the truth at once. All through
+the journey he kept repeating to himself that there was no reason for
+supposing anything to have happened to the Gadfly, and that it was
+absurd to attach any importance to the childish superstitions of so
+nervous and fanciful a person; but the more he reasoned with himself
+against the idea, the more firmly did it take possession of his mind.
+
+"I have guessed what it is: Rivarez is taken, of course?" he said, as he
+came into Gemma's room.
+
+"He was arrested last Thursday, at Brisighella. He defended himself
+desperately and wounded the captain of the squadron and a spy."
+
+"Armed resistance; that's bad!"
+
+"It makes no difference; he was too deeply compromised already for a
+pistol-shot more or less to affect his position much."
+
+"What do you think they are going to do with him?"
+
+She grew a shade paler even than before.
+
+"I think," she said; "that we must not wait to find out what they mean
+to do."
+
+"You think we shall be able to effect a rescue?"
+
+"We MUST."
+
+He turned away and began to whistle, with his hands behind his back.
+Gemma let him think undisturbed. She was sitting still, leaning her head
+against the back of the chair, and looking out into vague distance with
+a fixed and tragic absorption. When her face wore that expression, it
+had a look of Durer's "Melancolia."
+
+"Have you seen him?" Martini asked, stopping for a moment in his tramp.
+
+"No; he was to have met me here the next morning."
+
+"Yes, I remember. Where is he?"
+
+"In the fortress; very strictly guarded, and, they say, in chains."
+
+He made a gesture of indifference.
+
+"Oh, that's no matter; a good file will get rid of any number of chains.
+If only he isn't wounded----"
+
+"He seems to have been slightly hurt, but exactly how much we don't
+know. I think you had better hear the account of it from Michele
+himself; he was present at the arrest."
+
+"How does he come not to have been taken too? Did he run away and leave
+Rivarez in the lurch?"
+
+"It's not his fault; he fought as long as anybody did, and followed the
+directions given him to the letter. For that matter, so did they all.
+The only person who seems to have forgotten, or somehow made a mistake
+at the last minute, is Rivarez himself. There's something inexplicable
+about it altogether. Wait a moment; I will call Michele."
+
+She went out of the room, and presently came back with Michele and a
+broad-shouldered mountaineer.
+
+"This is Marco," she said. "You have heard of him; he is one of the
+smugglers. He has just got here, and perhaps will be able to tell us
+more. Michele, this is Cesare Martini, that I spoke to you about. Will
+you tell him what happened, as far as you saw it?"
+
+Michele gave a short account of the skirmish with the squadron.
+
+"I can't understand how it happened," he concluded. "Not one of us would
+have left him if we had thought he would be taken; but his directions
+were quite precise, and it never occurred to us, when he threw down his
+cap, that he would wait to let them surround him. He was close beside
+the roan--I saw him cut the tether--and I handed him a loaded pistol
+myself before I mounted. The only thing I can suppose is that he missed
+his footing,--being lame,--in trying to mount. But even then, he could
+have fired."
+
+"No, it wasn't that," Marcone interposed. "He didn't attempt to mount.
+I was the last one to go, because my mare shied at the firing; and I
+looked round to see whether he was safe. He would have got off clear if
+it hadn't been for the Cardinal."
+
+"Ah!" Gemma exclaimed softly; and Martini repeated in amazement: "The
+Cardinal?"
+
+"Yes; he threw himself in front of the pistol--confound him! I suppose
+Rivarez must have been startled, for he dropped his pistol-hand and put
+the other one up like this"--laying the back of his left wrist across
+his eyes--"and of course they all rushed on him."
+
+"I can't make that out," said Michele. "It's not like Rivarez to lose
+his head at a crisis."
+
+"Probably he lowered his pistol for fear of killing an unarmed man,"
+Martini put in. Michele shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Unarmed men shouldn't poke their noses into the middle of a fight.
+War is war. If Rivarez had put a bullet into His Eminence, instead of
+letting himself be caught like a tame rabbit, there'd be one honest man
+the more and one priest the less."
+
+He turned away, biting his moustache. His anger was very near to
+breaking down in tears.
+
+"Anyway," said Martini, "the thing's done, and there's no use wasting
+time in discussing how it happened. The question now is how we're to
+arrange an escape for him. I suppose you're all willing to risk it?"
+
+Michele did not even condescend to answer the superfluous question,
+and the smuggler only remarked with a little laugh: "I'd shoot my own
+brother, if he weren't willing."
+
+"Very well, then---- First thing; have you got a plan of the fortress?"
+
+Gemma unlocked a drawer and took out several sheets of paper.
+
+"I have made out all the plans. Here is the ground floor of the
+fortress; here are the upper and lower stories of the towers, and here
+the plan of the ramparts. These are the roads leading to the valley,
+and here are the paths and hiding-places in the mountains, and the
+underground passages."
+
+"Do you know which of the towers he is in?"
+
+"The east one, in the round room with the grated window. I have marked
+it on the plan."
+
+"How did you get your information?"
+
+"From a man nicknamed 'The Cricket,' a soldier of the guard. He is
+cousin to one of our men--Gino."
+
+"You have been quick about it."
+
+"There's no time to lose. Gino went into Brisighella at once; and some
+of the plans we already had. That list of hiding-places was made by
+Rivarez himself; you can see by the handwriting."
+
+"What sort of men are the soldiers of the guard?"
+
+"That we have not been able to find out yet; the Cricket has only just
+come to the place, and knows nothing about the other men."
+
+"We must find out from Gino what the Cricket himself is like. Is
+anything known of the government's intentions? Is Rivarez likely to be
+tried in Brisighella or taken in to Ravenna?"
+
+"That we don't know. Ravenna, of course, is the chief town of the
+Legation and by law cases of importance can be tried only there, in the
+Tribunal of First Instance. But law doesn't count for much in the Four
+Legations; it depends on the personal fancy of anybody who happens to be
+in power."
+
+"They won't take him in to Ravenna," Michele interposed.
+
+"What makes you think so?"
+
+"I am sure of it. Colonel Ferrari, the military Governor at Brisighella,
+is uncle to the officer that Rivarez wounded; he's a vindictive sort of
+brute and won't give up a chance to spite an enemy."
+
+"You think he will try to keep Rivarez here?"
+
+"I think he will try to get him hanged."
+
+Martini glanced quickly at Gemma. She was very pale, but her face had
+not changed at the words. Evidently the idea was no new one to her.
+
+"He can hardly do that without some formality," she said quietly; "but
+he might possibly get up a court-martial on some pretext or other, and
+justify himself afterwards by saying that the peace of the town required
+it."
+
+"But what about the Cardinal? Would he consent to things of that kind?"
+
+"He has no jurisdiction in military affairs."
+
+"No, but he has great influence. Surely the Governor would not venture
+on such a step without his consent?"
+
+"He'll never get that," Marcone interrupted. "Montanelli was always
+against the military commissions, and everything of the kind. So long
+as they keep him in Brisighella nothing serious can happen; the Cardinal
+will always take the part of any prisoner. What I am afraid of is their
+taking him to Ravenna. Once there, he's lost."
+
+"We shouldn't let him get there," said Michele. "We could manage a
+rescue on the road; but to get him out of the fortress here is another
+matter."
+
+"I think," said Gemma; "that it would be quite useless to wait for the
+chance of his being transferred to Ravenna. We must make the attempt at
+Brisighella, and we have no time to lose. Cesare, you and I had better
+go over the plan of the fortress together, and see whether we can
+think out anything. I have an idea in my head, but I can't get over one
+point."
+
+"Come, Marcone," said Michele, rising; "we will leave them to think out
+their scheme. I have to go across to Fognano this afternoon, and I want
+you to come with me. Vincenzo hasn't sent those cartridges, and they
+ought to have been here yesterday."
+
+When the two men had gone, Martini went up to Gemma and silently held
+out his hand. She let her fingers lie in his for a moment.
+
+"You were always a good friend, Cesare," she said at last; "and a very
+present help in trouble. And now let us discuss plans."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+"AND I once more most earnestly assure Your Eminence that your refusal
+is endangering the peace of the town."
+
+The Governor tried to preserve the respectful tone due to a high
+dignitary of the Church; but there was audible irritation in his voice.
+His liver was out of order, his wife was running up heavy bills, and
+his temper had been sorely tried during the last three weeks. A sullen,
+disaffected populace, whose dangerous mood grew daily more apparent; a
+district honeycombed with plots and bristling with hidden weapons; an
+inefficient garrison, of whose loyalty he was more than doubtful, and
+a Cardinal whom he had pathetically described to his adjutant as the
+"incarnation of immaculate pig-headedness," had already reduced him
+to the verge of desperation. Now he was saddled with the Gadfly, an
+animated quintessence of the spirit of mischief.
+
+Having begun by disabling both the Governor's favourite nephew and
+his most valuable spy, the "crooked Spanish devil" had followed up his
+exploits in the market-place by suborning the guards, browbeating the
+interrogating officers, and "turning the prison into a bear-garden."
+He had now been three weeks in the fortress, and the authorities of
+Brisighella were heartily sick of their bargain. They had subjected
+him to interrogation upon interrogation; and after employing, to obtain
+admissions from him, every device of threat, persuasion, and stratagem
+which their ingenuity could suggest, remained just as wise as on the
+day of his capture. They had begun to realize that it would perhaps have
+been better to send him into Ravenna at once. It was, however, too late
+to rectify the mistake. The Governor, when sending in to the Legate his
+report of the arrest, had begged, as a special favour, permission to
+superintend personally the investigation of this case; and, his request
+having been graciously acceded to, he could not now withdraw without a
+humiliating confession that he was overmatched.
+
+The idea of settling the difficulty by a courtmartial had, as Gemma and
+Michele had foreseen, presented itself to him as the only satisfactory
+solution; and Cardinal Montanelli's stubborn refusal to countenance this
+was the last drop which made the cup of his vexations overflow.
+
+"I think," he said, "that if Your Eminence knew what I and my assistants
+have put up with from this man you would feel differently about the
+matter. I fully understand and respect the conscientious objection to
+irregularities in judicial proceedings; but this is an exceptional case
+and calls for exceptional measures."
+
+"There is no case," Montanelli answered, "which calls for injustice; and
+to condemn a civilian by the judgment of a secret military tribunal is
+both unjust and illegal."
+
+"The case amounts to this, Your Eminence: The prisoner is manifestly
+guilty of several capital crimes. He joined the infamous attempt of
+Savigno, and the military commission nominated by Monsignor Spinola
+would certainly have had him shot or sent to the galleys then, had
+he not succeeded in escaping to Tuscany. Since that time he has never
+ceased plotting. He is known to be an influential member of one of the
+most pestilent secret societies in the country. He is gravely suspected
+of having consented to, if not inspired, the assassination of no less
+than three confidential police agents. He has been caught--one might
+almost say--in the act of smuggling firearms into the Legation. He
+has offered armed resistance to authority and seriously wounded two
+officials in the discharge of their duty, and he is now a standing
+menace to the peace and order of the town. Surely, in such a case, a
+court-martial is justifiable."
+
+"Whatever the man has done," Montanelli replied, "he has the right to be
+judged according to law."
+
+"The ordinary course of law involves delay, Your Eminence, and in this
+case every moment is precious. Besides everything else, I am in constant
+terror of his escaping."
+
+"If there is any danger of that, it rests with you to guard him more
+closely."
+
+"I do my best, Your Eminence, but I am dependent upon the prison staff,
+and the man seems to have bewitched them all. I have changed the guard
+four times within three weeks; I have punished the soldiers till I am
+tired of it, and nothing is of any use. I can't prevent their carrying
+letters backwards and forwards. The fools are in love with him as if he
+were a woman."
+
+"That is very curious. There must be something remarkable about him."
+
+"There's a remarkable amount of devilry--I beg pardon, Your Eminence,
+but really this man is enough to try the patience of a saint. It's
+hardly credible, but I have to conduct all the interrogations myself,
+for the regular officer cannot stand it any longer."
+
+"How is that?"
+
+"It's difficult to explain. Your Eminence, but you would understand if
+you had once heard the way he goes on. One might think the interrogating
+officer were the criminal and he the judge."
+
+"But what is there so terrible that he can do? He can refuse to answer
+your questions, of course; but he has no weapon except silence."
+
+"And a tongue like a razor. We are all mortal, Your Eminence, and most
+of us have made mistakes in our time that we don't want published on the
+house-tops. That's only human nature, and it's hard on a man to have his
+little slips of twenty years ago raked up and thrown in his teeth----"
+
+"Has Rivarez brought up some personal secret of the interrogating
+officer?"
+
+"Well, really--the poor fellow got into debt when he was a cavalry
+officer, and borrowed a little sum from the regimental funds----"
+
+"Stole public money that had been intrusted to him, in fact?"
+
+"Of course it was very wrong, Your Eminence; but his friends paid
+it back at once, and the affair was hushed up,--he comes of a good
+family,--and ever since then he has been irreproachable. How Rivarez
+found out about it I can't conceive; but the first thing he did at
+interrogation was to bring up this old scandal--before the subaltern,
+too! And with as innocent a face as if he were saying his prayers! Of
+course the story's all over the Legation by now. If Your Eminence
+would only be present at one of the interrogations, I am sure you would
+realize---- He needn't know anything about it. You might overhear him
+from------"
+
+Montanelli turned round and looked at the Governor with an expression
+which his face did not often wear.
+
+"I am a minister of religion," he said; "not a police-spy; and
+eavesdropping forms no part of my professional duties."
+
+"I--I didn't mean to give offence------"
+
+"I think we shall not get any good out of discussing this question
+further. If you will send the prisoner here, I will have a talk with
+him."
+
+"I venture very respectfully to advise Your Eminence not to attempt it.
+The man is perfectly incorrigible. It would be both safer and wiser to
+overstep the letter of the law for this once, and get rid of him before
+he does any more mischief. It is with great diffidence that I venture
+to press the point after what Your Eminence has said; but after all I am
+responsible to Monsignor the Legate for the order of the town------"
+
+"And I," Montanelli interrupted, "am responsible to God and His Holiness
+that there shall be no underhand dealing in my diocese. Since you
+press me in the matter, colonel, I take my stand upon my privilege
+as Cardinal. I will not allow a secret court-martial in this town
+in peace-time. I will receive the prisoner here, and alone, at ten
+to-morrow morning."
+
+"As Your Eminence pleases," the Governor replied with sulky
+respectfulness; and went away, grumbling to himself: "They're about a
+pair, as far as obstinacy goes."
+
+He told no one of the approaching interview till it was actually time to
+knock off the prisoner's chains and start for the palace. It was quite
+enough, as he remarked to his wounded nephew, to have this Most Eminent
+son of Balaam's ass laying down the law, without running any risk of the
+soldiers plotting with Rivarez and his friends to effect an escape on
+the way.
+
+When the Gadfly, strongly guarded, entered the room where Montanelli was
+writing at a table covered with papers, a sudden recollection came
+over him, of a hot midsummer afternoon when he had sat turning over
+manuscript sermons in a study much like this. The shutters had been
+closed, as they were here, to keep out the heat, and a fruitseller's
+voice outside had called: "Fragola! Fragola!"
+
+He shook the hair angrily back from his eyes and set his mouth in a
+smile.
+
+Montanelli looked up from his papers.
+
+"You can wait in the hall," he said to the guards.
+
+"May it please Your Eminence," began the sergeant, in a lowered voice
+and with evident nervousness, "the colonel thinks that this prisoner is
+dangerous and that it would be better------"
+
+A sudden flash came into Montanelli's eyes.
+
+"You can wait in the hall," he repeated quietly; and the sergeant,
+saluting and stammering excuses with a frightened face, left the room
+with his men.
+
+"Sit down, please," said the Cardinal, when the door was shut. The
+Gadfly obeyed in silence.
+
+"Signor Rivarez," Montanelli began after a pause, "I wish to ask you a
+few questions, and shall be very much obliged to you if you will answer
+them."
+
+The Gadfly smiled. "My ch-ch-chief occupation at p-p-present is to be
+asked questions."
+
+"And--not to answer them? So I have heard; but these questions are put
+by officials who are investigating your case and whose duty is to use
+your answers as evidence."
+
+"And th-those of Your Eminence?" There was a covert insult in the tone
+more than in the words, and the Cardinal understood it at once; but his
+face did not lose its grave sweetness of expression.
+
+"Mine," he said, "whether you answer them or not, will remain between
+you and me. If they should trench upon your political secrets, of course
+you will not answer. Otherwise, though we are complete strangers to each
+other, I hope that you will do so, as a personal favour to me."
+
+"I am ent-t-tirely at the service of Your Eminence." He said it with a
+little bow, and a face that would have taken the heart to ask favours
+out of the daughters of the horse-leech.
+
+"First, then, you are said to have been smuggling firearms into this
+district. What are they wanted for?"
+
+"T-t-to k-k-kill rats with."
+
+"That is a terrible answer. Are all your fellow-men rats in your eyes if
+they cannot think as you do?"
+
+"S-s-some of them."
+
+Montanelli leaned back in his chair and looked at him in silence for a
+little while.
+
+"What is that on your hand?" he asked suddenly.
+
+The Gadfly glanced at his left hand. "Old m-m-marks from the teeth of
+some of the rats."
+
+"Excuse me; I was speaking of the other hand. That is a fresh hurt."
+
+The slender, flexible right hand was badly cut and grazed. The Gadfly
+held it up. The wrist was swollen, and across it ran a deep and long
+black bruise.
+
+"It is a m-m-mere trifle, as you see," he said. "When I was arrested the
+other day,--thanks to Your Eminence,"--he made another little bow,--"one
+of the soldiers stamped on it."
+
+Montanelli took the wrist and examined it closely. "How does it come
+to be in such a state now, after three weeks?" he asked. "It is all
+inflamed."
+
+"Possibly the p-p-pressure of the iron has not done it much good."
+
+The Cardinal looked up with a frown.
+
+"Have they been putting irons on a fresh wound?"
+
+"N-n-naturally, Your Eminence; that is what fresh wounds are for. Old
+wounds are not much use. They will only ache; you c-c-can't make them
+burn properly."
+
+Montanelli looked at him again in the same close, scrutinizing way; then
+rose and opened a drawer full of surgical appliances.
+
+"Give me the hand," he said.
+
+The Gadfly, with a face as hard as beaten iron, held out the hand,
+and Montanelli, after bathing the injured place, gently bandaged it.
+Evidently he was accustomed to such work.
+
+"I will speak about the irons," he said. "And now I want to ask you
+another question: What do you propose to do?"
+
+"Th-th-that is very simply answered, Your Eminence. To escape if I can,
+and if I can't, to die."
+
+"Why 'to die'?"
+
+"Because if the Governor doesn't succeed in getting me shot, I shall be
+sent to the galleys, and for me that c-c-comes to the same thing. I have
+not got the health to live through it."
+
+Montanelli rested his arm on the table and pondered silently. The Gadfly
+did not disturb him. He was leaning back with half-shut eyes, lazily
+enjoying the delicious physical sensation of relief from the chains.
+
+"Supposing," Montanelli began again, "that you were to succeed in
+escaping; what should you do with your life?"
+
+"I have already told Your Eminence; I should k-k-kill rats."
+
+"You would kill rats. That is to say, that if I were to let you escape
+from here now,--supposing I had the power to do so,--you would use your
+freedom to foster violence and bloodshed instead of preventing them?"
+
+The Gadfly raised his eyes to the crucifix on the wall. "'Not peace,
+but a sword';--at l-least I should be in good company. For my own part,
+though, I prefer pistols."
+
+"Signor Rivarez," said the Cardinal with unruffled composure, "I have
+not insulted you as yet, or spoken slightingly of your beliefs or
+friends. May I not expect the same courtesy from you, or do you wish me
+to suppose that an atheist cannot be a gentleman?"
+
+"Ah, I q-quite forgot. Your Eminence places courtesy high among the
+Christian virtues. I remember your sermon in Florence, on the occasion
+of my c-controversy with your anonymous defender."
+
+"That is one of the subjects about which I wished to speak to you. Would
+you mind explaining to me the reason of the peculiar bitterness you seem
+to feel against me? If you have simply picked me out as a convenient
+target, that is another matter. Your methods of political controversy
+are your own affair, and we are not discussing politics now. But I
+fancied at the time that there was some personal animosity towards me;
+and if so, I should be glad to know whether I have ever done you wrong
+or in any way given you cause for such a feeling."
+
+Ever done him wrong! The Gadfly put up the bandaged hand to his throat.
+"I must refer Your Eminence to Shakspere," he said with a little laugh.
+"It's as with the man who can't endure a harmless, necessary cat. My
+antipathy is a priest. The sight of the cassock makes my t-t-teeth
+ache."
+
+"Oh, if it is only that----" Montanelli dismissed the subject with an
+indifferent gesture.
+
+"Still," he added, "abuse is one thing and perversion of fact is
+another. When you stated, in answer to my sermon, that I knew the
+identity of the anonymous writer, you made a mistake,--I do not accuse
+you of wilful falsehood,--and stated what was untrue. I am to this day
+quite ignorant of his name."
+
+The Gadfly put his head on one side, like an intelligent robin, looked
+at him for a moment gravely, then suddenly threw himself back and burst
+into a peal of laughter.
+
+"S-s-sancta simplicitas! Oh, you, sweet, innocent, Arcadian people--and
+you never guessed! You n-never saw the cloven hoof?"
+
+Montanelli stood up. "Am I to understand, Signor Rivarez, that you wrote
+both sides of the controversy yourself?"
+
+"It was a shame, I know," the Gadfly answered, looking up with wide,
+innocent blue eyes. "And you s-s-swallowed everything whole; just as if
+it had been an oyster. It was very wrong; but oh, it w-w-was so funny!"
+
+Montanelli bit his lip and sat down again. He had realized from the
+first that the Gadfly was trying to make him lose his temper, and had
+resolved to keep it whatever happened; but he was beginning to find
+excuses for the Governor's exasperation. A man who had been spending two
+hours a day for the last three weeks in interrogating the Gadfly might
+be pardoned an occasional swear-word.
+
+"We will drop that subject," he said quietly. "What I wanted to see you
+for particularly is this: My position here as Cardinal gives me some
+voice, if I choose to claim my privilege, in the question of what is
+to be done with you. The only use to which I should ever put such a
+privilege would be to interfere in case of any violence to you which was
+not necessary to prevent you from doing violence to others. I sent for
+you, therefore, partly in order to ask whether you have anything to
+complain of,--I will see about the irons; but perhaps there is something
+else,--and partly because I felt it right, before giving my opinion, to
+see for myself what sort of man you are."
+
+"I have nothing to complain of, Your Eminence. 'A la guerre comme a la
+guerre.' I am not a schoolboy, to expect any government to pat me on the
+head for s-s-smuggling firearms onto its territory. It's only natural
+that they should hit as hard as they can. As for what sort of man I am,
+you have had a romantic confession of my sins once. Is not that enough;
+or w-w-would you like me to begin again?"
+
+"I don't understand you," Montanelli said coldly, taking up a pencil and
+twisting it between his fingers.
+
+"Surely Your Eminence has not forgotten old Diego, the pilgrim?"
+He suddenly changed his voice and began to speak as Diego: "I am a
+miserable sinner------"
+
+The pencil snapped in Montanelli's hand. "That is too much!" he said.
+
+The Gadfly leaned his head back with a soft little laugh, and sat
+watching while the Cardinal paced silently up and down the room.
+
+"Signor Rivarez," said Montanelli, stopping at last in front of him,
+"you have done a thing to me that a man who was born of a woman should
+hesitate to do to his worst enemy. You have stolen in upon my private
+grief and have made for yourself a mock and a jest out of the sorrow
+of a fellow-man. I once more beg you to tell me: Have I ever done you
+wrong? And if not, why have you played this heartless trick on me?"
+
+The Gadfly, leaning back against the chair-cushions, looked up with his
+subtle, chilling, inscrutable smile.
+
+"It am-m-mused me, Your Eminence; you took it all so much to heart, and
+it rem-m-minded me--a little bit--of a variety show----"
+
+Montanelli, white to the very lips, turned away and rang the bell.
+
+"You can take back the prisoner," he said when the guards came in.
+
+After they had gone he sat down at the table, still trembling with
+unaccustomed indignation, and took up a pile of reports which had been
+sent in to him by the parish priests of his diocese.
+
+Presently he pushed them away, and, leaning on the table, hid his face
+in both hands. The Gadfly seemed to have left some terrible shadow of
+himself, some ghostly trail of his personality, to haunt the room; and
+Montanelli sat trembling and cowering, not daring to look up lest he
+should see the phantom presence that he knew was not there. The spectre
+hardly amounted to a hallucination. It was a mere fancy of overwrought
+nerves; but he was seized with an unutterable dread of its shadowy
+presence--of the wounded hand, the smiling, cruel mouth, the mysterious
+eyes, like deep sea water----
+
+He shook off the fancy and settled to his work. All day long he had
+scarcely a free moment, and the thing did not trouble him; but going
+into his bedroom late at night, he stopped on the threshold with a
+sudden shock of fear. What if he should see it in a dream? He recovered
+himself immediately and knelt down before the crucifix to pray.
+
+But he lay awake the whole night through.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+MONTANELLI'S anger did not make him neglectful of his promise. He
+protested so emphatically against the manner in which the Gadfly had
+been chained that the unfortunate Governor, who by now was at his wit's
+end, knocked off all the fetters in the recklessness of despair. "How am
+I to know," he grumbled to the adjutant, "what His Eminence will object
+to next? If he calls a simple pair of handcuffs 'cruelty,' he'll be
+exclaiming against the window-bars presently, or wanting me to feed
+Rivarez on oysters and truffles. In my young days malefactors were
+malefactors and were treated accordingly, and nobody thought a traitor
+any better than a thief. But it's the fashion to be seditious nowadays;
+and His Eminence seems inclined to encourage all the scoundrels in the
+country."
+
+"I don't see what business he has got to interfere at all," the adjutant
+remarked. "He is not a Legate and has no authority in civil and military
+affairs. By law------"
+
+"What is the use of talking about law? You can't expect anyone to
+respect laws after the Holy Father has opened the prisons and turned the
+whole crew of Liberal scamps loose on us! It's a positive infatuation!
+Of course Monsignor Montanelli will give himself airs; he was quiet
+enough under His Holiness the late Pope, but he's cock of the walk now.
+He has jumped into favour all at once and can do as he pleases. How am
+I to oppose him? He may have secret authorization from the Vatican, for
+all I know. Everything's topsy-turvy now; you can't tell from day to day
+what may happen next. In the good old times one knew what to be at, but
+nowadays------"
+
+The Governor shook his head ruefully. A world in which Cardinals
+troubled themselves over trifles of prison discipline and talked about
+the "rights" of political offenders was a world that was growing too
+complex for him.
+
+The Gadfly, for his part, had returned to the fortress in a state of
+nervous excitement bordering on hysteria. The meeting with Montanelli
+had strained his endurance almost to breaking-point; and his final
+brutality about the variety show had been uttered in sheer desperation,
+merely to cut short an interview which, in another five minutes, would
+have ended in tears.
+
+Called up for interrogation in the afternoon of the same day, he did
+nothing but go into convulsions of laughter at every question put to
+him; and when the Governor, worried out of all patience, lost his temper
+and began to swear, he only laughed more immoderately than ever.
+The unlucky Governor fumed and stormed and threatened his refractory
+prisoner with impossible punishments; but finally came, as James Burton
+had come long ago, to the conclusion that it was mere waste of breath
+and temper to argue with a person in so unreasonable a state of mind.
+
+The Gadfly was once more taken back to his cell; and there lay down upon
+the pallet, in the mood of black and hopeless depression which always
+succeeded to his boisterous fits. He lay till evening without moving,
+without even thinking; he had passed, after the vehement emotion of the
+morning, into a strange, half-apathetic state, in which his own misery
+was hardly more to him than a dull and mechanical weight, pressing on
+some wooden thing that had forgotten to be a soul. In truth, it was of
+little consequence how all ended; the one thing that mattered to any
+sentient being was to be spared unbearable pain, and whether the relief
+came from altered conditions or from the deadening of the power to
+feel, was a question of no moment. Perhaps he would succeed in escaping;
+perhaps they would kill him; in any case he should never see the Padre
+again, and it was all vanity and vexation of spirit.
+
+One of the warders brought in supper, and the Gadfly looked up with
+heavy-eyed indifference.
+
+"What time is it?"
+
+"Six o'clock. Your supper, sir."
+
+He looked with disgust at the stale, foul-smelling, half-cold mess, and
+turned his head away. He was feeling bodily ill as well as depressed;
+and the sight of the food sickened him.
+
+"You will be ill if you don't eat," said the soldier hurriedly. "Take a
+bit of bread, anyway; it'll do you good."
+
+The man spoke with a curious earnestness of tone, lifting a piece
+of sodden bread from the plate and putting it down again. All the
+conspirator awoke in the Gadfly; he had guessed at once that there was
+something hidden in the bread.
+
+"You can leave it; I'll eat a bit by and by," he said carelessly. The
+door was open, and he knew that the sergeant on the stairs could hear
+every word spoken between them.
+
+When the door was locked on him again, and he had satisfied himself that
+no one was watching at the spy-hole, he took up the piece of bread and
+carefully crumbled it away. In the middle was the thing he had expected,
+a bundle of small files. It was wrapped in a bit of paper, on which a
+few words were written. He smoothed the paper out carefully and carried
+it to what little light there was. The writing was crowded into so
+narrow a space, and on such thin paper, that it was very difficult to
+read.
+
+
+"The door is unlocked, and there is no moon. Get the filing done as fast
+as possible, and come by the passage between two and three. We are quite
+ready and may not have another chance."
+
+
+He crushed the paper feverishly in his hand. All the preparations were
+ready, then, and he had only to file the window bars; how lucky it was
+that the chains were off! He need not stop about filing them. How many
+bars were there? Two, four; and each must be filed in two places: eight.
+Oh, he could manage that in the course of the night if he made
+haste---- How had Gemma and Martini contrived to get everything ready so
+quickly--disguises, passports, hiding-places? They must have worked like
+cart-horses to do it---- And it was her plan that had been adopted after
+all. He laughed a little to himself at his own foolishness; as if it
+mattered whether the plan was hers or not, once it was a good one! And
+yet he could not help being glad that it was she who had struck on
+the idea of his utilizing the subterranean passage, instead of letting
+himself down by a rope-ladder, as the smugglers had at first suggested.
+Hers was the more complex and difficult plan, but did not involve, as
+the other did, a risk to the life of the sentinel on duty outside the
+east wall. Therefore, when the two schemes had been laid before him, he
+had unhesitatingly chosen Gemma's.
+
+The arrangement was that the friendly guard who went by the nickname of
+"The Cricket" should seize the first opportunity of unlocking, without
+the knowledge of his fellows, the iron gate leading from the courtyard
+into the subterranean passage underneath the ramparts, and should then
+replace the key on its nail in the guard-room. The Gadfly, on receiving
+information of this, was to file through the bars of his window, tear
+his shirt into strips and plait them into a rope, by means of which he
+could let himself down on to the broad east wall of the courtyard. Along
+this wall he was to creep on hands and knees while the sentinel was
+looking in the opposite direction, lying flat upon the masonry whenever
+the man turned towards him. At the southeast corner was a half-ruined
+turret. It was upheld, to some extent, by a thick growth of ivy;
+but great masses of crumbling stone had fallen inward and lay in the
+courtyard, heaped against the wall. From this turret he was to climb
+down by the ivy and the heaps of stone into the courtyard; and, softly
+opening the unlocked gate, to make his way along the passage to a
+subterranean tunnel communicating with it. Centuries ago this tunnel
+had formed a secret corridor between the fortress and a tower on the
+neighbouring hill; now it was quite disused and blocked in many places
+by the falling in of the rocks. No one but the smugglers knew of a
+certain carefully-hidden hole in the mountain-side which they had
+bored through to the tunnel; no one suspected that stores of forbidden
+merchandise were often kept, for weeks together, under the very ramparts
+of the fortress itself, while the customs-officers were vainly searching
+the houses of the sullen, wrathful-eyed mountaineers. At this hole the
+Gadfly was to creep out on to the hillside, and make his way in the dark
+to a lonely spot where Martini and a smuggler would be waiting for him.
+The one great difficulty was that opportunities to unlock the gate after
+the evening patrol did not occur every night, and the descent from the
+window could not be made in very clear weather without too great a risk
+of being observed by the sentinel. Now that there was really a fair
+chance of success, it must not be missed.
+
+He sat down and began to eat some of the bread. It at least did not
+disgust him like the rest of the prison food, and he must eat something
+to keep up his strength.
+
+He had better lie down a bit, too, and try to get a little sleep; it
+would not be safe to begin filing before ten o'clock, and he would have
+a hard night's work.
+
+And so, after all, the Padre had been thinking of letting him escape!
+That was like the Padre. But he, for his part, would never consent to
+it. Anything rather than that! If he escaped, it should be his own doing
+and that of his comrades; he would have no favours from priests.
+
+How hot it was! Surely it must be going to thunder; the air was so close
+and oppressive. He moved restlessly on the pallet and put the bandaged
+right hand behind his head for a pillow; then drew it away again. How it
+burned and throbbed! And all the old wounds were beginning to ache, with
+a dull, faint persistence. What was the matter with them? Oh, absurd!
+It was only the thundery weather. He would go to sleep and get a little
+rest before beginning his filing.
+
+Eight bars, and all so thick and strong! How many more were there
+left to file? Surely not many. He must have been filing for
+hours,--interminable hours--yes, of course, that was what made his arm
+ache---- And how it ached; right through to the very bone! But it could
+hardly be the filing that made his side ache so; and the throbbing,
+burning pain in the lame leg--was that from filing?
+
+He started up. No, he had not been asleep; he had been dreaming with
+open eyes--dreaming of filing, and it was all still to do. There stood
+the window-bars, untouched, strong and firm as ever. And there was ten
+striking from the clock-tower in the distance. He must get to work.
+
+He looked through the spy-hole, and, seeing that no one was watching,
+took one of the files from his breast.
+
+    *****
+
+No, there was nothing the matter with him--nothing! It was all
+imagination. The pain in his side was indigestion, or a chill, or some
+such thing; not much wonder, after three weeks of this insufferable
+prison food and air. As for the aching and throbbing all over, it was
+partly nervous trouble and partly want of exercise. Yes, that was it, no
+doubt; want of exercise. How absurd not to have thought of that before!
+
+He would sit down a little bit, though, and let it pass before he got to
+work. It would be sure to go over in a minute or two.
+
+To sit still was worse than all. When he sat still he was at its mercy,
+and his face grew gray with fear. No, he must get up and set to work,
+and shake it off. It should depend upon his will to feel or not to feel;
+and he would not feel, he would force it back.
+
+He stood up again and spoke to himself, aloud and distinctly:
+
+"I am not ill; I have no time to be ill. I have those bars to file, and
+I am not going to be ill."
+
+Then he began to file.
+
+A quarter-past ten--half-past ten--a quarter to eleven---- He filed and
+filed, and every grating scrape of the iron was as though someone were
+filing on his body and brain. "I wonder which will be filed through
+first," he said to himself with a little laugh; "I or the bars?" And he
+set his teeth and went on filing.
+
+Half-past eleven. He was still filing, though the hand was stiff and
+swollen and would hardly grasp the tool. No, he dared not stop to rest;
+if he once put the horrible thing down he should never have the courage
+to begin again.
+
+The sentinel moved outside the door, and the butt end of his carbine
+scratched against the lintel. The Gadfly stopped and looked round, the
+file still in his lifted hand. Was he discovered?
+
+A little round pellet had been shot through the spy-hole and was lying
+on the floor. He laid down the file and stooped to pick up the round
+thing. It was a bit of rolled paper.
+
+    *****
+
+It was a long way to go down and down, with the black waves rushing
+about him--how they roared----!
+
+Ah, yes! He was only stooping down to pick up the paper. He was a bit
+giddy; many people are when they stoop. There was nothing the matter
+with him--nothing.
+
+He picked it up, carried it to the light, and unfolded it steadily.
+
+
+"Come to-night, whatever happens; the Cricket will be transferred
+to-morrow to another service. This is our only chance."
+
+
+He destroyed the paper as he had done the former one, picked up his file
+again, and went back to work, dogged and mute and desperate.
+
+One o'clock. He had been working for three hours now, and six of the
+eight bars were filed. Two more, and then, to climb------
+
+He began to recall the former occasions when these terrible attacks had
+come on. The last had been the one at New Year; and he shuddered as
+he remembered those five nights. But that time it had not come on so
+suddenly; he had never known it so sudden.
+
+He dropped the file and flung out both hands blindly, praying, in his
+utter desperation, for the first time since he had been an atheist;
+praying to anything--to nothing--to everything.
+
+"Not to-night! Oh, let me be ill to-morrow! I will bear anything
+to-morrow--only not to-night!"
+
+He stood still for a moment, with both hands up to his temples; then he
+took up the file once more, and once more went back to his work.
+
+Half-past one. He had begun on the last bar. His shirt-sleeve was bitten
+to rags; there was blood on his lips and a red mist before his eyes, and
+the sweat poured from his forehead as he filed, and filed, and filed----
+
+    *****
+
+After sunrise Montanelli fell asleep. He was utterly worn out with the
+restless misery of the night and slept for a little while quietly; then
+he began to dream.
+
+At first he dreamed vaguely, confusedly; broken fragments of images and
+fancies followed each other, fleeting and incoherent, but all filled
+with the same dim sense of struggle and pain, the same shadow of
+indefinable dread. Presently he began to dream of sleeplessness; the
+old, frightful, familiar dream that had been a terror to him for years.
+And even as he dreamed he recognized that he had been through it all
+before.
+
+He was wandering about in a great empty place, trying to find some quiet
+spot where he could lie down and sleep. Everywhere there were people,
+walking up and down; talking, laughing, shouting; praying, ringing
+bells, and clashing metal instruments together. Sometimes he would get
+away to a little distance from the noise, and would lie down, now on the
+grass, now on a wooden bench, now on some slab of stone. He would shut
+his eyes and cover them with both hands to keep out the light; and would
+say to himself: "Now I will get to sleep." Then the crowds would come
+sweeping up to him, shouting, yelling, calling him by name, begging him:
+"Wake up! Wake up, quick; we want you!"
+
+Again: he was in a great palace, full of gorgeous rooms, with beds and
+couches and low soft lounges. It was night, and he said to himself:
+"Here, at last, I shall find a quiet place to sleep." But when he chose
+a dark room and lay down, someone came in with a lamp, flashing the
+merciless light into his eyes, and said: "Get up; you are wanted."
+
+He rose and wandered on, staggering and stumbling like a creature
+wounded to death; and heard the clocks strike one, and knew that half
+the night was gone already--the precious night that was so short. Two,
+three, four, five--by six o'clock the whole town would wake up and there
+would be no more silence.
+
+He went into another room and would have lain down on a bed, but someone
+started up from the pillows, crying out: "This bed is mine!" and he
+shrank away with despair in his heart.
+
+Hour after hour struck, and still he wandered on and on, from room to
+room, from house to house, from corridor to corridor. The horrible gray
+dawn was creeping near and nearer; the clocks were striking five;
+the night was gone and he had found no rest. Oh, misery! Another
+day--another day!
+
+He was in a long, subterranean corridor, a low, vaulted passage
+that seemed to have no end. It was lighted with glaring lamps and
+chandeliers; and through its grated roof came the sounds of dancing
+and laughter and merry music. Up there, in the world of the live people
+overhead, there was some festival, no doubt. Oh, for a place to hide
+and sleep; some little place, were it even a grave! And as he spoke
+he stumbled over an open grave. An open grave, smelling of death and
+rottenness---- Ah, what matter, so he could but sleep!
+
+"This grave is mine!" It was Gladys; and she raised her head and stared
+at him over the rotting shroud. Then he knelt down and stretched out his
+arms to her.
+
+"Gladys! Gladys! Have a little pity on me; let me creep into this narrow
+space and sleep. I do not ask you for your love; I will not touch you,
+will not speak to you; only let me lie down beside you and sleep! Oh,
+love, it is so long since I have slept! I cannot bear another day. The
+light glares in upon my soul; the noise is beating my brain to dust.
+Gladys, let me come in here and sleep!"
+
+And he would have drawn her shroud across his eyes. But she shrank away,
+screaming:
+
+"It is sacrilege; you are a priest!"
+
+On and on he wandered, and came out upon the sea-shore, on the barren
+rocks where the fierce light struck down, and the water moaned its low,
+perpetual wail of unrest. "Ah!" he said; "the sea will be more merciful;
+it, too, is wearied unto death and cannot sleep."
+
+Then Arthur rose up from the deep, and cried aloud:
+
+"This sea is mine!"
+
+    *****
+
+"Your Eminence! Your Eminence!"
+
+Montanelli awoke with a start. His servant was knocking at the door. He
+rose mechanically and opened it, and the man saw how wild and scared he
+looked.
+
+"Your Eminence--are you ill?"
+
+He drew both hands across his forehead.
+
+"No; I was asleep, and you startled me."
+
+"I am very sorry; I thought I had heard you moving early this morning,
+and I supposed------"
+
+"Is it late now?"
+
+"It is nine o'clock, and the Governor has called. He says he has
+very important business, and knowing Your Eminence to be an early
+riser------"
+
+"Is he downstairs? I will come presently."
+
+He dressed and went downstairs.
+
+"I am afraid this is an unceremonious way to call upon Your Eminence,"
+the Governor began.
+
+"I hope there is nothing the matter?"
+
+"There is very much the matter. Rivarez has all but succeeded in
+escaping."
+
+"Well, so long as he has not quite succeeded there is no harm done. How
+was it?"
+
+"He was found in the courtyard, right against the little iron gate.
+When the patrol came in to inspect the courtyard at three o'clock this
+morning one of the men stumbled over something on the ground; and when
+they brought the light up they found Rivarez lying across the path
+unconscious. They raised an alarm at once and called me up; and when I
+went to examine his cell I found all the window-bars filed through and
+a rope made of torn body-linen hanging from one of them. He had let
+himself down and climbed along the wall. The iron gate, which leads into
+the subterranean tunnels, was found to be unlocked. That looks as if the
+guards had been suborned."
+
+"But how did he come to be lying across the path? Did he fall from the
+rampart and hurt himself?"
+
+"That is what I thought at first. Your Eminence; but the prison surgeon
+can't find any trace of a fall. The soldier who was on duty yesterday
+says that Rivarez looked very ill last night when he brought in the
+supper, and did not eat anything. But that must be nonsense; a sick man
+couldn't file those bars through and climb along that roof. It's not in
+reason."
+
+"Does he give any account of himself?"
+
+"He is unconscious, Your Eminence."
+
+"Still?"
+
+"He just half comes to himself from time to time and moans, and then
+goes off again."
+
+"That is very strange. What does the doctor think?"
+
+"He doesn't know what to think. There is no trace of heart-disease that
+he can find to account for the thing; but whatever is the matter with
+him, it is something that must have come on suddenly, just when he had
+nearly managed to escape. For my part, I believe he was struck down by
+the direct intervention of a merciful Providence."
+
+Montanelli frowned slightly.
+
+"What are you going to do with him?" he asked.
+
+"That is a question I shall settle in a very few days. In the meantime I
+have had a good lesson. That is what comes of taking off the irons--with
+all due respect to Your Eminence."
+
+"I hope," Montanelli interrupted, "that you will at least not replace
+the fetters while he is ill. A man in the condition you describe can
+hardly make any more attempts to escape."
+
+"I shall take good care he doesn't," the Governor muttered to himself as
+he went out. "His Eminence can go hang with his sentimental scruples for
+all I care. Rivarez is chained pretty tight now, and is going to stop
+so, ill or not."
+
+    *****
+
+"But how can it have happened? To faint away at the last moment, when
+everything was ready; when he was at the very gate! It's like some
+hideous joke."
+
+"I tell you," Martini answered, "the only thing I can think of is that
+one of these attacks must have come on, and that he must have struggled
+against it as long as his strength lasted and have fainted from sheer
+exhaustion when he got down into the courtyard."
+
+Marcone knocked the ashes savagely from his pipe.
+
+"Well, anyhow, that's the end of it; we can't do anything for him now,
+poor fellow."
+
+"Poor fellow!" Martini echoed, under his breath. He was beginning to
+realise that to him, too, the world would look empty and dismal without
+the Gadfly.
+
+"What does she think?" the smuggler asked, glancing towards the other
+end of the room, where Gemma sat alone, her hands lying idly in her lap,
+her eyes looking straight before her into blank nothingness.
+
+"I have not asked her; she has not spoken since I brought her the news.
+We had best not disturb her just yet."
+
+She did not appear to be conscious of their presence, but they both
+spoke with lowered voices, as though they were looking at a corpse.
+After a dreary little pause, Marcone rose and put away his pipe.
+
+"I will come back this evening," he said; but Martini stopped him with a
+gesture.
+
+"Don't go yet; I want to speak to you." He dropped his voice still lower
+and continued in almost a whisper:
+
+"Do you believe there is really no hope?"
+
+"I don't see what hope there can be now. We can't attempt it again. Even
+if he were well enough to manage his part of the thing, we couldn't
+do our share. The sentinels are all being changed, on suspicion. The
+Cricket won't get another chance, you may be sure."
+
+"Don't you think," Martini asked suddenly; "that, when he recovers,
+something might be done by calling off the sentinels?"
+
+"Calling off the sentinels? What do you mean?"
+
+"Well, it has occurred to me that if I were to get in the Governor's way
+when the procession passes close by the fortress on Corpus Domini day
+and fire in his face, all the sentinels would come rushing to get hold
+of me, and some of you fellows could perhaps help Rivarez out in the
+confusion. It really hardly amounts to a plan; it only came into my
+head."
+
+"I doubt whether it could be managed," Marcone answered with a very
+grave face. "Certainly it would want a lot of thinking out for anything
+to come of it. But"--he stopped and looked at Martini--"if it should be
+possible--would you do it?"
+
+Martini was a reserved man at ordinary times; but this was not an
+ordinary time. He looked straight into the smuggler's face.
+
+"Would I do it?" he repeated. "Look at her!"
+
+There was no need for further explanations; in saying that he had said
+all. Marcone turned and looked across the room.
+
+She had not moved since their conversation began. There was no doubt, no
+fear, even no grief in her face; there was nothing in it but the shadow
+of death. The smuggler's eyes filled with tears as he looked at her.
+
+"Make haste, Michele!" he said, throwing open the verandah door and
+looking out. "Aren't you nearly done, you two? There are a hundred and
+fifty things to do!"
+
+Michele, followed by Gino, came in from the verandah.
+
+"I am ready now," he said. "I only want to ask the signora----"
+
+He was moving towards her when Martini caught him by the arm.
+
+"Don't disturb her; she's better alone."
+
+"Let her be!" Marcone added. "We shan't do any good by meddling. God
+knows, it's hard enough on all of us; but it's worse for her, poor
+soul!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+FOR a week the Gadfly lay in a fearful state. The attack was a violent
+one, and the Governor, rendered brutal by fear and perplexity, had not
+only chained him hand and foot, but had insisted on his being bound to
+his pallet with leather straps, drawn so tight that he could not move
+without their cutting into the flesh. He endured everything with his
+dogged, bitter stoicism till the end of the sixth day. Then his pride
+broke down, and he piteously entreated the prison doctor for a dose
+of opium. The doctor was quite willing to give it; but the Governor,
+hearing of the request, sharply forbade "any such foolery."
+
+"How do you know what he wants it for?" he said. "It's just as likely as
+not that he's shamming all the time and wants to drug the sentinel, or
+some such devilry. Rivarez is cunning enough for anything."
+
+"My giving him a dose would hardly help him to drug the sentinel,"
+replied the doctor, unable to suppress a smile. "And as for
+shamming--there's not much fear of that. He is as likely as not to die."
+
+"Anyway, I won't have it given. If a man wants to be tenderly treated,
+he should behave accordingly. He has thoroughly deserved a little sharp
+discipline. Perhaps it will be a lesson to him not to play tricks with
+the window-bars again."
+
+"The law does not admit of torture, though," the doctor ventured to say;
+"and this is coming perilously near it."
+
+"The law says nothing about opium, I think," said the Governor
+snappishly.
+
+"It is for you to decide, of course, colonel; but I hope you will let
+the straps be taken off at any rate. They are a needless aggravation of
+his misery. There's no fear of his escaping now. He couldn't stand if
+you let him go free."
+
+"My good sir, a doctor may make a mistake like other people, I suppose.
+I have got him safe strapped now, and he's going to stop so."
+
+"At least, then, have the straps a little loosened. It is downright
+barbarity to keep them drawn so tight."
+
+"They will stop exactly as they are; and I will thank you, sir, not to
+talk about barbarity to me. If I do a thing, I have a reason for it."
+
+So the seventh night passed without any relief, and the soldier
+stationed on guard at the cell door crossed himself, shuddering, over
+and over again, as he listened all night long to heart-rending moans.
+The Gadfly's endurance was failing him at last.
+
+At six in the morning the sentinel, just before going off duty, unlocked
+the door softly and entered the cell. He knew that he was committing
+a serious breach of discipline, but could not bear to go away without
+offering the consolation of a friendly word.
+
+He found the Gadfly lying still, with closed eyes and parted lips. He
+stood silent for a moment; then stooped down and asked:
+
+"Can I do anything for you, sir? I have only a minute."
+
+The Gadfly opened his eyes. "Let me alone!" he moaned. "Let me
+alone----"
+
+He was asleep almost before the soldier had slipped back to his post.
+
+Ten days afterwards the Governor called again at the palace, but found
+that the Cardinal had gone to visit a sick man at Pieve d'Ottavo, and
+was not expected home till the afternoon. That evening, just as he was
+sitting down to dinner, his servant came in to announce:
+
+"His Eminence would like to speak to you."
+
+The Governor, with a hasty glance into the looking glass, to make sure
+that his uniform was in order, put on his most dignified air, and went
+into the reception room, where Montanelli was sitting, beating his hand
+gently on the arm of the chair and looking out of the window with an
+anxious line between his brows.
+
+"I heard that you called to-day," he said, cutting short the Governor's
+polite speeches with a slightly imperious manner which he never adopted
+in speaking to the country folk. "It was probably on the business about
+which I have been wishing to speak to you."
+
+"It was about Rivarez, Your Eminence."
+
+"So I supposed. I have been thinking the matter over these last few
+days. But before we go into that, I should like to hear whether you have
+anything new to tell me."
+
+The Governor pulled his moustaches with an embarrassed air.
+
+"The fact is, I came to know whether Your Eminence had anything to tell
+me. If you still have an objection to the course I proposed taking, I
+should be sincerely glad of your advice in the matter; for, honestly, I
+don't know what to do."
+
+"Is there any new difficulty?"
+
+"Only that next Thursday is the 3d of June,--Corpus Domini,--and somehow
+or other the matter must be settled before then."
+
+"Thursday is Corpus Domini, certainly; but why must it be settled
+especially before then?"
+
+"I am exceedingly sorry, Your Eminence, if I seem to oppose you, but I
+can't undertake to be responsible for the peace of the town if Rivarez
+is not got rid of before then. All the roughest set in the hills
+collects here for that day, as Your Eminence knows, and it is more than
+probable that they may attempt to break open the fortress gates and take
+him out. They won't succeed; I'll take care of that, if I have to sweep
+them from the gates with powder and shot. But we are very likely to have
+something of that kind before the day is over. Here in the Romagna there
+is bad blood in the people, and when once they get out their knives----"
+
+"I think with a little care we can prevent matters going as far as
+knives. I have always found the people of this district easy to get on
+with, if they are reasonably treated. Of course, if you once begin to
+threaten or coerce a Romagnol he becomes unmanageable. But have you any
+reason for supposing a new rescue scheme is intended?"
+
+"I heard, both this morning and yesterday, from confidential agents of
+mine, that a great many rumours are circulating all over the district
+and that the people are evidently up to some mischief or other. But
+one can't find out the details; if one could it would be easier to take
+precautions. And for my part, after the fright we had the other day, I
+prefer to be on the safe side. With such a cunning fox as Rivarez one
+can't be too careful."
+
+"The last I heard about Rivarez was that he was too ill to move or
+speak. Is he recovering, then?"
+
+"He seems much better now, Your Eminence. He certainly has been very
+ill--unless he was shamming all the time."
+
+"Have you any reason for supposing that likely?"
+
+"Well, the doctor seems convinced that it was all genuine; but it's a
+very mysterious kind of illness. Any way, he is recovering, and more
+intractable than ever."
+
+"What has he done now?"
+
+"There's not much he can do, fortunately," the Governor answered,
+smiling as he remembered the straps. "But his behaviour is something
+indescribable. Yesterday morning I went into the cell to ask him a
+few questions; he is not well enough yet to come to me for
+interrogation--and indeed, I thought it best not to run any risk of
+the people seeing him until he recovers. Such absurd stories always get
+about at once."
+
+"So you went there to interrogate him?"
+
+"Yes, Your Eminence. I hoped he would be more amenable to reason now."
+
+Montanelli looked him over deliberately, almost as if he had been
+inspecting a new and disagreeable animal. Fortunately, however, the
+Governor was fingering his sword-belt, and did not see the look. He went
+on placidly:
+
+"I have not subjected him to any particular severities, but I have been
+obliged to be rather strict with him--especially as it is a military
+prison--and I thought that perhaps a little indulgence might have a
+good effect. I offered to relax the discipline considerably if he would
+behave in a reasonable manner; and how does Your Eminence suppose he
+answered me? He lay looking at me a minute, like a wolf in a cage, and
+then said quite softly: 'Colonel, I can't get up and strangle you;
+but my teeth are pretty good; you had better take your throat a little
+further off.' He is as savage as a wild-cat."
+
+"I am not surprised to hear it," Montanelli answered quietly. "But I
+came to ask you a question. Do you honestly believe that the presence of
+Rivarez in the prison here constitutes a serious danger to the peace of
+the district?"
+
+"Most certainly I do, Your Eminence."
+
+"You think that, to prevent the risk of bloodshed, it is absolutely
+necessary that he should somehow be got rid of before Corpus Domini?"
+
+"I can only repeat that if he is here on Thursday, I do not expect the
+festival to pass over without a fight, and I think it likely to be a
+serious one."
+
+"And you think that if he were not here there would be no such danger?"
+
+"In that case, there would either be no disturbance at all, or at most
+a little shouting and stone-throwing. If Your Eminence can find some way
+of getting rid of him, I will undertake that the peace shall be kept.
+Otherwise, I expect most serious trouble. I am convinced that a new
+rescue plot is on hand, and Thursday is the day when we may expect the
+attempt. Now, if on that very morning they suddenly find that he is not
+in the fortress at all, their plan fails of itself, and they have no
+occasion to begin fighting. But if we have to repulse them, and the
+daggers once get drawn among such throngs of people, we are likely to
+have the place burnt down before nightfall."
+
+"Then why do you not send him in to Ravenna?"
+
+"Heaven knows, Your Eminence, I should be thankful to do it! But how
+am I to prevent the people rescuing him on the way? I have not soldiers
+enough to resist an armed attack; and all these mountaineers have got
+knives or flint-locks or some such thing."
+
+"You still persist, then, in wishing for a court-martial, and in asking
+my consent to it?"
+
+"Pardon me, Your Eminence; I ask you only one thing--to help me prevent
+riots and bloodshed. I am quite willing to admit that the military
+commissions, such as that of Colonel Freddi, were sometimes
+unnecessarily severe, and irritated instead of subduing the people; but
+I think that in this case a court-martial would be a wise measure and
+in the long run a merciful one. It would prevent a riot, which in itself
+would be a terrible disaster, and which very likely might cause a return
+of the military commissions His Holiness has abolished."
+
+The Governor finished his little speech with much solemnity, and waited
+for the Cardinal's answer. It was a long time coming; and when it came
+was startlingly unexpected.
+
+"Colonel Ferrari, do you believe in God?"
+
+"Your Eminence!" the colonel gasped in a voice full of
+exclamation-stops.
+
+"Do you believe in God?" Montanelli repeated, rising and looking down at
+him with steady, searching eyes. The colonel rose too.
+
+"Your Eminence, I am a Christian man, and have never yet been refused
+absolution."
+
+Montanelli lifted the cross from his breast.
+
+"Then swear on the cross of the Redeemer Who died for you, that you have
+been speaking the truth to me."
+
+The colonel stood still and gazed at it blankly. He could not quite make
+up his mind which was mad, he or the Cardinal.
+
+"You have asked me," Montanelli went on, "to give my consent to a man's
+death. Kiss the cross, if you dare, and tell me that you believe there
+is no other way to prevent greater bloodshed. And remember that if you
+tell me a lie you are imperilling your immortal soul."
+
+After a little pause, the Governor bent down and put the cross to his
+lips.
+
+"I believe it," he said.
+
+Montanelli turned slowly away.
+
+"I will give you a definite answer to-morrow. But first I must see
+Rivarez and speak to him alone."
+
+"Your Eminence--if I might suggest--I am sure you will regret it. For
+that matter, he sent me a message yesterday, by the guard, asking to see
+Your Eminence; but I took no notice of it, because----"
+
+"Took no notice!" Montanelli repeated. "A man in such circumstances sent
+you a message, and you took no notice of it?"
+
+"I am sorry if Your Eminence is displeased. I did not wish to trouble
+you over a mere impertinence like that; I know Rivarez well enough by
+now to feel sure that he only wanted to insult you. And, indeed, if
+you will allow me to say so, it would be most imprudent to go near him
+alone; he is really dangerous--so much so, in fact, that I have thought
+it necessary to use some physical restraint of a mild kind------"
+
+"And you really think there is much danger to be apprehended from one
+sick and unarmed man, who is under physical restraint of a mild kind?"
+Montanelli spoke quite gently, but the colonel felt the sting of his
+quiet contempt, and flushed under it resentfully.
+
+"Your Eminence will do as you think best," he said in his stiffest
+manner. "I only wished to spare you the pain of hearing this man's awful
+blasphemies."
+
+"Which do you think the more grievous misfortune for a Christian man;
+to hear a blasphemous word uttered, or to abandon a fellow-creature in
+extremity?"
+
+The Governor stood erect and stiff, with his official face, like a face
+of wood. He was deeply offended at Montanelli's treatment of him, and
+showed it by unusual ceremoniousness.
+
+"At what time does Your Eminence wish to visit the prisoner?" he asked.
+
+"I will go to him at once."
+
+"As Your Eminence pleases. If you will kindly wait a few moments, I will
+send someone to prepare him."
+
+The Governor had come down from his official pedestal in a great hurry.
+He did not want Montanelli to see the straps.
+
+"Thank you; I would rather see him as he is, without preparation. I will
+go straight up to the fortress. Good-evening, colonel; you may expect my
+answer to-morrow morning."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+HEARING the cell-door unlocked, the Gadfly turned away his eyes with
+languid indifference. He supposed that it was only the Governor, coming
+to worry him with another interrogation. Several soldiers mounted
+the narrow stair, their carbines clanking against the wall; then a
+deferential voice said: "It is rather steep here, Your Eminence."
+
+He started convulsively, and then shrank down, catching his breath under
+the stinging pressure of the straps.
+
+Montanelli came in with the sergeant and three guards.
+
+"If Your Eminence will kindly wait a moment," the sergeant began
+nervously, "one of my men will bring a chair. He has just gone to fetch
+it. Your Eminence will excuse us--if we had been expecting you, we
+should have been prepared."
+
+"There is no need for any preparation. Will you kindly leave us alone,
+sergeant; and wait at the foot of the stairs with your men?"
+
+"Yes, Your Eminence. Here is the chair; shall I put it beside him?"
+
+The Gadfly was lying with closed eyes; but he felt that Montanelli was
+looking at him.
+
+"I think he is asleep, Your Eminence," the sergeant was beginning, but
+the Gadfly opened his eyes.
+
+"No," he said.
+
+As the soldiers were leaving the cell they were stopped by a sudden
+exclamation from Montanelli; and, turning back, saw that he was bending
+down to examine the straps.
+
+"Who has been doing this?" he asked. The sergeant fumbled with his cap.
+
+"It was by the Governor's express orders, Your Eminence."
+
+"I had no idea of this, Signor Rivarez," Montanelli said in a voice of
+great distress.
+
+"I told Your Eminence," the Gadfly answered, with his hard smile, "that
+I n-n-never expected to be patted on the head."
+
+"Sergeant, how long has this been going on?"
+
+"Since he tried to escape, Your Eminence."
+
+"That is, nearly a week? Bring a knife and cut these off at once."
+
+"May it please Your Eminence, the doctor wanted to take them off, but
+Colonel Ferrari wouldn't allow it."
+
+"Bring a knife at once." Montanelli had not raised his voice, but the
+soldiers could see that he was white with anger. The sergeant took a
+clasp-knife from his pocket, and bent down to cut the arm-strap. He
+was not a skilful-fingered man; and he jerked the strap tighter with an
+awkward movement, so that the Gadfly winced and bit his lip in spite of
+all his self-control. Montanelli came forward at once.
+
+"You don't know how to do it; give me the knife."
+
+"Ah-h-h!" The Gadfly stretched out his arms with a long, rapturous sigh
+as the strap fell off. The next instant Montanelli had cut the other
+one, which bound his ankles.
+
+"Take off the irons, too, sergeant; and then come here. I want to speak
+to you."
+
+He stood by the window, looking on, till the sergeant threw down the
+fetters and approached him.
+
+"Now," he said, "tell me everything that has been happening."
+
+The sergeant, nothing loath, related all that he knew of the
+Gadfly's illness, of the "disciplinary measures," and of the doctor's
+unsuccessful attempt to interfere.
+
+"But I think, Your Eminence," he added, "that the colonel wanted the
+straps kept on as a means of getting evidence."
+
+"Evidence?"
+
+"Yes, Your Eminence; the day before yesterday I heard him offer to have
+them taken off if he"--with a glance at the Gadfly--"would answer a
+question he had asked."
+
+Montanelli clenched his hand on the window-sill, and the soldiers
+glanced at one another: they had never seen the gentle Cardinal angry
+before. As for the Gadfly, he had forgotten their existence; he had
+forgotten everything except the physical sensation of freedom. He was
+cramped in every limb; and now stretched, and turned, and twisted about
+in a positive ecstasy of relief.
+
+"You can go now, sergeant," the Cardinal said. "You need not feel
+anxious about having committed a breach of discipline; it was your duty
+to tell me when I asked you. See that no one disturbs us. I will come
+out when I am ready."
+
+When the door had closed behind the soldiers, he leaned on the
+window-sill and looked for a while at the sinking sun, so as to leave
+the Gadfly a little more breathing time.
+
+"I have heard," he said presently, leaving the window, and sitting down
+beside the pallet, "that you wish to speak to me alone. If you feel well
+enough to tell me what you wanted to say, I am at your service."
+
+He spoke very coldly, with a stiff, imperious manner that was not
+natural to him. Until the straps were off, the Gadfly was to him simply
+a grievously wronged and tortured human being; but now he recalled their
+last interview, and the deadly insult with which it had closed. The
+Gadfly looked up, resting his head lazily on one arm. He possessed
+the gift of slipping into graceful attitudes; and when his face was in
+shadow no one would have guessed through what deep waters he had been
+passing. But, as he looked up, the clear evening light showed how
+haggard and colourless he was, and how plainly the trace of the last few
+days was stamped on him. Montanelli's anger died away.
+
+"I am afraid you have been terribly ill," he said. "I am sincerely sorry
+that I did not know of all this. I would have put a stop to it before."
+
+The Gadfly shrugged his shoulders. "All's fair in war," he said coolly.
+"Your Eminence objects to straps theoretically, from the Christian
+standpoint; but it is hardly fair to expect the colonel to see that.
+He, no doubt, would prefer not to try them on his own skin--which is
+j-j-just my case. But that is a matter of p-p-personal convenience. At
+this moment I am undermost--w-w-what would you have? It is very kind of
+Your Eminence, though, to call here; but perhaps that was done from the
+C-c-christian standpoint, too. Visiting prisoners--ah, yes! I forgot.
+'Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the l-least of these'--it's not very
+complimentary, but one of the least is duly grateful."
+
+"Signor Rivarez," the Cardinal interrupted, "I have come here on your
+account--not on my own. If you had not been 'undermost,' as you call it,
+I should never have spoken to you again after what you said to me last
+week; but you have the double privilege of a prisoner and a sick man,
+and I could not refuse to come. Have you anything to say to me, now I am
+here; or have you sent for me merely to amuse yourself by insulting an
+old man?"
+
+There was no answer. The Gadfly had turned away, and was lying with one
+hand across his eyes.
+
+"I am--very sorry to trouble you," he said at last, huskily; "but could
+I have a little water?"
+
+There was a jug of water standing by the window, and Montanelli rose
+and fetched it. As he slipped his arm round the Gadfly to lift him, he
+suddenly felt the damp, cold fingers close over his wrist like a vice.
+
+"Give me your hand--quick--just a moment," the Gadfly whispered. "Oh,
+what difference does it make to you? Only one minute!"
+
+He sank down, hiding his face on Montanelli's arm, and quivering from
+head to foot.
+
+"Drink a little water," Montanelli said after a moment. The Gadfly
+obeyed silently; then lay back on the pallet with closed eyes. He
+himself could have given no explanation of what had happened to him when
+Montanelli's hand had touched his cheek; he only knew that in all his
+life there had been nothing more terrible.
+
+Montanelli drew his chair closer to the pallet and sat down. The Gadfly
+was lying quite motionless, like a corpse, and his face was livid
+and drawn. After a long silence, he opened his eyes, and fixed their
+haunting, spectral gaze on the Cardinal.
+
+"Thank you," he said. "I--am sorry. I think--you asked me something?"
+
+"You are not fit to talk. If there is anything you want to say to me, I
+will try to come again to-morrow."
+
+"Please don't go, Your Eminence--indeed, there is nothing the matter
+with me. I--I have been a little upset these few days; it was half of it
+malingering, though--the colonel will tell you so if you ask him."
+
+"I prefer to form my own conclusions," Montanelli answered quietly.
+
+"S-so does the colonel. And occasionally, do you know, they are rather
+witty. You w-w-wouldn't think it to look at him; but s-s-sometimes he
+gets hold of an or-r-riginal idea. On Friday night, for instance--I
+think it was Friday, but I got a l-little mixed as to time towards
+the end--anyhow, I asked for a d-dose of opium--I remember that quite
+distinctly; and he came in here and said I m-might h-h-have it if I
+would tell him who un-l-l-locked the gate. I remember his saying: 'If
+it's real, you'll consent; if you don't, I shall look upon it as a
+p-proof that you are shamming.' It n-n-never oc-c-curred to me before
+how comic that is; it's one of the f-f-funniest things----"
+
+He burst into a sudden fit of harsh, discordant laughter; then, turning
+sharply on the silent Cardinal, went on, more and more hurriedly, and
+stammering so that the words were hardly intelligible:
+
+"You d-d-don't see that it's f-f-funny? Of c-course not; you r-religious
+people n-n-never have any s-sense of humour--you t-take everything
+t-t-tragically. F-for instance, that night in the Cath-thedral--how
+solemn you were! By the way--w-what a path-thetic figure I must
+have c-cut as the pilgrim! I d-don't believe you e-even see anything
+c-c-comic in the b-business you have c-come about this evening."
+
+Montanelli rose.
+
+"I came to hear what you have to say; but I think you are too much
+excited to say it to-night. The doctor had better give you a sedative,
+and we will talk to-morrow, when you have had a night's sleep."
+
+"S-sleep? Oh, I shall s-sleep well enough, Your Eminence, when you
+g-give your c-consent to the colonel's plan--an ounce of l-lead is a
+s-splendid sedative."
+
+"I don't understand you," Montanelli said, turning to him with a
+startled look.
+
+The Gadfly burst out laughing again.
+
+"Your Eminence, Your Eminence, t-t-truth is the c-chief of the Christian
+virtues! D-d-do you th-th-think I d-d-don't know how hard the Governor
+has been trying to g-get your consent to a court-martial? You had
+b-better by half g-give it, Your Eminence; it's only w-what all your
+b-brother prelates would do in your place. 'Cosi fan tutti;' and then
+you would be doing s-such a lot of good, and so l-little harm! Really,
+it's n-not worth all the sleepless nights you have been spending over
+it!"
+
+"Please stop laughing a minute," Montanelli interrupted, "and tell me
+how you heard all this. Who has been talking to you about it?"
+
+"H-hasn't the colonel e-e-ever told you I am a d-d-devil--not a man? No?
+He has t-told me so often enough! Well, I am devil enough to f-find
+out a little bit what p-people are thinking about. Your E-eminence is
+thinking that I'm a conf-founded nuisance, and you wish s-somebody
+else had to settle what's to be done with me, without disturbing your
+s-sensitive conscience. That's a p-pretty fair guess, isn't it?"
+
+"Listen to me," the Cardinal said, sitting down again beside him, with
+a very grave face. "However you found out all this, it is quite true.
+Colonel Ferrari fears another rescue attempt on the part of your
+friends, and wishes to forestall it in--the way you speak of. You see, I
+am quite frank with you."
+
+"Your E-eminence was always f-f-famous for truthfulness," the Gadfly put
+in bitterly.
+
+"You know, of course," Montanelli went on, "that legally I have no
+jurisdiction in temporal matters; I am a bishop, not a legate. But I
+have a good deal of influence in this district; and the colonel will
+not, I think, venture to take so extreme a course unless he can get,
+at least, my tacit consent to it. Up till now I have unconditionally
+opposed the scheme; and he has been trying very hard to conquer my
+objection by assuring me that there is great danger of an armed attempt
+on Thursday when the crowd collects for the procession--an attempt which
+probably would end in bloodshed. Do you follow me?"
+
+The Gadfly was staring absently out of the window. He looked round and
+answered in a weary voice:
+
+"Yes, I am listening."
+
+"Perhaps you are really not well enough to stand this conversation
+to-night. Shall I come back in the morning? It is a very serious matter,
+and I want your whole attention."
+
+"I would rather get it over now," the Gadfly answered in the same tone.
+"I follow everything you say."
+
+"Now, if it be true," Montanelli went on, "that there is any real danger
+of riots and bloodshed on account of you, I am taking upon myself a
+tremendous responsibility in opposing the colonel; and I believe there
+is at least some truth in what he says. On the other hand, I am inclined
+to think that his judgment is warped, to a certain extent, by his
+personal animosity against you, and that he probably exaggerates the
+danger. That seems to me the more likely since I have seen this shameful
+brutality." He glanced at the straps and chains lying on the floor, and
+went on:
+
+"If I consent, I kill you; if I refuse, I run the risk of killing
+innocent persons. I have considered the matter earnestly, and have
+sought with all my heart for a way out of this dreadful alternative. And
+now at last I have made up my mind."
+
+"To kill me and s-save the innocent persons, of course--the only
+decision a Christian man could possibly come to. 'If thy r-right hand
+offend thee,' etc. I have n-not the honour to be the right hand of Your
+Eminence, and I have offended you; the c-c-conclusion is plain. Couldn't
+you tell me that without so much preamble?"
+
+The Gadfly spoke with languid indifference and contempt, like a man
+weary of the whole subject.
+
+"Well?" he added after a little pause. "Was that the decision, Your
+Eminence?"
+
+"No."
+
+The Gadfly shifted his position, putting both hands behind his head, and
+looked at Montanelli with half-shut eyes. The Cardinal, with his head
+sunk down as in deep thought, was softly beating one hand on the arm of
+his chair. Ah, that old, familiar gesture!
+
+"I have decided," he said, raising his head at last, "to do, I suppose,
+an utterly unprecedented thing. When I heard that you had asked to see
+me, I resolved to come here and tell you everything, as I have done, and
+to place the matter in your own hands."
+
+"In--my hands?"
+
+"Signor Rivarez, I have not come to you as cardinal, or as bishop, or
+as judge; I have come to you as one man to another. I do not ask you to
+tell me whether you know of any such scheme as the colonel apprehends.
+I understand quite well that, if you do, it is your secret and you will
+not tell it. But I do ask you to put yourself in my place. I am old,
+and, no doubt, have not much longer to live. I would go down to my grave
+without blood on my hands."
+
+"Is there none on them as yet, Your Eminence?"
+
+Montanelli grew a shade paler, but went on quietly:
+
+"All my life I have opposed repressive measures and cruelty wherever I
+have met with them. I have always disapproved of capital punishment in
+all its forms; I have protested earnestly and repeatedly against the
+military commissions in the last reign, and have been out of favour
+on account of doing so. Up till now such influence and power as I have
+possessed have always been employed on the side of mercy. I ask you to
+believe me, at least, that I am speaking the truth. Now, I am placed in
+this dilemma. By refusing, I am exposing the town to the danger of
+riots and all their consequences; and this to save the life of a man
+who blasphemes against my religion, who has slandered and wronged and
+insulted me personally (though that is comparatively a trifle), and who,
+as I firmly believe, will put that life to a bad use when it is given to
+him. But--it is to save a man's life."
+
+He paused a moment, and went on again:
+
+"Signor Rivarez, everything that I know of your career seems to me bad
+and mischievous; and I have long believed you to be reckless and violent
+and unscrupulous. To some extent I hold that opinion of you still. But
+during this last fortnight you have shown me that you are a brave man
+and that you can be faithful to your friends. You have made the soldiers
+love and admire you, too; and not every man could have done that.
+I think that perhaps I have misjudged you, and that there is in you
+something better than what you show outside. To that better self in
+you I appeal, and solemnly entreat you, on your conscience, to tell me
+truthfully--in my place, what would you do?"
+
+A long silence followed; then the Gadfly looked up.
+
+"At least, I would decide my own actions for myself, and take the
+consequences of them. I would not come sneaking to other people, in the
+cowardly Christian way, asking them to solve my problems for me!"
+
+The onslaught was so sudden, and its extraordinary vehemence and passion
+were in such startling contrast to the languid affectation of a moment
+before, that it was as though he had thrown off a mask.
+
+"We atheists," he went on fiercely, "understand that if a man has a
+thing to bear, he must bear it as best he can; and if he sinks under
+it--why, so much the worse for him. But a Christian comes whining to his
+God, or his saints; or, if they won't help him, to his enemies--he can
+always find a back to shift his burdens on to. Isn't there a rule to go
+by in your Bible, or your Missal, or any of your canting theology books,
+that you must come to me to tell you what to do? Heavens and earth, man!
+Haven't I enough as it is, without your laying your responsibilities on
+my shoulders? Go back to your Jesus; he exacted the uttermost farthing,
+and you'd better do the same. After all, you'll only be killing an
+atheist--a man who boggles over 'shibboleth'; and that's no great crime,
+surely!"
+
+He broke off, panting for breath, and then burst out again:
+
+"And YOU to talk of cruelty! Why, that p-p-pudding-headed ass couldn't
+hurt me as much as you do if he tried for a year; he hasn't got the
+brains. All he can think of is to pull a strap tight, and when he can't
+get it any tighter he's at the end of his resources. Any fool can
+do that! But you---- 'Sign your own death sentence, please; I'm too
+tender-hearted to do it myself.' Oh! it would take a Christian to hit on
+that--a gentle, compassionate Christian, that turns pale at the sight of
+a strap pulled too tight! I might have known when you came in, like an
+angel of mercy--so shocked at the colonel's 'barbarity'--that the real
+thing was going to begin! Why do you look at me that way? Consent, man,
+of course, and go home to your dinner; the thing's not worth all this
+fuss. Tell your colonel he can have me shot, or hanged, or whatever
+comes handiest--roasted alive, if it's any amusement to him--and be done
+with it!"
+
+The Gadfly was hardly recognizable; he was beside himself with rage
+and desperation, panting and quivering, his eyes glittering with green
+reflections like the eyes of an angry cat.
+
+Montanelli had risen, and was looking down at him silently. He did not
+understand the drift of the frenzied reproaches, but he understood out
+of what extremity they were uttered; and, understanding that, forgave
+all past insults.
+
+"Hush!" he said. "I did not want to hurt you so. Indeed, I never meant
+to shift my burden on to you, who have too much already. I have never
+consciously done that to any living creature----"
+
+"It's a lie!" the Gadfly cried out with blazing eyes. "And the
+bishopric?"
+
+"The--bishopric?"
+
+"Ah! you've forgotten that? It's so easy to forget! 'If you wish it,
+Arthur, I will say I cannot go. I was to decide your life for you--I, at
+nineteen! If it weren't so hideous, it would be funny."
+
+"Stop!" Montanelli put up both hands to his head with a desperate cry.
+He let them fall again, and walked slowly away to the window. There
+he sat down on the sill, resting one arm on the bars, and pressing his
+forehead against it. The Gadfly lay and watched him, trembling.
+
+Presently Montanelli rose and came back, with lips as pale as ashes.
+
+"I am very sorry," he said, struggling piteously to keep up his usual
+quiet manner, "but I must go home. I--am not quite well."
+
+He was shivering as if with ague. All the Gadfly's fury broke down.
+
+"Padre, can't you see----"
+
+Montanelli shrank away, and stood still.
+
+"Only not that!" he whispered at last. "My God, anything but that! If I
+am going mad----"
+
+The Gadfly raised himself on one arm, and took the shaking hands in his.
+
+"Padre, will you never understand that I am not really drowned?"
+
+The hands grew suddenly cold and stiff. For a moment everything was dead
+with silence, and then Montanelli knelt down and hid his face on the
+Gadfly's breast.
+
+    *****
+
+When he raised his head the sun had set, and the red glow was dying in
+the west. They had forgotten time and place, and life and death; they
+had forgotten, even, that they were enemies.
+
+"Arthur," Montanelli whispered, "are you real? Have you come back to me
+from the dead?"
+
+"From the dead----" the Gadfly repeated, shivering. He was lying with
+his head on Montanelli's arm, as a sick child might lie in its mother's
+embrace.
+
+"You have come back--you have come back at last!"
+
+The Gadfly sighed heavily. "Yes," he said; "and you have to fight me, or
+to kill me."
+
+"Oh, hush, carino! What is all that now? We have been like two children
+lost in the dark, mistaking one another for phantoms. Now we have found
+each other, and have come out into the light. My poor boy, how changed
+you are--how changed you are! You look as if all the ocean of the
+world's misery had passed over your head--you that used to be so full of
+the joy of life! Arthur, is it really you? I have dreamed so often that
+you had come back to me; and then have waked and seen the outer darkness
+staring in upon an empty place. How can I know I shall not wake again
+and find it all a dream? Give me something tangible--tell me how it all
+happened."
+
+"It happened simply enough. I hid on a goods vessel, as stowaway, and
+got out to South America."
+
+"And there?"
+
+"There I--lived, if you like to call it so, till--oh, I have seen
+something else besides theological seminaries since you used to teach me
+philosophy! You say you have dreamed of me--yes, and much! You say you
+have dreamed of me--yes, and I of you----"
+
+He broke off, shuddering.
+
+"Once," he began again abruptly, "I was working at a mine in
+Ecuador----"
+
+"Not as a miner?"
+
+"No, as a miner's fag--odd-jobbing with the coolies. We had a barrack to
+sleep in at the pit's mouth; and one night--I had been ill, the same
+as lately, and carrying stones in the blazing sun--I must have got
+light-headed, for I saw you come in at the door-way. You were holding a
+crucifix like that one on the wall. You were praying, and brushed past
+me without turning. I cried out to you to help me--to give me poison
+or a knife--something to put an end to it all before I went mad. And
+you--ah------!"
+
+He drew one hand across his eyes. Montanelli was still clasping the
+other.
+
+"I saw in your face that you had heard, but you never looked round;
+you went on with your prayers. When you had finished, and kissed the
+crucifix, you glanced round and whispered: 'I am very sorry for you,
+Arthur; but I daren't show it; He would be angry.' And I looked at Him,
+and the wooden image was laughing.
+
+"Then, when I came to my senses, and saw the barrack and the coolies
+with their leprosy, I understood. I saw that you care more to curry
+favour with that devilish God of yours than to save me from any hell.
+And I have remembered that. I forgot just now when you touched me;
+I--have been ill, and I used to love you once. But there can be nothing
+between us but war, and war, and war. What do you want to hold my hand
+for? Can't you see that while you believe in your Jesus we can't be
+anything but enemies?"
+
+Montanelli bent his head and kissed the mutilated hand.
+
+"Arthur, how can I help believing in Him? If I have kept my faith
+through all these frightful years, how can I ever doubt Him any more,
+now that He has given you back to me? Remember, I thought I had killed
+you."
+
+"You have that still to do."
+
+"Arthur!" It was a cry of actual terror; but the Gadfly went on,
+unheeding:
+
+"Let us be honest, whatever we do, and not shilly-shally. You and I
+stand on two sides of a pit, and it's hopeless trying to join hands
+across it. If you have decided that you can't, or won't, give up that
+thing"--he glanced again at the crucifix on the wall--"you must consent
+to what the colonel----"
+
+"Consent! My God--consent--Arthur, but I love you!"
+
+The Gadfly's face contracted fearfully.
+
+"Which do you love best, me or that thing?"
+
+Montanelli slowly rose. The very soul in him withered with dread, and
+he seemed to shrivel up bodily, and to grow feeble, and old, and wilted,
+like a leaf that the frost has touched. He had awaked out of his dream,
+and the outer darkness was staring in upon an empty place.
+
+"Arthur, have just a little mercy on me----"
+
+"How much had you for me when your lies drove me out to be slave to
+the blacks on the sugar-plantations? You shudder at that--ah, these
+tender-hearted saints! This is the man after God's own heart--the man
+that repents of his sin and lives. No one dies but his son. You say you
+love me,--your love has cost me dear enough! Do you think I can blot out
+everything, and turn back into Arthur at a few soft words--I, that have
+been dish-washer in filthy half-caste brothels and stable-boy to Creole
+farmers that were worse brutes than their own cattle? I, that have
+been zany in cap and bells for a strolling variety show--drudge and
+Jack-of-all-trades to the matadors in the bull-fighting ring; I, that
+have been slave to every black beast who cared to set his foot on my
+neck; I, that have been starved and spat upon and trampled under foot;
+I, that have begged for mouldy scraps and been refused because the dogs
+had the first right? Oh, what is the use of all this! How can I TELL you
+what you have brought on me? And now--you love me! How much do you love
+me? Enough to give up your God for me? Oh, what has He done for you,
+this everlasting Jesus,--what has He suffered for you, that you should
+love Him more than me? Is it for the pierced hands He is so dear to you?
+Look at mine! Look here, and here, and here----"
+
+He tore open his shirt and showed the ghastly scars.
+
+"Padre, this God of yours is an impostor, His wounds are sham wounds,
+His pain is all a farce! It is I that have the right to your heart!
+Padre, there is no torture you have not put me to; if you could only
+know what my life has been! And yet I would not die! I have endured it
+all, and have possessed my soul in patience, because I would come
+back and fight this God of yours. I have held this purpose as a shield
+against my heart, and it has saved me from madness, and from the second
+death. And now, when I come back, I find Him still in my place--this
+sham victim that was crucified for six hours, forsooth, and rose again
+from the dead! Padre, I have been crucified for five years, and I, too,
+have risen from the dead. What are you going to do with me? What are you
+going to do with me?"
+
+He broke down. Montanelli sat like some stone image, or like a dead man
+set upright. At first, under the fiery torrent of the Gadfly's despair,
+he had quivered a little, with the automatic shrinking of the flesh,
+as under the lash of a whip; but now he was quite still. After a long
+silence he looked up and spoke, lifelessly, patiently:
+
+"Arthur, will you explain to me more clearly? You confuse and terrify me
+so, I can't understand. What is it you demand of me?"
+
+The Gadfly turned to him a spectral face.
+
+"I demand nothing. Who shall compel love? You are free to choose between
+us two the one who is most dear to you. If you love Him best, choose
+Him."
+
+"I can't understand," Montanelli repeated wearily. "What is there I can
+choose? I cannot undo the past."
+
+"You have to choose between us. If you love me, take that cross off your
+neck and come away with me. My friends are arranging another attempt,
+and with your help they could manage it easily. Then, when we are safe
+over the frontier, acknowledge me publicly. But if you don't love me
+enough for that,--if this wooden idol is more to you than I,--then go
+to the colonel and tell him you consent. And if you go, then go at once,
+and spare me the misery of seeing you. I have enough without that."
+
+Montanelli looked up, trembling faintly. He was beginning to understand.
+
+"I will communicate with your friends, of course. But--to go with
+you--it is impossible--I am a priest."
+
+"And I accept no favours from priests. I will have no more compromises,
+Padre; I have had enough of them, and of their consequences. You must
+give up your priesthood, or you must give up me."
+
+"How can I give you up? Arthur, how can I give you up?"
+
+"Then give up Him. You have to choose between us. Would you offer me a
+share of your love--half for me, half for your fiend of a God? I will
+not take His leavings. If you are His, you are not mine."
+
+"Would you have me tear my heart in two? Arthur! Arthur! Do you want to
+drive me mad?"
+
+The Gadfly struck his hand against the wall.
+
+"You have to choose between us," he repeated once more.
+
+Montanelli drew from his breast a little case containing a bit of soiled
+and crumpled paper.
+
+"Look!" he said.
+
+
+"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."
+
+
+The Gadfly laughed and handed it back. "How d-d-delightfully young one
+is at nineteen! To take a hammer and smash things seems so easy. It's
+that now--only it's I that am under the hammer. As for you, there are
+plenty of other people you can fool with lies--and they won't even find
+you out."
+
+"As you will," Montanelli said. "Perhaps in your place I should be as
+merciless as you--God knows. I can't do what you ask, Arthur; but I will
+do what I can. I will arrange your escape, and when you are safe I will
+have an accident in the mountains, or take the wrong sleeping-draught by
+mistake--whatever you like to choose. Will that content you? It is all
+I can do. It is a great sin; but I think He will forgive me. He is more
+merciful------"
+
+The Gadfly flung out both hands with a sharp cry.
+
+"Oh, that is too much! That is too much! What have I done that you
+should think of me that way? What right have you---- As if I wanted to
+be revenged on you! Can't you see that I only want to save you? Will you
+never understand that I love you?"
+
+He caught hold of Montanelli's hands and covered them with burning
+kisses and tears.
+
+"Padre, come away with us! What have you to do with this dead world of
+priests and idols? They are full of the dust of bygone ages; they are
+rotten; they are pestilent and foul! Come out of this plague-stricken
+Church--come away with us into the light! Padre, it is we that are life
+and youth; it is we that are the everlasting springtime; it is we that
+are the future! Padre, the dawn is close upon us--will you miss
+your part in the sunrise? Wake up, and let us forget the horrible
+nightmares,--wake up, and we will begin our life again! Padre, I have
+always loved you--always, even when you killed me--will you kill me
+again?"
+
+Montanelli tore his hands away. "Oh, God have mercy on me!" he cried
+out. "YOU HAVE YOUR MOTHER'S EYES!"
+
+A strange silence, long and deep and sudden, fell upon them both. In the
+gray twilight they looked at each other, and their hearts stood still
+with fear.
+
+"Have you anything more to say?" Montanelli whispered. "Any--hope to
+give me?"
+
+"No. My life is of no use to me except to fight priests. I am not a man;
+I am a knife. If you let me live, you sanction knives."
+
+Montanelli turned to the crucifix. "God! Listen to this----"
+
+His voice died away into the empty stillness without response. Only the
+mocking devil awoke again in the Gadfly.
+
+"'C-c-call him louder; perchance he s-s-sleepeth'----"
+
+Montanelli started up as if he had been struck. For a moment he stood
+looking straight before him;--then he sat down on the edge of the
+pallet, covered his face with both hands, and burst into tears. A long
+shudder passed through the Gadfly, and the damp cold broke out on his
+body. He knew what the tears meant.
+
+He drew the blanket over his head that he might not hear. It was enough
+that he had to die--he who was so vividly, magnificently alive. But he
+could not shut out the sound; it rang in his ears, it beat in his brain,
+it throbbed in all his pulses. And still Montanelli sobbed and sobbed,
+and the tears dripped down between his fingers.
+
+He left off sobbing at last, and dried his eyes with his handkerchief,
+like a child that has been crying. As he stood up the handkerchief
+slipped from his knee and fell to the floor.
+
+"There is no use in talking any more," he said. "You understand?"
+
+"I understand," the Gadfly answered, with dull submission. "It's not
+your fault. Your God is hungry, and must be fed."
+
+Montanelli turned towards him. The grave that was to be dug was not more
+still than they were. Silent, they looked into each other's eyes, as two
+lovers, torn apart, might gaze across the barrier they cannot pass.
+
+It was the Gadfly whose eyes sank first. He shrank down, hiding his
+face; and Montanelli understood that the gesture meant "Go!" He turned,
+and went out of the cell. A moment later the Gadfly started up.
+
+"Oh, I can't bear it! Padre, come back! Come back!"
+
+The door was shut. He looked around him slowly, with a wide, still gaze,
+and understood that all was over. The Galilean had conquered.
+
+All night long the grass waved softly in the courtyard below--the grass
+that was so soon to wither, uprooted by the spade; and all night long
+the Gadfly lay alone in the darkness, and sobbed.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE court-martial was held on Tuesday morning. It was a very short and
+simple affair; a mere formality, occupying barely twenty minutes. There
+was, indeed, nothing to spend much time over; no defence was allowed,
+and the only witnesses were the wounded spy and officer and a few
+soldiers. The sentence was drawn up beforehand; Montanelli had sent in
+the desired informal consent; and the judges (Colonel Ferrari, the local
+major of dragoons, and two officers of the Swiss guards) had little to
+do. The indictment was read aloud, the witnesses gave their evidence,
+and the signatures were affixed to the sentence, which was then read to
+the condemned man with befitting solemnity. He listened in silence; and
+when asked, according to the usual form, whether he had anything to say,
+merely waved the question aside with an impatient movement of his hand.
+Hidden on his breast was the handkerchief which Montanelli had let fall.
+It had been kissed and wept over all night, as though it were a living
+thing. Now he looked wan and spiritless, and the traces of tears were
+still about his eyelids; but the words: "to be shot," did not seem to
+affect him much. When they were uttered, the pupils of his eyes dilated,
+but that was all.
+
+"Take him back to his cell," the Governor said, when all the formalities
+were over; and the sergeant, who was evidently near to breaking down,
+touched the motionless figure on the shoulder. The Gadfly looked round
+him with a little start.
+
+"Ah, yes!" he said. "I forgot."
+
+There was something almost like pity in the Governor's face. He was not
+a cruel man by nature, and was secretly a little ashamed of the part
+he had been playing during the last month. Now that his main point was
+gained he was willing to make every little concession in his power.
+
+"You needn't put the irons on again," he said, glancing at the bruised
+and swollen wrists. "And he can stay in his own cell. The condemned cell
+is wretchedly dark and gloomy," he added, turning to his nephew; "and
+really the thing's a mere formality."
+
+He coughed and shifted his feet in evident embarrassment; then called
+back the sergeant, who was leaving the room with his prisoner.
+
+"Wait, sergeant; I want to speak to him."
+
+The Gadfly did not move, and the Governor's voice seemed to fall on
+unresponsive ears.
+
+"If you have any message you would like conveyed to your friends or
+relatives---- You have relatives, I suppose?"
+
+There was no answer.
+
+"Well, think it over and tell me, or the priest. I will see it is not
+neglected. You had better give your messages to the priest; he shall
+come at once, and stay the night with you. If there is any other
+wish----"
+
+The Gadfly looked up.
+
+"Tell the priest I would rather be alone. I have no friends and no
+messages."
+
+"But you will want to confess."
+
+"I am an atheist. I want nothing but to be left in peace."
+
+He said it in a dull, quiet voice, without defiance or irritation; and
+turned slowly away. At the door he stopped again.
+
+"I forgot, colonel; there is a favour I wanted to ask. Don't let them
+tie me or bandage my eyes to-morrow, please. I will stand quite still."
+
+    *****
+
+At sunrise on Wednesday morning they brought him out into the courtyard.
+His lameness was more than usually apparent, and he walked with evident
+difficulty and pain, leaning heavily on the sergeant's arm; but all the
+weary submission had gone out of his face. The spectral terrors that
+had crushed him down in the empty silence, the visions and dreams of the
+world of shadows, were gone with the night which gave them birth; and
+once the sun was shining and his enemies were present to rouse the
+fighting spirit in him, he was not afraid.
+
+The six carabineers who had been told off for the execution were drawn
+up in line against the ivied wall; the same crannied and crumbling wall
+down which he had climbed on the night of his unlucky attempt. They
+could hardly refrain from weeping as they stood together, each man with
+his carbine in his hand. It seemed to them a horror beyond imagination
+that they should be called out to kill the Gadfly. He and his stinging
+repartees, his perpetual laughter, his bright, infectious courage, had
+come into their dull and dreary lives like a wandering sunbeam; and that
+he should die, and at their hands, was to them as the darkening of the
+clear lamps of heaven.
+
+Under the great fig-tree in the courtyard, his grave was waiting for
+him. It had been dug in the night by unwilling hands; and tears had
+fallen on the spade. As he passed he looked down, smiling, at the black
+pit and the withering grass beside it; and drew a long breath, to smell
+the scent of the freshly turned earth.
+
+Near the tree the sergeant stopped short, and the Gadfly looked round
+with his brightest smile.
+
+"Shall I stand here, sergeant?"
+
+The man nodded silently; there was a lump in his throat, and he
+could not have spoken to save his life. The Governor, his nephew, the
+lieutenant of carabineers who was to command, a doctor and a priest
+were already in the courtyard, and came forward with grave faces, half
+abashed under the radiant defiance of the Gadfly's laughing eyes.
+
+"G-good morning, gentlemen! Ah, and his reverence is up so early, too!
+How do you do, captain? This is a pleasanter occasion for you than our
+former meeting, isn't it? I see your arm is still in a sling;
+that's because I bungled my work. These good fellows will do theirs
+better--won't you, lads?"
+
+He glanced round at the gloomy faces of the carabineers.
+
+"There'll be no need of slings this time, any way. There, there, you
+needn't look so doleful over it! Put your heels together and show how
+straight you can shoot. Before long there'll be more work cut out
+for you than you'll know how to get through, and there's nothing like
+practice beforehand."
+
+"My son," the priest interrupted, coming forward, while the others drew
+back to leave them alone together; "in a few minutes you must enter into
+the presence of your Maker. Have you no other use but this for these
+last moments that are left you for repentance? Think, I entreat you,
+how dreadful a thing it is to die without absolution, with all your sins
+upon your head. When you stand before your Judge it will be too late to
+repent. Will you approach His awful throne with a jest upon your lips?"
+
+"A jest, your reverence? It is your side that needs that little homily,
+I think. When our turn comes we shall use field-guns instead of half a
+dozen second-hand carbines, and then you'll see how much we're in jest."
+
+"YOU will use field-guns! Oh, unhappy man! Have you still not realized
+on what frightful brink you stand?"
+
+The Gadfly glanced back over his shoulder at the open grave.
+
+"And s-s-so your reverence thinks that, when you have put me down there,
+you will have done with me? Perhaps you will lay a stone on the top to
+pre-v-vent a r-resurrection 'after three days'? No fear, your reverence!
+I shan't poach on the monopoly in cheap theatricals; I shall lie as
+still as a m-mouse, just where you put me. And all the same, WE shall
+use field-guns."
+
+"Oh, merciful God," the priest cried out; "forgive this wretched man!"
+
+"Amen!" murmured the lieutenant of carabineers, in a deep bass growl,
+while the colonel and his nephew crossed themselves devoutly.
+
+As there was evidently no hope of further insistence producing any
+effect, the priest gave up the fruitless attempt and moved aside,
+shaking his head and murmuring a prayer. The short and simple
+preparations were made without more delay, and the Gadfly placed himself
+in the required position, only turning his head to glance up for a
+moment at the red and yellow splendour of the sunrise. He had repeated
+the request that his eyes might not be bandaged, and his defiant face
+had wrung from the colonel a reluctant consent. They had both forgotten
+what they were inflicting on the soldiers.
+
+He stood and faced them, smiling, and the carbines shook in their hands.
+
+"I am quite ready," he said.
+
+The lieutenant stepped forward, trembling a little with excitement. He
+had never given the word of command for an execution before.
+
+"Ready--present--fire!"
+
+The Gadfly staggered a little and recovered his balance. One unsteady
+shot had grazed his cheek, and a little blood fell on to the white
+cravat. Another ball had struck him above the knee. When the smoke
+cleared away the soldiers looked and saw him smiling still and wiping
+the blood from his cheek with the mutilated hand.
+
+"A bad shot, men!" he said; and his voice cut in, clear and articulate,
+upon the dazed stupor of the wretched soldiers. "Have another try."
+
+A general groan and shudder passed through the row of carabineers. Each
+man had aimed aside, with a secret hope that the death-shot would come
+from his neighbour's hand, not his; and there the Gadfly stood and
+smiled at them; they had only turned the execution into a butchery, and
+the whole ghastly business was to do again. They were seized with sudden
+terror, and, lowering their carbines, listened hopelessly to the furious
+curses and reproaches of the officers, staring in dull horror at the man
+whom they had killed and who somehow was not dead.
+
+The Governor shook his fist in their faces, savagely shouting to them
+to stand in position, to present arms, to make haste and get the thing
+over. He had become as thoroughly demoralized as they were, and dared
+not look at the terrible figure that stood, and stood, and would not
+fall. When the Gadfly spoke to him he started and shuddered at the sound
+of the mocking voice.
+
+"You have brought out the awkward squad this morning, colonel! Let me
+see if I can manage them better. Now, men! Hold your tool higher there,
+you to the left. Bless your heart, man, it's a carbine you've got
+in your hand, not a frying-pan! Are you all straight? Now then!
+Ready--present----"
+
+"Fire!" the colonel interrupted, starting forward. It was intolerable
+that this man should give the command for his own death.
+
+There was another confused, disorganized volley, and the line broke up
+into a knot of shivering figures, staring before them with wild eyes.
+One of the soldiers had not even discharged his carbine; he had flung it
+away, and crouched down, moaning under his breath: "I can't--I can't!"
+
+The smoke cleared slowly away, floating up into the glimmer of the early
+sunlight; and they saw that the Gadfly had fallen; and saw, too, that he
+was still not dead. For the first moment soldiers and officials stood
+as if they had been turned to stone, and watched the ghastly thing that
+writhed and struggled on the ground; then both doctor and colonel rushed
+forward with a cry, for he had dragged himself up on one knee and was
+still facing the soldiers, and still laughing.
+
+"Another miss! Try--again, lads--see--if you can't----"
+
+He suddenly swayed and fell over sideways on the grass.
+
+"Is he dead?" the colonel asked under his breath; and the doctor,
+kneeling down, with a hand on the bloody shirt, answered softly:
+
+"I think so--God be praised!"
+
+"God be praised!" the colonel repeated. "At last!"
+
+His nephew was touching him on the arm.
+
+"Uncle! It's the Cardinal! He's at the gate and wants to come in."
+
+"What? He can't come in--I won't have it! What are the guards about?
+Your Eminence----"
+
+The gate had opened and shut, and Montanelli was standing in the
+courtyard, looking before him with still and awful eyes.
+
+"Your Eminence! I must beg of you--this is not a fit sight for you! The
+execution is only just over; the body is not yet----"
+
+"I have come to look at him," Montanelli said. Even at the moment
+it struck the Governor that his voice and bearing were those of a
+sleep-walker.
+
+"Oh, my God!" one of the soldiers cried out suddenly; and the Governor
+glanced hastily back. Surely------
+
+The blood-stained heap on the grass had once more begun to struggle and
+moan. The doctor flung himself down and lifted the head upon his knee.
+
+"Make haste!" he cried in desperation. "You savages, make haste! Get it
+over, for God's sake! There's no bearing this!"
+
+Great jets of blood poured over his hands, and the convulsions of the
+figure that he held in his arms shook him, too, from head to foot. As he
+looked frantically round for help, the priest bent over his shoulder and
+put a crucifix to the lips of the dying man.
+
+"In the name of the Father and of the Son----"
+
+The Gadfly raised himself against the doctor's knee, and, with wide-open
+eyes, looked straight upon the crucifix.
+
+Slowly, amid hushed and frozen stillness, he lifted the broken right
+hand and pushed away the image. There was a red smear across its face.
+
+"Padre--is your--God--satisfied?"
+
+His head fell back on the doctor's arm.
+
+    *****
+
+"Your Eminence!"
+
+As the Cardinal did not awake from his stupor, Colonel Ferrari repeated,
+louder:
+
+"Your Eminence!"
+
+Montanelli looked up.
+
+"He is dead."
+
+"Quite dead, your Eminence. Will you not come away? This is a horrible
+sight."
+
+"He is dead," Montanelli repeated, and looked down again at the face. "I
+touched him; and he is dead."
+
+"What does he expect a man to be with half a dozen bullets in him?" the
+lieutenant whispered contemptuously; and the doctor whispered back. "I
+think the sight of the blood has upset him."
+
+The Governor put his hand firmly on Montanelli's arm.
+
+"Your Eminence--you had better not look at him any longer. Will you
+allow the chaplain to escort you home?"
+
+"Yes--I will go."
+
+He turned slowly from the blood-stained spot and walked away, the priest
+and sergeant following. At the gate he paused and looked back, with a
+ghostlike, still surprise.
+
+"He is dead."
+
+    *****
+
+A few hours later Marcone went up to a cottage on the hillside to tell
+Martini that there was no longer any need for him to throw away his
+life.
+
+All the preparations for a second attempt at rescue were ready, as the
+plot was much more simple than the former one. It had been arranged that
+on the following morning, as the Corpus Domini procession passed along
+the fortress hill, Martini should step forward out of the crowd, draw a
+pistol from his breast, and fire in the Governor's face. In the moment
+of wild confusion which would follow twenty armed men were to make a
+sudden rush at the gate, break into the tower, and, taking the turnkey
+with them by force, to enter the prisoner's cell and carry him bodily
+away, killing or overpowering everyone who interfered with them. From
+the gate they were to retire fighting, and cover the retreat of a second
+band of armed and mounted smugglers, who would carry him off into a safe
+hiding-place in the hills. The only person in the little group who knew
+nothing of the plan was Gemma; it had been kept from her at Martini's
+special desire. "She will break her heart over it soon enough," he had
+said.
+
+As the smuggler came in at the garden gate Martini opened the glass door
+and stepped out on to the verandah to meet him.
+
+"Any news, Marcone? Ah!"
+
+The smuggler had pushed back his broad-brimmed straw hat.
+
+They sat down together on the verandah. Not a word was spoken on either
+side. From the instant when Martini had caught sight of the face under
+the hat-brim he had understood.
+
+"When was it?" he asked after a long pause; and his own voice, in his
+ears, was as dull and wearisome as everything else.
+
+"This morning, at sunrise. The sergeant told me. He was there and saw
+it."
+
+Martini looked down and flicked a stray thread from his coat-sleeve.
+
+Vanity of vanities; this also is vanity. He was to have died to-morrow.
+And now the land of his heart's desire had vanished, like the fairyland
+of golden sunset dreams that fades away when the darkness comes; and he
+was driven back into the world of every day and every night--the
+world of Grassini and Galli, of ciphering and pamphleteering, of party
+squabbles between comrades and dreary intrigues among Austrian spies--of
+the old revolutionary mill-round that maketh the heart sick. And
+somewhere down at the bottom of his consciousness there was a great
+empty place; a place that nothing and no one would fill any more, now
+that the Gadfly was dead.
+
+Someone was asking him a question, and he raised his head, wondering
+what could be left that was worth the trouble of talking about.
+
+"What did you say?"
+
+"I was saying that of course you will break the news to her."
+
+Life, and all the horror of life, came back into Martini's face.
+
+"How can I tell her?" he cried out. "You might as well ask me to go and
+stab her. Oh, how can I tell her--how can I!"
+
+He had clasped both hands over his eyes; but, without seeing, he felt
+the smuggler start beside him, and looked up. Gemma was standing in the
+doorway.
+
+"Have you heard, Cesare?" she said. "It is all over. They have shot
+him."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+"INTROIBO ad altare Dei." Montanelli stood before the high altar among
+his ministers and acolytes and read the Introit aloud in steady tones.
+All the Cathedral was a blaze of light and colour; from the holiday
+dresses of the congregation to the pillars with their flaming draperies
+and wreaths of flowers there was no dull spot in it. Over the open
+spaces of the doorway fell great scarlet curtains, through whose folds
+the hot June sunlight glowed, as through the petals of red poppies in
+a corn-field. The religious orders with their candles and torches, the
+companies of the parishes with their crosses and flags, lighted up the
+dim side-chapels; and in the aisles the silken folds of the processional
+banners drooped, their gilded staves and tassels glinting under the
+arches. The surplices of the choristers gleamed, rainbow-tinted, beneath
+the coloured windows; the sunlight lay on the chancel floor in
+chequered stains of orange and purple and green. Behind the altar hung
+a shimmering veil of silver tissue; and against the veil and the
+decorations and the altar-lights the Cardinal's figure stood out in its
+trailing white robes like a marble statue that had come to life.
+
+As was customary on processional days, he was only to preside at the
+Mass, not to celebrate, so at the end of the Indulgentiam he turned
+from the altar and walked slowly to the episcopal throne, celebrant and
+ministers bowing low as he passed.
+
+"I'm afraid His Eminence is not well," one of the canons whispered to
+his neighbour; "he seems so strange."
+
+Montanelli bent his head to receive the jewelled mitre. The priest who
+was acting as deacon of honour put it on, looked at him for an instant,
+then leaned forward and whispered softly:
+
+"Your Eminence, are you ill?"
+
+Montanelli turned slightly towards him. There was no recognition in his
+eyes.
+
+"Pardon, Your Eminence!" the priest whispered, as he made a genuflexion
+and went back to his place, reproaching himself for having interrupted
+the Cardinal's devotions.
+
+The familiar ceremony went on; and Montanelli sat erect and still, his
+glittering mitre and gold-brocaded vestments flashing back the sunlight,
+and the heavy folds of his white festival mantle sweeping down over the
+red carpet. The light of a hundred candles sparkled among the sapphires
+on his breast, and shone into the deep, still eyes that had no answering
+gleam; and when, at the words: "Benedicite, pater eminentissime,"
+he stooped to bless the incense, and the sunbeams played among the
+diamonds, he might have recalled some splendid and fearful ice-spirit
+of the mountains, crowned with rainbows and robed in drifted snow,
+scattering, with extended hands, a shower of blessings or of curses.
+
+At the elevation of the Host he descended from his throne and knelt
+before the altar. There was a strange, still evenness about all his
+movements; and as he rose and went back to his place the major of
+dragoons, who was sitting in gala uniform behind the Governor, whispered
+to the wounded captain: "The old Cardinal's breaking, not a doubt of it.
+He goes through his work like a machine."
+
+"So much the better!" the captain whispered back. "He's been nothing but
+a mill-stone round all our necks ever since that confounded amnesty."
+
+"He did give in, though, about the court-martial."
+
+"Yes, at last; but he was a precious time making up his mind to.
+Heavens, how close it is! We shall all get sun-stroke in the procession.
+It's a pity we're not Cardinals, to have a canopy held over our heads
+all the way---- Sh-sh-sh! There's my uncle looking at us!"
+
+Colonel Ferrari had turned round to glance severely at the two younger
+officers. After the solemn event of yesterday morning he was in a devout
+and serious frame of mind, and inclined to reproach them with a want of
+proper feeling about what he regarded as "a painful necessity of state."
+
+The masters of the ceremonies began to assemble and place in order those
+who were to take part in the procession. Colonel Ferrari rose from his
+place and moved up to the chancel-rail, beckoning to the other officers
+to accompany him. When the Mass was finished, and the Host had been
+placed behind the crystal shield in the processional sun, the celebrant
+and his ministers retired to the sacristy to change their vestments, and
+a little buzz of whispered conversation broke out through the church.
+Montanelli remained seated on his throne, looking straight before him,
+immovably. All the sea of human life and motion seemed to surge around
+and below him, and to die away into stillness about his feet. A censer
+was brought to him; and he raised his hand with the action of an
+automaton, and put the incense into the vessel, looking neither to the
+right nor to the left.
+
+The clergy had come back from the sacristy, and were waiting in the
+chancel for him to descend; but he remained utterly motionless. The
+deacon of honour, bending forward to take off the mitre, whispered
+again, hesitatingly:
+
+"Your Eminence!"
+
+The Cardinal looked round.
+
+"What did you say?"
+
+"Are you quite sure the procession will not be too much for you? The sun
+is very hot."
+
+"What does the sun matter?"
+
+Montanelli spoke in a cold, measured voice, and the priest again fancied
+that he must have given offence.
+
+"Forgive me, Your Eminence. I thought you seemed unwell."
+
+Montanelli rose without answering. He paused a moment on the upper step
+of the throne, and asked in the same measured way:
+
+"What is that?"
+
+The long train of his mantle swept down over the steps and lay spread
+out on the chancel-floor, and he was pointing to a fiery stain on the
+white satin.
+
+"It's only the sunlight shining through a coloured window, Your
+Eminence."
+
+"The sunlight? Is it so red?"
+
+He descended the steps, and knelt before the altar, swinging the censer
+slowly to and fro. As he handed it back, the chequered sunlight fell on
+his bared head and wide, uplifted eyes, and cast a crimson glow across
+the white veil that his ministers were folding round him.
+
+He took from the deacon the sacred golden sun; and stood up, as choir
+and organ burst into a peal of triumphal melody.
+
+
+       "Pange, lingua, g]oriosi
+        Corporis mysterium,
+        Sanguinisque pretiosi
+        Quem in mundi pretium,
+        Fructus ventris generosi
+        Rex effudit gentium."
+
+
+The bearers came slowly forward, and raised the silken canopy over his
+head, while the deacons of honour stepped to their places at his right
+and left and drew back the long folds of the mantle. As the acolytes
+stooped to lift his robe from the chancel-floor, the lay fraternities
+heading the procession started to pace down the nave in stately double
+file, with lighted candles held to left and right.
+
+He stood above them, by the altar, motionless under the white canopy,
+holding the Eucharist aloft with steady hands, and watched them as they
+passed. Two by two, with candles and banners and torches, with crosses
+and images and flags, they swept slowly down the chancel steps, along
+the broad nave between the garlanded pillars, and out under the lifted
+scarlet curtains into the blazing sunlight of the street; and the sound
+of their chanting died into a rolling murmur, drowned in the pealing
+of new and newer voices, as the unending stream flowed on, and yet new
+footsteps echoed down the nave.
+
+The companies of the parishes passed, with their white shrouds and
+veiled faces; then the brothers of the Misericordia, black from head to
+foot, their eyes faintly gleaming through the holes in their masks. Next
+came the monks in solemn row: the mendicant friars, with their dusky
+cowls and bare, brown feet; the white-robed, grave Dominicans. Then
+followed the lay officials of the district; dragoons and carabineers
+and the local police-officials; the Governor in gala uniform, with his
+brother officers beside him. A deacon followed, holding up a great cross
+between two acolytes with gleaming candles; and as the curtains were
+lifted high to let them pass out at the doorway, Montanelli caught a
+momentary glimpse, from where he stood under the canopy, of the sunlit
+blaze of carpeted street and flag-hung walls and white-robed children
+scattering roses. Ah, the roses; how red they were!
+
+On and on the procession paced in order; form succeeding to form and
+colour to colour. Long white surplices, grave and seemly, gave place
+to gorgeous vestments and embroidered pluvials. Now passed a tall and
+slender golden cross, borne high above the lighted candles; now the
+cathedral canons, stately in their dead white mantles. A chaplain paced
+down the chancel, with the crozier between two flaring torches; then the
+acolytes moved forward in step, their censers swinging to the rhythm of
+the music; the bearers raised the canopy higher, counting their steps:
+"One, two; one, two!" and Montanelli started upon the Way of the Cross.
+
+Down the chancel steps and all along the nave he passed; under the
+gallery where the organ pealed and thundered; under the lifted curtains
+that were so red--so fearfully red; and out into the glaring street,
+where the blood-red roses lay and withered, crushed into the red carpet
+by the passing of many feet. A moment's pause at the door, while the
+lay officials came forward to replace the canopy-bearers; then the
+procession moved on again, and he with it, his hands clasping the
+Eucharistic sun, and the voices of the choristers swelling and dying
+around him, with the rhythmical swaying of censers and the rolling tramp
+of feet.
+
+
+       "Verbum caro, panem verum,
+        Verbo carnem efficit;
+        Sitque sanguis Christi merum----"
+
+
+Always blood and always blood! The carpet stretched before him like a
+red river; the roses lay like blood splashed on the stones---- Oh, God!
+Is all Thine earth grown red, and all Thy heaven? Ah, what is it to
+Thee, Thou mighty God----Thou, whose very lips are smeared with blood!
+
+
+       "Tantum ergo Sacramentum,
+        Veneremur cernui."
+
+
+He looked through the crystal shield at the Eucharist. What was that
+oozing from the wafer--dripping down between the points of the golden
+sun--down on to his white robe? What had he seen dripping down--dripping
+from a lifted hand?
+
+The grass in the courtyard was trampled and red,--all red,--there was
+so much blood. It was trickling down the cheek, and dripping from the
+pierced right hand, and gushing in a hot red torrent from the wounded
+side. Even a lock of the hair was dabbled in it,--the hair that lay all
+wet and matted on the forehead--ah, that was the death-sweat; it came
+from the horrible pain.
+
+The voices of the choristers rose higher, triumphantly:
+
+
+       "Genitori, genitoque,
+        Laus et jubilatio,
+        Salus, honor, virtus quoque,
+        Sit et benedictio."
+
+
+Oh, that is more than any patience can endure! God, Who sittest on the
+brazen heavens enthroned, and smilest with bloody lips, looking down
+upon agony and death, is it not enough? Is it not enough, without this
+mockery of praise and blessing? Body of Christ, Thou that wast broken
+for the salvation of men; blood of Christ, Thou that wast shed for the
+remission of sins; is it not enough?
+
+"Ah, call Him louder; perchance He sleepeth!
+
+"Dost Thou sleep indeed, dear love; and wilt Thou never wake again? Is
+the grave so jealous of its victory; and will the black pit under the
+tree not loose Thee even for a little, heart's delight?"
+
+Then the Thing behind the crystal shield made answer, and the blood
+dripped down as It spoke:
+
+"Hast thou chosen, and wilt repent of thy choice? Is thy desire not
+fulfilled? Look upon these men that walk in the light and are clad in
+silk and in gold: for their sake was I laid in the black pit. Look upon
+the children scattering roses, and hearken to their singing if it be
+sweet: for their sake is my mouth filled with dust, and the roses are
+red from the well-springs of my heart. See where the people kneel to
+drink the blood that drips from thy garment-hem: for their sake was it
+shed, to quench their ravening thirst. For it is written: 'Greater love
+hath no man than this, if a man lay down his life for his friends.'"
+
+"Oh, Arthur, Arthur; there is greater love than this! If a man lay down
+the life of his best beloved, is not that greater?"
+
+And It answered again:
+
+"Who is thy best beloved? In sooth, not I."
+
+And when he would have spoken the words froze on his tongue, for the
+singing of the choristers passed over them, as the north wind over icy
+pools, and hushed them into silence:
+
+
+     "Dedit fragilibus corporis ferculum,
+      Dedit et tristibus sanguinis poculum,
+      Dicens: Accipite, quod trado vasculum
+              Omnes ex eo bibite."
+
+
+Drink of it, Christians; drink of it, all of you! Is it not yours? For
+you the red stream stains the grass; for you the living flesh is seared
+and torn. Eat of it, cannibals; eat of it, all of you! This is your
+feast and your orgy; this is the day of your joy! Haste you and come to
+the festival; join the procession and march with us; women and children,
+young men and old men--come to the sharing of flesh! Come to the pouring
+of blood-wine and drink of it while it is red; take and eat of the
+Body----
+
+Ah, God; the fortress! Sullen and brown, with crumbling battlements
+and towers dark among the barren hills, it scowled on the procession
+sweeping past in the dusty road below. The iron teeth of the portcullis
+were drawn down over the mouth of the gate; and as a beast crouched
+on the mountain-side, the fortress guarded its prey. Yet, be the teeth
+clenched never so fast, they shall be broken and riven asunder; and the
+grave in the courtyard within shall yield up her dead. For the Christian
+hosts are marching, marching in mighty procession to their sacramental
+feast of blood, as marches an army of famished rats to the gleaning; and
+their cry is: "Give! Give!" and they say not: "It is enough."
+
+"Wilt thou not be satisfied? For these men was I sacrificed; thou hast
+destroyed me that they might live; and behold, they march everyone on
+his ways, and they shall not break their ranks.
+
+"This is the army of Christians, the followers of thy God; a great
+people and a strong. A fire devoureth before them, and behind them a
+flame burneth; the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind
+them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them."
+
+"Oh, yet come back, come back to me, beloved; for I repent me of my
+choice! Come back, and we will creep away together, to some dark and
+silent grave where the devouring army shall not find us; and we will lay
+us down there, locked in one another's arms, and sleep, and sleep, and
+sleep. And the hungry Christians shall pass by in the merciless daylight
+above our heads; and when they howl for blood to drink and for flesh to
+eat, their cry shall be faint in our ears; and they shall pass on their
+ways and leave us to our rest."
+
+And It answered yet again:
+
+"Where shall I hide me? Is it not written: 'They shall run to and fro
+in the city; they shall run upon the wall; they shall climb up upon the
+houses; they shall enter in at the windows like a thief?' If I build me
+a tomb on the mountain-top, shall they not break it open? If I dig me a
+grave in the river-bed, shall they not tear it up? Verily, they are keen
+as blood-hounds to seek out their prey; and for them are my wounds red,
+that they may drink. Canst thou not hear them, what they sing?"
+
+And they sang, as they went in between the scarlet curtains of the
+Cathedral door; for the procession was over, and all the roses were
+strewn:
+
+
+       "Ave, verum Corpus, natum
+        De Maria Virgine:
+        Vere passum, immolatum
+        In cruce pro homine!
+        Cujus latus perforatum
+        Undam fluxit cum sanguinae;
+        Esto nobis praegustatum
+        Mortis in examinae."
+
+
+And when they had left off singing, he entered at the doorway, and
+passed between the silent rows of monks and priests, where they knelt,
+each man in his place, with the lighted candles uplifted. And he saw
+their hungry eyes fixed on the sacred Body that he bore; and he knew why
+they bowed their heads as he passed. For the dark stream ran down the
+folds of his white vestments; and on the stones of the Cathedral floor
+his footsteps left a deep, red stain.
+
+So he passed up the nave to the chancel rails; and there the bearers
+paused, and he went out from under the canopy and up to the altar steps.
+To left and right the white-robed acolytes knelt with their censers and
+the chaplains with their torches; and their eyes shone greedily in the
+flaring light as they watched the Body of the Victim.
+
+And as he stood before the altar, holding aloft with blood-stained hands
+the torn and mangled body of his murdered love, the voices of the guests
+bidden to the Eucharistic feast rang out in another peal of song:
+
+
+       "Oh salutaris Hostia,
+        Quae coeli pandis ostium;
+        Bella praemunt hostilia,
+        Da robur, fer, auxilium!"
+
+
+Ah, and now they come to take the Body----Go then, dear heart, to thy
+bitter doom, and open the gates of heaven for these ravening wolves that
+will not be denied. The gates that are opened for me are the gates of
+the nethermost hell.
+
+And as the deacon of honour placed the sacred vessel on the altar,
+Montanelli sank down where he had stood, and knelt upon the step; and
+from the white altar above him the blood flowed down and dripped upon
+his head. And the voices of the singers rang on, pealing under the
+arches and echoing along the vaulted roof:
+
+
+       "Uni trinoque Domino
+        Sit sempiterna gloria:
+        Qui vitam sine termino
+        Nobis donet in patria."
+
+
+"Sine termino--sine termino!" Oh, happy Jesus, Who could sink beneath
+His cross! Oh, happy Jesus, Who could say: "It is finished!" This doom
+is never ended; it is eternal as the stars in their courses. This is the
+worm that dieth not and the fire that is not quenched. "Sine termino,
+sine termino!"
+
+Wearily, patiently, he went through his part in the remaining
+ceremonies, fulfilling mechanically, from old habit, the rites that had
+no longer any meaning for him. Then, after the benediction, he knelt
+down again before the altar and covered his face; and the voice of the
+priest reading aloud the list of indulgences swelled and sank like a
+far-off murmur from a world to which he belonged no more.
+
+The voice broke off, and he stood up and stretched out his hand for
+silence. Some of the congregation were moving towards the doors; and
+they turned back with a hurried rustle and murmur, as a whisper went
+through the Cathedral:
+
+"His Eminence is going to speak."
+
+His ministers, startled and wondering, drew closer to him and one of
+them whispered hastily: "Your Eminence, do you intend to speak to the
+people now?"
+
+Montanelli silently waved him aside. The priests drew back, whispering
+together; the thing was unusual, even irregular; but it was within
+the Cardinal's prerogative if he chose to do it. No doubt, he had some
+statement of exceptional importance to make; some new reform from Rome
+to announce or a special communication from the Holy Father.
+
+Montanelli looked down from the altar-steps upon the sea of upturned
+faces. Full of eager expectancy they looked up at him as he stood above
+them, spectral and still and white.
+
+"Sh-sh! Silence!" the leaders of the procession called softly; and the
+murmuring of the congregation died into stillness, as a gust of wind
+dies among whispering tree-tops. All the crowd gazed up, in breathless
+silence, at the white figure on the altar-steps. Slowly and steadily he
+began to speak:
+
+"It is written in the Gospel according to St. John: 'God so loved the
+world, that He gave His only begotten Son that the world through Him
+might be saved.'
+
+"This is the festival of the Body and Blood of the Victim who was slain
+for your salvation; the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the
+world; the Son of God, Who died for your transgressions. And you are
+assembled here in solemn festival array, to eat of the sacrifice that
+was given for you, and to render thanks for this great mercy. And I know
+that this morning, when you came to share in the banquet, to eat of the
+Body of the Victim, your hearts were filled with joy, as you remembered
+the Passion of God the Son, Who died, that you might be saved.
+
+"But tell me, which among you has thought of that other Passion--of the
+Passion of God the Father, Who gave His Son to be crucified? Which of
+you has remembered the agony of God the Father, when He bent from His
+throne in the heavens above, and looked down upon Calvary?
+
+"I have watched you to-day, my people, as you walked in your ranks in
+solemn procession; and I have seen that your hearts are glad within you
+for the remission of your sins, and that you rejoice in your salvation.
+Yet I pray you that you consider at what price that salvation was
+bought. Surely it is very precious, and the price of it is above rubies;
+it is the price of blood."
+
+A faint, long shudder passed through the listening crowd. In the chancel
+the priests bent forward and whispered to one another; but the preacher
+went on speaking, and they held their peace.
+
+"Therefore it is that I speak with you this day: I AM THAT I AM. For I
+looked upon your weakness and your sorrow, and upon the little children
+about your feet; and my heart was moved to compassion for their sake,
+that they must die. Then I looked into my dear son's eyes; and I knew
+that the Atonement of Blood was there. And I went my way, and left him
+to his doom.
+
+"This is the remission of sins. He died for you, and the darkness has
+swallowed him up; he is dead, and there is no resurrection; he is dead,
+and I have no son. Oh, my boy, my boy!"
+
+The Cardinal's voice broke in a long, wailing cry; and the voices of the
+terrified people answered it like an echo. All the clergy had risen from
+their places, and the deacons of honour started forward to lay their
+hands on the preacher's arm. But he wrenched it away, and faced them
+suddenly, with the eyes of an angry wild beast.
+
+"What is this? Is there not blood enough? Wait your turn, jackals; you
+shall all be fed!"
+
+They shrank away and huddled shivering together, their panting
+breath thick and loud, their faces white with the whiteness of chalk.
+Montanelli turned again to the people, and they swayed and shook before
+him, as a field of corn before a hurricane.
+
+"You have killed him! You have killed him! And I suffered it, because I
+would not let you die. And now, when you come about me with your lying
+praises and your unclean prayers, I repent me--I repent me that I have
+done this thing! It were better that you all should rot in your vices,
+in the bottomless filth of damnation, and that he should live. What is
+the worth of your plague-spotted souls, that such a price should be paid
+for them? But it is too late--too late! I cry aloud, but he does not
+hear me; I beat at the door of the grave, but he will not wake; I stand
+alone, in desert space, and look around me, from the blood-stained earth
+where the heart of my heart lies buried, to the void and awful heaven
+that is left unto me, desolate. I have given him up; oh, generation of
+vipers, I have given him up for you!
+
+"Take your salvation, since it is yours! I fling it to you as a bone is
+flung to a pack of snarling curs! The price of your banquet is paid for
+you; come, then, and gorge yourselves, cannibals, bloodsuckers--carrion
+beasts that feed on the dead! See where the blood streams down from the
+altar, foaming and hot from my darling's heart--the blood that was shed
+for you! Wallow and lap it and smear yourselves red with it! Snatch and
+fight for the flesh and devour it--and trouble me no more! This is the
+body that was given for you--look at it, torn and bleeding, throbbing
+still with the tortured life, quivering from the bitter death-agony;
+take it, Christians, and eat!"
+
+He had caught up the sun with the Host and lifted it above his head; and
+now flung it crashing down upon the floor. At the ring of the metal on
+stone the clergy rushed forward together, and twenty hands seized the
+madman.
+
+Then, and only then, the silence of the people broke in a wild,
+hysterical scream; and, overturning chairs and benches, beating at the
+doorways, trampling one upon another, tearing down curtains and garlands
+in their haste, the surging, sobbing human flood poured out upon the
+street.
+
+
+
+EPILOGUE.
+
+
+"GEMMA, there's a man downstairs who wants to see you." Martini spoke in
+the subdued tone which they had both unconsciously adopted during these
+last ten days. That, and a certain slow evenness of speech and movement,
+were the sole expression which either of them gave to their grief.
+
+Gemma, with bare arms and an apron over her dress, was standing at a
+table, putting up little packages of cartridges for distribution. She
+had stood over the work since early morning; and now, in the glaring
+afternoon, her face looked haggard with fatigue.
+
+"A man, Cesare? What does he want?"
+
+"I don't know, dear. He wouldn't tell me. He said he must speak to you
+alone."
+
+"Very well." She took off her apron and pulled down the sleeves of her
+dress. "I must go to him, I suppose; but very likely it's only a spy."
+
+"In any case, I shall be in the next room, within call. As soon as
+you get rid of him you had better go and lie down a bit. You have been
+standing too long to-day."
+
+"Oh, no! I would rather go on working."
+
+She went slowly down the stairs, Martini following in silence. She had
+grown to look ten years older in these few days, and the gray streak
+across her hair had widened into a broad band. She mostly kept her eyes
+lowered now; but when, by chance, she raised them, he shivered at the
+horror in their shadows.
+
+In the little parlour she found a clumsy-looking man standing with his
+heels together in the middle of the floor. His whole figure and the
+half-frightened way he looked up when she came in, suggested to her that
+he must be one of the Swiss guards. He wore a countryman's blouse,
+which evidently did not belong to him, and kept glancing round as though
+afraid of detection.
+
+"Can you speak German?" he asked in the heavy Zurich patois.
+
+"A little. I hear you want to see me."
+
+"You are Signora Bolla? I've brought you a letter."
+
+"A--letter?" She was beginning to tremble, and rested one hand on the
+table to steady herself.
+
+"I'm one of the guard over there." He pointed out of the window to the
+fortress on the hill. "It's from--the man that was shot last week. He
+wrote it the night before. I promised him I'd give it into your own hand
+myself."
+
+She bent her head down. So he had written after all.
+
+"That's why I've been so long bringing it," the soldier went on. "He
+said I was not to give it to anyone but you, and I couldn't get off
+before--they watched me so. I had to borrow these things to come in."
+
+He was fumbling in the breast of his blouse. The weather was hot, and
+the sheet of folded paper that he pulled out was not only dirty and
+crumpled, but damp. He stood for a moment shuffling his feet uneasily;
+then put up one hand and scratched the back of his head.
+
+"You won't say anything," he began again timidly, with a distrustful
+glance at her. "It's as much as my life's worth to have come here."
+
+"Of course I shall not say anything. No, wait a minute----"
+
+As he turned to go, she stopped him, feeling for her purse; but he drew
+back, offended.
+
+"I don't want your money," he said roughly. "I did it for him--because
+he asked me to. I'd have done more than that for him. He'd been good to
+me--God help me!"
+
+The little catch in his voice made her look up. He was slowly rubbing a
+grimy sleeve across his eyes.
+
+"We had to shoot," he went on under his breath; "my mates and I. A man
+must obey orders. We bungled it, and had to fire again--and he laughed
+at us--he called us the awkward squad--and he'd been good to me----"
+
+There was silence in the room. A moment later he straightened himself
+up, made a clumsy military salute, and went away.
+
+She stood still for a little while with the paper in her hand; then
+sat down by the open window to read. The letter was closely written in
+pencil, and in some parts hardly legible. But the first two words stood
+out quite clear upon the page; and they were in English:
+
+"Dear Jim."
+
+The writing grew suddenly blurred and misty. And she had lost him
+again--had lost him again! At the sight of the familiar childish
+nickname all the hopelessness of her bereavement came over her afresh,
+and she put out her hands in blind desperation, as though the weight of
+the earth-clods that lay above him were pressing on her heart.
+
+Presently she took up the paper again and went on reading:
+
+
+"I am to be shot at sunrise to-morrow. So if I am to keep at all my
+promise to tell you everything, I must keep it now. But, after all,
+there is not much need of explanations between you and me. We always
+understood each other without many words, even when we were little
+things.
+
+"And so, you see, my dear, you had no need to break your heart over
+that old story of the blow. It was a hard hit, of course; but I have had
+plenty of others as hard, and yet I have managed to get over them,--even
+to pay back a few of them,--and here I am still, like the mackerel in
+our nursery-book (I forget its name), 'Alive and kicking, oh!' This
+is my last kick, though; and then, to-morrow morning, and--'Finita la
+Commedia!' You and I will translate that: 'The variety show is over';
+and will give thanks to the gods that they have had, at least, so much
+mercy on us. It is not much, but it is something; and for this and all
+other blessings may we be truly thankful!
+
+"About that same to-morrow morning, I want both you and Martini to
+understand clearly that I am quite happy and satisfied, and could ask no
+better thing of Fate. Tell that to Martini as a message from me; he is a
+good fellow and a good comrade, and he will understand. You see, dear,
+I know that the stick-in-the-mud people are doing us a good turn and
+themselves a bad one by going back to secret trials and executions so
+soon, and I know that if you who are left stand together steadily and
+hit hard, you will see great things. As for me, I shall go out into
+the courtyard with as light a heart as any child starting home for the
+holidays. I have done my share of the work, and this death-sentence is
+the proof that I have done it thoroughly. They kill me because they are
+afraid of me; and what more can any man's heart desire?
+
+"It desires just one thing more, though. A man who is going to die has
+a right to a personal fancy, and mine is that you should see why I have
+always been such a sulky brute to you, and so slow to forget old scores.
+Of course, though, you understand why, and I tell you only for the
+pleasure of writing the words. I loved you, Gemma, when you were an ugly
+little girl in a gingham frock, with a scratchy tucker and your hair in
+a pig-tail down your back; and I love you still. Do you remember that
+day when I kissed your hand, and when you so piteously begged me 'never
+to do that again'? It was a scoundrelly trick to play, I know; but you
+must forgive that; and now I kiss the paper where I have written your
+name. So I have kissed you twice, and both times without your consent.
+
+"That is all. Good-bye, my dear."
+
+
+There was no signature, but a verse which they had learned together as
+children was written under the letter:
+
+
+                "Then am I
+                 A happy fly,
+                 If I live
+                 Or if I die."
+
+    *****
+
+Half an hour later Martini entered the room, and, startled out of the
+silence of half a life-time, threw down the placard he was carrying and
+flung his arms about her.
+
+"Gemma! What is it, for God's sake? Don't sob like that--you that never
+cry! Gemma! Gemma, my darling!"
+
+"Nothing, Cesare; I will tell you afterwards--I--can't talk about it
+just now."
+
+She hurriedly slipped the tear-stained letter into her pocket; and,
+rising, leaned out of the window to hide her face. Martini held his
+tongue and bit his moustache. After all these years he had betrayed
+himself like a schoolboy--and she had not even noticed it!
+
+"The Cathedral bell is tolling," she said after a little while, looking
+round with recovered self-command. "Someone must be dead."
+
+"That is what I came to show you," Martini answered in his everyday
+voice. He picked up the placard from the floor and handed it to her.
+Hastily printed in large type was a black-bordered announcement that:
+"Our dearly beloved Bishop, His Eminence the Cardinal, Monsignor Lorenzo
+Montanelli," had died suddenly at Ravenna, "from the rupture of an
+aneurism of the heart."
+
+She glanced up quickly from the paper, and Martini answered the unspoken
+suggestion in her eyes with a shrug of his shoulders.
+
+"What would you have, Madonna? Aneurism is as good a word as any other."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Gadfly, by E. L. Voynich
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