"If it would assist you to extricate Ella, I would tell you," she
assured me quickly. "But it would not."
"Any fact to the scoundrel's detriment is of interest to me," I
declared.
"But you have already said that you yourself are a witness against him,"
she remarked. "What more do you want? The evidence which you and your
friend whom you say he robbed could give would be sufficient to send him
to prison, would it not?"
"I know. But I must prove more. Remember he has entrapped my Ella.
She is struggling helplessly in the web which he has woven about her."
"Much as I regret all the circumstances, Mr Leaf, I can see that it is
against my own interests if I say anything further," was her calm reply.
"I have already given you an outline of the strange combination of
circumstances and the unscrupulousness of two villains which has
resulted in my present terrible position of doubt in the present and
uncertainty of the future. The story, if I related it, would sound too
strange to you to be the truth. And yet it only illustrates the evil
that men do, even in these prosaic modern days."
"Then you intend to again leave me in ignorance, even though my love's
happiness is at stake?"
"My own life is also at stake."
"And yet you refuse to allow me to assist you--you decline to tell me
the truth by which I could confound this man who is your bitterest
enemy!"
"Because it is all hopeless," was her answer. "Had Nardini but spoken,
I could have defied him. His refusal has sealed my doom," she added, in
a voice of blank despair.
"But your words are so mysterious I can't understand them!" I declared,
filled with chagrin at her refusal to make any statement. She was in
fear of me, that was evident. Why, I could not for the life of me
discern.
"I have merely told you the brief facts. The details you would find far
more puzzling."
"Then to speak frankly, although you have never openly quarrelled with
the lieutenant, you fear him?"
"That is so. He can denounce me--I mean he can make a terrible charge
against me which I am unable to refute," she admitted breathlessly.
"And yet you will not allow me to help you! You disagree with my plan
to denounce the scoundrel and let him take his well-deserved punishment!
I must say I really can't understand you," I declared.
"Perhaps not to-day. But some day you will discern the reason why I
decline to confess to you the whole truth," was her firm reply.
And I looked at her slim tragic figure in silence and in wonder.
What was the end to be? Was she aware that her father was the leader of
that association of well-dressed thieves, or was she in ignorance of it?
That was a question I could not yet decide.
I thought of Ella--my own Ella. It was she whom I had determined to
save. That was my duty; a duty to perform before all others, and in
defiance of all else. She loved me. She had admitted that. Therefore
I would leave no stone unturned on her behalf, no matter how it might
affect the stubbornly silent girl at my side.
I saw that I could not serve them both. Ella was my chief thought. She
should, in future, be my only thought.
"I much regret all this," I said to Lucie somewhat coldly. "And pardon
me for saying so, but I think that if you had spoken frankly this
evening much of the trouble in the future would be saved. But as you
are determined to say nothing, I am simply compelled to act as I think
best in Ella's interests."
"Act just as you will, Mr Leaf," was her rather defiant response. "I
trust, however, you will do nothing rash nor injudicious--nothing that
may injure her, instead of benefit her. As for myself, to hope to
assist me is utterly out of the question. The die is cast. Nardini
intended that disgrace and death should fall upon me, or he would have
surely spoken," and sighing hopelessly she added: "I have only to await
the end, and pray that it will not be long in coming. This suspense I
cannot bear much longer, looking as I daily do into the open grave
which, on the morrow, may be mine. Heaven knows the tortures I endure,
the bitter regrets, the mad hatred, the wistful longing for life and
happiness, those two things that never now can be mine. Place yourself
in my position, and try and imagine that whatever may be your life,
there is but one sudden and shameful end--suicide."
"You look upon things in far too morbid a light," I declared, not,
however, without some sympathy. "There is a bright lining to every
cloud' the old adage says. Try and look forward to that."
She shook her head despairingly.
"No," she answered, with a short bitter laugh. "Proverbs are for the
prosperous--not for the condemned."
I remained with her for some time longer, trying in vain to induce her
to reveal the truth. In her stubborn refusal I recognised her
determination to conceal some fact concerning her father, yet whether
she knew the real truth or not I was certainly unable to determine.
The revelation that Ella was acquainted with Gordon-Wright alias the
Lieutenant held her utterly confounded. She seemed to discern in it an
increased peril for herself, and yet she would tell me nothing--
absolutely nothing.
The situation was tantalising--nay maddening. I intended to save my
well-beloved at all costs, yet how was I to do so?
To denounce the adventurer would, she had herself declared, only bring
ruin upon her. Therefore my hands were tied and the cowardly blackguard
must triumph.
The soft Italian twilight fell, and the street lamps along the broad
promenade below were everywhere springing up, while to the right the
high stone lighthouse, that beacon to the mariner in the Mediterranean,
shot its long streams of white light far across the darkening sea.
From one of the open-air _cafe-chantants_ in the vicinity came up the
sound of light music and the trill of a female voice singing a French
_chansonette_, for a rehearsal was in progress. And again a youth
passing chanted gaily one of those _stornelli d'amore_ which is heard
everywhere in fair Tuscany, in the olive groves, in the vineyards, in
the streets, in the barracks, that ancient half dirge, half-plaintive
song, the same that has been sung for ages and ages by the youths in
love:--
Mazzo di fiori!
Si vede il viso, e non si vede il core
Tu se' un bel viso, ma non m'innamori.
Lucie heard the words and smiled.
The song just described my position at that moment. I saw her face but
could not see her heart. She was beautiful, but not my love.