PART II

A LADY OF ROME

[Illustration]

A LADY OF ROME

BY

F. MARION CRAWFORD

AUTHOR OF “SARACINESCA,” “FAIR MARGARET,” ETC.

New York

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.

1906

_All rights reserved_

COPYRIGHT, 1906,

BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1906.

Norwood Press

J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.

Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

CONTENTS

PART I

PAGE

MARIA 1

CHAPTER I 3

CHAPTER II 24

CHAPTER III 47

CHAPTER IV 73

CHAPTER V 86

CHAPTER VI 98

CHAPTER VII 114

CHAPTER VIII 132

CHAPTER IX 140

CHAPTER X 148

CHAPTER XI 162

CHAPTER XII 181

PART II

THE COUNTESS OF MONTALTO 197

CHAPTER XIII 199

CHAPTER XIV 221

CHAPTER XV 228

CHAPTER XVI 242

CHAPTER XVII 255

CHAPTER XVIII 267

CHAPTER XIX 289

CHAPTER XX 307

CHAPTER XXI 320

CHAPTER XXII 328

CHAPTER XXIII 335

CHAPTER XXIV 353

CHAPTER XXV 374

PART I

MARIA

CHAPTER I

Maria Montalto was dressed as a Neapolitan Acquaiola and kept the

lemonade stall at the Kermess in Villa Borghese. The villa has

lately changed its official name, and not for the first time in

its history, but it will take as long to accustom Romans to speak

of it as Villa Umberto as it once did before they could give up

calling it Villa Cenci. For the modern Romans are conservative

people, who look with contempt or indifference on the changes of

nomenclature which are imposed from time to time by their municipal

representatives.

The lady was selling iced lemonade, syrup of almonds, and tamarind

to the smart and the vulgar, the just and the unjust alike; and

her dress consisted of a crimson silk skirt embroidered with gold

lace, a close-fitting low bodice that matched it more or less and

confined the fine linen she wore, which was a little open at the

throat and was picked up with red ribband at the elbows, besides

being embroidered in the old-fashioned Neapolitan way. She had

a handsome string of pink corals round her neck, Sicilian gold

earrings hung at her ears, and a crimson silk handkerchief was tied

over her dark hair with a knot behind her head.

She was very good-looking, and every one said the costume was

becoming to her; and as she was not at all vain, she enjoyed her

little success of prettiness very much. After all, she was barely

seven-and-twenty and had a right to look five years younger in a

fancy dress. She was not really a widow, though many of her friends

had fallen into the habit of treating her as if she were. It was

seven years since Montalto had left her and had gone to live with

his mother in Spain.

They had only lived together two years when he had gone away, and

observant people said that Maria had not grown a day older since,

whereas they had noticed a very great change in her appearance soon

after she had been married. It was quite absurd that at twenty she

should have had a little patch of grey by her left temple just

where the dark hair waved naturally. At that rate we should all be

old at thirty.

The observant ones had noticed another odd thing about Maria

Montalto. Her girl friends remembered especially a certain fearless

look in her eyes, which were not black, though they were almost

too dark to be called brown, and used to be most wonderfully full

of warm light in her girlhood. But she had not been married many

months, perhaps not many weeks, when a great change had come into

them, and instead of fearlessness her friends had seen the very

opposite in them, a look of continual terror, a haunted look,

the look of a woman who lives in perpetual dread of a terrible

catastrophe. It had been there before her boy was born, and it was

there afterwards; later she had been ill for some time, after which

Montalto had gone away, and since that day her eyes had changed

again.

There was no terror in them now, but there was the perpetual

remembrance of something that had hurt very much. I once knew a man

who had been tortured by savages for twenty-four hours, and his

eyes had that same expression ever afterwards. In the Middle Ages,

when torture was the common instrument of the law, many persons

must have gone about with that memory of suffering in their eyes,

plain for every one to see. Maria looked as if she had undergone

bodily torture, which she remembered, but no longer feared.

After all, her trouble had left no lines in her young features, nor

anything but that singular expression of her eyes and that tiny

patch of white in her hair. Her face was rather pale, but with that

delicious warm pallor which often goes with perfect health in dark

people of the more refined type, and the crimson kerchief certainly

set it off very well, as the corals did, too, and the queer little

Sicilian earrings.

The booth was gaily decorated with fresh oranges and lemons still

hanging on their branches with fresh green leaves, and with many

little coloured flags; the small swinging ‘trumone’ in which the

water was iced hung in a yoke of polished brass, and the bright

glasses and the bottles of syrup stood near Maria’s hand on the

shining metal counter.

It was a very delicately made hand, but it did not look weak, and

it moved quickly and deftly among the glasses without any useless

clatter or unnecessary spilling and splashing of water. Hands, like

faces, have expressions, and the difference is that the expression

of the hand changes but little in many years. No artist could have

glanced at Maria’s without feeling that it had a sad look about it,

a something regretful and tender which would have made any manly

man wish to take it in his and comfort it.

The people who came to the booth gave silver for a glass of

lemonade, and some gave gold, and many of them told Maria plainly

that she was the prettiest sight in all the great fair. Most of

those who came had never seen her before in their lives and had no

idea who she was, though her name was one of those great ones that

every Roman knows.

A handsome young bricklayer who had paid a franc for a glass of

syrup of almonds, and who had boldly told Maria that she was the

beauty of the day, asked a policeman her name.

‘The Contessa di Montalto.’

The young man looked pleased, for he had secretly hoped to hear

that she was nothing less than a Savelli or a Frangipane; not at

all for the sake of boasting that he had received his glass from

such very superior hands, but only for the honour of Rome. Yet

though the name was familiar to him because he knew where the

palace was, he had imagined that the family had died out.

‘Which is this Montalto?’ he asked.

The policeman could not answer the question, and his official face

was like a stone mask. But the bricklayer had a friend who was

engaged to marry a sempstress who worked for a smart dressmaker,

and therefore knew all about society; and in the course of time

he found the two walking about, and offered to pay for lemonade

if they would come to the booth with him. They were not thirsty,

and thanked him politely, so he asked the young woman who this

Contessa di Montalto might be. She threw up her eyes with an air of

compassion.

‘Ah, poor lady!’ she cried. ‘That is a long story, for she has

been alone these seven years since her husband left her. He was a

barbarian, a man without heart, to leave her! Was it her fault if

she had loved some one else before she was married to him?’

‘Adelina is a socialist,’ observed the young woman’s betrothed,

with a laugh. ‘She believes in free love! It is all very well now,

my heart,’ he added, looking at her with adoring eyes, ‘but after

we have been to the Capitol you shall be a conservative.’

‘Oh, indeed? I suppose you will beat me if I look at your friend

here?’ She pretended to be angry.

‘No. I am not a barbarian like the Conte di Montalto. But I will

cut off your little head with a handsaw.’

He was a carpenter. There were Romans of all sorts in the Villa,

the smart and the vulgar, the rich and the poor, and the rich man

who felt poor because he had lost a few thousands at cards, and

the poor man who felt rich because he had won twenty francs at

the public lottery. The high and mighty were there, buzzing about

royalties on foot, and there were the lowly and meek, eating cheap

cakes under the stone pines and looking on from a distance. There

were also some of the low who were not meek at all, but excessively

cheeky because they had been told that all men are equal, and

had paid their money at the gate in order to prove the fact by

jostling their betters and staring insolently at modest girls whose

fathers chanced to be gentlemen. These youngsters could be easily

distinguished by their small pot hats stuck on one side, their red

ties, and their unhealthy faces.

At some distance from Maria Montalto’s booth there was another,

where a number of Roman ladies chanced to have met just then and

were discussing their friends. Most of them had a genuinely good

word for Maria.

‘I have not seen her in colours since her boy was born,’ said the

elderly Princess Campodonico. ‘She is positively adorable!’

‘What is her story, mother?’ asked the Princess’s daughter, a slim

and rather prim damsel of seventeen.

‘Her story, my dear?’ inquired the lady with a sort of stony stare.

‘What in the world can you mean?’ She turned to a friend as stout,

as high-born, and as cool as herself. ‘I hear you have ordered a

faster motor car,’ she said.

The slim girl was used to her mother’s danger signals, and she

turned where she stood and looked wistfully and curiously at Maria

di Montalto, who was some twenty yards away.

‘As if I were not old enough to hear anything!’ the young lady was

saying to herself.

Then she was aware that the two elder women were talking in an

undertone, and not at all about motor cars.

‘He is in Rome,’ she heard her mother say. ‘Gianforte saw him

yesterday.’ Gianforte was the Princess’s husband.

‘Do you mean to say he has the courage to----’ began the other.

‘Or the insolence,’ suggested the first.

Then both saw that the girl was listening, and they at once

talked of other things. There is an age at which almost every

half-grown-up girl is figuratively always at an imaginary keyhole

ready to surprise a long-suspected secret, though often innocently

unconscious of her own alert curiosity. This seems to have been the

attitude of Eve herself when she met the Serpent, and though we

are told that Adam was much distressed at the consequences of the

interview, there is no mention of any regret or penitence on the

part of his more enterprising mate.

So the slim and prim Angelica Campodonico, aged barely seventeen,

wondered what Maria Montalto’s story might be, and just then she

felt the strongest possible desire to go over to the lemonade booth

to tell the pretty Countess confidentially that ‘he’ was in Rome,

whoever ‘he’ was, and to see how the lady would behave. Would she

think that his coming showed ‘courage’ or ‘insolence’? It was

all intensely interesting, and the girl would have been bitterly

disappointed if she could have known that within twenty minutes

of her going away ‘he’ would actually be present and would have

the insolence--or the courage!--to go directly to the Countess of

Montalto’s booth and speak to her under the very eyes of society.

Unhappily for the satisfaction of Angelica’s curiosity her mother

took her away, and it was a long time before she learned the truth

about Maria.

The Countess was not alone in her booth; indeed, she could not have

done the manual work without a good deal of help, for at times

there had been a dozen people standing before her little counter,

all impatient and thirsty, and all ready to pay an exorbitant

price for even a glass of water, in the name of charity. Therefore

she not only had one of her own servants at work, out of sight

in the little tent behind her, but several men who were more or

less friends of hers had succeeded each other as her assistants

during the long afternoon. They belonged to the younger generation

of Romans, a set of young men whom their parents certainly never

dreamt that they were rearing and whom their grandfathers and

grandmothers count with the sons of Belial, largely because they

love their country better than the decrepit and forlorn traditions

of other days. Forty years ago it would not have occurred to a

Roman gentleman to call himself an Italian, but to-day most of his

children call themselves Italians first and Romans afterwards, and

to these younger ones Italy is a great reality. It is true that

Romans have not lost their dislike of the inhabitants of almost all

other Italian cities, whether of the south or the north. The Roman

dislikes the Neapolitan, the Piedmontese and the Bolognese with

small difference of degree, and very much as they and the rest all

dislike each other. Italy has its sects, like Christianity, which

mostly live on bad terms with each other when forcibly brought

together in peaceable private life--like Presbyterians, Methodists,

Anglicans, and Baptists, not to mention Roman Catholics. But as it

is to be hoped that all Christians would unite against an inroad of

heathens, so it is quite certain that all Italians would now stand

loyally together for their country against any enemy that should

try to dismember it. No one who can recall the old time before the

unification can help seeing what has been built up. It is a good

thing, it is a monument in the history of a race; as it grows, the

petty landmarks of past politics disappear in the distance, to be

forgotten, or at least forgiven, and the mountain of what Italy has

accomplished stands out boldly in the political geography of modern

Europe.

Moreover, those who are too young to have helped in the work are

nevertheless proud of what has been done; and this is itself a form

of patriotism that brings with it the honest and good hope of doing

something in the near future not unworthy of what was well done in

the recent past.

The young men who helped Maria Montalto to mix lemonade and almond

syrup for her stall were of this generation, all between twenty

and thirty years old, and mostly of those who follow the line of

least resistance from the start of life to the finish. They are

all easily amused, because in their hearts they wish to be amused,

and for the same reason they are easily bored when there is no

amusement at all in the air. They are not bad fellows, they are

often good sportsmen, and they are generally not at all vicious.

They are not particularly good, it is true, but then they are very

far from bad. They have less time for flirting and general mischief

than their fathers had, because it now seems to be necessary to

spend many hours of each day in a high-speed motor car, which is

not conducive to the growth and blooming of the passion flower. It

does not promote the development of the intelligence either, but

that is a secondary consideration with people who need never know

that they have minds. Morally, motoring is probably a good rather

than an evil. People who live in constant danger of their lives are

usually much more honest and fearless than those who dawdle through

an existence of uneventful safety. The soldier in time of peace

was the butt and laughing-stock of the ancients in the comedies

of Plautus and Terence, and of the Greeks, whom those playwrights

copied or adapted, but no such contemptuous use has ever been made

of the sailor, whose life is in danger half a dozen times in every

year.

Oderisio Boccapaduli was squeezing a lemon into a glass for Maria

when he saw her hand shake as if it had been struck, and the

spoon which she was going to use for putting the powdered sugar

into the glass fell from her fingers upon the metal counter with

a sharp clatter. Oderisio glanced sideways at her face without

interrupting the squeezing of the lemon, and he saw that the

characteristic warmth had disappeared all at once from her natural

pallor and that her white cheeks looked as cold as if she were in

an ague. She was looking down when she took up the spoon again and

drew the polished brass sugar-can nearer to her. The young man

was quite sure that something had happened to disturb her, and he

could only suppose that she felt suddenly tired and ill, or else

that some one had appeared in sight not far from the booth, whose

presence was unexpected and disagreeable enough to give her a bad

shock.

But he knew much more about her than Angelica Campodonico, for he

was six-and-twenty, and had been seventeen himself when Maria had

married, and nineteen when Montalto had left her; and since he had

finished his military service and had been at large in society he

had learned pretty much all that could be known about people who

belonged to his set. He therefore scrutinised the faces in the near

distance, and presently he saw one which he had not seen in Rome

for several years; once more he glanced sideways at Maria, and her

hand was unsteady as she gave the full glass to a respectable old

gentleman who was waiting for it in an attitude of admiration.

The face was that of a man who was Oderisio’s cousin in a not very

distant degree, and who bore the honourable and historical name of

Baldassare del Castiglione. He was looking straight at Maria and

was coming slowly towards her.

Then Oderisio, who was an honest gentleman, saw that something

unpleasant was going to happen, and on pretence of bringing fresh

glasses from behind the booth, he slipped under the curtain into

the tent; but instead of getting the tumblers he quietly took his

hat and stick and went away, telling the servant that he would send

his brother or a friend to help the Contessa, as he was obliged to

go home. Moreover, he carefully avoided passing in front of the

booth lest Maria should think that he was watching her, and he went

off to another part of the Kermess.

Meanwhile the old gentleman drank his lemonade, and it chanced that

no other customer was at the counter when Castiglione reached it

and took off his hat. He was a square-shouldered man of thirty or

a little less, with short and thick brown hair and a rather heavy

moustache, such as is often affected by cavalrymen; his healthy,

sunburnt face made his rather hard eyes look very blue, and the

well-shaped aquiline nose of the martial type, with the solid

square jaw, conveyed the impression that he was a born fighting

man, easily roused and soon dangerous, somewhat lawless and violent

by nature, but brave and straightforward.

He took off his hat and bowed as he came up, neither stiffly nor at

all familiarly, but precisely as he would have bowed to ninety-nine

women out of a hundred whom he knew. He did not put out his hand,

and he did not speak for a moment, apparently meaning to give Maria

a chance to say something.

Her hand was no longer shaking now, but the warmth had not come

back to her face, and when she slowly looked up and met the man’s

eyes her own were coldly resentful. She did not speak; she merely

met his look steadily, by an effort of will which he was far from

understanding at the moment.

‘I have left Milan on a fortnight’s leave,’ he said quietly. ‘Will

you let me come and see you?’

‘Certainly not.’

The decided answer was given in a voice as calm as his own, but

the tone would have convinced most men that there was to be no

appeal from the direct refusal. Castiglione’s features hardened and

his jaw seemed more square than ever. There was a look of brutal

strength in his face at that moment, though his voice was gentle

when he spoke.

‘Have you never thought of forgiving me?’ he asked.

‘I have prayed that I might.’ Maria fixed her eyes fearlessly on

his.

‘But your prayer has not been answered, I suppose,’ he said, with

some contempt, and with an evident lack of belief in the efficacy

of prayer in general.

‘No,’ Maria answered. ‘God has not yet granted what I ask every

day.’

Castiglione looked at her still. It was strange that the face of

such a man should be capable of many shades of expression, so

subtle that only a portrait painter of genius could have defined

them and reproduced any one of them, while most men would hardly

have noticed them all. Yet every woman with whom he talked felt

that his face often said more than his words.

The keen blue light in his eyes softened at Maria’s simple answer

to his contemptuous speech; the strength was in his face still, but

without the brutality. She saw, and remembered why she had loved

him too well, and when he spoke she turned away lest she should

remember more.

‘I beg your pardon for what I said. I am sorry. Please forgive me.’

‘Yes,’ she answered, ‘I can forgive that, for you did not mean it.’

She looked behind her, for she had been expecting Oderisio to come

back at any moment. The booth was so small that she could lift the

curtain without leaving the counter. She looked under it and saw

that Oderisio was gone, and she guessed that he knew something and

had seen Castiglione coming; instead of being grateful to him for

leaving her, she at first resented his going away and bit her lip;

for she was a very womanly woman, and every woman is annoyed that

any man should know any secret of hers which she has not told him.

But later, when she was thinking over what had happened, she felt

that Oderisio had done what a gentleman should, according to his

lights; for he must have known that the two had not seen each other

for years, and that such a meeting could hardly take place without

some show of feeling on one side or the other.

Castiglione thanked her gently for her answer, and was going to say

more, but she interrupted him, and suddenly began to busy herself

with a lemon and a glass.

‘I am making you a lemonade,’ she said in a low voice. ‘There are

some people we know coming to the booth. Do not turn round to look.’

The new-comers were two rather young women and a man who was not

the husband of either. Castiglione knew them too, as Maria was well

aware, and she would not have let them find him there, talking to

her, without so much as a lemonade for an excuse.

But the necessity for the small artifice, the low tone in which she

had been obliged to speak, and, above all, the close connection of

that necessity with the past, had slightly changed the situation.

‘I shall go to your house to-morrow at three o’clock,’ said

Castiglione in a tone which the approaching party could not

possibly have heard. ‘Not much sugar, if you please,’ he added very

audibly and without pausing a second.

Again she bit her lip a little, and she drew a short breath which

he heard, and she shook her head, but it was impossible to answer

him otherwise, for the three new-comers were close to the booth,

and a moment later they were greeting her and Castiglione. The man

was one of the now numerous Saracinesca tribe, a married son of

the gigantic old Marchese di San Giacinto, who was still alive,

and who had married Flavia Montevarchi nearly forty years earlier.

His companions were the Marchesa di Parenzo, the Roman wife of

a gentleman of Bologna, and Donna Teresa Crescenzi, whose wild

husband had been killed in a motor-car accident at last, and who

was supposed to be looking for another. The Marchesa di Parenzo

was Maria Montalto’s most faithful friend, and Donna Teresa was one

of the most accomplished gossips in Rome.

An accomplished gossip is one who tells stories which sound as if

they might be true. This kind is very dangerous.

Neither of these two ladies knew all the truth about Maria and

Castiglione; the difference between them was that the Marchesa

never talked of the story, whereas Donna Teresa had concocted a

tale which she repeated at intervals in the course of years, with

constantly increasing precision of detail and dramatic sequence,

till society had almost accepted it as an accurate account of what

had taken place.

In actual fact there was not a word of truth in it, except that

Maria and Castiglione had loved each other dearly. Donna Teresa was

a tolerably good-natured woman on the whole, however, and her story

gave Maria credit for the most splendid self-sacrifice and the most

saintly life; it represented Baldassare del Castiglione as a hero

worthy of his knightly ancestor and a perfect Galahad, so far as

Maria was concerned; and it threw every particle of the blame on

Montalto, who had left his wife to go and live in Spain, and was

therefore permanently enrolled amongst those absent friends whose

healths are drunk at family gatherings with a secret prayer that

they may remain absent for ever, and whose characters may be torn

to rags and tatters with perfect safety.

Donna Teresa had reached the point of believing her own story.

She said she had been present at almost every crisis in the two

years’ drama which had so completely separated three people that

they apparently meant never to set eyes on one another again; she

had consoled the lovers, she had inspired them with courage to

sacrifice themselves, and had metaphorically dried their scalding

tears; and she had spoken her mind to that monster of brutality,

the Count of Montalto. In fact, she had contributed to his

determination to go away for ever and to leave his poor young wife

to bring up his son in peace.

Maria knew Donna Teresa’s story well, for her friend Giuliana

Parenzo had told it to her; and as Maria was in no way called upon

to make a public denial of it, she simply said nothing and was

grateful to the gossip for treating her so kindly. Giuliana was not

curious, and if she rightly guessed some part of the secret which

her friend had never told her, she would not for worlds have asked

her a question.

The three new-comers were all in the best possible humour, and the

ladies wore perfectly new spring frocks of the very becoming model

that was in fashion that spring; the one was of the palest grey and

the other of the softest dove-colour. Giuliana was a dark woman

with a quiet face; Teresa Crescenzi was very fair, fairer, perhaps,

than all probability, and when she was excited she screamed.

‘Dear Maria!’ she cried in a high key, after the first words of

greeting. ‘You are quite adorable in that costume! The Princess

Campodonico was saying just now that it is a real pleasure to see

you in colours at last. Maria has worn nothing but black and grey

for seven years,’ added the lively lady, turning to Castiglione.

‘We all are dying of thirst,’ said Giuliana, seeing the look of

annoyance in her friend’s face. ‘We all want lemonade, and we all

want it at once. Won’t you let me come inside and help you?’

‘No, dear,’ answered Maria with a grateful look. ‘I really do not

need help, and you do not look at all like a Neapolitan Acquaiola

in that frock! Besides, Oderisio Boccapaduli is supposed to be my

adjutant, but he has gone off to smoke a cigarette.’

She was very busy, and Donna Teresa turned to Castiglione.

‘And where in the world have you been since I met you in Florence

last year?’ she asked. ‘I thought your regiment was coming to Rome

at the beginning of the winter. I am sure you told me so.’

‘You are quite right. My old regiment came to Rome before

Christmas, but I had already exchanged into another.’

In spite of herself Maria glanced at Castiglione as he spoke, but

he was not looking at her, nor even at Donna Teresa. From the

place where the booth was situated he could see a certain clump of

ilex-trees that grow near what has always been called the Piazza di

Siena, I know not why. Maria saw that his eyes were fixed on that

point, and she shivered a little, as if she felt cold.

‘Why did you exchange?’ Donna Teresa asked, with the shameless

directness of a thoroughly inquisitive woman. ‘Did you quarrel with

your colonel, or fight a duel with a brother officer?’

Castiglione smiled and looked at her.

‘Oh, no! Nothing so serious! It was only because I was sure that

you no longer loved me, dear Teresa!’

The younger generation of Romans, who have grown up more

gregariously than their parents did, very generally call each

other by their first names. Even Giuliana laughed at Castiglione’s

answer, and Maria herself smiled quite naturally. Five minutes

earlier she would not have believed that anything could make her

smile while he stood there, and she was displeased with herself for

being amused. It was as if she had yielded a little where she meant

never to yield again.

Donna Teresa herself laughed louder than Giuliana.

‘The impertinence of the man!’ she screamed. ‘As if I did not know

that curiosity is my besetting sin, without being reminded of it in

that brutal way! I, love you, Balduccio? I detest you! You are an

odious man!’

‘You see!’ he answered. ‘I was quite right to exchange! And since

you admit that you find me odious, this is an excellent moment for

me to go away!’

He put down a gold piece on the metal counter to pay for the

lemonade which he had not drunk, for he was a poor man and could

not afford to be mean. As a matter of fact, the lemonade which

Maria had so hastily begun to make for him had been finished for

Teresa Crescenzi, but no one had noticed that, and it was all for

charity.

Donna Teresa protested that it was atrocious of him to go away,

but he was quite unmoved. He only smiled at everybody, took young

Saracinesca’s outstretched hand and lifted his hat in a vague

way to the three ladies without looking particularly at any

of them. Then he turned and went off at a leisurely pace, and

soon disappeared in the crowd. Teresa watched Maria Montalto’s

face narrowly, but she could not detect the slightest change of

expression in it, either of disappointment or of satisfaction.

Maria had recovered herself and the sweet warmth was in her pale

cheeks again.

The spring sun was low and golden, and for a few moments the pretty

scene took more colour; by some inexplicable law of nature the many

laughing voices rang more musically as the light grew richer, just

before it began to fade. It was the last day of the fair, and Maria

knew that she should never forget it.

Then the chill came that always falls just before sunset in Rome,

and the people felt it and began to hurry away. No one would ask

for another lemonade now.

Before Maria went home she put the money she had taken into a

rather shabby grey velvet bag. For a few moments she stood still,

watching the fast-diminishing crowd in the distance and the

changing light on the trunks of the pines. Then her eyes fell

unawares on the ilexes, and she started and instantly bent down her

head so as not to see them, and her hands tightened a little on

the old velvet bag she held. Without looking up again she turned

and went under the curtain to the back of the booth where her

footman was waiting with a long cloak that quite hid her pretty

costume; and she covered her head and the crimson kerchief with a

thick black lace veil, and went away towards the avenue where her

brougham was waiting.

Just before she reached it, and as if quite by accident, Oderisio

Boccapaduli came strolling by. He helped her to get in and begged

her to excuse him if he had not come back to the booth before she

had left it, adding that he had met his mother, which was quite

true, and that she had detained him, which was a stretch of his

imagination.

‘Get in with me,’ Maria answered as he stood at the open door of

the carriage. ‘If you are going away, too, I will take you into

town and drop you wherever you like.’

He thanked her and accepted the invitation with alacrity, though he

wondered why it was given. He could not have understood that she

was physically afraid to be alone with her memory just then.

CHAPTER II

Maria asked her friend Giuliana Parenzo to lunch with her the next

day. If Baldassare Castiglione came at three o’clock, and if it

seemed wiser not to refuse him the door outright, he should at

least not find her alone.

The Countess occupied one floor of a rather small house in the

broad Via San Martino, near the railway station. It was a sunny

apartment, furnished very simply but very prettily. After her

husband had left her she had declined to accept any allowance

from him and had moved out of the old palace, in which the state

apartment was now shut up, while the rest of the great building

was now occupied by a cardinal, an insurance company, and a rich

Chicago widow. Maria lived on her own fortune, which was not large,

but was enough, as she had been an only child and both her parents

were dead.

Giuliana sat on her right at the small square table, and on her

left was seated a sturdy boy over eight years old, and lately

promoted to sailor’s clothes. Why are all boys now supposed to go

to sea between six and eight or nine, or even until ten and twelve?

Leone was a handsome child. He had thick brown hair and a fair

complexion; his bright blue eyes flashed when he was in a rage,

as he frequently was, and his jaw was already square and strong.

Maria was the only person who could manage him, and was apparently

the only one to whom he could become attached. He behaved very

well with Giuliana Parenzo; but though she did her best to make

him fond of her, she was quite well aware that she never succeeded

in obtaining anything more from him than a kind of amusing boyish

civility and polite toleration. As for nurses, he had made the

lives of several of them so miserable that they would not stay in

the house, and Maria had now emancipated him from women, greatly

to his delight. He submitted with a tolerably good grace to being

dressed and taken to walk by a faithful old man-servant who had

been with Maria’s father before she had been born. He was not

what is commonly known as a ‘naughty boy’; he spoke the truth

fearlessly, and did not seek delight in torturing animals or

insects; but his independence and his power of resistance, passive

and active, were amazing for such a small boy, and he seemed not to

understand what danger was. Maria did not remember that he had ever

cried, either, even when he was in arms. Altogether, at the age of

eight, Leone di Montalto was a personage with whom it was necessary

to reckon.

Maria knew that she loved him almost to the verge of weakness, but

she would not have been the woman she was if she had been carried

beyond that limit. He was all she had left in life, and so far

as lay in her she meant that he should be a Christian gentleman.

Nature seemed to have made him without fear; and Maria would have

him reach a man’s estate without reproach. It was not going to be

easy, but she was determined to succeed. It was the least she could

do to atone for her one great fault.

Without reproach he should grow up, for his very being was a

reproach to her. That was the bitterest thing in her lonely

existence, that the sight of what she loved best, and in the best

way, should always remind her of the blot in her own life, of

that moment of half-consenting weakness when she had been at the

mercy of a desperate, daring, ruthless man whom she could not help

loving. It was cruel that her only great consolation, the one

living creature on whom she had a right to bestow every care and

thought of her loving heart, should for ever call up the vision of

her one and only real sin.

There were moments when the mother’s devotion to her child felt

like a real temptation, when she asked herself in self-torment

whether it was all for the boy alone, or whether some part of it

was not for that which should never be, for what she had fought so

hard to thrust out of her heart since the day when she had married

Montalto, seven years ago. For she had loved Castiglione even

then, and before that, when she had been barely seventeen and he

but twenty, and they had danced together one autumn evening at the

Villa Montalto, at a sort of party that had not been considered

a real party, and to which her mother had taken her because she

wished to go to it herself, or perhaps because she wanted Montalto

to see her pretty daughter and fall in love with her before she

was out of the schoolroom.

And that was what had happened. It had all been fated from the

first. On that very night Montalto fell in love with her, and she

with Baldassare del Castiglione, whom she had called Balduccio,

and who had called her Maria, ever since they had known each other

as little children. On that night she had felt that he was a man,

and no longer a boy. It was the first time she had seen him in his

new officer’s uniform, for it was not a week since he had got his

commission. But she had hardly known Montalto, who had been brought

up much more in Spain and Belgium than in Rome, because his mother

was Spanish and his father had been a block of the old school, who

feared the (godless) education of modern Italy.

Giuliana Parenzo was a year or two older than Maria, and the latter

had felt for her the boundless admiration which very young girls

sometimes have for those slightly older ones in whom they see their

ideals. Giuliana had been a thoroughly good girl, had married

happily, was a thoroughly good wife, and was the conscientious

mother of five children; but she was very far from being the

saintly heroine her friend’s imagination had made of her.

She was morally lucky. Without in the least depreciating the

intrinsic value of her virtue, it is quite fair to ask what she

might have done if she had ever been placed in the same situation

as her friend. But this never happened to her, though she was

apparently not without those gifts and qualities that suggest

enterprise on the part of admirers. She had been a very pretty

girl, and in spite of much uneventful happiness and five children

she was considered to be a beautiful woman at nine-and-twenty; and,

moreover, she was extremely smart. In looks she was not at all like

a rigid Roman matron.

But temptation had not come her way; it had passed by on the other

side, and she could hardly understand how it could exist for

others, since it certainly had never existed for her. There are

people who go through life without accidents; they cross the ocean

in utterly rotten steamers without knowing of the danger, they

travel in the last train that runs before the one that is wrecked,

they go out in high-speed motors with rash amateur chauffeurs who

are killed the very next day, they leave the doomed city on the eve

of the great earthquake, and the theatre five minutes before the

fire breaks out.

Similarly, there are women who are morally so lucky that an

accident to their souls is almost an impossibility. Giuliana

Parenzo was one of them, and Maria’s affection gave her credit for

strength because she had never faced a storm. Not that it mattered

much, after all. The important thing was that Maria, even at the

worst crisis of her young life, had always looked upon her spotless

friend as her guide and her ideal. Yet there had been a time when

it would have been only too easy for her to look another way.

To-day Maria had turned to Giuliana naturally in her difficulty. It

was hardly a trouble yet, but Castiglione’s return and his intended

visit were the first incidents that had disturbed her outwardly

peaceful life in all the seven years that had passed since her

husband had left Rome. The rest had been within her.

It would not last long. Castiglione had said that he had only a

fortnight’s leave, and with the most moderate desire to avoid him,

she need not meet him more than two or three times while he was in

Rome. To refuse to receive him once would perhaps look to him like

fear or weakness, and she believed that she was strong and brave;

yet she did not wish to see him alone, not because she was afraid

of him, but because to be alone with him a few moments, even as she

had been yesterday afternoon, brought the past too near, and it

hurt her.

Giuliana often lunched with her friend, and was far from suspecting

that she had been asked for a special reason to-day. The two talked

of indifferent matters, much as usual, and presently went into the

drawing-room. It was warm already, and the blinds were closed to

keep out the blazing sunlight and the reflection from the white

street. The friends sat near each other, exchanging a few words

now and then, and both were preoccupied, which hindered each from

noticing that the other was so.

Leone knelt on a chair at the window looking down into the street

between the slits of the green blinds.

‘Summer is coming!’ he suddenly called out, turning to look at his

mother.

‘Yes,’ she answered, smiling at him merely because he spoke. ‘It

will come soon.’

‘But do you know why? There are two bersaglieri in linen trousers.’

‘Yes, dear. They have probably been drilling.’

‘No,’ answered the small boy. ‘They have no knapsacks and no

rifles, and they are not dusty. It is because summer is coming that

they wear linen trousers. I can’t see them any more. They walk so

fast, you know. When shall I be a bersagliere, mama?’

‘Would you not rather be a sailor?’ asked Giuliana.

‘Oh, no!’ Leone laughed. ‘A sailor? To sit inside an iron box

and shoot off guns at other iron boxes? That’s not fighting! But

the bersaglieri, they charge the enemy and kill them with their

bayonets. And sometimes they are killed themselves. But that

doesn’t matter, for they have had the glory!’

‘What glory?’ inquired Maria, watching the small boy’s flashing

eyes.

‘They kill the enemies of Italy,’ he answered. ‘That’s glory!’

He turned to look through the blinds again, doubtless in the hope

of seeing more soldiers.

‘Your son certainly has a warlike disposition, my dear,’ laughed

Giuliana.

But Maria did not laugh; on the contrary, she looked rather grave.

‘All boys want to be soldiers,’ she answered. ‘I’m sure yours do,

too!’

‘No,’ said Giuliana, rising. ‘My boys are almost too peaceable! I

sometimes wish they had more of Leone’s spirit!’

Maria looked at her thoughtfully, thinking at first of what she had

said, but suddenly realised that she had left her seat.

‘You are not going already?’ Maria cried in real anxiety.

‘Yes, dear, I must. It’s a quarter past two, and I have to allow

five minutes for driving to the Quirinal.’

‘You did not tell me that you had an audience to-day,’ said Maria,

deeply disappointed. ‘I’m so sorry! I had hoped you would stay with

me, and that we might go out together by and by. How long shall you

be there? Can you not come directly back?’

Giuliana was a little surprised; she shook her head doubtfully.

‘I’ll try to come back, but I really have not the least idea how

long I may be kept. You see, it’s a special audience to talk about

my working women’s institute, and I have so much to say. I really

must be going, dear!’

She glanced again at her little watch, which was fastened high up

on the close-fitting dove-coloured body of her frock by a little

jade bar carved to imitate the twist of a rope, and just then

the very latest invention in the way of indispensable nothings.

Giuliana, without the least coquetry and with very little vanity as

to her appearance, always seemed to have everything new just a week

sooner than any one else. The truth was that her husband was in

love with her, and likely to remain so, and as he had spent a good

deal of his youth in women’s society, he thoroughly understood

such matters; and he superintended the docile and pretty Giuliana’s

toilet with quite as much care as he gave to the direction of his

subordinates, though he was Under-Secretary of State for Foreign

Affairs, with a very promising future before him and a good deal to

do.

Giuliana kissed her friend on both cheeks and said good-bye to

Leone, who did not like to be kissed at all, and in a moment she

was gone.

Maria went to the window where the boy was, and, resting one hand

on his shoulder, she bent down beside him and looked through the

blinds.

‘Have you seen any more soldiers?’ she asked, after a moment, and

as if the question were an important one.

‘Only two,’ he answered. ‘They’re all at dinner now. It’s the

time.’

Her face was close to the child’s as she looked out with him;

and just then he moved his head and his short and thick brown

hair brushed her cheek. She started a little nervously and stood

upright, looking down at the top of his head.

‘What is it, mama?’ he asked without taking his eyes from the

blinds, for just then he saw an officer of the Piedmont Lancers

crossing the street, and the beautiful uniform of that regiment was

always an especially delightful sight.

‘Nothing, darling,’ answered Maria.

As she looked at the short and thick brown hair it seemed to draw

her to it, and she bent slowly, as if she were going to kiss it.

But at that very moment, when her lips were quite near it, her eyes

could see through the blinds, and she caught sight of the officer

before he disappeared.

She drew back and quickly covered her lips with her hand, as if to

put it between her mouth and her child’s head. Castiglione had been

in the Piedmont Lancers before he had exchanged, and the uniform

was the one he had worn when he had first danced with her at the

Villa Montalto, and afterwards, when he had first dined with her

and her husband, and later again, and the last time she had seen

him before he had gone away. The handsome dress was associated with

all her life.

She crossed the room quickly and rang a bell, and waited a

moment, listening for the servant. She would say that she did not

receive, no matter who came. Then she heard footsteps outside the

drawing-room door, and it opened wide and Agostino, the old butler,

announced a visitor.

‘Il Signor Conte del Castiglione.’

When Baldassare entered the room a moment later, Leone had left the

window and was at his mother’s side, holding her hand and eyeing

the man he had never seen, and whose name he had never heard, with

a boy’s boldly inquiring stare; and the blue eyes of the man and of

the child met for the first time.

‘I came early,’ said Castiglione as he advanced, ‘for I was afraid

you might be going to the races.’

‘No,’ Maria answered, steadying herself by the table, ‘I am not

going to the races to-day.’

He held out his hand, and she could not well refuse to take it,

before Leone; its touch was quiet and respectful, and only lasted

an instant, but it was even colder than her own.

‘And this is your son,’ he said, in a rather muffled voice, and he

shook hands with the lad. ‘I’m glad to see you,’ he said. ‘I knew

your mother long before you were born, and we were good friends.

But I have been away all these years. That is the reason why you

have never seen me.’

‘I understand,’ Leone answered. ‘Where have you been?’

Castiglione smiled at the direct question and the unhesitating tone.

‘I have been in many cities. I am a soldier, and have to go where I

am sent.’

At this intelligence Leone felt sure that he had found a new

friend. He looked upon all soldiers as his friends, from the poor

little infantryman in his long grey woollen coat to the King when

he appeared in uniform. He at once laid his hand on Castiglione’s

arm and looked up into his face.

‘Are you a bersagliere?’ the boy asked.

Maria still leant against the table, and as she watched the two,

the man and the boy, and saw their bright blue eyes and their

short and thick brown hair, the room began to move, as if it were

going slowly round her. She had never fainted in her life, but she

realised that unless she made a great effort she must certainly

faint now. She did not hear Castiglione’s answer to the boy’s last

question, but she raised her hand to her mouth, and set her small

teeth upon her forefinger and bit it till a tiny drop of blood

came, and the pain brought her back.

When she could speak steadily she sat down near the closed

fireplace, before which there was a glass screen; she pointed to an

arm-chair opposite, and Castiglione took it.

Leone had been taught that when visitors came in the afternoon he

was to go away after a few minutes without being told to do so.

Accordingly, as soon as he saw that his mother and Baldassare were

going to talk, he went up to the latter and held out his hand.

‘Good-bye,’ he said gravely. ‘The next time you come, please wear

your uniform.’

‘If I come again, I’ll wear it,’ answered Castiglione, smiling.

But Maria saw how earnestly his eyes studied the boy’s face, and

how he held the small hand as if he did not wish to let it go.

He watched the sturdy little fellow till the door was shut, and

Maria saw that he checked a sigh. For the first time in years the

two were alone together within four walls, and at first there was

silence between them.

Maria spoke first, very coldly and resentfully, for since Leone had

left the room she had no reason for hiding what she felt.

‘Why have you come?’ she asked. ‘I told you clearly that I did not

wish to see you. You said, too, that you would come at three, and

when you appeared I was just going to tell Agostino that I would

see no one. You came earlier than you said you would, and it was a

trick to catch me. Such things are unworthy.’

Castiglione had clasped his hands on one knee, and he bent his head

while she was speaking. When she had finished he looked up with an

expression she had never seen in his face, and he spoke in a gentle

and almost pleading tone.

‘Let me tell you what I have come to Rome to say.’

‘I would rather not hear it,’ Maria answered coldly. ‘I would

rather that you should say nothing during the few minutes I shall

have to let you stay--for I do not wish any one to think that I

have turned you out of my house.’

Her face was like a mask, and white, for it cost her much to say

the words.

‘I have not come to persecute you, Maria,’ he answered sorrowfully.

‘I have not loved you faithfully all these years to come and pain

you now.’

Maria Montalto’s lip curled.

‘Faithfully!’ The contemptuous tone told all her unbelief.

‘Yes, I mean it. I have loved you faithfully since we parted, as I

loved you before.’

‘I do not believe you; or I do not understand what you mean by

faith.’

‘It is easy to understand. Since you and I parted under the

ilex-trees I have not spoken of love to any woman. I have lived a

clean life.’

Something clutched at the woman’s heart just then, but the next

moment she spoke as coldly as before.

‘It is easy to say such things,’ she answered.

‘What I say is true,’ returned Castiglione quietly. ‘But if I tell

you this of myself, it is not because I hope to bring your love to

life again. I know how dead that is. I know I killed it--yes, I

know!’

He spoke with the tone and accent of a man in great pain, and

looked down at his clasped hands; but Maria turned her face from

him, for she felt the clutching at her heart again. He must not

know that he was wrong, and that she loved him still in spite of

everything. She would force herself not to believe him.

‘How well you act!’ she said, with cruel scorn.

He did not resent even that. He had violently broken and ruined her

whole life long ago; why should she be kind to him?

‘I am not acting, and I am not lying,’ he answered gravely. ‘I have

been faithful to you all these years. It is no credit to me, and I

ask none, for I love you truly.’

‘How am I to believe you?’ Maria asked, not contemptuously now, but

still coldly. ‘Why should I?’

He raised his eyes and met hers steadily, and she saw that there

was no mistaking the truth.

‘I give you my word of honour,’ he said slowly, and waited.

She could not speak then, because her joy was so great, in spite of

herself; and he would not say more; he only waited while she looked

steadily at the mantelpiece, choking down something and hoping

that he could not see her face clearly in the rather dim light. He

would not stoop to ask if she believed his word, and she was dumb.

It was too much, all at once.

Presently, when she thought she could trust her voice, she tried to

speak. It had seemed a long time.

‘It is----’ she began.

But she broke off, for she felt the great cry coming in the word

that should have followed. Therefore instead of speaking she held

out her hand to him and turned her face away from his. They were

just so near that by leaning far forward he could hold her fingers.

He pressed them quietly for one moment, a little hard, perhaps, but

with no attempt to hold them.

‘Thank you,’ he said, not very steadily.

She had regretted the little impulsive action at once, expecting

that he would kiss her hand, as almost any man might have done with

less reason. But she was glad that he had not; glad, and grateful

to him. Perhaps he knew it, but she was able to speak now; he

should not think that he had gained a hairbreadth’s advantage.

‘I am glad that you have lived a good life,’ she said, much

more kindly than she had spoken yet. ‘But you must not call it

faithfulness. You must not mean that you have been faithful to the

memory of a great sin, of the worst deed you ever did. It would

have been much better to forget me.’

‘You do not understand,’ he answered. ‘My sins are on my soul, and

yours with them, if you have any. I am wicked enough to hope that

I may never forget you, and that I may live till I die as I have

lived since we parted. It is the least I can do, not for your sake,

but out of respect for myself and regret for the worst deed I ever

did. Yes, you are right, it was that. The question that fills my

life is this: Can I in any way atone to you for that deed? Can you

ever forgive me so far as not to hate me, and not to despise the

mere thought of me, so far as to be willing that I should live in

the same city with you and see you sometimes?’

He waited for her answer, but it was long before it came. When she

tried to collect her thoughts she was amazed and frightened by the

change that had come over her in the last few minutes. Her impulse

was to confess frankly that she had always loved him, though she

could not forgive him, and to implore him to go away and never to

come near her again; and then she remembered that she had said

those very words to him long ago under the ilex-trees in the Villa

Borghese, with many cruel ones which neither had forgotten. He had

given up his leave then, and had gone back to his regiment in a

distant city, and he had never come near her nor written to her

since.

But there was more than that, much more. He had lived a clean life.

She knew the world well enough now, and she knew what the lives of

most unmarried men are at Castiglione’s age. Had she not a son to

bring up, for whom she prayed daily that he might grow to manhood

without reproach as well as without fear? She knew something of

how men lived, and she could guess, as far as an honest woman

may, at the daily temptations that must assail a good-looking

young officer in the smartest cavalry regiment in the country; she

guessed, too, that one who chose to live very differently from most

of his comrades might not always escape jests which would not turn

to actual ridicule only because Castiglione was not a man to be

laughed at with impunity; not by any means.

She believed him, and though she might tell him that he was

faithful to a sin, to something dangerously near a crime, his faith

had been for her, and she could not deny it to herself. It was for

her sake that he had not lived like the rest.

Then she covered her eyes with her hand and she saw her own past

life clearly, and dared to look at it. The ugly blot was there,

plain enough; but if the fault had really been all his, why should

the stain look so very black after all those years? He believed

that he had sinned against her, not with her; and so she had told

herself--and had told him so with bitter reproaches before they

had parted. Was it quite, quite true? If it was, she had no cause

to reproach herself for the catastrophe. Yet since that hour she

had accused herself daily. Of what? Of having loved Baldassare

del Castiglione? But she had loved him innocently and dearly when

she was seventeen, and ever since. Her mother had known it, but

he was poor, he was no match for a girl who was something of an

heiress. She had done as many other girls did and always will do;

she had yielded to parental pressure, she had promised herself to

forget, thinking it would be easy; she had married Montalto, making

the great marriage of that season; she had begun to be a wife

believing, poor soul, that she had done right in obeying her mother

as a daughter should. But she had not forgotten.

Even that was no sin. It was her misfortune, and the natural

consequence of a false system that sacrificed too much to money, or

to money and name. She had actually been vain of marrying Montalto,

for though he bore only the title of count, he was an authentic

Count of the Empire, which is quite a different matter from being a

Roman ‘conte.’ It had been a very great marriage indeed, and Maria

had really been a little foolishly vain of becoming his wife. He

had two historic castles in Italy as well as an historical palace

in Rome and an historical estate on the Austrian frontier, and

he was heir to historical lands in Spain by his mother; and he

had a great number of historic ancestors who had been Counts of

the Empire and Grandees of Spain, and hereditary Knights of the

Sovereign Order of Malta. Everything about Montalto was historical,

including his grave face and pointed black beard, and he might have

passed for the original of more than one portrait in his historic

gallery. His family even had a well-attested White Lady who

appeared when one of them was going to die!

But all these things could not make the young wife forget

Baldassare del Castiglione, who was only a more or less penniless

officer in the Piedmont Lancers. The worst of it was that Montalto

liked him, instinctively because his name was also so extremely

historical, and fatally because husbands are the last to discover

their wives’ preferences. Montalto had thrown Maria and Castiglione

together.

She had gone to confession again and again, for she had been

brought up to be very devout. Her confessor told her each time

that she must avoid the man she loved and pray to forget him. She

answered that her husband liked him and constantly asked him to

the house; that she could not beg Montalto to change his attitude

towards a friend without giving a good reason; and that the only

reason she had was that she loved Baldassare with all her heart,

though she was told it was wrong now that she was married, and

she prayed that she might forget him and love her husband. Her

confessor, having ascertained by further questions that she and

Castiglione had avowed their love for each other in bygone days,

long before her marriage, bade her appeal to the young man’s

generosity, and beg him to refuse Montalto’s constant invitations

and to see her as little as possible. But the confessor did not

know the man. Maria followed the priest’s advice, but Baldassare

utterly refused to do what she asked, and became more and more

unmanageable from that day. Surely that was not her fault. It was

not with this that she reproached herself. She had been afraid to

tell Montalto, that was true; there had been one day, at last, when

she should have confessed to him, instead of to the priest; she

should have thrown herself upon his mercy and implored him to take

her away. But then she had lacked courage. She had told herself

that her husband loved her devotedly in his silent, respectful

way, and that to tell him the truth would be the ruin of his

happiness. She felt so sure that his honour was safe! And meanwhile

Castiglione grew more passionate every day, more reckless and more

uncontrollable; and she loved him the more, and he knew it, though

she would not tell him so. She accused herself of that. She should

have gone to her husband for protection, for his happiness was far

less to him then than his honour. Some women would have invented

an untruth as a means justified by the end. Maria might have told

Montalto that she was suffering a persecution odious to her; she

would have saved her husband’s honour and happiness together, and

would even have raised her higher in his esteem. But she could not

do it. It would be base, treacherous, and faithless. So she waited

and prayed against her heart, and hoped against Castiglione’s

nature. Then came the evil hour and it was too late; too late even

to lie. She accused herself of having put off too long the one act

that could have saved her. But still, and to the end, she had told

herself that she had been strong, that she had resisted her own

passion as well as the ruthless man who loved her. She had been

innocent, she repeated; and she had told her confessor nothing more

until she believed that she had changed, and that she hated the man

she had loved so well. Then the priest, who was not worldly wise,

warned her gently against anything so un-Christian as hatred, and

counselled her to forget and to grow indifferent and to devote

herself to her husband’s happiness. That sounded very easy to the

poor priest.

After that she had altogether given up asking advice of him, and

she had let herself be guided by her own sense of honour. Besides,

the day soon came when Montalto accused her; and he would not have

believed her if she had thrown the whole blame on her lover, for

she could not lie and say she had never loved him. So she had not

defended herself, and the great wave had gone over her head, and

her husband, broken-hearted, had left her for ever; but he had

done it in such a way that there had been no open scandal. He had

gone to Spain and had come back again, and had gone away again and

had stayed longer; he had spoken to his friends of his mother’s

wretched health; she could not live in Italy, and Maria could not

live in Spain, and he could not be in both places at once. The

separation, so far as the world saw it, came by degrees, till it

was permanent. Montalto and his wife were not the first couple

that had separated quietly, without quarrelling in public, simply

because they did not like each other. People did not always know

where Maria spent her summers with her child, and the good-natured

ones used to say that she saw her husband then; and she lived in

such a way in Rome that the blame was all laid on Montalto, and

Teresa Crescenzi’s story was believed. Montalto was a brute, who

had often struck his wife when he was in one of his fits of anger,

and she was little less than a saint.

Castiglione sat waiting for his answer. Would she tell him that he

might come back and live near her? Or would she grow hard and cold

once more, and bid him go away again, and for ever?

After a long time she raised her head and looked at him quietly.

‘I cannot answer you at once,’ she said; ‘but I promise that I

will. You said yesterday that you had a fortnight’s leave. When I

have made up my mind what to do I shall let you know, and you must

come and see me again.’

Castiglione shook his head gravely and said nothing.

‘What is the matter?’ asked Maria.

‘I suppose you are going to ask advice of your confessor,’ he

answered very sadly, and not at all in contempt.

But Maria lifted her head proudly.

‘No,’ she said, ‘I am going to ask myself what is right. And in my

thoughts my child shall be the man I hope to make him, and I will

ask him what is honourable.’

‘Will you not trust me for that?’ Castiglione asked, and his face

lightened.

‘That I even consent to ask myself shows that I trust you more

than I did when you surprised me here not half an hour ago. And

now please leave me, for I want to be alone. Perhaps I shall send

for you to-morrow, or perhaps not for a week. If we chance to meet

anywhere, come and speak to me, for people will think it strange

if we avoid each other. But I shall ask you to come here for the

answer to your question.’

‘Thank you,’ he answered gratefully.

Their hands touched each other for a moment, but neither spoke

again, and he went quietly out.

CHAPTER III

Maria did not send for Castiglione the next day, nor during a

number of days afterwards, and Giuliana Parenzo saw that she was

very much preoccupied and was not looking well. The elder woman

was far too good a friend to ask questions, and when the two were

together she did her best to amuse Maria by her talk. The Marchesa

was not particularly witty, but she sometimes told a story with

little touches of humour that were quite her own. Very good women

are rarely witty, but they often have a happy faculty of seeing the

funny side of things. Wit wounds, but humour disarms.

Giuliana saw, too, that Maria did not like to be alone, even with

Leone. The truth was that she slept little and was very nervous.

Something had come back from the past to haunt her; often a

nameless horror came near her, not at night only, for it was not

the fear of an overwrought imagination, but in broad daylight too,

when she was alone and chanced to be doing nothing. It was the more

dreadful because she could not define it; she could not say that

it was caused by the question Castiglione had asked her, and which

she had promised to answer, but when she thought of that her mind

refused to be reasonable, and the horror came upon her, and she

felt that utter ruin was close at hand, lying in wait for her. She

remembered the sensation well in the old days; she had sometimes

fancied then that she was going mad, and had made great efforts to

control herself, but she had never thought of asking a doctor what

it was, for she had believed, and believed now, that it was a state

of mind rather than the mere effect of anxiety and mental fatigue

on her body. So she suffered much, and quite uselessly; but that

was a small matter compared with the fact that she had promised

Castiglione an answer before his fortnight’s leave was over, and

that after several days she was no nearer to finding one than when

he had left her.

Again and again she thought of telling Giuliana all her trouble

and asking her advice, but she was always deterred by an inward

conviction that her friend would not understand. She was mistaken

in this, but she could not believe that she was. Giuliana knew

something, of course; all Rome believed Teresa Crescenzi’s story,

of which the starting-point was that she had loved Baldassare del

Castiglione innocently, and it was Giuliana who had repeated the

tale to her. Maria had shaken her head, and had answered that there

was not much truth in it, but that people might as well believe it

as invent any other story, since she would never tell any one, not

even Giuliana, exactly what had happened.

‘It does not concern me only,’ she had said gravely.

Giuliana had asked no questions, and Maria had been sure that there

would never be any need of referring to her secret again.

But now the past had come back to ask a question which she could

not answer. She had been in earnest when she had told Baldassare

proudly that she did not mean to go to a priest for advice. He

disliked all priests out of prejudice, as she knew. There might

be good and bad soldiers, lawyers, writers, artists, or workmen,

but in his estimation there could be very few good priests. Yet

it was not to please him that she had said she would not go to

her confessor; it was simply because she was quite sure that she

could trust her own conscience and her own sense of honour to show

her the right way; and perhaps she might have trusted both if her

nerves had not failed her at the critical moment and left her

apparently helpless. She was in great need of help and advice, and

did not know where to go for either.

Meanwhile she had not met Castiglione again. The season was over,

and even at its height she did not go out much. Society is always

dull when one has no object in joining in its inane revels--love,

ambition, stupid vanity, or a daughter to marry--unless, indeed,

one possesses the temperament of a butterfly combined with the

intelligence of an oyster. So it had been quite natural that Maria

should not have met Castiglione during those days, and she had not

chanced to meet him in the street. On his side, he had kept away

from the part of the city in which she lived, but he had gone to

every friend’s house and public place where he thought there was a

possibility of meeting her.

After a week they met by what seemed an accident to them both.

Maria was almost ill, and could no longer bear her trouble without

some help. There was in Rome a good priest of her own class--a

man in ten thousand, a man of heart, a man of courage, a man of

the highest honour and of the purest life. If she had not always

disliked the idea of meeting her confessor in the world, she would

have chosen this man for hers long ago. If he had been in Rome in

the darkest months of her life she would certainly have gone to

him for advice; but he had then been working as a parish priest

in a remote and fever-stricken part of the Maremma, and it was

because his health had broken down that he had been obliged to give

up his labours and come back to Rome. He was now a Canon of Saint

Peter’s, and was employed as Secretary to the Cardinal Vicar, but

found time to occupy himself with matters nearer to his heart. His

name was Monsignor Ippolito Saracinesca; he was the second son of

Don Giovanni, the head of the great family, and he was about forty

years old.

To him Maria Montalto determined to go in her extremity. She was

not quite sure how she should tell him her story, but for the sake

of what she had said to Castiglione she would not put it in the

form of a confession. She would not need to tell so much of it but

that she could lay it before him as an imaginary case--which is a

foolish device when it is meant to hide a secret, but is useful as

a means of communicating one that is hard to tell.

Monsignor Saracinesca was generally at Saint Peter’s at about

eleven o’clock, and Maria made sure of finding him there by

telephoning to the Saracinesca palace, in which he had a small

apartment of his own. At half-past ten she left her house alone,

took a cab and drove across Rome to the Basilica. She got out at

the front and went up the steps, for she had never before been to

see any one in the Sacristy, and was not quite sure of what would

happen if she went directly to it at the back of the church.

She entered on the right-hand side, by force of habit. There is a

very heavy wadded leathern curtain there, and she had to pull it

aside for herself, which was not easy. Just as she was doing this,

and using all her strength, some one pushed the curtain up easily

from within, and she found herself face to face with Baldassare del

Castiglione, and very near him. She started violently, for she was

even more nervous than usual. He himself was so much surprised that

he drew his head back quickly; then he bent it silently and stood

aside, holding up the curtain for her to pass, as if not expecting

that she would stop to speak to him.

‘Thank you,’ she said, going in.

She tried to smile a little, just as much as one might with a word

of thanks; but the effort was so great, and her face was so pale

and disturbed, that it made a painful impression on him, and he

watched her anxiously till she had gone a few steps forward into

the church, for he was really afraid that she might faint and fall,

and perhaps hurt herself, and there was no one near the door just

then to help her.

But she walked straight enough, and he had just begun to lower the

heavy curtain, turning his head as he passed under it, when he

heard her call him sharply.

‘Balduccio!’

It was very long since she had called him familiarly by his first

name, and his heart stood still at the sound of her voice. A moment

later he was within the church, and met her as she was coming back

to the door.

‘You called me?’

‘Yes.’

They turned to the right into the north aisle, and walked slowly

forwards, side by side. There were not many people in the Basilica

at that hour, for it was a week-day, and the season of the

tourists was almost over. At some distance before them, two or

three people were kneeling before the closed gate of the Julian

Chapel. Maria and Castiglione were as much alone as if they had

been in the country, and as free to talk, for no conversation,

even in an ordinary tone, can be heard far in the great cathedral.

Nevertheless Maria did not speak.

‘You are ill,’ Castiglione said, breaking the silence at last. ‘Let

me take you to your carriage.’

‘No. I came here for a good purpose, and I cannot go home without

doing what I mean to do.’

‘I wish with all my heart that I had not come back to Rome to

disturb your peace! It is my fault that you are suffering.’

‘No. It is not your fault.’ She spoke gently. ‘It is a

consequence, that’s all. You had a right to ask me that question,

and you have a right to an answer. But I cannot find one. That is

what is troubling me.’

‘You are kind to me,’ said Castiglione. ‘Too kind,’ he added, and

she knew by his tone how much he was moved.

She turned in her walk before she answered, for they were already

near the Julian Chapel.

‘No,’ she said after a minute, and she bent her head. ‘Not too

kind--if you knew all.’

He looked quickly at her face, but she did not turn to him. His

heart beat hard and his throat felt suddenly dry.

‘Don’t misunderstand me,’ she said, still looking steadily down at

the pavement. ‘I meant, if you knew how much I wish to be just--to

myself as well as to you, Balduccio.’

‘I do not want justice,’ he answered sadly. ‘I ask for forgiveness.’

‘Yes. I know.’

She said no more, and they walked slowly on. At the little gate of

Leo the Twelfth’s Chapel she stopped, and she took hold of the bars

with both hands and looked in, leaving room for him to stand beside

her.

‘Justice,’ she cried in a low voice, ‘justice, justice! To you, to

me, to my husband! God help us all three!’

He did not understand, but he felt that a change had come over her

since he had seen her a week earlier, and that it was in his favour

rather than against him.

‘Justice!’ he repeated after her, but in a very different tone.

‘It would have been justice if I had put a bullet through my head

when I went home that night!’

Maria’s hands left the bars of the gate and grasped Castiglione’s

arm above the elbow and shook it a little.

‘Never say that again!’ she cried in a stifled voice. ‘Promise me

that you will never think it again! Promise!’

He was amazed at her energy and earnestness, and he understood less

and less what was passing in her heart.

‘I can only promise you that I will never do it,’ he answered

gravely.

‘Yes,’ she cried in the same tone, ‘promise me that! It is what I

mean. Give me your sacred word of honour! Take oath to me before

the Cross--there--do you see?’ she pointed with one hand through

the bars to the Crucifix in the stained window, still holding him

with the other. ‘Swear solemnly that you will never kill yourself,

whatever happens!’

He could well have asked if she loved him still, and she could not

have denied it then; but he would not, for he was in earnest too.

He had not meant to trouble her life so deeply when he had come to

ask her forgiveness; far less had he dreamt that the old love had

survived all. A great wave of pure devotion to the woman he had

wronged swept him to her feet.

It was long since he had knelt in any church; but now he was

kneeling beside her as she stood, and he was looking up to the

sacred figure, and his hands were joined together.

‘You have my word and promise,’ he said in deep emotion. ‘Let the

God you trust be witness between you and me.’

He heard a soft sound, and she was kneeling beside him, close to

the bars. Then her ungloved hand, cold and trembling, went out and

rested lightly on his own for a moment.

‘Is it forgiveness?’ he asked, very low.

‘It is forgiveness,’ she said.

He pressed his forehead against his folded hands that rested upon

the bars. Then he understood that she was praying, and he rose very

quietly and drew back a step, as from something he held in great

reverence, but in which he had no part.

She did not heed him and remained kneeling a little while, a slight

and rarely graceful figure in dark grey against the rich shadows

within the chapel. If any one passed near, neither he nor she was

aware of it, and there was nothing in the attitude of either to

excite surprise in such a place, except that it is unusual to see

any one praying just there.

Maria rose at last, stood a few seconds longer before the gate, and

then turned to Baldassare. Her face had changed since he had last

seen it clearly; it was still pale and full of suffering, but there

was light in it now. She stood beside him and looked at him quietly

when she spoke.

‘I have not given you all my answer yet,’ she said. ‘I will tell

you why I came here, because I wish to be quite frank in all there

is to be between us. I told you the other day that I would not go

to my confessor for advice. At least, that is what I meant to say.

Did I?’

‘Yes. That was what you said.’

‘I shall keep my word. But I am going for help to a friend who is a

priest, because I have broken down. I thought I could trust my own

conscience and my own sense of honour; I thought I could fancy my

boy a man, and in imagination ask him what his mother should do.

But I cannot. I am very tired, and my thoughts are all confused and

blurred. Do you understand?’

‘Yes,’ said Castiglione; but in spite of himself his face betrayed

his displeasure at the thought that an ecclesiastic should come

between them.

‘I am going to see a priest whom I trust as a man,’ she went on. ‘I

am going to Monsignor Saracinesca.’

‘Don Ippolito?’ Castiglione’s brow cleared, and he almost smiled.

‘Yes. Do you know him?’

‘I know him well. You could not go to a better man.’

‘I am glad to hear you say that. I may not follow his advice, after

all, but I am sure he will help me to find myself again.’

‘Perhaps.’ Castiglione spoke thoughtfully, not doubtfully. Then

his face hardened, but not unkindly, and the manly features set

themselves in a look of brave resolution. ‘Before you go let me say

something,’ he went on, after the short pause. ‘You have given

me more to-day than I ever hoped to have from you, Maria. I will

ask nothing else, since the mere thought of seeing me often has

troubled you so much. I will leave Rome to-day, and I will not

come back--never, unless you send for me. Put all the rest out of

your mind and be yourself again, and remember only that you have

forgiven me the worst deed of my life. I can live on that till the

end. Good-bye. God bless you!’

She had been looking down, but now she raised her eyes to his, and

there were tears in them that did not overflow. He held out his

hand, but she would not take it.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You are brave and kind, but I will not

have it so. I may ask you to go away when your leave is over, but

not to stay always, and after a time we shall meet again. Before

going you must come and see me. I will write you a line to-night or

to-morrow. Good-bye now, but only for to-day.’

She smiled faintly, bent her head a little, and turned from

him to cross the nave on her way to the Sacristy. He stood by

the pillar and watched her, sure that she would not look back.

She moved lightly, but not fast, over the vast pavement. When

she was opposite the Julian Chapel, which is the Chapel of the

Sacrament, she turned towards it and bent her knee, but she rose

again instantly and went on till she disappeared behind the great

pilaster of the dome, at the corner of the south transept.

Then Castiglione went slowly and thoughtfully away, happier than he

had been for a long time.

But Maria went on, and glanced at her watch, and hastened her

steps. She left the church and traversed the long marble

corridors, where all kinds of people come and go on all sorts of

business whenever the Basilica is open. In the great central hall

of the Sacristy, which is as big as an ordinary church, she asked

the first acolyte she met for Monsignor Saracinesca.

He was close at hand, in the Chapter-House. ‘Would the lady give

her revered name?’ ‘The Countess of Montalto.’ The young man in the

violet cassock bowed low. ‘Monsignor Saracinesca would certainly

see her Excellency.’ ‘Her Excellency’ thanked the young man and

stood aside to wait, out of the way of the many canons and other

ecclesiastics, and choirmen, and singing boys, and other acolytes

who were all moving hither and thither as if they were very busy

about doing nothing in a hurry. In less than half a minute Ippolito

Saracinesca joined her.

The churchman was a man of forty or near that, but was already very

grey, and thin almost to emaciation. He had the wan complexion

of those who have lived long in feverish parts of Italy, and

there were many lines of suffering in his refined features, which

seemed to be modelled in wax. In his youth he had been said to be

like his mother’s mother, and a resemblance to her portrait was

still traceable, especially in his clear brown eyes. The chief

characteristics of the man’s physical nature were an unconquerable

and devoted energy that could defy sickness and pain, and a very

markedly ascetic temperament. Spiritually, what was strongest in

him was a charity that was active, unselfish, wise and just, and

that was, above all, of that sort which inspires hope in those

whom it helps, and helps all whom it finds in need.

It was said in the precincts of the Vatican that Monsignor

Saracinesca was likely to be made a cardinal at an early age. But

the poor people in the Maremma said he was a saint who would not

long be allowed to suffer earthly ills, and whose soul was probably

already in paradise while his body was left to do good in this

world till it should wear itself out and melt away like a shadow.

Ippolito Saracinesca had known only one great temptation in his

life. Unlike most people who accomplish much in this world, he was

a good musician, and was often tempted to bestow upon a perfectly

selfish pleasure some of that precious time which he truly believed

had been given him only that he might use it for others. More

than once he had bound himself not to touch an instrument nor go

to a concert for a whole month, because he felt that the gift was

absorbing him too much.

This was the friend to whom Maria Montalto had come for advice and

help, and of whom Castiglione had said that she could not have

chosen a better man.

‘There is no one in the Chapter-House,’ he said, after the first

friendly greeting. ‘Will you come in and sit down? I was trying

to decide about the placing of another picture which we have

discovered amongst our possessions.’

He led the way and Maria followed, and sat down beside the table

on one of the big chairs which were symmetrically ranged against

the walls.

‘Please tell me how I can serve you,’ said Don Ippolito.

‘It is not easy to tell you,’ Maria answered. ‘I am in great

perplexity and I need advice--the advice of a good man--of a

friend--of some one who knows the world.’

‘Yes,’ said Monsignor Saracinesca, folding his transparent hands

and looking at one of Melozzo da Forlì’s inspired angels on the

opposite wall. ‘So far as you care to trust me as a friend and one

who knows something of the world, I will do my best. But let us

understand each other before you say anything more. This is not

in any way a confession, I suppose. You wish to ask my advice in

confidence. Is that it?’

‘Yes, yes! That is what it is!’

‘And you come to me as to a friend, rather than as to a priest?’

‘Oh, yes! Much more.’

‘And you trust me, merely as you would trust a friend, and without

the intention of putting me under a sacred obligation of silence,

by which the life and welfare of any one might hereafter be

endangered. Is that what you mean?’

‘Yes, distinctly. But that will never happen. I mean that no one’s

life could ever be in danger by your not telling. At least, I

cannot see how.’

‘Strange things happen,’ said Don Ippolito, still looking at the

angel. ‘And now that we understand each other about that, I am

ready. What is the difficulty?’

Maria rested her elbow on the corner of the big table and shaded

her eyes with her hand for a moment. It was not easy to tell such a

story as hers.

‘Do you know anything about my past life?’ she began timidly, and

glancing sideways at him.

He turned his brown eyes full to hers.

‘Yes,’ he said, without hesitation. ‘I do know something, and more

than a little.’

She was surprised, and looked at him with an expression of inquiry.

‘I have always known your husband very well,’ he said. ‘He wrote

to me for advice when there was trouble between you. I was in the

Maremma then.’

‘And it was you who advised him to leave me! Ah, I did not know!’

Maria drew back a little proudly, expecting him to admit the

imputation.

‘No,’ answered Don Ippolito. ‘I did not, but he thought it wiser

not to take the advice I gave him.’

Maria’s expression changed again.

‘Do you know who was--who--was the cause of his going away?’

‘Yes. I am afraid every one knows that. It was Baldassare del

Castiglione, and he is in Rome again.’

‘Yes,’ Maria replied, repeating his words, ‘he is in Rome again.’

He thought he had made it easy for her to say more, if she wished

to tell all, but she was silent. He had heard Montalto’s story

from beginning to end, and upon that he judged her, of course, as

she had allowed herself to be judged by her husband, without the

least suggestion of defence. After all, how could either of the

two men judge her otherwise? How could she tell now what she had

once called the truth? How near the truth was it? She would put her

question as best she could.

‘My excuse is that we loved each other very, very much,’ she said

in a low and timid voice. ‘It was long before I married,’ she

added, a little more firmly, for she was not ashamed of that. ‘But

we parted’--her voice sank to a whisper--‘we parted when it was

too late. And we have never met, nor ever written one word to each

other since.’

As she pronounced the last sentence she raised her head again, for

she knew what that separation had cost, in spite of all--in spite

of what she had called the truth.

‘That was right,’ Don Ippolito said. ‘That was your duty; but it

was brave of you both to do it.’ She felt encouraged.

‘And now he is in Rome again,’ she went on. ‘He has come on leave

for a few days. He came on purpose to ask my forgiveness, after all

these years, because there was something to forgive--at least--he

thought there was----’

She broke off, quite unable to go on.

‘You were very young,’ suggested Don Ippolito, helping her. ‘You

had no experience of the world. Such a man would have a very great

advantage over a very young woman who had been attached to him when

a girl and was unhappily married.’

But Maria had clasped her hands desperately tight together before

her on the edge of the table, and she bent down now and pressed her

forehead upon them. She spoke in broken words.

‘No, no! I know it now! It was not--not what I thought--oh, I can’t

tell you! I can’t, I can’t!’

She was breaking down, for she was worn-out and fearfully

overwrought. Then Monsignor Saracinesca spoke quietly, but in a

tone of absolute authority.

‘Tell me nothing more,’ he said. ‘This is not a confession, and I

cannot allow you to go on. Try to get control of yourself so that

you may go home quietly.’

He rose as he spoke, but she stretched her hand out across the

table to stop him.

‘No--please don’t go away! I have said I forgive him--if there is

anything to forgive--may I say that he is to come back? May I see

him sometimes? We are so sure of ourselves, he and I, after all

these years----’

Monsignor Saracinesca’s brows bent with a little severity.

‘Montalto is living,’ he said, ‘and he is a broken-hearted man.

Since you and he parted you have borne his name as honourably as

you could, you have done what was in your power to atone for your

fault by not seeing your lover. I am frank, you see. Montalto knows

how you have lived and is not unjust nor ungrateful. But for his

mother, I think a reconciliation would be possible.’

Maria started at the words, and turned even paler than before.

‘A reconciliation!’ she cried in a low and frightened voice.

‘Yes,’ answered Don Ippolito, who had resumed his seat. ‘He loves

you still. It is my firm belief that he has never bestowed a

thought on any other woman since he first wished to marry you. I

know beyond all doubt that since he left you he has led a life such

as few men of the world ever lead. No doubt he has his defects, as

a man of the world. I daresay he is not one of those men with whom

it is easy to live, and he is a melancholy and depressing person.

But so far as the rest is concerned----’

He stopped, feeling that he was perhaps defending his friend too

warmly. Maria had bent her head again, and sat with her hands lying

dejectedly on her knees.

‘You know more,’ she said sadly. ‘He has written you that he is

coming back!’

‘No. I only think it possible. But if he did, could you refuse to

live under his roof? Has he wronged you?’

‘He meant to be just! But if he should come back--oh, no, no, no!

For God’s sake, not that!’

She bent her head lower still, and spoke scarcely above a whisper.

‘Remember that he has the right, that it lies with him to forgive,

not with you. If he should do that, and should come, would you not

be glad to feel that after all you had done your best? That so far

as you could help it you had not seen your lover, nor encouraged

him, nor given him the slightest cause to think you would? You

could at least receive your husband’s forgiveness with a clear

conscience. At least you could say that you had not failed again!’

Don Ippolito waited a moment, but Maria could not speak, or had no

answer ready for him. He went on, quietly and kindly.

‘But if you allow Castiglione to come back and live here, and to

see you, even rarely, it will all be different. Think only of what

the world will say; and what the world says will be repeated to

your husband. You have broken his heart, and all but ruined his

life; remember that he loves you as much as your lover ever did;

think what he has felt, what he has suffered! And then consider,

too, that if anything has softened the bitterness of his pain, it

has been the faultless life you have led since. Before God it is

enough to do right, but before the world it is not. Men do not

accept the truth unless it is outwardly proved to them. That is a

part of the social contract by which our outward lives are bound.

Allow Castiglione to come to Rome, to be seen with you and at your

house, even now and then, and the world will have no mercy. It

will say that you are tired of your loneliness, and have taken him

back to be to you what he was. Then people will laugh at Teresa

Crescenzi’s clever story instead of believing it. You came to me as

to a friend, and as what you call a man of the world, and I give

you what I think will be the world’s view. Am I right, or not?’

There was a long pause. Then Maria tried to meet the good man’s

earnest eyes, but her own wandered to one of the angels on the wall.

‘You are right,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Yes, you are right. I

see it now.’

Her gaze was fixed upon the lovely frescoed head, with its glory

of golden hair and its look of heavenly innocence. But she did

not see it; she was thinking that if she did right she must tell

Castiglione never to come back, and that the aching, lonely life

that had seemed once more so full for a brief space was to begin

again to-morrow, and was to last until she died. And she was

thinking that her husband might come back.

Monsignor Saracinesca waited quietly after she had spoken, for

since she admitted the truth of what he urged he felt that there

was nothing more to say. After a little while Maria collected her

strength for the effort and rose from her seat, still resting one

hand on the great table.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You have been very kind. All you have told

me is true. I shall try to follow your advice.’

‘I hope you will,’ answered the Churchman. ‘You will not find it so

hard as you think.’

She smiled faintly, as gentle people do sometimes when they are in

great pain and well-disposed persons tell them that suffering is

all a matter of imagination.

‘Oh, no!’ she answered. ‘I shall find it very, very hard.’

The grey-haired man sighed and smiled at her so sadly and kindly

that she felt herself drawn to him even more than before. She

was standing close to him now, and looked up trustfully to his

spiritual face and deeply thoughtful eyes.

‘I did not know I loved him so much till he came back,’ she said

simply. ‘How could I? I did not guess that I had forgiven him long

ago!’

‘Poor child! God help you!’

‘I need help.’ She was silent for a moment, and then looked down.

‘Do you write to my husband?’ she asked timidly.

‘Sometimes. I have little time for writing letters. Should you like

to send him any message?’

‘Oh, no!’ she cried in a startled tone. ‘But oh, if you write to

him, don’t urge him to come back! Don’t make him think it is his

duty. It cannot be his duty to make any one so unhappy as I should

be!’

‘I shall not give him any advice whatever unless he asks for it,’

replied Don Ippolito, ‘and if he does, I shall answer that I think

he should write to you directly, for I would rather not try to act

as his adviser. I told you that he did not take my advice the first

time.’

‘Yes--but--you have been so kind! Would you tell me what you wished

him to do then?’

The priest thought a moment.

‘I cannot tell you that,’ he said presently.

Maria looked surprised, and shrank back a little, suspecting that

he had suggested some course which might have offended or hurt her.

He understood intuitively.

‘It would be a betrayal of confidence to Montalto,’ he added, ‘to

tell you what I advised him, and what he did not do. But I still

think it would have been better for both of you if he had done it.’

Maria looked puzzled.

‘I am sorry,’ he said, in a tone from which there was no appeal,

‘but I cannot tell you.’

She looked at him a little hardly at first; then she remembered

what every one in Rome knew, that the delicate, shadow-like man

with the clear brown eyes had risked being tried for murder when he

was a young priest rather than betray a confession which had been

anything but formal. Her tired face softened as she thought of that.

‘I am sorry I asked you,’ she said. ‘I did not mean to be

inquisitive.’

‘It was natural that you should ask the question,’ he answered,

‘but it would not have been quite honourable in me to answer it.’

‘I trust you all the more because you refused me,’ she said. ‘And

now I must be going, for I have kept you a long time.’

‘Scarcely a quarter of an hour.’ He smiled as he glanced at the

hideous modern clock on the table.

She left him after thanking him and pressing his thin, kindly hand,

and she made her way back to the church, feeling a little faint.

When she was gone Monsignor Saracinesca returned to the question

of the picture which was to be hung, but for a while he could not

give it all the attention that a beautiful Hans Memling deserved.

He was thinking of what he had said to Maria, and not only of that,

but of what he had said to Baldassare del Castiglione a quarter of

an hour earlier.

For that was the coincidence which had brought the two together

that morning at the door of the church. Castiglione had taken it

into his head to see Don Ippolito on the same day; like Maria,

he had telephoned to the palace and had learned that his old

acquaintance was usually to be found in the Sacristy about eleven;

being a soldier, he had gone punctually at the hour, whereas Maria

had not arrived till fifteen or twenty minutes later, and it was

therefore almost a certainty that they should meet.

It had not been easy for Don Ippolito, taken by surprise as he

was. But Castiglione had put his case as one man of honour may to

another, and had told as much of the truth as he might without

casting the least slur on Maria’s good name. He had loved her

before her marriage, he had said; he loved her still. After she had

been married he had left her no peace, and Montalto had made him

the reason for leaving her. She had bidden him, Castiglione, to go

away and never see her again. He had so far obeyed as to stay away

several years. He had come back at last to ask her forgiveness;

he was not sure of obtaining it--he had not yet met her in the

church--but he came to Don Ippolito as a friend. His love for Maria

was great, he said, but even if she forgave him, he would never

see her again rather than be the cause of any further trouble

or anxiety to her. What did Don Ippolito think? Don Ippolito

considered the matter for a few minutes, and then said that in his

opinion any renewal of friendly intercourse between Castiglione

and the Countess would surely bring trouble and would inevitably

cause her anxiety. If Castiglione loved her in the way he believed

he did, he would think more of her welfare than of the pleasure he

would have in seeing her. If he was sure that his thoughts of her

were what he represented them to be, he could write to her, and

she might write to him if she thought fit. The prelate refused to

say more than that, but the opinion was delivered in such manly

and direct words that Castiglione was much impressed by it; and

when, in the church, he had generously offered to leave Rome at

once, because he saw in Maria’s face all the trouble and anxiety

he feared for her, he had spoken with Ippolito Saracinesca’s

honourable words still ringing in his ears. It was no wonder if

he told Maria that she could not have chosen a better man of whom

to ask help and advice; and though he knew what that advice would

be, and felt sorrowfully sure that she would try to follow it, he

almost smiled at the coincidence as he watched her cross the nave

in the direction of the Sacristy.

And now, when she came back into the Basilica, she retraced her

steps towards the tomb of Leo Twelfth. Again she stopped a moment

and almost knelt as she passed before the Julian Chapel and went on

to the north aisle; but when the small gate before which she had

knelt with Castiglione was in sight she paused in the shadow of

the pillar and leant against the marble, as if she were very tired.

Till then she had not dared to ask herself what she meant to

do, but when she saw the place where she had so lately touched

Castiglione’s hand in forgiveness of the past, the truth rushed

back upon her, as the winter’s tide turns from the ebb to storm

upon the beaten shore.

It was upon her, and she felt that it would sweep her from her

feet and drown her; and it was not the imaged truth she had taught

herself to believe those many years. She gazed at the closed

gate, and she knew why she had forgiven her lover at last. It was

because she wished to forgive herself, and she had found it easy,

shamefully easy. The hour of evil came back to her memory with

frightful vividness, and now her pale cheek burned with shame and

she pressed it hard against the icy marble; and she forced her eyes

to stay wide open, lest if she shut them for an instant, she should

see what she remembered so horribly well.

She would not go to the gate again, now; the words she had said

there had been false and untrue, the prayer she had breathed there

had been a blasphemy and nothing else. For years and years she had

lived in the mortal sin of those brief moments; unconfessing and

unpardoned of God, she had gone to Communion month after month,

telling herself that she was an innocent, suffering woman, doing

her best to atone for another’s crime; yet she had always felt

in the dark hiding-places of her heart the knowledge that it was

all untrue, that she had been less sinned against than herself

sinning, and that if she would die in the faith in which she had

been brought up, and in the hope of life hereafter, she must some

day humble herself and her pride to the earth, and ask of God and

man the pardon she had granted just now as if it were hers to give.

It was too much; it was more than she could bear. In her anger and

hatred of herself she found strength to turn from the pillar and

to go on straight and quickly to the door. Two or three soldiers

who had wandered in were just leaving the Basilica; they lifted the

heavy curtain for her and she thanked them mechanically and passed

out, holding her head high.

CHAPTER IV

Maria hardly knew how she had come home. She had no distinct

recollection of having taken a cab, nor of having driven through

the city, nor of having paid a cabman when she reached the Via San

Martino. There are times when unconscious cerebration is quite

enough for the ordinary needs of life. Maria neither fainted nor

behaved in any unusual way during the half-hour that elapsed

between her leaving the pillar against which she had leant in the

church and the moment when she entered her own room. Even then she

hardly knew that she gave her maid her hat and gloves and smoothed

her hair before she went to her sitting-room to be alone.

But when she was there, in her favourite seat with her little

table full of books beside her, her footstool at her feet and her

head resting at last against a small silk cushion on the back of

the chair--then the one thought that had taken possession of her

pronounced itself aloud in the quiet room.

‘I have been a very wicked woman.’

That was all, and she said it aloud only once; but the words went

on repeating themselves again and again in her brain, while she

leaned back and stared steadily at the blank of the tinted ceiling;

and for a time she turned her head wearily from side to side on

the cushion, as people do who have little hope, and fear that the

very worst is close at hand.

For many years she had sustained a part which her pride had

invented to quiet her conscience. If it were not so, if she had

really been the outraged victim of a moment’s madness, knowing

herself quite innocent, why had she not gone to her husband, as an

honest woman should, to ask for protection and to demand justice?

Because she loved Castiglione still, perhaps; because she was

willing to sacrifice everything rather than accuse him; because

she would rather be dishonoured in her husband’s eyes than see her

lover disgraced before the world. But that was not true; that was

impossible. If Baldassare del Castiglione had been the wretch she

had the courage to tell him he was when she bade him leave her for

ever, Maria Montalto would not have hesitated an instant. He should

have gone where justice sends such men, and she would have asked

her husband to let her end her days out of the sight of the world

she had known.

Her memory brought back the words she had spoken to Castiglione

long ago under the ilex-trees in the Villa Borghese. She remembered

the intonations of her own voice, she remembered how she had

quivered with pain and anger while she spoke, how she had turned

and left him there, leaning against a tree, very pale; for she

had made him believe all she said, and that was the worst a woman

can say. She had called him a coward and a brute, the basest of

mankind; and he had obeyed her, and had left Rome that night

because she had made him believe her.

But later, many months later, when Montalto solemnly accused her

of having betrayed him, she had bent her head, and not one word of

self-defence had risen to her lips; so her husband had turned away

and left her, as she had turned and left her lover. He had been

under the same roof with her after that, at more and more distant

intervals till he had left Rome altogether; but never again, when

they had been alone together, had he spoken one word to her except

for necessity. Yet he had loved her then, and he loved her still;

she had seen in his face that he was broken-hearted, and Monsignor

Saracinesca had told her now that the deep hurt would not heal. She

had played her comedy of innocence to her lover and to herself,

but she had not dared to play it to her husband, lest some act of

frightful injustice should be done to Baldassare del Castiglione.

She had forgiven Balduccio! She laughed at the thought now in

bitter self-contempt. Her soul and her conscience had met face to

face in the storm, and the expiation had begun. She must confess

her fault to God and man, but first to man, first to that man to

whom it would be most hard to tell the truth because she had been

the most unjust to him, to Castiglione himself.

That was to be the answer to his question. There was no doubt now;

he must go away. She could not allow him to exchange again into

another regiment, in order that he might live near her for a time,

nor could she let him leave the service altogether, to pass an

idle life in Rome. Every word that Don Ippolito had spoken was

unanswerable, and there was much more that he had not said. She

might not be able to trust herself after all; after reconciliation,

friendship would come, cool, smiling and self-satisfied, but

behind friendship there was a love that neither could hide long,

and beyond love there was human passion, strong and wakeful, with

burning eyes and restless hands, waiting till the devil opportunity

should come suddenly and spread his dusky wings as a tent and a

shelter for sin. Maria was still brave enough to fear that, and

something told her that fear of herself must be the first step on

which to rise above herself.

She left her seat at last and sat down at a table to write to

Castiglione; but when she tried to word a note it was not easy. It

would not be wise, either, for such words as she wished to send

him are better not written down. Maria realised this before she

had penned three lines, and she tore the bit of paper to shreds at

once. Baldassare was stopping with cousins, and a note might fall

into light-fingered hands.

She rang the bell and told Agostino to telephone to the Conte del

Castiglione saying that she would be glad to see him the next

day at half-past two, if he could come then. In a few moments

the servant brought back the answer. The Conte had been at the

telephone himself and would do himself the honour of calling on the

Signora Contessa on the morrow at half-past two.

The formal reply was so like his messages of old days that it sent

a little thrill through her. Often and often he had come at that

quiet hour, when Montalto was always out of the way, and each time

he had found some new way of telling her that he loved her; and

she, in turn, had listened and had laughingly scolded him, telling

him that she had grown from a silly girl into a grave Roman matron,

and would have no more of his boyish love-making; and, moreover,

that if he was always going to make love to her she would refuse to

receive him the very next time he tried to see her at the hour when

she was alone. And yet she listened to his voice, and he saw her

lip quiver sometimes and her soft pallor grow warmer; and always,

when he sent a message asking to see her at half-past two, the

answer had been that she would probably be at home, and that he

might try if he liked; and when he came, she was there, and alone,

and ready to laugh, and scold, and listen, expecting no danger and

not wittingly thinking any evil.

So his message to-day startled her senses, as a little accidental

pressure on the scar of an old wound sometimes sends a wave of the

forgotten pain through the injured nerve. It was like a warning.

When she was alone she sat down in the deep chair again and leaned

back. It was wrong to be so glad that she was to see him the next

day, but she could not help it; and besides, it was to be the last

time for so long, perhaps for ever. Surely, after all that she

had suffered, she might allow herself that little joy before the

unending separation began!

She was already far from the bitter self-reproach of a few minutes

ago, and the mere thought of his coming had wrought the change. Was

it not in order to be just to him at last that she had sent for

him? Might there not be a legitimate moral satisfaction in humbling

herself before him, and in the thought that she was about to lift

a heavy burden from his heart? Moreover, to be for ever gloomily

pondering on her past fault, now that she had acknowledged it and

was sorry for it, would surely be morbid.

As for the religious side of the matter, she would make her peace

with heaven at once. She would put on a brown veil and go to the

Capuchin church that very afternoon and confess all to Padre

Bonaventura, of whom she had so often heard, but who would never

know who she was. He would impose some grave and wearisome penance,

no doubt; Capuchin monks are notably more severe in that respect

than other confessors. He would perhaps bid her read the seven

penitential psalms seven times, which would be a long affair. But

he could not refuse her absolution since she was really so sorry;

and the next morning she would get up early and go to the little

oratory near by and receive the Communion in the spirit of truth

at last; and when Castiglione came at half-past two she would have

grace and strength to tell what she had to tell, and to bid him

good-bye, even for ever. If she did all this she would earn the

right to that one last little joy of meeting.

She was not a saint yet; she was not even heroic, and perhaps what

she took for a guiding ray of light was anything but that; perhaps

it was little better than a will-o’-the-wisp that would lead her

into far more dangerous ground than she had traversed yet. But

after her resolution was made she felt lighter and happier, and

better able to face the world than she had felt during that long

week since Castiglione had come back.

Then Leone came in, straight and sturdy and bright-eyed; and he

marched across the room to where she sat and threw his arms around

her, as he sometimes did. And though he was but a small boy, she

felt how strong he was when he squeezed her to him with all his

might and kissed her, first on one cheek and then on the other; and

in spite of herself she closed her eyes for a second and drew one

short breath as she kissed him too. He was very quick to see and

notice everything.

‘Did I hurt you, mama?’ he asked almost anxiously.

‘No, dear!’ She smiled. ‘You are not strong enough to hurt me yet,

darling.’

He drew back half a step and surveyed his mother critically, with

his head a little on one side.

‘I wouldn’t, of course,’ he said condescendingly. ‘But if I twisted

your arm and hammered it with my fist I could hurt you. I did it to

Mario Campodonico, and he’s nine, and he howled.’

‘Naughty boy!’ Maria could not help laughing. ‘Why did you hurt

poor Mario?’

‘Poor Mario!’ cried Leone scornfully. ‘He’s twice my size, and

he’s learning to ride. Why shouldn’t I hammer him if I can? He

tried to take away a roast chestnut I was eating. It was in the

Villa Borghese only yesterday. He won’t do it again, though! He

howled.’

Thereupon Leone faced about, marched to the window, and climbed

upon his favourite chair to look for soldiers in the street. He

got up with three quick movements, as if he were going through a

gymnastic exercise. He set one knee and both hands on the seat,

then put the second knee up and both hands on the top of the chair,

then he straightened his back and was in position. Maria watched

him, and her eyes settled on the back of his solid little neck that

showed above the broad sailor’s collar, and on the short and thick

brown hair that was so curly just at that place.

But presently she turned away and mechanically took a book from

the low table beside her. Don Ippolito had said that Montalto

might offer her a reconciliation she did not deserve, and might

come back to take her and Leone to live in the palace again. The

thought chilled her and frightened her, for she could guess at

his expression when he should first see what she had seen every

hour of the day for years. Yet any father might be proud of such a

child--any father! Could such a ‘reconciliation’ be lasting?

That afternoon she took Leone with her and drove out by Porta Furba

to the ruins which the people call Roma Vecchia. They drove across

the great meadow, and when they could drive no farther they got out

and walked, and climbed up till they could sit on one of the big

fragments of masonry and look towards the west. Leone had been

rather silent, for with the exception of an occasional couple of

mounted carabineers on patrol they had hardly met any soldiers at

all. And now they sat side by side in the sunshine, for there was a

cool breeze blowing from the sea and the air was not warm yet.

Leone took no interest in any pastimes earlier than the age of

armour and tournaments; and Maria was glad that he did not ask her

questions about the ruins, for she could not have answered him. She

knew nothing about the Quintilii and very little about Commodus.

She only knew that the great pile was commonly called the ‘Old

Rome,’ and that she loved it for its grand loneliness. But Leone

looked about him, and thought it was a good place for a castle.

Next to soldiers he loved castles and forts.

‘If this belonged to me, I’d build a fortress here,’ he observed

gravely, after a long silence. ‘I’d build a great castle like

Bracciano.’ He had been taken there on a children’s picnic during

the winter. ‘But I’d have lots of guns and a regiment of artillery

here if it were mine,’ he added.

‘What for?’ asked Maria, amused.

‘To defend Rome, of course,’ answered Leone.

‘But no one is coming to take Rome, child,’ objected his mother.

‘Oh, yes, they may!’ He seemed quite confident. ‘If there are no

other enemies, there are always the French and the priests!’

At this astounding view of Italy’s situation Maria could not help

laughing.

‘We are good friends with the French now,’ she said. ‘And who has

been telling you that the priests are the enemies of Italy?’

‘Gianluca Trasmondo says so,’ answered Leone. ‘He knows, for his

uncle is a cardinal. Besides, no priests are soldiers, are they? So

they wouldn’t defend Italy. So they’re Italy’s enemies.’

‘You are wrong, darling,’ answered Maria. ‘The priests have all had

to do their military service first.’

‘What? And wear uniforms, and go to drill, and smoke Toscano

cigars?’

‘I’m not sure about the smoking,’ laughed Maria; ‘but they have to

serve their time in the army, just like other men.’

‘Of course you know,’ said the small boy, who had perfect

confidence in his mother’s facts. ‘I didn’t. I’ll tell Gianluca

to-morrow. All the same, this would be a good place for a castle. I

wonder whose the fields are.’

‘I don’t know, dear. You may run down to the carriage and ask

Telemaco if you like, and then come back and tell me. He knows all

about the Campagna.’

Telemaco was Maria’s coachman, who had followed her when she had

left the Montalto palace--a grey-haired, placid, corpulent man of

great weight and overpowering respectability.

Leone jumped up and ran away at a steady trot, with his elbows

well in, his fists close to his chest, and his head back, as he

had seen soldiers run in drilling. Maria was left alone for a few

minutes, for the carriage was on the other side of the ruins and

two hundred yards away. She leaned on one elbow and looked westward

at the distant broken aqueduct, far away under the sun. She was

thinking of what she should say to the old monk in the Capuchin

church later in the afternoon, and the moments passed quickly.

Before she had determined upon the opening sentence, the boy came

trotting back to her up the little hill. He stopped just before

her, his legs apart and his face beaming with pleasure.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘what do you think? Shall I build a castle here or

not?’

‘I think not,’ answered his mother, smiling.

‘But I think I shall when I am big. It all belongs to me!’

Maria opened her eyes in surprise.

‘To you, child? What do you mean?’

‘I asked Telemaco whose this land was. He said, “It belongs to

your most excellent house.” I said just what you said--“What do

you mean?” He said, “It is as I say, Signorino, for the land here

belongs to his Excellency your papa, and if you see one of the

mounted watchmen in blue about here, he will have the arms of your

house on his badge.” That was what Telemaco said. So you see, when

I am big I shall build a castle here. Why do you look sorry, mama?’

‘I’m not sorry, darling,’ Maria answered with a faint smile. ‘I was

thinking of the time when you will be grown up.’

Leone reflected a little.

‘But why should you look sorry for that, mama? You won’t go away

and leave me when I’m grown up, will you, to go and live with papa

in Spain?’

‘No, dear. I shall certainly not do that.’

Another pause, longer than the first, during which the small

boy watched her face keenly, and she shrank a little before the

fearless blue eyes.

‘Why does papa never come back to see us?’ he asked.

She had expected the question a long time, and had made up her mind

how to meet it when it came; yet she was taken by surprise.

‘Your father’s mother is a great invalid,’ she said, with a little

nervous hesitation. ‘He does not like to leave her.’

‘He might come here for a day sometimes,’ answered Leone, not at

all satisfied. ‘He doesn’t like us. That’s the reason. I know it

is. He doesn’t want us to live in the palace. That’s why we live

where we do.’

‘Hush! You must not say that, my dear. The palace is very gloomy,

and I chose to live in a more cheerful part of the city.’

‘I like it better, too,’ said the boy in a tone of reflection. ‘But

all other people live in their own palaces, all the same.’

‘Most of our friends are many in a family, dear. But we are only

you and I.’

A silence, during which the child’s brain was weighing these

matters in the balance.

‘I’m glad papa never comes back,’ he said at last. ‘You are, too.’

Without waiting for an answer, and as if to give vent to his

feelings, he turned away, picked up a small stone, and threw it as

far as he could over the green grass below the ruins--presumably at

an imaginary enemy of Italy. He watched it as it fell, and did not

seem satisfied with his performance.

‘I suppose David was bigger than I am when he killed the giant with

a pebble,’ he observed rather wistfully.

They drove home.

‘Why didn’t you know that the land out there belongs to us, mama?’

asked Leone, after a long silence, when they were near the Porta

San Giovanni.

‘I know very little about the property, except that it is large and

some of it is in the Campagna.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because no one ever told me about it,’ Maria replied, feeling that

she must find an answer. The boy looked at her gravely, but not

incredulously, and asked nothing more.

CHAPTER V

The sun was sinking when Maria descended the long flight of steps

from the door of the Capuchin church to the level of the street,

and under the grey veil she wore her cheeks were wet with undried

tears. But she held her head up proudly, and her small feet stepped

firmly and lightly on the stones.

She was not in a state of grace by any means, and the tears had not

been shed in repentance for her sins. She hardly ever cried, and

when she did it was generally from anger and bitter disappointment.

The moisture that had risen in her eyes that morning when

Castiglione had offered to go away for her sake had not overflowed;

but now, when she had left the confessional without the expected

absolution, and had seen the hard-faced old monk in brown come out

of his box and stalk stiffly away to the sacristy as if he had done

something very virtuous, she had sat down in a chair in a corner of

the empty church and the burning drops had streamed over her cheeks

like fire till they reached the small handkerchief she held to her

mouth under her veil; and she had bitten hard at the hem, and it

was salt with her tears.

She had been misunderstood, she had been misjudged, she had been

rebuked. She had been told that she was a very great sinner; that

so long as she was willing to love a man who was not her husband,

and who had been her lover, God would not forgive her; that

absolution came from God and not from priests, and that it was out

of any priest’s power to pronounce it while she was in her present

state of mind; that she might come again when she was sure that she

wished never to think of that evil man; that if she felt that she

owed him reparation for having been unjust to him she should write

to him to say so, asking him to destroy the letter, and bidding him

never to come near her again; and that to see him again, even once,

since she still loved him, would be not only a deadly risk but

actually a mortal sin. After this she had been sternly told to go

away, to pray for grace, and to be particularly careful to observe

days of abstinence and fasting, as the devil was everywhere and

never slept.

Now the monk who had heard her confession was a good man and

meant well, and believed that he was speaking for the good of

her soul. He knew well enough from the penitent’s language and

manner of speaking about her life that she was a lady of Rome, and

perhaps one of the great ones who sometimes came to him because

they did not like to go to their regular confessors. But this,

in his estimation, was the best of reasons why Maria should be

treated with the same severity as the poorest and most ignorant

woman of the people. If she had come to him with a religious

doubt or a scruple concerning dogma he would have treated her

very differently, for he was something of a theologian and had

a monk’s love of controversy. But she came to him simply as a

woman, with a perfectly evident mortal sin on her conscience,

and what he considered a perfectly evident desire to compromise

things by pretending that her lover could be her friend. In such

matters he was a ruthless democrat, as many confessors are. She

might be a great lady, she might have been royal, for all he

cared; what was just to one woman’s soul and conscience was just

to another woman’s, all the world over, and where the deadly sins

were concerned there was not to be any distinction between the

poor and the rich, the educated and the ignorant. On the contrary,

educated people should get less mercy, because they ought to know

better than their inferiors, and because they had been brought up

in surroundings where the baser sins of humanity are supposed to

be less common; and finally and generally, because we are told

that the salvation of the rich is to be regarded as a much more

difficult matter than that of the poor. It was certainly not the

business of a Capuchin monk to reverse matters and make it easier.

But the delicately nurtured, sorely tried woman who had come to

unburden her conscience of a sin she had only fully understood

within the last few days, felt as if the well-meaning monk had

thrust out his bony hand from the shadow of the confessional and

had deliberately slapped her cheek.

Therefore Maria Montalto was not in a state of grace, and in her

mortification she called the austere and democratic Capuchin

several hard names; she said to herself that he was ignorant,

that he was a common person, and that it was a scandal that such

a prejudiced man should be a licensed confessor. She bit her

handkerchief hard, tasting the salt of her tears in the hem of it,

because she knew in her heart that there was a little truth in some

of the hard things she had been told.

Her pride and nervous energy came to the rescue after a while, and

she left the church to walk home through quiet streets where no

one was likely to meet her. The evening breeze would dry her face

under her veil, and her anger would help the drying process too,

for it kept her cheeks hot. That morning she had felt very ill and

tired and had vaguely expected to break down, but the afternoon

in the Campagna had done her good, and her temper did the rest.

Castiglione would find her looking wonderfully well when he came

the next day at half-past two.

The sun had set, but it was still broad daylight when she reached

the top of the Via San Basilio. She turned to the right presently,

and almost ran into Teresa Crescenzi, who was walking very fast and

also wore a veil, but was always an unmistakable figure anywhere.

‘Maria!’ cried the lively lady at once. ‘Where in the world are you

going alone on foot at this hour?’

‘I have been to confession and I’m going home,’ answered Maria

without hesitation, and smiling at the other’s quickness in asking

a question which might certainly have been asked of her with equal

reason.

‘So have I,’ answered Teresa with alacrity. ‘What a coincidence!’

But she had not been to confession.

‘Good-bye, dear!’ she added almost at once, and with a quick and

friendly nod she went on down the hill.

Teresa had not gone far when she turned into a deserted side street

and saw Baldassare del Castiglione walking at a leisurely pace a

little way in front of her. A much less ready gossip than she might

well have thought it probable that he and Maria Montalto had just

parted, after taking a harmless little walk together in a very

quiet part of the town.

It was certainly Castiglione whom she saw. There was no mistaking

his square shoulders and back of his strong neck, where the closely

cropped brown hair had an incorrigible tendency to be curly. Teresa

had often noticed that, for she admired him and wished that he were

a more eligible husband; but she was not very rich, and he was

distinctly poor. She often saw him in the summer, and it had not

occurred to her till his return to Rome that he would refuse her if

she suggested that he might marry her. That was the way she put it,

for a lack of practical directness was not among her defects. She

had supposed that he had really quite forgotten Maria by this time,

although her pretty tale about them was founded on the undying and

perfectly innocent affection of both.

Now before she overtook Castiglione, as she inevitably must if

he did not mend his pace, she hesitated whether she should turn

back quietly and take another street. For she had not been to

confession. Then it seemed to her that it would be dangerous to

avoid him, for he was walking slowly, as if he himself were only

keeping out of the way in the side street for a while, and might

turn back at any moment; and if he did, he would recognise her. So

she decided to overtake him and ask him to walk with her till they

could find a closed cab, which was what she wanted.

Having reached this decision a further consideration presented

itself to her mind. He would hardly believe that she could be

coming up behind him without having met Maria, who had certainly

been with him and whom she had just left. He would not like to feel

that this had happened, and that she might even have seen them

together. It would be more tactful to be frank.

She spoke as soon as she was close to him.

‘Good evening, Balduccio,’ she said pleasantly. ‘Will you help me

to find a closed cab?’

He took off his hat without showing any surprise, and smiled as if

not at all disturbed by the meeting. But then, thought Teresa, he

always had good nerves and was a man of the world.

‘We can get one at the Piazza Barberini,’ he said, lengthening his

stride to keep up with her, for he saw that she was in a hurry.

‘Can we? I feel one of my chills coming on, and I must either

run to keep warm or get a closed carriage somewhere. Do you mind

walking fast?’

‘Not at all.’

‘Because you were walking very slowly when I saw you.’

‘Was I?’ He seemed very vague about it.

‘Yes!’ she laughed. ‘Dear old Balduccio! You are just the same

reserved, formal silly old thing you were when we went to the

dancing-class at Campodonico’s, ever so long ago!’

‘Am I?’

‘Yes. But as I just happened to meet Maria, you need not pretend to

be vague. You know how frank I am, so I’m sure you would rather be

sure at once that I know, and that I will not tell any one!’

’Dear friend,’ returned Castiglione blandly, ‘what in the world are

you talking about?’

Again Teresa laughed gaily.

‘Always the same! But as I met Maria Montalto only a moment ago,

it’s not of the slightest use to tell me that you two have not

been for a little walk together! Do you think I blame you? Haven’t

you behaved like a couple of saints for more years than I like to

remember? No one can find any fault with you, of course, but for

Heaven’s sake walk in the Corso, or in the Via Nazionale, where

every one can see you, instead of in such a place as this!’

‘But I have not met the Countess at all,’ answered Castiglione with

some annoyance, when she paused at last to take breath.

‘Oh! Oh! Oh!’ she cried, shaking her finger at him. ‘It’s very

wrong to tell fibs to an old friend who only wishes to help you!’

‘You may think what you please,’ he answered bluntly. ‘I have not

met the Countess this afternoon. I have been to see a sculptor who

has his studio in this street.’

‘Oh, yes!’ cried Teresa incredulously. ‘And Maria told me she had

been to confession.’

‘If she said so, it is true. If we had met we should have stopped

to speak. We might have walked a little way together. But we have

not met.’

Teresa Crescenzi did not believe him. She had managed to get rid

of her veil while walking, and without being noticed by him. Women

can do such things easily when a man is very much preoccupied about

other matters.

‘As you like,’ she answered, and her tone was anything but

complimentary to his truthfulness.

But he did not take up the question after having once told her

the truth, and when he opened the door of the cab they found

in the Piazza Barberini there was a distinct coolness in their

leave-taking. He gave the cabman her address and went away on foot

down the crowded Tritone towards the city. When he had walked a

quarter of an hour he looked at his watch, stopped a policeman, and

asked for the nearest public telephone office.

He called for Maria Montalto’s number and was answered by Agostino,

the butler. He inquired whether the Countess would speak with him

herself, and presently he heard her voice.

‘I am Castiglione,’ he said. ‘Is it true that Teresa Crescenzi

met you in the Via di San Basilio when you were walking home from

confession half an hour ago?’

‘Yes--but how----’

He interrupted her at once.

‘I am in a public office, shut up in the box, but be careful what

you say unless you are alone. I met Teresa a moment after she had

spoken to you, and she pretended to know that we had been together

in one of those quiet streets.’

‘How abominable!’

‘I had been to see Farini, the sculptor, close by San Nicolo. It

was natural that Teresa should suppose we had met, but I was angry,

and so was she because I denied what she said. I’m afraid she will

repeat the story.’

‘Why should I care?’ Maria’s voice was rather sharp.

‘I care, on your account, so I have warned you.’

‘Thank you. You will come to-morrow?’

‘To-morrow, at half-past two, if you will receive me. Good-bye.’

‘You shall have the answer then. Good-bye.’

Maria went back to Leone, who was having his supper. The child

was unusually silent, and ate with the steady, solemn appetite of

strong boys. When he had finished he got up and gravely examined

his armoury before going to bed, to see that his weapons were all

clean and neatly hung in their places. There were two toy guns,

with a tin revolver, a sword-bayonet, and a sabre. He went through

this inspection every evening, and Maria sat by the table watching

him while Agostino took away the things.

When the servant was gone the boy came and stood beside his

mother’s knee and looked up into her face earnestly.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, after a long time.

‘For what, dear?’

‘You’ve been crying because I asked questions about papa. I’m

sorry.’

She leant forward and took him in her arms quietly, and made him

sit astride of her knees and look into her eyes while she held him

by the wrists.

‘Little man,’ she said gently, ‘if you ever say anything that hurts

me I promise to tell you just what it is, because I know you will

never mean to hurt me, even when you are grown up. It was nothing

you said that made me cry this afternoon, so there’s nothing for

you to be sorry for--’ she smiled and shook her head--‘nothing,

darling, nothing, nothing!’

Leone smiled too.

‘I’m glad,’ he said, and then his face grew grave and thoughtful

again.

Maria wondered what was going on in his small head during the next

few seconds. When he spoke at last she started.

‘Then it was the priest?’ he said with conviction. ‘I hate him.’

‘What do you mean, child?’

‘After we came home you put on the grey veil and went out alone.

That is always confession, isn’t it? When you came home you put up

the veil and kissed me. Your cheeks were just a little wet still.

So it was the priest, wasn’t it, who made you cry?’

Maria would not deny the truth.

‘It was something the confessor said to me,’ she answered.

‘I told you so!’ returned the small boy. ‘I hate him!’

He was well aware that if he stayed another moment where he was his

mother would tell him that it was very wrong to hate anybody, so

he struggled out of her hold, slipped from her knees to the floor,

knelt down and began to say his small evening prayer with such

amazing alacrity that Maria’s breath was taken away and she could

not get in a word of rebuke; in spite of herself she smiled over

his bent head and felt very irreverently inclined to laugh at his

manœuvre. But before he had finished her face was very grave, and

when he got up from his knees she spoke to him before she kissed

his forehead.

‘Listen to me, my boy,’ she said. ‘You know that I always tell you

the truth, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ answered Leone. ‘So do I. It’s cowardly to tell lies. Mario

Campodonico is a coward, and he lies like anything.’

‘Never mind Mario. I don’t want you to say that you hate priests.’

‘It’s the truth,’ retorted the terrible child. ‘Shall I say I love

them?’

‘No. Listen to me. There are good people and bad people all over

the world. So there are good and bad priests, but I think there

are many more good ones than bad ones. You would not hate a good

priest, would you?’

‘N--no,’ answered Leone, rather doubtfully.

‘Then leave the bad ones to take care of themselves, and don’t

think about them. Do you suppose I hate you when you are naughty

and break things in a rage and try to beat the servants? It’s the

naughtiness I hate. It’s not you.’

‘It feels just the same,’ observed the small boy, with great logic.

‘But it’s not,’ answered his mother, trying to keep from laughing.

‘And when you are bigger you will understand that one should not

hate bad men, but the badness in them.’

‘Well, that’s better than nothing! Then I hate the badness in your

priest, who made you cry, and I’d like to hammer it out of him!’

Maria was at the end of her arguments.

‘He meant well,’ she said weakly. ‘I’m sure he meant well.’

‘When he made you cry?’ retorted Leone indignantly. ‘You might just

as well say I mean well when----’

But at this point Maria closed the discussion abruptly by picking

him up with a laugh and a kiss and carrying him off to bed. It was

as much as she could do now, for he was very sturdy and heavy for

his age.

CHAPTER VI

When Castiglione came on the following afternoon Maria was looking

wonderfully well, and so like herself, as she had been within the

first year of her marriage, that he could not help looking at her

very hard. There was only the small patch of white in her dark hair

near the left temple, which Castiglione could not remember; and

there was the black frock. She always wore black or grey now, but

when she was very young she had liked pretty colours.

Castiglione himself was in uniform, for he thought it possible that

he might see Leone, and he would not have broken his promise to the

boy for anything. He was not the man to put on his uniform with the

idea of looking better in it than in a civilian’s clothes, still

less had he any thought of recalling old memories to Maria by such

theatrical means. Men who are hard hitters are rarely theatrical in

small things, though some famous generals, like Napoleon, have been

great dramatic artists.

In Italy the uniforms of the cavalry regiments do not differ as

much as in some other countries, and but for the colour of the

facings and a few smaller details Castiglione’s dress was enough

like the uniform of the Piedmont Lancers to produce a much deeper

impression on Maria than he could have easily understood. The man

himself had changed little. He was a little broader perhaps, his

strong features were a little more marked, his military moustache

was heavier, but that was all. At thirty, or nearly that, he was

much the same active, energetic, good-looking young officer he had

been at two and twenty.

They instinctively took the places they had sat in during his first

visit. The hour was the same, the light in the room was the same,

too; but other things were not the same. Castiglione felt it as

soon as he saw Maria’s face, and she knew it when she heard the

sound of his voice. The ice-wall that had stood between them so

long had melted away; the chasm that separated Maria even from that

barrier was bridged. It would not be easy now to touch hands and

part again for years.

The stern old monk’s words echoed faintly in Maria’s heart: to meet

thus was a deadly risk, perhaps a mortal sin. But the voice was far

away, and Maria was very happy and hopeful, and the old Capuchin

had been a common and ignorant man who could not understand the

pride and self-respect of a Roman lady, nor the generous honour of

such a man as Baldassare del Castiglione.

‘I was right to telephone last night, was I not?’ he asked when

they were seated.

‘Yes, quite right. But Teresa has always seemed to be a good

friend. She may have been annoyed because she had made such a

stupid mistake, but I really don’t think she will gossip about us.’

‘I hope not, though I don’t trust her.’

After this there was a little silence, for he would not make

conversation; and while he waited for Maria to speak, his eyes were

satisfied, and his heart beat quietly and happily because he was

near her. He did not feel the heavy, passionate pulse that used to

throb in his neck when he came near her, nor the dryness in his

throat, with the strange, cool quivering of his own lips. He was

simply and quietly happy, and he trusted himself and her.

‘You have come for your answer,’ she said, after a long time. ‘It’s

of no use to pretend that we have anything else to talk of. We will

be honest with each other. There is no one to hear what we say, and

we have nothing to say now of which we need be ashamed before God.’

Castiglione silently bent his head in assent and waited.

‘The forgiveness you asked of me yesterday, I should have asked of

you, too,’ Maria went on, but her eyes looked down. ‘I ask it now,

before I say anything more.’

‘I don’t understand,’ answered the man. ‘How can I have anything to

forgive?’

‘Balduccio, do you remember the hard words I said to you under the

ilex-trees when we parted?’

‘A condemned man does not forget the words of his sentence.’ His

voice was dull.

‘I called you a coward and a brute, Balduccio, and I called you the

basest of mankind.’

‘It was your right.’

‘No. It was not. I take back those words. I ask your pardon for

them.’

‘What?’ His voice rang in the room, hoarse and strong.

‘I take back every word. I was the coward. I made myself believe

what I said, and I know you would believe it too. I have been a

very wicked woman all these years, Balduccio. I have been wickedly

unjust to you. You must try to forgive me.’

Her voice had sunk very low, for it had been hard to say; but his

almost broke in his throat.

‘Try? Ah, Maria----’

He moved quickly to come near her, and she was aware of it. Still

looking down, she stretched out her hand against him.

‘Sit still!’ she said. ‘Say that you forgive me, if you can.’

‘With all my soul,’ he answered, drawing back into his chair,

obedient to her gesture.

‘Thank you,’ she said, so low that he could hardly hear her.

With that she leaned far back in her low chair and pressed her

fingers upon her eyes without covering her face, and he saw the

warmth come and go in her soft pale cheeks, and then come back

again. Indeed, it had not been easy for her. Presently she opened

her eyes, and folded her hands on her lap, and gazed happily into

his face.

‘I can look at you now,’ she said simply, ‘and it is not wrong.’

‘No, indeed!’

But he did not know what he was saying, nor what he should say,

for in a moment she had changed all the greater thoughts of his

life. She had taken from him the burden of the old accusation which

she had made him believe was just in spite of himself; but it was

like lifting heavy weights from a balance very suddenly; the whole

mechanism of his mind and conscience quivered and trembled when the

strain was gone, and swung violently this way and that.

Presently she was speaking again, and he began to hear and

understand.

‘I am not going to pretend anything,’ she was saying. ‘But I will

not hide anything either. No, I will not! There is nothing to be

ashamed of now, because we have made up our minds that there never

shall be again. We promise each other that, don’t we, Balduccio?’

‘I promise you that, come what may,’ he answered, well knowing what

he said now.

‘And I promise the same, come what may,’ she said. ‘I give you my

word of honour.’

‘You have mine, Maria.’

‘That is enough, and God believes us,’ she said gravely. ‘But now

the truth, and nothing else. We are not going to pretend that we

are like brother and sister. We love each other dearly, and we love

as man and woman, and I am sure we always shall, now and for ever,

in life, and beyond death, and in the life to come. I am very sure

of that.’

He bent his head and nodded slowly, but that was not enough for

her.

‘Are you not sure, Balduccio?’ she asked after a moment.

He looked up suddenly with blazing eyes.

‘I love you now,’ he said. ‘I have loved you all my life. That is

what I know. If there is a God, He knows it, for He made it so, and

it will be so for ever. If not, it will end when we are both dead,

but not before.’

‘It will never end,’ Maria answered. ‘But it must not be a weight

to drag us down, it must be a strength to lift us. It shall be! Say

that it shall be!’

‘I will do what I can.’

‘Balduccio,’ she went on earnestly, ‘it has lifted us already. It

has made you live a better life than other men, though you do not

believe in God. And though it made me a coward for a long time,

it has given me strength to be brave at last, now that we have

met again, strength to tell you the truth, strength to ask your

forgiveness! If it has done all that already, what will it not do

hereafter, if we keep our promise?’

The deep and fearless light was in her dark eyes now, and she spoke

in a heavenly inspiration of purity and peace. Castiglione watched

her with a sort of awe which he had never felt in his life. That

was a brave, high instinct in him that answered her call; it was

the instinct that would have responded if he had been chosen to

lead the forlorn hope in a fight all but lost.

‘You are a saint,’ he said. ‘I am not. But I will try to follow if

you will only lead the way.’

‘No, dear, I am no saint,’ she answered.

He started at the loving word she had scarcely ever used with him,

and she saw his movement and understood.

‘Why not?’ she asked. ‘It is the truth, and we are not the less

safe for saying that we love, now that we have promised. No, I am

not a saint. You have been better than I in all these years, for I

have been unjust to you, but you have borne it patiently and you

have loved me still. That is what I mean when I say that our love

can lift us up. Do you see? Only--we must not forget the others----’

She paused.

‘Montalto,’ said Castiglione gravely. ‘I understand.’

‘My husband and my son,’ Maria said. ‘We owe them a terrible debt.’

Castiglione’s eyes softened.

‘It is for their sakes that we have promised,’ she went on. ‘For

their sakes there must never again be any earthly taint upon our

love, dear.’

Once more the tender word touched him. He passed his hand over his

eyes as if to hide something.

‘If you were only free!’ he sighed.

Maria made a little movement.

‘The very thought of that is wrong,’ she answered bravely. ‘You

must not think of it, you must never say it.’

‘I wish your husband no ill,’ Castiglione answered, in a sterner

tone than she had heard yet. ‘I did him a great injury. I would

make reparation if I knew how. But I am a man, Maria, a man like

any other, and I love you in a man’s way, and if Montalto died I

should want you for my wife, as you should be. We have promised

that between us there shall be no word or thought of which we need

be ashamed, even before your husband, if he were here; but more

than that I will not promise, and that is already as much as any

man could keep.’

Maria shook her head gravely and waited a moment before she

answered.

‘I should owe myself to his memory if he were dead,’ she said at

last. ‘A lifetime of faithfulness, cost what it may, is not enough

to expiate what I did.’

Castiglione judged her as men judge the women they love, and he

knew that for the present it was useless to oppose her. He folded

his hands and listened, and she did not see that his fingers

strained upon each other; nor could she guess that his heart was

not beating as quietly now as when he had sat down opposite her a

little while ago.

‘That is the one condition on which we can see each other,’ she

went on. ‘There must be no thought of any earthly union--ever! If

you feel that you are strong enough for that, Balduccio, then come

back to Rome as soon as you can. If you can exchange into your old

regiment again, do so. If not, come now and then, when you can get

leave. We may see each other once a week, at least once a week! The

world cannot blame us for that, after all these years. It will be

little enough, once a week! And sometimes, perhaps, we might meet

in some gallery, in some quiet museum where only the foreigners go,

and we could walk about and talk, and the world will never know it.’

Castiglione smiled at her innocent ignorance of lovers’ tricks,

for he was quieter now, and very happy at the thought of seeing

her often. It would never have occurred to him to do the foolish

thing of which Teresa Crescenzi had suspected him on the previous

afternoon.

‘The great matter is that I am to see you,’ he said; ‘that the

separation is over, and that we love each other!’

‘That--yes! Oh, that above and beyond all things, and for ever and

ever.’

The lovelight was in her eyes as she gazed at him, and her parted

lips were delicately beautiful. Again his hands pressed one another

very hard, and he felt that he set his teeth. He suddenly wondered

how long he could keep his promise, and by what manner of death

he would choose to end his life when he felt that he was going to

break it. She was putting upon him a heavier trial and a far harder

expiation than she knew. Her eyes were so dark and tender, her

parted lips were so sweet to see! In her reliance on herself and

him she had already loosened the great restraint that had bound her

since the evil hour; she cared not to hide the outward looks of

love. She even longed to see in his eyes what she felt in her own.

‘You love me less than I love you, dear,’ she said softly. ‘You are

less happy than I am, because we are to meet often!’

Without a word Castiglione rose from his seat and went to the

window at the further end of the room, and stood there, looking

down through the slits of the blinds. Maria half understood, and

sighed.

‘Forgive me,’ she said, rather sorrowfully.

‘I’m only a man, Maria,’ he answered, turning his head. ‘You must

not make it too hard for me. I love you in a man’s way, and you

have made me promise to love you in yours. I must learn, before I

can be sure of myself.’

Maria reflected a moment. Her thoughts were full of an ideal

sacrifice.

‘Balduccio!’ She called to him gently, for he was looking down at

the street again. ‘Shall I give you back your word and tell you to

go away for a long time, if it’s going to be so hard for you?’

‘No!’

The single syllable was rough and strong, for he resented what she

had said. She rose too and went to him at the window.

‘Are you angry with me?’ she asked humbly.

His hand grasped her bare wrist and tightened upon it almost as if

he meant to hurt her, and he spoke in short, harsh sentences.

‘No, I am not angry. I love you too much. You don’t understand what

I feel. How should you? I’ve been as faithful to you as you’ve

been to your husband all these years. And now I’m with you, and we

are alone, and we love each other, and I’m nothing but a man after

all--and if you look at me in the old way I shall go mad or kill

you.’

He drew her wrist roughly to him and kissed her hand once,

roughly, and dropped it. He had done that in the old days too, and

Maria saw it all again in a violent flash, as men see danger ahead

in a storm at night, lit up by quivering lightning.

She drew breath sharply and turned away from him. She leaned upon

the mantelpiece and rested her throbbing forehead upon her hands.

‘Oh, why have we these earthly bodies of ours?’ she moaned. ‘Why?

why? Why could not God have made us like the angels?’

‘Why not, indeed!’ echoed Castiglione, in bitter unbelief.

‘Even like the fallen angels!’ she cried desperately. ‘They fell

by pride, but not by this! Are there not temptations for heart and

soul and mind enough to try us, to raise us up if we overcome, to

damn us if we yield? Enough to send us to hell or heaven--without

this? O God, that what Thou hast made in Thine own image should be

so vile, so vile, so vile!’

Her despair was real; her cry came from an almost breaking heart.

Castiglione came to her now and laid his hand gently upon her

shoulder.

‘Maria! Look at me, dear! Don’t be afraid!’

She raised her head timidly from her hands and turned her eyes

slowly to him, more than half afraid. But when she saw that his own

were calm and grave again, she gave one little cry of relief and

buried her face upon his shoulder, clinging to him with both hands;

and her touch did not stir his pulse now.

‘No, I’m not afraid of you!’ she softly cried. ‘It was only a

moment, dear, only one dreadful moment, for I trust you with myself

as I would trust you with my soul! Sometimes--’ she looked up

lovingly to his face--‘sometimes each of us must be brave for both,

you know. As we are now, you might even kiss me once and I should

fear nothing!’

He smiled and bent down and kissed her cheek; and there was no

thought in him that he would not have told her. But then he gently

took her hands from his shoulder and made her sit down as they had

sat before.

‘That was not wrong, was it?’ she asked, with a happy smile.

‘No,’ he answered quietly, ‘there was no wrong in that, neither to

you nor to the others.’

‘I’m glad,’ she answered, ‘so glad! But it would not be right to do

it often.’

‘No, not often. Not for a long time again.’

They were both silent in the ebbing of the tide which at the full

had nearly swept them from their feet. At heart, in spite of all,

there was something strangely innocent in them both. Castiglione’s

friends would have wondered much if they could have understood

him, as some of the graver sort might. Few men of his age, beyond

the cloister, knew less of women’s ways and women’s love than he;

few soldiers, indeed, and surely not one of his brother officers.

To wear the King’s uniform ten years in the gayest and smartest

cavalry regiment of the service is not a school for austere virtue

or innocence of heart. All that Castiglione’s comrades noticed

was that he talked but little of women, who were often the chief

subject of the others’ conversation, and that he was very reticent

about the ones he knew. They respected him for that, on the whole,

though they sometimes chaffed him a little in a friendly way. They

all agreed among themselves that he had some secret and lasting

attachment for a woman of their own class whose name he succeeded

in keeping from them in spite of their repeated attempts to find

it out. He was such a manly man that they liked him the better

for it; the more, because great reticence was not their own chief

quality. For the rest, though, he was poorer than most of them,

he was always ready to join in anything except a general raid on

womankind. He played cards with them, and when he could lose no

more, he said so; he was honest in matters of horseflesh and gave

sound advice; he never shirked his duty and left it for another

to do; he was good-natured in doing a comrade’s work when he was

asked to do it for any good reason; he was the best rider in the

regiment, and he never talked about what he had done, or could

do, with a horse; he was not over clever, but he was good company

and told a story with a touch of humour; and he never borrowed

from a brother officer, nor refused to lend, if he had any money.

Altogether, he was the best comrade in the world and everybody

liked and respected him, from the rather supercilious colonel, who

was an authentic duke, and the crabbed old major, who had been

wounded at Dogali, to the rawest recruit that was drafted in from a

Sardinian village or a shepherd’s hut in the Apennines.

But none of all those who liked and respected him guessed that in

the arts of love he was considerably behind the youngest subaltern

in the regiment, at least, so far as his own experience was

concerned, for he could have written volumes about that of the rest

as described by themselves. As a cadet, indeed, he had not been

a model of austerity; but he had fallen in love with Maria a few

days after he had received his commission, and such as he had been

then he had remained ever since, except for her. If his colonel

had known this, he would have smiled sarcastically and would

have said that Castiglione was a case of arrested development,

the old major would have stared at him stupidly without in the

least comprehending that such a man could exist, and the rest of

the mess would have roared with laughter and called him a crazy

sentimentalist. But none of them knew the truth, and he had lived

his life in his own way. There are not many men in the great world

like Baldassare del Castiglione, but there are a few; and in the

little world, in simple countries, there are more of them than the

great world ever dreams of.

This long digression, if it be one, is to explain why Castiglione

accepted Maria’s strangely exalted plan for the future of both,

instead of telling her quite frankly that the chances in favour of

its success were too small for poor humanity to count upon, and

that the best way was to part again and to meet very rarely or not

at all, until the fire of life should be extinguished in the grey

years, and they could look at each other without seeing so much as

a spark of it left in each other’s tired eyes. That is what he

would have done, as a man of honour, if he had known as many other

women of his own class intimately as some of his comrades did.

Or, if he had been like them in other things too, and had loved

Maria less truly, he would have sat down to besiege the fortress

he had once stormed, and would have gone to work scientifically to

demolish its defences, making pretence of accepting the trusting

woman’s generous offer in order to outwit and conquer her by slow

degrees. And if he had done either the one or the other, that is to

say, if he had understood women’s ways, this would either have been

the story of a vulgar fault, or it would have ended abruptly with

Castiglione’s departure.

It is neither. Baldassare was innocent enough as well as honourable

enough to believe that he and Maria could keep the promise they had

made; and he loved her so dearly that the prospect of seeing her

often was like a vision of heaven already half realised.

So on that day they began the new life together, trusting that they

could live it faithfully to the end, but truly resolved to part

again for ever if real danger came near them.

They believed in themselves and in each other. Maria had faith in

a higher power from which she was to receive strength; Castiglione

had little or nothing of this, but he said to himself plainly that

if he broke his word he would die for it on the same day, and he

loved mere life enough to think the forfeit a heavy one.

They counted upon themselves and upon each other. There was

nothing to suggest that quite external circumstances might

influence their lives to make the task easier or more difficult

than they anticipated. Most certainly neither believed that there

could be moments ahead which would be harder to bear than those

through which they had already lived.

When Castiglione went away that afternoon they had agreed that he

should come again on the next day but one, and once again before

he went back to Milan, and that he should at once take steps

to exchange into the Piedmont Lancers, if possible, as his old

regiment was likely to remain in Rome fully eighteen months longer.

CHAPTER VII

If Giuliana Parenzo had been one of those nervous, sensitive

women who are always thinking about themselves and fancying that

their friends are on the point of betraying them, she would have

noticed a little change in Maria’s manner after Castiglione’s visit

to Rome. It was not that Maria was at all less fond of her than

before, or less affectionate, or apparently less glad to see her.

It was much more subtle than that. There is a great difference

between a hungry man and a man who merely has an appetite. The one

must have food, the other is only pleased to have it. Giuliana’s

friendship had long been a necessity to Maria, but it now sank to

the condition of being merely an added satisfaction in her life.

Formerly she would not have given it up for anything else; but now,

if she could have been forced to choose between Castiglione and

Giuliana, she would have given up her friend.

The Marchesa, however, was not a sensitive or nervous woman, and

she noticed nothing of the change that had taken place. She was

therefore very much surprised when her husband spoke to her about

Maria. It was late in the afternoon, some days after Castiglione

had gone back to Milan, and Parenzo had come home tired from the

Foreign Office and was smoking in his wife’s dressing-room, which

was his favourite resort at that hour. Like many busy women,

Giuliana had her writing-table there, in order to be safe from

interruption, and she was occupied with some notes which had to be

finished before dinner, while her husband sat in a low straw chair

watching her, and devising a new costume for their approaching trip

to England. He had always considered it his especial mission to

superintend his wife’s dress, and his taste was admirable. He was a

small wiry man with a neat reddish beard, not much hair on the top

of his head, and a single eyeglass. But he had an energetic nose

and forehead, and a singularly pleasant smile.

Giuliana finished one of her notes and looked up, and instantly the

smile came into his face, for he was quite as much in love with her

as when he had married her. She looked pleased, and nodded to him

before taking another sheet of paper.

‘I wanted to ask you about Maria Montalto,’ he said suddenly,

arresting her attention.

Giuliana looked a little surprised, and laid down her pen.

‘Yes, dear. What do you wish to know about her?’

‘You are just as intimate with her as ever, are you not?’ he

inquired.

‘Oh, yes! What could come between us? Why do you ask?’

‘Because if you are as good friends as you always used to be, I

think you had better tell her that people are talking about her. I

like her, too, and it is a great pity that anything disagreeable

should be said, especially if there is no ground for it.’

‘I’m sure there is none,’ said Giuliana promptly. ‘What is the

gossip about her?’

‘That she is seeing too much of Baldassare del Castiglione.’

‘He is in Milan, my dear. How can she see much of him? What

nonsense! Really, Mondo, you should not repeat such stuff to me!

It’s too absurd!’

Parenzo’s first name was Sigismondo, of which Mondo is the

diminutive. He shook his head quietly at his wife’s rebuke.

‘I know he is in Milan,’ he answered. ‘But he was here for a

fortnight a while ago, and people are saying that they met every

day. When he did not go to see her early in the afternoon, they met

in quiet corners and walked together.’

‘I suppose that by “people” you mean Teresa Crescenzi,’ laughed

Giuliana. ‘She is the mother of all gossip, you know.’

‘It was de Maurienne who told me,’ rejoined Sigismondo.

‘That’s the same thing!’ Giuliana laughed again.

‘Oh, is it? I did not know. You don’t say so!’

Parenzo seemed amused and interested. Monsieur de Maurienne was a

second secretary of the French Embassy, a rich man with artistic

tastes, who gave out that if he were ordered to any other post he

would leave the service and continue to live in Rome.

‘Teresa means to marry him,’ Giuliana explained. ‘I daresay she

will. Of course, the story about Maria comes from her. There is not

a word of truth in it. Castiglione is gone to Milan and may not

come back for years.’

‘My dear, I’m always ready to take your opinion in such matters.

But this afternoon Casalmaggiore--you know who I mean?’

‘The Colonel of Piedmont Lancers?’

‘Yes. He dropped in to see me at the Foreign Office about a

special passport for a friend of his, and he happened to say that

Castiglione had asked to exchange back into his old regiment, and

that the matter would certainly be arranged, as every one liked him

so much. The Colonel was very curious to find out whether there

was a lady in the case, and what her name might be. He seems to

have plenty of curiosity, Casalmaggiore! I said I knew nothing

about Castiglione’s love affairs, and I did not refer him to Teresa

Crescenzi, for he was the last man she tried to marry before de

Maurienne! That was all.’

Giuliana looked at her husband gravely.

‘I did not know that Castiglione wished to come to Rome,’ she said.

‘I doubt if Maria knows it, and I’m almost sure she will not be

pleased.’

‘I should not think she would,’ answered Sigismondo Parenzo. ‘And

I’m quite sure that she won’t like to have her name coupled with

his. Go on with your notes, my darling. If you think it best to

speak to her, do so. Whatever you do will be right.’

‘I hope so, dear,’ answered Giuliana rather vaguely.

Then she smiled at her husband again and went on writing.

Maria was very far from guessing that she was already so much

talked of. She had lived so long in the pleasant security of a

half-retirement from the world, and in the halo of semi-martyrdom

created by Teresa Crescenzi’s original story, that she fancied

herself unwatched and her behaviour uncriticised. She would

certainly never have thought of connecting any change in Teresa’s

disposition towards her with the fact that they had met in a

lonely street after sunset, both wearing veils and telling each

other that they had been to confession. She had not even taken the

trouble to suspect that Teresa had not told the truth; still less

had she guessed that Teresa was just then at a critical moment of

her existence and was playing a very dangerous game in the hope

of marrying Monsieur de Maurienne. Maria did not even know where

he lived; and if she had ever bestowed a thought upon that, she

would have supposed that he had rooms in the Embassy at the Palazzo

Farnese.

She was too happy now to think about indifferent people. She had

seen Baldassare twice again before he had left, and each time

it had seemed easier and more delightful to be with him. He had

behaved perfectly, and had shown that he was in earnest and meant

to lead the ideal life of innocent and loving intercourse which she

had planned for herself and him. Between their meetings she had

written him long and eloquent letters, breathing peace, and hope,

and an undying love in a sphere far beyond this daily, earthly

life. He had answered those letters by shorter ones that echoed

them and promised all they asked. When he had come again he had

stayed over an hour; when he came the last time he stayed almost

all the afternoon, and Maria had boldly told Agostino that she

was not at home for any one except the Marchesa di Parenzo. There

was surely no harm in saying this, she thought, although she knew

quite well that Giuliana and her husband were gone to Viterbo in

a motor-car and would not return till late in the evening. She

told herself that by some unforeseen accident they might come

back sooner, and that Giuliana might appear about tea-time; and

that it was therefore quite honest and truthful to tell Agostino

that the Marchesa was to be admitted, if she came, well knowing

that the chances were about ten thousand to one against anything

so disagreeable. The improbable had happened twice lately--Maria

had chanced to meet Castiglione at Saint Peter’s, and Teresa

had chanced to meet him just after meeting her. Those were two

coincidences, both of which had produced more important results

than might have been anticipated; but it was not likely that there

should be any more for a long time.

Giuliana did not come back unexpectedly, and Maria and Castiglione

were alone together from half-past two till nearly six; and during

all that time there was no approach to anything which might have

disturbed her certainty that they were both sure to keep the

promise they had made. When they parted she laid both her hands on

his and looked up into his face a little expectantly. He might have

given her one harmless kiss when he went away. But he did not. He

shook his head and smiled, and he went away.

She was proud of him then; she was also a very little disappointed,

though she would not have acknowledged it for worlds. He was right,

of course.

When he had left Rome she made an examination of her conscience,

for somehow she found it very hard to do so when she was expecting

to see him soon. She was alone with herself now, and she felt

strong and satisfied in every way, except that she longed to see

him again. She smiled when she remembered the grim old Capuchin’s

words. A deadly risk? A mortal sin? What risk had she run with

such a man as Castiglione? What mortal sin had she committed? She

thought of her life during the past years with amazement now. Why

had she suffered so much and so uselessly? Why had she never told

herself the truth, faced it, humbled herself to tell it to him, and

found peace in all those years? There had been a few hard moments

when she had done it at last, it was true; but they were forgotten

now.

Yet there was one thing she must do, and she must do it at once.

She would not go back to the Capuchin, but she would certainly

go to some other confessor, not her own, and make sure that she

had found absolution, not for what she had done lately, since she

was absolutely sure that she had done right, but for that long

unacknowledged moment of weakness years ago. No priest in his

senses could refuse her absolution for that.

She meant to be as careful and scrupulous as she had ever been

in the hardest days; but it was not easy to feel very humble and

repentant just when she was so very happy, just when she felt that

the new life was lifting her up, together with the man she loved so

well.

It did not seem wrong either to go to a confessor whose name she

knew, and who had the reputation of being a very mild man, who

always took the most gentle and charitable point of view. She had

once heard Giuliana say with a laugh that he must have listened to

some astounding confessions in his day, stories that would make

one’s hair stand on end, because he was such a mild man, and so

charitable; but even Giuliana admitted that he was as good as he

was kind. There was no reason why Maria should not go to him.

She made an appointment with him in a quiet and remote church; she

put on the grey veil and went in a cab in the afternoon, and she

got what she hoped for. She came home, and Leone was waiting for

her; and when she turned up the veil and kissed him there was a

bright smile in her face.

He looked at her critically for a moment.

‘To-day it was a good priest,’ he said, in a satisfied tone. ‘I

don’t hate this priest. You should always go to this one!’

‘Perhaps I shall,’ Maria answered, still smiling.

Early next morning she went out again, and knelt at the altar rail

of the little new oratory that stands in a side street not far from

where she lived, and a young priest with a martyr’s face came and

gave her the Sacrament; and all was still and peaceful and happy;

and she came home after her meditation, feeling that everything

was right in heaven and earth, and that there could be no more sin

in the world, and she would not even think of that bitter moment a

week ago when she had bowed her head upon her hands and had cried

out bitterly against the miserable weakness of this dying body.

She had her tea and toast in her dressing-room, and Leone sat at

the same little table and had his breakfast with her. She did not

quite dare to look at him just then, but his presence somehow made

her almost mad with happiness. She felt that God had taken away the

reproach at last, and that she had a right to her son.

So they laughed and talked, and she made beautiful plans for days

in the country together, and for a month at Anzio in the hot

weather, or even two, and Leone was to learn to swim and was to go

out sailing with her, and they were to be just ‘we two.’ But were

there soldiers at Anzio? Not only there were soldiers, but there

was a firing ground for big guns, with butts, and sometimes one

heard the cannon booming all the morning, and one could see the

smoke come out and curl up after each shot. This was almost too

much for the small boy, and he too went almost mad with joy and

broke out with the brazen voice of healthy small-boyhood, yelling

the tune of the royal march and brandishing his spoon over his

head as if it were a sabre and he were leading a charge of cavalry.

Then Destiny knocked at the door.

‘Come in,’ said Maria Montalto cheerfully.

Agostino brought a telegram, and she took it eagerly from the

salver and tore it open. It could only be from Castiglione--the

news that he had got his exchange into his old regiment. There was

no one else in the world who would be likely to telegraph to her.

Then she read the printed words.

‘My mother died peacefully last night. A letter follows

to-day.--DIEGO.’

Maria’s face changed suddenly, and grew grave and thoughtful.

Leone, who had stopped singing, laid down his spoon and watched

her. He did not think she looked as if anything had hurt her very

much, but he saw that something serious had happened.

She read the telegram over again, and folded it before she looked

up at him.

‘Your grandmama is dead, my dear,’ she said gently. ‘She died last

night. You never saw her, but you will have to wear black for a

little while.’

‘Was it papa’s mother?’ asked Leone.

‘Yes, dear. He telegraphs that he will write to-day.’ She looked

out at some green trees which she could just see through the open

window. Leone was reflecting on the news.

‘Was she good or bad?’ he asked presently.

Maria looked round and smiled faintly at the abrupt childish

question.

‘She was a good woman, darling.’

‘Is papa like her?’ asked the boy.

‘Yes,’ Maria replied, after a moment’s thought. ‘Yes, he is like

his mother, I think. She was a very grand old lady with dark eyes

and iron-grey hair.’

‘Am I like papa?’ inquired Leone.

‘No, dear. You are not like him.’ Maria rose from the table rather

quickly.

‘Why not, mama?’

‘I cannot tell,’ answered Maria from the window, and not looking

round.

‘Because most of the boys are, you know,’ continued Leone. ‘There’s

Mondo Parenzo, and Mario Campodonico, and----’

She could have screamed.

Happily Leone remembered no more striking family likenesses just

then, and presently she heard him get down from his chair and go

off, as he had a way of doing when no one paid attention to what he

said. It was also time for the morning inspection of his weapons,

and he had lately noticed a slight tendency to rust about the

breech of his newest tin gun, which worked just like a real one,

and made nearly as much noise.

When Maria was alone she recovered herself almost instantly, and

when her maid came to her she was quite calm. She began to give

orders about mourning, for in Rome that matter is regulated by

custom with the most absolute precision, to the very day, and not

to conform to the rules is regarded as little less than an insult

offered to the family of the relative who has died. Montalto had

a good many more or less distant relations in Rome, but it was not

only out of consideration for them that Maria went into mourning

on that very day and dressed Leone in black and white; if there

was one being in the world whose sorrow she was bound to respect

outwardly as well as in every other way, that man was her husband.

The death of the Dowager Countess of Montalto was in itself a

matter of indifference to her; she was much more affected by the

announcement that a letter from Montalto himself would soon be on

its way to her, and by the fact that she would have to answer it.

Years had elapsed since the two had written to each other, and the

moment of her final reconciliation with Castiglione and with her

conscience was not the one she would have chosen for renewing her

correspondence with the husband she had injured.

Meanwhile she telegraphed a short and formal message expressing her

profound sympathy for his bereavement. More than this she could not

do.

She wrote to Castiglione later in the morning, for they had agreed

that they would write very often, and she interpreted this to mean

every day. But writing was very unsatisfactory now, and she felt a

mad desire to see him and hear his voice. It was not that she had

any great trouble to tell him, and when she had written down the

news of the Countess’s death it seemed a very small matter compared

with what filled her heart to overflowing. She poured out her love

in words she would hardly have spoken if he had been beside her,

lest the great promise should be endangered. She told him truly

that he was the light of her life and the glory of her heart, and

that no woman had ever loved him as she loved him; and this indeed

was true, and she knew it. She called him heart of her heart and

soul of her soul, she blessed him, she prayed for him, she bade

him believe as she believed, lest death should part for ever what

Heaven had at last made one. She wrote long and eloquently, she

pressed innocently passionate kisses upon the last words, and she

sent the letter on its way without reading it over.

She busied herself in all sorts of ways that day; she could not

find enough to do, enough to plan, enough to occupy her thoughts;

and though she did all cheerfully, telling herself that she was as

happy as she had been in the early morning, there was something

that hurt her, somewhere in her heart.

Giuliana came to dine alone with her that evening. Afterwards they

sat together a long time, talking of many things not especially

important. Then Maria spoke at last.

‘Giuliana, tell me something. Do you think Leone is like his

father?’

Her friend looked at her steadily for three or four seconds before

she answered.

‘Yes, dear. He is very like him already.’

Maria bent her head and looked at her hands before she answered.

‘I think so, too,’ she said. ‘Thank you for telling me frankly.’

Giuliana saw that the moment was favourable for saying more, and

after a little pause she leant forward in her chair, with her

elbows on her knees and her chin resting on her joined fingers.

Maria knew that something important was coming.

‘What is it?’ she asked.

‘Teresa has been talking about you again, dear,’ said Giuliana.

‘Has she invented a new story?’

‘Yes. She is telling every one that you have been seeing a great

deal of Balduccio.’

Maria bent her smooth brows a little, and asked to be told

more precisely what Teresa had said. Giuliana repeated to her

what Parenzo had told her, and Maria listened in silence. The

Marchesa concluded by saying that whether it were true or not that

Castiglione was coming back to Rome, Maria ought to know what the

Colonel had said about it. Maria nodded thoughtfully and still

looked down.

‘That much is true,’ she said at last. ‘He is coming back,

if he can exchange. But the rest, about our meeting in quiet

streets--that is pure invention.’

Giuliana looked grave. She had known something of the truth during

all these years, and she had understood her friend, as she thought,

and had silently sympathised with her steady effort to atone for

her fault. Very good women generally draw a sharp dividing line in

such cases. Giuliana had always been sorry for Maria and had helped

her in many ways, without asking any confidences, to recover her

self-respect and the relative esteem of the people amongst whom

she lived. But the idea that Maria should ever again, under any

imaginable circumstances, meet and talk with Castiglione, even in

the most innocent way, was revolting to Giuliana, and it was long

since she had received such a shock as disturbed her equanimity

when Maria admitted the truth of what the Duca di Casalmaggiore had

told Parenzo. Her face changed instantly, she leaned back again

in her chair, folded her arms, and looked at the mantelpiece.

Altogether she assumed an attitude of resistance, and Maria

understood that she was displeased.

‘You think I am wrong to let him come back, don’t you?’ Maria

asked, rather timidly.

‘Yes,’ Giuliana answered without the least hesitation, ‘I do.’

‘I will try and tell you what I feel and what I hope,’ Maria said.

‘You will understand me then, I’m sure. You will think I may be

right.’

‘I doubt it,’ replied the Marchesa, but her crossed arms relaxed a

little, and she settled herself to listen to her friend’s story.

Maria spoke quietly at first. She did not mean to tell all when

she began, but by degrees she felt that nothing less than the

whole truth could justify her in her friend’s eyes. She talked on

nervously then, sometimes in a tone of passionate regret, sometimes

in a strain of exaltation; she spoke very truthfully of facts, she

even told of her interview with Monsignor Saracinesca and of her

confession to Padre Bonaventura, the Capuchin monk, and all this

was clear enough. It was when she gave the rein to her imagination

and described the ideal life of innocent love and trustfulness

which she hoped to lead with Baldassare that Giuliana stopped her

abruptly.

‘It is not possible,’ said the Marchesa. ‘You should not think of

such things. One can forgive a single fault in those one is very

fond of, but to forgive another is quite a different matter!’

‘There is no danger,’ Maria answered confidently. ‘But as for

forgiving, the Bible says something about seventy times seven!’ she

smiled.

‘My dear,’ rejoined Giuliana, with the unconscious humour of a

virtue beyond all attack, ‘seventy times seven would be a great

many, in practice. Besides, there is danger, I am sure. A woman

capable of rising to the moral height you talk of must certainly

feel an insurmountable horror of seeing the other man as long as

her husband is alive. If she can forgive herself and him, she has

not a very delicate conscience, it seems to me! She might possibly

see him once, but after that she would beg him to stay away, out

of respect for her absent husband, against whom any more meetings

would be an offence. And besides, every one knows that there is

nothing more absolutely false, and ridiculous, and impossible than

a friendship based on love! I’m sorry if you do not like what I

say, Maria, but I tell you just what I think!’

‘You do, indeed!’ answered the younger woman, in a hurt tone.

‘I cannot help it,’ said Giuliana. ‘You have told me some things

about yourself this evening which I never dreamt of, but nothing

you have told me has had any effect on what I thought from the

first. You are doing very wrong in letting Castiglione come back.

You ought never to see him while your husband is alive. That is

what I think, and I shall never say it again, for it is of no use

to give the same advice more than once.’

Giuliana rose to go home, for it was half-past ten. Her face was

grave and calm, and a little severe. Maria rose too, feeling as if

a conflict had begun which must in the end force her to give up

either Giuliana or Castiglione.

‘Giuliana,’ she said sadly, ‘you will not throw over our friendship

because you do not approve of everything I do, will you?’

Giuliana faced her and held out her hand frankly.

‘No,’ she answered. ‘I’m not that sort of friend. But if I see you

are going wrong I shall try to save you in spite of yourself.’

‘Thank you, dear,’ said Maria, trying to feel grateful; ‘but I

shall not go wrong. You don’t quite understand me--that’s all.’

‘I hope you are right,’ replied Giuliana, ‘but I believe you are

quite mistaken.’

They did not part very cordially, and when Giuliana was alone in

her carriage she almost made up her mind to save her friend by

force. She thought of writing to Castiglione himself, to tell him

frankly that it was his duty as a man of honour to stay away. He

might possibly have accepted the warning if she had carried out

her intention, but she soon saw many reasons for not interfering so

directly.

‘Beware of first impulses,’ says the cynic, ‘for they are

generally good ones.’

CHAPTER VIII

Two days later Maria received a letter from Castiglione saying

that his return was now a matter of certainty, but that there were

formalities to be fulfilled which would take some little time.

Most fortunately there was a step in the regiment. The crabbed old

major of the Piedmont Lancers was promoted to be lieutenant-colonel

of another regiment, the senior captain was gazetted major, and

Castiglione himself would come back as the junior captain, probably

during the next month.

Maria’s heart beat fast, and she smiled as she thought of

Giuliana’s expressed determination to ‘save her in spite of

herself.’ It was morning, and she went out alone for a walk. It

was good to live to-day, and to move swiftly through the bright

spring air was to be twice alive. She went by the cross streets

to the Via del Veneto and through the Porta Pinciana to the Villa

Borghese. She skirted the racecourse below the Dairy, and stood

still a moment to watch the riders go by. Not far from her she saw

Angelica Campodonico and her young brother Mario riding on each

side of their teacher. The slim young girl sat straight and square

and was enjoying herself, but the boy grabbed the pommel of his

saddle whenever the riding-master looked away, and seemed to stick

on by his heels. He was the boy whom Leone had ‘hammered,’ as he

expressed it, and Maria smiled as she thought of her own little

son’s sturdy back and small, hard fists.

Presently a young lieutenant of the Piedmont Lancers cantered up

on a beautiful English mare. He rode very well, as many Italian

officers now do, and he was evidently aware of it. The familiar

uniform fascinated Maria, and her eyes lingered on it as the young

man rode past her. He saw that she was a woman of the world, and

that she was still young and pretty; and in spite of the deep black

she wore, it at once occurred to him that this was the best place

in the wide ring for jumping his mare in and out of the meadow over

the rather stiff fence. Still Maria watched him, and he might not

have been so pleased with himself if he could have guessed that

she was thinking of another officer who was an even better rider

than he, but who would certainly not have cared to show off before

a pretty lady whom he did not know. And Maria knew that before

long Baldassare del Castiglione would sometimes come and exercise

his horses in the same place, and that she would very probably

happen to be walking that way and would see him. And he would stop

and salute her, and draw up by the outer fence and shake hands

with her and exchange a few words; and his eyes would be as blue

as sapphires, and she would be the proudest woman in the world,

almost without knowing it. So she unconsciously smiled at the young

lieutenant and turned away.

She walked on, and before long she was sitting under the ilex-trees

above the Piazza di Siena. There was a new bench there; or perhaps

it had only been painted. There was water in the fountain, leaping

up and sparkling under the deep green trees. The basin had been dry

on that winter’s afternoon long ago, and the evergreen oaks had

looked much darker. That had been like death; this was life itself.

The past did not exist; it had never existed at all, because it

had all been a horrible mistake, an untruth, and a loathsome sin;

a sin confessed now, an untruth forgiven, a mistake explained and

condoned. In the future all was love; and yet all was right and

truthful and straightforward, as justice itself. Giuliana’s warning

was but the well-meant preaching of a good friend who could never

understand; the grim old monk’s words were far away. Where was the

deadly risk, or the mortal sin? God was strong and good, and would

make all good deeds seem easy; and she and the man she loved would

rise far beyond this dying body, by that good, to be united for

ever in light and peace. Baldassare would believe, as she did, and

in the end they would find heaven together.

She leaned back, and her eyes looked upwards as she sat there

alone, and in all her being there was not the least thought that

was not innocent and pure and beautiful. She communed with herself

as with an angel, and with the image of the man she loved as with

a saint. She felt as she felt sometimes when she knelt at early

morning before the altar rail of the little oratory near her

house, and the young priest with his martyr’s face came softly down

and ministered to her.

She almost trembled when she rose at last to leave the place where

she had been lifted up from the world, the place where she had once

spoken such bitter and cruel words to him who was now once more the

heart of her heart and the soul of her soul. She walked homewards

in a deep, sweet dream of refreshment.

The footman opened the door, and as she entered the small bright

hall she saw a big letter with a black border and Spanish stamps

lying upon some others, and she knew Montalto’s large, stiff

handwriting. Her heart sank, though she had expected the letter for

two days.

She took it with no outward show of emotion, for she felt that

the servant was watching and that he guessed whence it came. In

a steady voice she asked if Leone had come in from his walk with

old Agostino, and the footman told her they were still out. Her

Excellency would remember that the Signorino was gone to the

gardens of the Palazzo Trasmondo to play with his little friends.

Maria went to her sitting-room without calling her maid, and sat

down to read her husband’s letter with closed doors. She felt

strong and brave, and resolved to think of the absent man with all

the respect Giuliana Parenzo could have exacted from her.

It was a very long letter, filling several big black-edged sheets;

but the handwriting was large and stiff, and easy to read, and at

first her eyes followed the words quickly and unhesitatingly.

Montalto was deeply affected by his mother’s death; that was

evident in the short, strained sentences that were painfully formal

save for a heart-broken word here and there. Conscientiously he

told his wife the short story of the illness during the last

days, the last hours, at the last minute, at the end. She read

with a sort of reverence, but she wondered why he gave her every

detail. Had he come to her for sympathy, after all the stern and

unforgiving years that had passed?

Then she took the next sheet, and the truth broke upon her. So far,

he had given her an account of what had happened, of how his mother

had suddenly begun to sink and had died peacefully after receiving

all the Sacraments. But he had not told what her last words had

been.

‘My dear son,’ she had said just before she had closed her eyes for

ever, ‘I have been very unforgiving towards your wife. Perhaps I

have helped to make you so. Promise me that you will go to her and

ask her pardon for me. And be reconciled with her, if God wills

that it be possible.’

She had said all these words with great distinctness, for she had

been calm and fully conscious, and able to speak until the last

moment of her life; and then her heart had stopped beating and

death had come quietly.

Maria held the sheet before her with both her hands, trying to go

on, and determined to read bravely to the end, but it was a long

time before she got to the next words, and she felt as if she had

been unexpectedly condemned to die.

The man she had injured meant to fulfil his mother’s last request

to the letter. For he asked his erring wife’s pardon for the dead

woman who had not been able to forgive her till the end. He asked

her to write out the message to the dead and send it to him.

That would be the easiest part. How could Maria find it hard to say

that she forgave what she had deserved? But the rest was different.

He went on to say that it was not only for his mother’s sake that

he wished to be reconciled: it was for his own. In spite of all, he

loved Maria dearly. He had known how she had lived, how her whole

life since he had finally left her had been an atonement for one

fault; and that one fault he now freely forgave her. He would never

speak of it again, he said, for he was sure that she had suffered

more from it than he himself.

She guessed, as she read, what it must have cost him to say that

much. He earnestly desired a reconciliation. He wished to come back

to Rome to live in his own house, with his wife, before all the

world. With a pathetic inability to put his feelings into words, he

said that he would try to make her happy ‘by all means acceptable

to her.’ Yet he did not wish to force this reconciliation upon

her, for he was well aware that in leaving her he had conferred

on her a measure of independence and had given her good reason to

suppose that he would never come back. Unless she willingly agreed

to what he now offered, he would never come back to Rome; for it

had been one thing to stay with his invalid mother, leaving his

wife to live where she pleased, but it would be quite another

in the eyes of the world if he returned to his own house and his

wife continued to stay in a hired house. Hitherto there had been

no scandal which his authority could not now put down, no open

break which might not still be repaired with dignity. Then, on a

sudden, the writing became less stiff and clear, and the lonely

man’s full heart overflowed. He loved her so dearly--he did not

repeat ‘in spite of all’--why might he not hope to make her happy

at last? In the past he had not known how to show her how tenderly,

how devotedly, he had loved her; he had been but a dull companion

for her; she had been made to marry him almost against her will.

Without again speaking of her fault he was finding excuses for what

he had forgiven. And the burden came back again and again, he loved

her with all his heart. It was no mere empty show of reconciliation

that he offered her, for the sake of his name, for what the world

might say or think. He wished, he asked to be allowed, to take her

back altogether, wholly, as if there had been no division.

Maria held the sheet tight between her upraised hands, but a

painful tremor ran through her to the tips of her fingers, and the

paper shook before her eyes.

She had reached the end now. He had poured out his soul as he

had never done before then to any living being; but quite at the

last line his natural formality returned, he ‘begged the favour

of a speedy reply at her convenience,’ and he signed his name in

full--‘Diego Silani di Montalto.’

After a long time Maria rose from her seat, and her face was almost

grey. She went to her writing-table and opened a small desk with a

simple little gold key she wore on her watch chain. The receptacle

was already half full of Castiglione’s letters, and she laid her

husband’s on top of the heap, shut down the lid, and turned the key

again.

Just then Leone burst into the room, lusty and radiant. He stopped

short when he saw his mother’s face.

‘You have been to see the bad priest again!’ he cried angrily.

‘No, dear, I shall not go to see him again. I have had a great--a

great surprise. Papa is coming back soon.’

CHAPTER IX

Maria did not hesitate, though she felt as if her heart must break

with every throbbing beat. Whether Giuliana Parenzo was just or not

in telling her that she had not a very delicate conscience, she

had at least a strong will and a lasting determination to do what

she thought right, which more than made up for the absence of that

sensitiveness on which her happier friend laid so much stress.

Until Leone asked her what was the matter, her thoughts whirled in

a chaos of pain and darkness, but there was little or no hesitation

in her answer to his question. She wished with all her heart that

she had put him off until there had been nothing in her face to

betray her, and that he might never have connected her too evident

distress with the news she had just received. But she had spoken

because her mind was made up in that moment, and her determination

found words at once; and the child at once hated the man who was

coming back.

She was going to accept the proffered reconciliation outright, if

it killed her, and she really believed that it might. Her dream of

light and peace ended then; she had atoned, perhaps, but that was

not enough. Atonement means reconciling, and such a reconciling

meant to Maria an expiation more dreadful than she had dreamed of.

She remembered only too vividly the material repulsion for Montalto

that had grown upon her quickly in the first months of their life

together, and she knew that it would be stronger now than it had

been then. Yet she must live through it and hide it. To her it

seemed inconceivable that he should wish to come back to her at

all. The nobler sort of women can never understand that men they

dislike can love them, and to be given in marriage to one of them

is a torment and feels like an outrage.

Maria meant to bear it all as well as she could. A woman able to

dream of such a lofty and spiritual love as had appeared possible

to her in a short and unforgettable vision was not one to hesitate

at a sacrifice, much less if justice demanded it. In old Jerusalem

would she not have been stoned to death? Yet that would have been

the quick end of all suffering, whereas Montalto’s return was only

the beginning of something much worse.

It is often easier to forgive than to accept forgiveness. After

Maria had read her husband’s letter there were times when she

wished that all his love for her could be turned into hatred.

He might come back then, to show the world a comedy of a

reconciliation, though he might frankly detest the sight of her; he

might come back and behave to her as he had after she had admitted

her guilt, and never speak to her except from necessity, while

treating her always with that same formal courtesy he had learned

from his Spanish mother. It would have been easy to bear that;

it would have been far easier then to live without seeing the man

of her heart. But to be taken back to be loved, to be cherished

and caressed, to be the instrument of happiness in the life of the

husband she had dishonoured, and whose mere presence and slightest

touch made her writhe--that was going to be hard indeed. Yet she

meant to bear it. In her simple faith she prayed only that it might

be counted to her hereafter as a part of her purgatory.

Castiglione received her letter telling him all the truth and

bidding him stay where he was, if he could, or at least not try to

see her if he were obliged to come to Rome. His first impulse was

to ask for leave again, if only for three days, and to go to her at

once to implore her to refuse Montalto’s offer, to risk anything

rather than let her accept an existence which he knew would be one

of misery. He felt and believed that it would kill her.

In some ways the thought of it was even more revolting to him than

to her. He had been faithful for years to the memory of the love

which he believed he had destroyed in her; but now that all was

changed, now that he knew how she loved him, she was his, his very

own, far more than she had ever been. He felt, too, that she had

really raised him above his old self; that he could really live

near her, see her, talk with her, and touch her hand, and love her

as he had promised, with no shame, or thought of shame, to her

or to himself. Long years of clean living had already made him

different from his comrades, and his unchanging will made a law

for himself which he had never transgressed. Does the world think

that beyond the pale of holy orders, of whatsoever persuasion,

there are no men who live as he did, faithful and true to one dear

memory to the very end? Sometimes what we call the world seems to

know more of its patent evil than of its own hidden good. And where

the good is strong and rules a man’s secret life, it may lead him

far.

But Castiglione was only human, and his jealousy of Montalto was

cruel when it woke again. It had been great in old days, but it

was ten times more dangerous now, for it had been long asleep in

security and it awoke in anger. Maria had not been his own, but

throughout that time no other man had called her his, and now

Montalto claimed her, under his right to forgive an injury if he

chose, and she was going to submit and surrender herself.

He wrote her a passionate letter, imploring her not to ruin both

their lives by giving herself back to her husband, and beseeching

her to see him at once that he might tell her all he could not

write. If he could not get leave again so soon he would come

without, if it cost him a long arrest. Maria was to telegraph her

answer, and if no message came within two days he would start,

whatever happened. As for declining the exchange he had asked, he

could not do that; he would be ordered to join his old regiment in

Rome during the next ten days at the latest, and it was impossible

that he should not meet her sometimes.

For a moment Maria hesitated, for she felt that he was desperate,

and she herself was not far from despair. But something human on

which she had never counted helped her a little. If Castiglione

came suddenly to Rome, it would be known, and it would surely be

said that he had come to see her; if no one else knew it, Teresa

Crescenzi surely would, and would tell every one. She thought of

Montalto’s letter, telling her that he had known of her quiet life,

and that the dignity she had shown had appealed to him. He should

not come back now to be told that he had been deceived, and that

Castiglione made long journeys expressly to see her. Her pride

would not suffer that.

She went out on foot and entered the small telegraph office outside

the railway station, for she could not have sent her message by a

servant’s hand. She took the ink-crusted pen and a flimsy blank

form, and thought of what she should say. The shabby young clerk

at the little sliding window would have to read the telegram, and

perhaps he knew her by sight. She thought a moment longer, and then

wrote a few words:--

‘Impossible. If you really wish to help a person in great distress,

be patient. Await letter.’

This looked very cold when it was written, but she thought it would

do, and she felt sure that Castiglione would obey her request. At

least, he could not leave Milan until he received the letter she

was about to write to him.

It reached him on the following evening, and in the tender,

beseeching words he read what was worse than a sentence of exile.

But he submitted then, for it was as if she spoke to him, and he

could hear every tone of her voice in the silence of his room.

Since she had taken him back to her heart she dominated him by the

nobility of her love, and by her touching trust in his. He read her

letter twice, and then burnt it in the empty fireplace, carefully

setting a second match to the last white shreds that showed at the

edges of the thin black ashes.

‘You are a saint on earth,’ he said to her in his thoughts. ‘You

are good enough to make a man believe in God.’

Perhaps he rose one step higher in that moment, for he was in

earnest. But it had cost him much. For three days he had kept his

valise packed and ready to start at any moment, and he saw it lying

in a corner as he turned from the fireplace. Once again the strong

temptation came upon him to take it and go downstairs. That would

be the irrevocable step, for he knew well enough that if he went so

far as that he would not turn back.

His big jaw thrust itself forward rather savagely as he crossed the

room, picked up the valise, and set it on a chair to unpack it.

When he had put his things away he threw it into a corner, lit a

cigar, and sat down by the open window to watch the people in the

broad street. He hoped that he might not think for a little while.

There was a knock at the door and his orderly came in with a

telegram. He almost started at the sight of the brownish yellowish

little square of folded paper in the man’s hand.

‘Join us at once to ride in military races on Thursday. War

Office telegraphs order exchange to your colonel to-night.

Make haste, in order to rest your horses. Welcome back to the

regiment.--CASALMAGGIORE, _Colonel_.’

Castiglione’s hand dropped upon his knee, holding the open

telegram. The orderly stood motionless, stolidly waiting to be sent

away. He would have waited in the same position till he dropped,

but it seemed a long time before the officer turned his head.

‘Pack everything to-night,’ he said. ‘Telephone in my name to the

station and order a box for the horses as far as Pisa, and be ready

to start with them by the first train to-morrow. I am to join the

Piedmont Lancers in Rome at once. You will spend the night in Pisa

to rest the horses, and come on with them the next day. I will

attend to your leave and pass. Take what you need for yourself for

four days. You will have a day and a night in Rome.’

The orderly was a good man and could be trusted. Castiglione got

into his best tunic, buckled on his sabre, took his cap and gloves,

thrust the telegram into his breast pocket, and went to take leave

of his colonel and his brother officers, wherever he might find

them. He was in no hurry, but it was a relief to get out of doors,

and he walked slowly along the broad pavement, returning the

salutes of the many soldiers who passed him.

It would be quite out of the question to disobey such a summons

as he had just received. Nothing short of a feigned illness

could have excused a short delay, and besides, the wording of

the telegram showed that he was wanted for the honour of his old

regiment in the coming races. He had always been the best rider

of them all, and if the Piedmont Lancers did not make a good

appearance, owing to his voluntary absence, he would not be easily

forgiven; indeed, he would hardly have forgiven himself.

But he would not write or telegraph to Maria that he was coming,

and he was sure that she would not write to him again unless

he answered her letter. Once in Rome, he meant to send her the

telegram he had in his pocket, to prove that he had been ordered

back, and that his coming had not been voluntary. She would see him

then, for it would be different; she could not refuse, as she might

if she thought he had come in spite of her letter. His exchange had

been at most but a matter of days; it had become a matter of hours.

So much the better, since fate condescended to help him a little.

The vision of hope he had enjoyed so short a time rose before him

again. Montalto might not return after all, or he might break his

neck on the way, but Castiglione doubted the probability of such a

termination to his own troubles.

CHAPTER X

The workmen were very busy at the Palazzo Montalto, and the rich

widow from Chicago who occupied one of the large apartments was a

little nervous, for there is a clause in all leases of portions of

Roman palaces to the effect that the owner may turn any tenant out

at short notice if he needs the rooms for his own use; and as the

good lady had not the slightest idea of the real size of the place,

she had long supposed that she was living in the state apartment.

But she need not have disturbed herself and her friends about

that. Montalto would as soon have let the place where his mother

and his wife had lived with him as he would have put up his titles

at auction. He had sent orders that the vast suite was to be got

ready in a month’s time, and as no one had expected that he would

ever come back to live there, the accumulation of dust was found to

be portentous. Moreover, all the carpets had disappeared, no one

knew how, the upholstered furniture was all moth-eaten, the window

fastenings would not work, the mirrors were hopelessly tarnished,

and the ceiling of the ballroom had been badly damaged by the

bursting of a water-pipe in the apartment over it.

To make matters worse, the old steward of the Roman estates, whose

business it was to keep the palace in order, was in his dotage, and

was expected to have a stroke of apoplexy at any moment.

Then one morning a business-like young man arrived from Montalto,

the great family seat on the Austrian frontier, with instructions

to put matters right, and to lose no time about it. The old Roman

steward flew into a frightful rage because the Montalto steward was

his superior, and promptly had his stroke of apoplexy, which helped

things a little without killing him. The business-like young man

spent one whole day in watching the people at work and never said a

word, but when the evening came, he had them all paid and he turned

them out, to their amazement and mortification. Then he took a cab

and drove to the Via San Martino and asked to see the Countess,

just before she dressed for dinner. He was a very modest young man,

and he waited in the hall for her answer; and when Agostino came

back to inquire more particularly who he was and what he wanted, he

said that he was the chief steward of Montalto and had a message

from His Excellency the Count to Her Excellency the Countess, if

she would be so kind as to receive him. In the eyes of the butler

he at once became an important personage, and many apologies were

offered for having let him wait in the outer hall.

Maria received him in her sitting-room. In her deep mourning she

looked unnaturally pale, and her dark eyes seemed very big. She

pointed to a chair and sat down herself.

The young man lost no time and told her at once that the Count had

sent him to see that the palace was made habitable at once, and

desired that the Countess should be consulted on every point about

which she was willing to give her opinion. She was to select her

own rooms and direct that they should be hung and furnished to her

taste, and the Count would esteem it a great favour if she would

take the trouble to order everything else to be changed as she

thought best, excepting only the late Dowager Countess’s rooms,

which he desired should not be touched. Her Excellency doubtless

knew which those rooms were, and would she be so very kind as

to say when it would be convenient for her to meet her obedient

servant at the palace and to give him her orders. He was instructed

to spare no trouble or expense in order to please her if possible.

Maria recognised her husband’s formal expressions in what the quiet

young man said so fluently. Doubtless Montalto had written every

word of his orders with his own hand, and the steward had read them

over till he knew them by heart. She thanked him and said she would

meet him at the palace the next morning at ten o’clock.

She did not take Leone with her, for she was sure that the great

neglected house would be gloomy beyond description, and she did not

wish him to have a sad impression of the house in which he had been

born, and in which he was now to live. Besides, she could not quite

trust herself, and the small boy’s eyes were marvellously quick to

detect any change in her face.

The places where things very good or very bad to remember have

happened to us are ever afterwards inhabited by invisible ghosts,

kind or malignant, who show themselves to us when we revisit the

spots they haunt, though they never disturb any one else. Maria

knew that; an evil genius had long dwelt under those ilex-trees

in the Villa Borghese, and she had exorcised it, but there were

spectres in her former home that would not be laid. She bit her

lip as she entered the once familiar hall, and saw room after room

opening out beyond it in a long perspective that ended in a closed

door adorned with mirrors in its panels. That door had always been

kept shut when all the others were open; it led into the room that

had been her boudoir. Even at that great distance Maria could see

how dim the old glasses in the panels had become.

She walked slowly through the apartment, looking to the right and

left. Something had been done, but not much. There was a ladder

against a wall in one room and the hangings were half torn down;

a dozen rolls of new carpet lay in confusion in another, redolent

of that extraordinary odour which only perfectly new carpets have;

in one of the halls beyond, a quantity of more or less decrepit

sofas and chairs had been collected and disembowelled, and the

moth-eaten wool and musty horse-hair lay about them in mouldering

heaps; the portraits were still in their places on the walls, and

Montalto seemed to look sadly down from half a dozen frames at his

young wife as she went by in black; there was Montalto in armour

and Montalto in black velvet and ruffles, Montalto in a Spanish

cloak and Montalto in a flowered silk French coat, with a powdered

wig; but it was always Montalto; the likeness between them all from

generation to generation had been amazing, and the old pictures

made Maria nervous.

The young steward, whose name was Orlando Schmidt, walked by her

left, hat in hand, glancing respectfully at her now and then to see

whether she was going to say anything. But her lips were pressed

together, and he fancied that the rings round her eyes grew darker

as she neared the end of the long suite, and still went on towards

the closed door with its tarnished mirrors. She looked very pale

and tired.

‘Will your Excellency sit down and rest a while?’ he asked.

‘Not yet, thank you. Presently.’

And she went slowly on, slowly and steadily, towards the closed

door, till she laid her hand on the chiselled handle and turned it

and pushed against the panel. But it would not move.

‘Perhaps it is locked,’ suggested Schmidt. ‘I had not taken it for

a real door. I thought the apartment ended here.’

‘No,’ Maria answered in a low tone. ‘This used to be my boudoir.

Try and open it. I want to go in.’

The young man tried the handle, put his eye to the keyhole, and

tried again. Then he shook his head.

‘It is not a very strong door,’ said Maria. ‘I think we could break

it open. I want to go in.’

‘I can certainly break it,’ answered Schmidt.

He threw his shoulder against the crack and pushed with all his

might, but though the door creaked a little it would not move.

‘Is there no other way?’ asked Maria impatiently. ‘I must get in!’

‘Oh, yes,’ Schmidt answered, ‘there is another way. I can smash the

lock.’

‘I wish you would!’

He stood back and made a little gesture with his hand for her to

move aside, and before she knew what he was going to do, the heel

of his heavy walking boot struck the lock with the force of a

small battering-ram. The door flew back on its hinges into total

darkness, and there was a crash of broken glass as one of the

mirrors fell from its panel to the marble Venetian pavement.

Maria uttered a little cry of hurt surprise, for what Schmidt had

done seemed brutal to her; but she passed him quickly and went on

into the dark, and the bits of broken mirror cracked under her

tread. She was sure that the room had never been opened since she

had left it, and she went straight to one of the windows without

running against the furniture; the familiar fastenings had rusted

and she could not move them quickly. Schmidt lit a wax-light and

followed, but before he reached her side she had succeeded in

opening the inner shutters, and the bright light from the slits in

the blinds shone into the room through the dim panes.

Maria turned from the window and looked about her. The furniture

stood as she had last seen it. A moment later Schmidt threw open

the glass and the blinds and the violent sunshine flooded the dusty

marble floor, the faded pink silk on the walls, the tarnished

inlaid tables, the chairs, and a little sofa near the fireplace.

‘It is too much!’ cried Maria nervously. ‘There is too much light!’

Schmidt drew the blinds near together without quite shutting them.

When he looked behind him again Maria was sitting on the little

sofa near the fireplace, her face turned from him, and her fingers

were nervously pulling at a rent in the pink silk which tore under

her touch. But the young steward did not notice the action, and was

already making a mental list of the repairs that would be necessary

to make the boudoir habitable again. Maria looked ill, and he

thought she was tired.

But the evil spirit that haunted the place was there, beside her on

the little sofa, and she could hear its demon whisper in her ear.

That was a part of her expiation, and she knew it. Then she spoke

to Schmidt steadily, but without turning her head.

‘I wish everything taken out of this room,’ she said, and she

listened to her own voice to be sure that it did not shake.

‘Everything must be new, the hangings, the ceiling, the furniture,

the fireplace. You see how dilapidated it all is, don’t you?’

She asked the question as if to justify her orders.

‘There is nothing fit to keep,’ answered the steward, ‘except that

inlaid writing-table and the bookcase.’

‘I prefer to have them changed, too,’ said Maria quickly.

‘Everything! Let the new things be dark. There is too much light

here. Not red, either. I hate red. Let everything be dark grey.’

‘A greenish grey, perhaps?’ suggested Schmidt diffidently.

‘Yes, yes! But dark, very dark, with black furniture. Paint this

marble fireplace black----’

‘Black?’ exclaimed the young man, with a polite interrogation.

‘Perhaps it would be better to have a new one of black marble then?’

‘Yes--anything, provided it is changed, and everything is new and

quite different! That is all I want. And my dressing-room was

there.’ She pointed to a second door. ‘My bedroom was beyond it.

I’m sure that door is locked, too. Could you go round by the other

way and see if the key is on that side?’

She turned her white face to Schmidt. He guessed that she had been

moved by some strong association and wished to be alone to recover

herself, and in a moment he was gone; for he was a tactful person.

When she was alone she did not bury her face in the corner of the

tattered little sofa, nor did any tears rise in her tired eyes; she

only sat there quite still, and her head fell forward as if she had

fainted; but her fingers slowly tore little shreds from the faded

pink silk of the sofa.

Schmidt stayed away a long time. She heard his footsteps at last on

a tiled floor in the distance, and raised her hand quickly to cover

her eyes, while her lips moved for a moment. When the steward

unlocked the second door and came in, she was standing quietly by

the window waiting for him.

The worst was over for that day, and though she was still very

pale, she was no longer deadly white, and the haunted look that had

come back suddenly to her eyes was gone. She went through the house

systematically after that, conscientiously fulfilling her husband’s

requests; she gave clear directions about her own rooms and the

one she meant to give Leone, and made many suggestions about the

rest. She showed Schmidt the little apartment once occupied by

her mother-in-law, and advised the steward to have it carefully

cleaned and set in order, since nothing was to be changed in it.

At present, she said, it looked neglected, and the Count would

certainly not like to find it so. Schmidt nodded gravely, as if he

quite understood. She was so quiet and calm now, that he thought

he had been mistaken in thinking her disturbed by some poignant

memory. She had probably felt ill.

When she left the palace at last, she told him to let her know when

the refurnishing was so far advanced as to make a visit from her

necessary, and she thanked him so kindly for his attention that he

blushed a little.

For Orlando Schmidt was a modest and well-educated young man, of a

respectable Austrian family by his father’s side, but an Italian

as to his nationality. He had been to good schools, he had studied

scientific farming at an agricultural institute in Upper Austria,

and he had followed a commercial course in Milan; he had also

learned something about practical building, and was naturally

possessed of tolerably good taste.

‘I hope you will stay here and take charge of the Roman estate,’

said the Countess. ‘I fancy the lands are in as bad a condition as

the apartment upstairs.’

She smiled graciously, and Schmidt blushed again.

‘Your Excellency is very kind,’ he said modestly, as he stood

beside her low phaeton with his hat in his hand. ‘I am lodged here

in the palace, if you need me.’

She drove away, and before the carriage turned the corner of

the palace on the way to the more central part of the city, she

had quite forgotten Orlando Schmidt, though he had made such a

favourable impression upon her.

But the young man stood before the great arched entrance and

watched her till she was out of sight, with an expression she could

not have understood; and afterwards he whistled softly as he turned

back to ascend the stairs again in order to make careful notes of

all she had said about each room. He began in the boudoir, and he

sat down on the little sofa near the fireplace, with his large

note-book on his knee, and wrote busily while her words were still

fresh in his memory. Once or twice he looked towards the door,

which he could see as he sat, and the broken pieces of mirror

caught his eye. He remembered that his Italian mother had once told

him when he was a boy that it was very unlucky to break a mirror.

But he smiled at the recollection, for he was not a superstitious

young man, and had received a half-scientific education.

It was nearly twelve o’clock when Maria left the palace. She had

not realised that it was so late, and she had told the coachman

to take her to a dressmaker’s far down the Corso, near the Piazza

del Popolo. She was to have tried on a couple of frocks which were

necessary to complete her mourning; but the gun-fire from the

Janiculus and the clashing of all the church bells told her that

it was noon already, and too late, for Leone always had his dinner

with her at half-past twelve. She touched Telemaco’s broad black

back with the edge of her parasol to call his attention, and she

told him to go home instead of stopping at the dressmaker’s.

He asked whether he should pass through the Villa by Porta

Pinciana, that being as near a way as any other, and easy for the

horses, and she nodded her assent. She had not been in the Villa

since the day when she had walked there alone, and had gone home

and found Montalto’s letter.

It was a warm spring morning, but the horses trotted briskly up

the main avenue that leads in from the gate, glad to be in the

pleasant shade. Maria lowered her parasol to the bottom of the

phaeton without shutting it, for she knew she should need it again

in a few minutes. There was no other carriage in the avenue just

then, but several riders were walking their horses slowly towards

the gate after exercising them on the course. The first she met

were two civilians, and one of them was Oderisio Boccapaduli. He

recognised her from a distance, and before he was near enough to

bow he glanced quickly behind him, as if he expected to see some

one. She did not know the other man. Oderisio took off his hat, and

she smiled and nodded. Then came a captain of artillery on a strong

Hungarian horse that was evidently in a bad temper and hard to

manage. Maria turned her head to watch them after she had passed,

but her carriage was going at a smart pace and she soon looked

before her again. Not far ahead were two officers of the Piedmont

Lancers, walking their horses and talking together.

One was the same young lieutenant who had jumped his English mare

in and out of the ring for her benefit on that morning when she had

been on foot. She might have met him there any day. The other was

Baldassare del Castiglione, and she had not known that he was in

Rome.

She was so startled that she made a movement to raise her open

parasol and hide her face; but she instantly understood the

absurdity of doing such a thing and dropped it again, and looked

steadily towards the advancing horsemen, though for a few seconds

she could not see them. They were hidden in a fiery mist that rose

between her and them. It dissolved suddenly, and Castiglione was

gravely saluting her; his face was calm, but his eyes were blazing

blue. The young lieutenant raised his hand to his cap almost at the

same instant. With infinite difficulty Maria slowly bent her head

in answer, but she did not turn her eyes as the two men passed her,

and in another moment she had left them behind.

Then she felt that her heart was beating again, for she was sure

that it had quite stopped. But at the same instant her hand

unconsciously relaxed, and her open parasol, which was already half

over the step of the phaeton, flew out, rolled a little way, and

lay in the middle of the road, with the handle upwards.

She sat up quickly and called to Telemaco to stop. But the old man

was a little deaf, and she had to call twice before he checked the

quickly-trotting pair and brought them to a stand.

‘My parasol!’ she cried, as the coachman looked over his shoulder.

‘Give me the reins and get it,’ she added.

She heard the hoofs of a horse cantering up behind her, and she

looked round. Castiglione must have turned in the saddle to look

after her, and must have seen the parasol fall. It lay with the

handle upward, and parasol handles chanced to be long that year. It

was easy for a good rider to bend low and pick the thing up almost

without slackening his pace, and in another moment he was beside

the carriage giving it back to Maria.

‘Thank you,’ she said faintly. ‘I did not know you were in Rome.’

A quick word rose to his lips, but he checked it. Then he bent down

to her from the saddle, on pretence of brushing an imaginary fly

from his horse’s shoulder.

‘I thought you would rather not know it from me,’ he said quietly,

but so low that the deaf coachman could not hear. ‘Good morning,

Contessa,’ he added more loudly, as he straightened himself in the

saddle and saluted again.

He was gone, trotting back to join his companion; but she would not

look after him when she had told Telemaco to drive on. And all the

way home a great wave of joy was surging up round her, to her very

feet, and she was trying to climb higher lest it should rise and

overwhelm her; and she was clinging to something dark, and cold,

and hard as a black marble pillar, that was Montalto, and duty, and

death, all in one.

That afternoon a note came for her, brought to the door by a

trooper and left with the remark that there was no answer.

It contained the telegram Castiglione had received in Milan, and a

sheet of note-paper on which a few words were written in pencil.

‘This explains itself,’ he wrote. ‘It is the inevitable. I shall

not try to see you.’ She knew that she ought to be proud of his

good faith, but it was not easy.

CHAPTER XI

More than a month had passed and it was near the end of May; yet

Maria had not again exchanged a word with Castiglione. She had seen

him twice in the street, from a distance, but she was not sure

that he had seen her the second time. If he saw her, he certainly

wished her to think that he did not. She never went to the Villa

Borghese, nor drove towards Tor di Quinto nor along the beautiful

Monte Parioli avenue, lest she should meet him in one of those

places where officers ride at all hours of the day. On his side, he

avoided the streets through which she was likely to pass. It was

easy enough to do that, and as she was in mourning he was sure not

to find her where people met in the houses of mutual acquaintances.

For he had no intention of shutting himself up, being much too

sensible not to foresee that if he did so people would say he

spent his time with her. He showed himself in many places, on

the contrary, frequented Teresa Crescenzi’s drawing-room at

tea-time, dined assiduously with his cousins the Boccapaduli, at

whose house the old-fashioned Romans congregated, and also with

the Campodonico, and he was often at the Parenzos’ pretty house

in the Via Ludovisi, which was a favourite gathering-place of

the political party then in power, and of that portion of the

diplomatic corps which was accredited to the Quirinal and not to

the Vatican. The Duca di Casalmaggiore had become a friend of

Parenzo’s, and Castiglione took a good deal of pains to be seen

as often as possible in society by his colonel, who was of an

inquisitive turn of mind. In order to make his existence still more

patent in the eyes of his comrades, he lodged with one of them, a

man of his own age who was also not very well off, and who could

hardly help knowing where Baldassare went, what he did, and whether

he received many notes addressed in feminine handwriting or not.

The consequence of all this, and of his assiduity in matters of

duty, was that Teresa Crescenzi’s latest story got little credit,

and his brother officers said that he was ambitious and was going

in for the career in earnest. The colonel, who was a widower with a

son in the navy and a daughter married in Naples, and whom Teresa

had once vainly tried to capture for herself, disliked her and so

effectually ridiculed her invention that the rest of Castiglione’s

comrades fell into the way of laughing at her, too; and they said

that after having failed to marry the colonel she had tried to

catch Baldassare, and now meant to revenge herself because he would

not have her. His chum, too, told them that he certainly had no

secret love affair, and that when he was not on duty or at the

officers’ club, or where every one could see him, he was in his

lodgings reading German books on military tactics. Clearly he was

going in for the career.

He did not act or look like a man in love either; not in the

least. He had not been talkative before he left the regiment, but

since he had returned he took more pains than formerly to join in

the conversation. Another point in his favour was that he never had

any vague engagement which hindered him from joining in anything

that was unexpectedly proposed. Whatever he had to do was open and

definite; when it was not duty, it was a real promise to dine with

some one whom he named, and he took care to have it known that he

went; or else he had agreed to ride somewhere with an acquaintance,

and if any one took the trouble to go to that place, there he was,

sure enough, with the man he had named. In what was left of society

so late in the season, if he once talked especially to any one

woman he gave himself as much pains to amuse and interest another

on the morrow. He was such a model of a sensible man and such a

good officer that the colonel, who was rich enough to have afforded

the luxury of a poor son-in-law, wished he had another daughter

that he might marry her to Castiglione; and he said so openly, to

the great edification of Roman society.

As for Maria Montalto she did not speak of him again to Giuliana,

but the latter knew she never let him come to the house and that

she had made up her mind to see him as rarely as possible. Giuliana

was too simple and natural to care whether this excellent state

of things was due to her own advice or to Montalto’s approaching

return. It was enough that Maria was doing right and giving the

gossips nothing to talk about.

Parenzo and his wife went to England at this time, with the

intention of spending three weeks there. The Marchese, it was

understood, was entrusted with some special political business, and

as a matter of course he took his wife with him; for the first time

in her life Maria was glad to part from her old friend.

There are ordeals which it is easier to face alone than under the

eyes of others, even of those we love best; there are tortures

which are a little easier to bear when our dearest friends are not

watching our faces to see if we shall wince.

The date of Montalto’s return was approaching, and the state

apartment in the palace was almost ready, thanks to Orlando

Schmidt’s quiet energy and to a rather lavish expenditure of money.

He was a truly wonderful young man, Maria thought, for he seemed to

know everything that was useful and possessed the power of making

people work without so much as complaining till they were quite

exhausted. He never raised his voice, he never spoke roughly to a

workman; but he seemed to inspire something like terror and abject

submission in all whom he employed, and they spoke in whispers when

he was near and worked till they could work no longer.

Maria went to the apartment twice again, once to select the

hangings and stuffs for her own rooms out of a quantity that had

been sent for her approval, and once again when the furnishing was

almost finished. She was quiet and collected, for nothing was left

to remind her of the old boudoir and the rest. At her second visit

she was surprised to find that the small room had three doors

instead of two as formerly, and she asked the steward if the third

one was real, or an imitation fastened against the solid wall for

the sake of symmetry.

‘It is a real door,’ answered Schmidt. ‘It had been thinly walled

up and plastered over long ago, and I found it accidentally, and

took the liberty of opening it again. I hope your Excellency will

approve.’

‘It looks well,’ Maria said, for it helped to change the aspect of

the room; ‘but where does it take one?’

‘To the chapel,’ replied the steward. ‘I found a narrow passage

leading directly to a small door on the left side of the altar. You

can thus reach the chapel by a private way without going through

the apartment. The corridor was quite dark, but I have had electric

light put in. The key is here, you see.’

Schmidt moved it and opened the door at the same time with his

other hand, and Maria saw a narrow passage, brightly lit up. The

walls were white and varnished, and the floor was of plain white

tiles.

‘It must have been made in the beginning of the eighteenth

century,’ Schmidt said. ‘There was a Countess at that time who was

a princess of Saxony and was excessively devout. She died mad.’

‘You know the family history better than I do,’ observed Maria.

‘We have served the Excellent house from father to son more than

two hundred years.’

Schmidt said this as if he were telling her the most ordinary fact

in the world.

‘Will your Excellency please go to the chapel by the private

passage?’ he asked.

Maria let him lead the way and followed him. She was gratified by

the use he had made of his discovery, for she thought that it would

sometimes be a relief to go to the chapel alone and unnoticed. But

she also wished to assure herself that no one else could use the

corridor, and that there was a bolt or a lock on the door at the

other end. It was not that she distrusted Schmidt; on the contrary,

she thought very well of him, and was sure that he had consulted

only her convenience in what he had done. But when she thought of

what was before her, she felt very defenceless in the great old

house, so different from the comfortable little modern apartment

in which she had lived with Leone, where there were no hidden

staircases, nor secret passages, nor legends of mad countesses in

the eighteenth century, nor any ghosts of Maria’s own life.

Apparently Schmidt had told her the exact truth about the passage,

which was much longer than she had expected, and turned to the

right very soon, and was straight beyond that for twenty yards or

more. Maria guessed that it here followed the long wall of the

great ball-room, which had no entrances opposite the windows. She

reached the door of the chapel, and the electric light showed her a

strong new bolt with a brass knob, besides the spring latch.

‘It is quite private, you see,’ said Schmidt. ‘The door can be

fastened from this side.’

‘I see. It is very satisfactory. You have thought of everything.’

He opened the door of the small dim chapel, but she would not go

in. It had memories for her which she was afraid to stir. She

remembered how she had once gone there alone between midnight and

morning with a great horror upon her; and how she had knelt down,

setting her candlestick on the pavement beside her; and the dawn

had found her there still. She knew also that in another week or

ten days she would have to kneel there at mass on a Sunday; and

Montalto would be kneeling on one side of her, and Leone with his

bright blue eyes would be on the other.

‘Thank you,’ she said to the steward. ‘I will not go into the

chapel now.’

‘Nothing has been changed there,’ he answered. ‘It has merely been

thoroughly cleaned.’

Maria remembered the two hideous barocco angels in impossible

gilt draperies that supported a dreadful gilt canopy above the

tabernacle; and the absurd decorations of the miniature dome; and

the detestable assemblage of many-coloured marbles; and all the

details that recalled the atrocious taste introduced under the

Spanish influence in the south of Italy during the seventeenth and

eighteenth centuries. She had seen nothing of all that when she had

come there alone, long after midnight, years ago, with only her one

flickering candle to light her through the great dark rooms and to

show her where the altar was.

‘I thought the Count would not like to have electric light in the

chapel,’ said Schmidt, as he fastened the door carefully. ‘The key

for the lights in the passage is here on the wall, your Excellency,

just on a level with the lock as you come in.’

‘It is really very well arranged,’ Maria answered, and as the

passage was not wide enough for two persons to pass conveniently,

she turned and led the way back.

‘I have had the walls varnished, because almost any sort of tinting

might rub off on your Excellency’s dress,’ said Schmidt. ‘The

passage is so extremely narrow, you see.’

‘It is very nice,’ Maria answered. ‘It was most sensible of you.’

Behind her, Orlando Schmidt blushed with pleasure at her praise,

and watched her graceful moving figure, shown off against the

shining white walls by the close-fitting black she wore. They

reached the boudoir, and there also Schmidt closed and locked the

door. But this time he took out the key and handed it to Maria.

‘As the passage is for your Excellency’s private use, you may

prefer to take away the key, since the workmen have nothing more to

do there.’

‘Thank you,’ Maria answered.

‘The servants need not know that the door is a real one,’ observed

Schmidt.

It chanced that Maria did not much like the maid she had at that

time, but as the woman was clever she meant to keep her. It struck

her that there was certainly no reason why she need know that her

mistress could go from her own rooms to the chapel without being

seen, if she wished to say her prayers there in private. As for

the chapel itself, its outer door was formerly kept locked, and

Montalto had given her a key to it when they had been married.

The reason for keeping it shut was that the altar contained a

reliquary in which was preserved a comparatively large relic of

the Cross, already very long an heirloom in the family. No doubt

Schmidt knew this, as he seemed to know everything else about his

hereditary employers--or masters, as he would have called them.

When one family of men has served another faithfully, those who

serve possess a sort of universal knowledge of such details which

no ordinary servant could acquire in half a lifetime.

Maria left the boudoir, after putting the key into the small new

black Morocco bag, which had taken the place of the rather shabby

grey velvet one she had used so long. When she came to live in the

palace she meant to keep the key in her writing-desk.

‘The Count wishes me to be here when he comes,’ she said as they

passed through the great ball-room. ‘He writes that you will

engage servants and see to everything. Our old butler and coachman

have never left me. Do you think I may keep them still? I wish to

do nothing, however, which does not agree with your instructions.’

‘My master’s orders,’ said Schmidt, ‘are to meet your Excellency’s

wishes in every respect. He will not even bring his own man with

him, and I have orders to engage a valet for him. If you will tell

me what day will be convenient for you to move, I will see that

everything is ready.’

‘The Count writes that he will arrive on Sunday afternoon,’ Maria

answered. ‘I had better be here two days before that. I will come

on Friday morning.’

‘On Friday?’ repeated the steward with a little surprise.

‘Yes. Are you superstitious, Signor Orlando?’

She really could not call him ‘Signor Schmidt’; it was too absurd;

yet he was of Italian nationality.

‘No, your Excellency, I am not. But most people are. If the Signora

Contessa would be kind enough to call me simply Schmidt,’ he added

with a little hesitation, ‘it is an easy name to remember, and does

not occur in Ariosto’s poem.’

She looked at him rather curiously, but she smiled at his last

words.

‘Very well,’ she said. ‘As you like.’

‘It was my mother,’ he explained, blushing shyly. ‘She is very fond

of Ariosto, and she insisted on christening me Orlando. On Friday

next everything will be ready to receive your Excellency and the

young gentleman. Shall I provide for moving the Signora Contessa’s

things?’

‘I shall be much obliged,’ said Maria, who was glad that she was to

be spared all trouble.

She went home feeling as if she were in a painful dream, from which

she must awake before long. In the afternoon, when Agostino was

out with Leone and the little house was quiet, she went to the

telephone and asked for the number of the Palazzo Boccapaduli.

She got it, and was answered by a man-servant. She inquired when

Castiglione would be at home, but was told that he was not staying

in the house. It was the only address she knew, so she asked where

he lived. The servant did not know, but would go and find out, if

she would hold the communication.

A few moments later the voice that spoke to her was Oderisio’s,

and he asked with whom he was speaking, and on being told, at

once inquired if it was she who wanted Castiglione’s address.

Yes, it was she; did he know it? Yes, he did; and he gave it. Had

Castiglione a telephone? No, but he might be at the officers’ club;

did she wish the number of that? No, she did not care for it. Thank

you, and good-bye.

At first she was a little annoyed that young Boccapaduli should

know she wanted Castiglione’s address. But presently, as she went

back to the sitting-room, it struck her that it was just as well.

Oderisio would understand that she was not seeing Baldassare often,

since she did not know his address after he had been in Rome nearly

a month.

She wrote him a short note, which anybody might have read, begging

him to come and see her on the following Thursday after half-past

two. She addressed it and stamped it, she put on her hat without

calling her maid, and she went out to post it in the letter-box at

the corner of the railway station.

She was sure of herself, she thought, and she believed she had

earned the right to receive Castiglione once again, because she was

bravely resolved never to see him alone after she returned to her

husband’s house. That resolution had formed itself at the instant

when she had told Leone that Montalto was coming back, and she

had not wavered in it since, in spite of what she had felt when

he had brought her the fallen parasol in the Villa. The greatest

and most enduring resolutions in life are rarely made after mature

consideration, still less at those times of spiritual exaltation

which are too often self-suggested, and sought for the sake of a

half-sensuous, half-mysterious agitation of the nerves that is far

from healthy. People who are not morbid and are in great trouble

generally see the right course rather suddenly and unexpectedly;

if they are good they follow it, if they are bad they do not, but

if they attempt a careful and subtle examination of conscience

they often come to grief. It is hopeless to analyse processes in

which conscience and mind are involved together until we can find

a constant coefficient for humanity’s ever-varying strength and

weakness.

During more than a month Maria had acted and thought under the

domination of one idea; she had need of strength, but she had not

felt the want of advice or help. She knew better than the harsh old

Capuchin, better even than Monsignor Saracinesca, what she must do,

and as for help, no living man or woman could have given her any,

unless it were Castiglione himself. She had accepted what was laid

upon her, and when she went at early morning to kneel at the altar

rail in the small oratory, she prayed for strength and for nothing

else.

So far it had come to her and had borne her through more than

any one who knew her could have guessed; and when she sent for

Castiglione, to see him once more and for the last time, she was

far from thinking that she did so from any weakness. It seemed only

just, for no man could have acted more honourably and courageously

than he, and he had a right to know from her own lips what she

meant to do.

He came, knowing what was before him, and meaning to do what he

could to spare her all pain and useless emotion. More and more

often now he called her a saint in his thoughts, and his love for

her was sometimes very like veneration.

She had taken care that Leone should not be in the house that

afternoon, not because she had any thought of concealing

Castiglione’s visit from the child, but out of consideration for

the man himself. She knew only too well what he felt when he saw

the boy’s blue eyes and his short and thick brown hair.

He came in civilian’s dress, lest his brilliant uniform should

attract attention from a distance as he entered the house where she

lived. His hand met hers quietly and the two lovers looked into

each other’s earnest eyes. By a common impulse they sat down in the

places they had generally taken when they had met in the same room

before, on opposite sides of the empty fireplace.

‘I know why you have sent for me,’ began Baldassare, very gently.

‘May I try to tell you? It may be a little easier.’

Maria did not attempt to speak for a few moments, and he waited.

‘No,’ she said at last, quite steadily. ‘You could not tell me just

what I have to say to you. I asked you to come because you have

been so very brave, so very generous----’

She choked a little, but recovered herself quickly.

‘It is only just that I should tell you so before we say good-bye,’

she went on. ‘I knew I could trust you--but oh, I did not know how

much!’

‘I have only tried to do my duty,’ he answered.

‘You have done it like the brave man you are,’ said Maria.

‘Please----’ he spoke to interrupt her.

‘Yes,’ she went on, not heeding him. ‘We may not meet again, we

two, alone like this. One of us may die before that is possible.

So I shall say all that is in my thoughts, if I can. You most

know all, you must understand all, even if it hurts very much. My

husband is going to take me back altogether; he has forgiven me; he

asks me to be his wife again. Can I refuse?’

She had not meant to put the question to him, and he knew that she

expected no answer. Her tone showed that. But he would not let her

think that in his heart he rebelled against the knife.

‘No,’ he said very slowly. ‘I would not have you refuse what he

asks. It would be neither right nor just.’

In spite of the almost intolerable pain she was suffering, a glow

of wonder rose in her eyes; and there was no shadow of doubt to dim

it. At his worst, in the old days, he had always told the truth.

‘God bless you for that!’ she cried suddenly, and then her voice

dropped low. ‘You have travelled far on the good road since we last

talked together,’ she said. ‘Further than I.’

He shook his head gravely.

‘No,’ he answered. ‘You have led me, and I have followed.’

‘We have journeyed together,’ she said, ‘though we have been apart.

We may be separated, as we must be now, to the end, but we cannot

be divided any more. I wanted to tell you something else too, this

last time, and you have made it easy to say it, and altogether

right. It is this. I do not take back one word of what I said to

you and wrote to you before I knew Montalto was coming home. I do

not want you to think that I have changed my mind, or that the life

we were going to lead seems to me now one little bit less good and

true and honourable than it seemed to me that first time we talked

together here.’

‘Do you think I doubted you for a moment?’

‘You might. But it is only that other things have changed. We have

not, and I know we never shall, and in the end we are to meet where

there is peace, and somehow it will be right then, and we shall all

three understand that it is. Can you believe that too?’

‘I wish to. I shall try to. If anything could make a man believe in

God, it is the love of such a woman as you are.’

‘You have my love,’ Maria answered. ‘And some day you will believe

as I do, but in your own way, and we shall be together where there

are no partings. Yes, I am sure that we could have lived as we

meant to, and could have helped each other to rise higher and

higher, far above these dying bodies of ours. But we shall reach

the good end more quickly by our suffering than we ever could by

our happiness.’

‘That may be,’ said Castiglione, ‘but one thing is far more

certain: we must part now, cost what it may.’

‘Cost what it may!’ She pressed her hands to her eyes and was

silent a little while.

‘Has he spoken of Leone in his letters?’ Castiglione asked after a

time, in a tone that was almost timid.

Maria dropped her hands upon her knees at once and met his look.

‘Not to me,’ she answered. ‘But he gave orders about the child’s

room to the steward he sent from Montalto. Everything was to be

arranged for Leone just as I wished. That was all.’

‘Will he be kind to the boy, do you think?’ asked Castiglione, very

low.

‘I know he will try to be,’ Maria answered generously.

That was her greatest cause for fear in the future; it was the

stumbling-block she saw in the way of Montalto’s wish to take her

back; but although he might treat the boy coldly, and avoid seeing

him, and insist that he should be sent away to a school as soon as

he was old enough, she believed that her husband would be just, and

she was sure she should leave him if he were not. There was one

sacrifice which should not be exacted of her: she would not tamely

submit to see her child ill-treated. At that she would rebel, and

she would be dangerous for any man to face.

‘Yes,’ she repeated, ‘I know he will try to be kind.’

Castiglione merely nodded and said nothing, but Maria saw his

looks; and she was not all a saint yet, for with the sight came the

thrill of fierce elemental motherhood, rejoicing in the strength of

the man who could kill. There was nothing very saintly about that,

and she knew it.

‘We must not think of such things,’ she said, as she felt the deep

vibrations grow faint and die away. ‘Let us take it for granted

that my husband will be very just. That is all I have a right to

ask of him.’

Again Castiglione bent his head in assent. Then both were silent

for a long time.

‘Am I never to know anything of your life after this?’ he asked

suddenly.

‘You will know what every one may know,’ she said.

‘Nothing more? Only to hear that you are ill or well? Never to

be told whether he really does what he can to make it bearable

for you? May I not have news of you sometimes? Through Giuliana

Parenzo, for instance? Is it to be always outer darkness?’

‘Giuliana will know what you all will know, and no more,’ Maria

answered. ‘If I must not tell you what I suffer, do you think I

would tell her? I shall not tell myself!’ There was one bitter note

in that phrase. ‘You will always know something that no one else

can,’ she went on, and her voice softened. ‘And so shall I, and

that must be enough for us. Is it so little?’

‘Ah, no! It is all of us two that really lives!’

She heard the deeper tone of rising passion not far away, and she

interrupted him.

‘It is all I shall have for the rest of my life,’ she said, and she

rose suddenly and held out her hand, meaning that it was time to

part.

‘Already?’ he asked, not leaving his seat yet, and looking up

beseechingly.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You must not stay. We have told each other what

had to be said, and to say more would not be right. Less would not

have been just to you.’

He also had risen now and stood before her, meaning to be as brave

as she, cost what it might.

‘We are only human,’ she went on, ‘only a man and a woman alone

together, and if I let you stay longer this one last time, there

may be some word, some look, between us that we shall regret.

Though Diego is not here yet, I became his wife again in real truth

on the day I accepted his forgiveness; and as his wife, no word to

you shall pass my lips that he might not hear. We have tried to do

right, you and I; if we have not failed altogether, God help us

to do better! If we did wrong in those few sweet days, then God

pardon us! I thank you from my soul for being brave and true when

you might have dragged me down. For the past we have forgiven each

other, as we hope to be forgiven. And so good-bye. I would bless

you, if I dared; I can ask a blessing for you, and it will come; I

am sure it will. If I die first, I shall wait for you somewhere,

and you will come. If you are taken before me, wait for me!

Good-bye, good-bye, good-bye!’

Her voice was sweet and steady to the very end, but when he took

her hand at last it was cold, and it quivered in his. He began to

lift it to his lips, but it resisted him gently, and he obeyed its

resistance.

‘Good-bye,’ he said, as well as he could.

But she hardly heard the syllables; and then, in a moment, he was

gone.

CHAPTER XII

The day had come, and Maria was waiting alone for her husband

in one of the great rooms of the Palazzo Montalto. She had told

Leone that she would send for him when he was wanted, and he was

thoughtfully consoling himself for not being allowed to stay with

her by polishing the barrel of his tin rifle with his tooth-brush

and tooth powder, and he had the double satisfaction of seeing the

gun shine beautifully and of making the hated instrument useless

for its proper purpose. And meanwhile he wondered what his papa

would be like, and whether he should always hate him.

But Maria walked restlessly up and down the drawing-room, and her

head felt a little light. Now and then she stopped near one of

the open windows and listened for the sound of wheels below and

looked at her watch; and when she saw that it was still early, she

breathed more freely at first and sat down, trying to rest and

collect herself; but it was like thinking of resting ten minutes

before execution, and she rose almost directly and began to walk

again.

In her deep mourning she looked smaller and slighter in the great

room than in the simpler surroundings she had left. She had indeed

grown a little thinner of late, but she was not ill, nor even as

tired as she had expected to be at the crucial moment. The people

who feel most are not those whose nerves go to pieces in trouble,

and who get absolute rest then by the doctor’s orders; they are

more often those who are condemned to bear much, for the very

reason that they cannot break down. In the age of torture the weak

fainted or died and felt no more, but the strong were conscious and

suffered to the end, and that was very long in coming. Yet no one

ever pities the strong people.

Leone had told his mother that the white patch in her hair near

her left temple had grown so much larger of late that three of

his fingers only just covered it, and he had kindly offered to

ink it for her; and she was somewhat thinner and a little paler

than she had been a month earlier. But that was all there was to

show that she had lived through weeks of distress. Montalto would

scarcely notice the white lock at first, and her figure looked a

shade more perfect for being slighter. She had never been a beauty,

but she had more grace and charm than ever, and she was only

seven-and-twenty. Giuliana Parenzo was much handsomer, but few men

would have hesitated between her and Maria, who had that nameless

something in every easy movement, in every lingering smile, in each

soft tone of her warm voice, that wakes the man in men, as early

spring stirs the life in the earth, deep down and out of sight.

She did not understand what she had, and for years she had lived

so much away from the lighter side of her own world that she had

almost forgotten how the men used to gather round her and crowd

upon each other instinctively to come nearer to her in the first

year of her marriage, as they never did for Giuliana. She used to

notice it then, and she had a laugh and a quick answer for each

that showed no preference for any, and maddened them all till they

were almost ready to quarrel with each other; but she had been very

young then, and she had not understood, till one more reckless than

the rest, the very one she trusted too much because she loved him

only and too well, had laid waste for ever her fair young being,

half-wrecked his own life, and broken the heart of an honest man.

And this honest man had forgiven her, for love of her; he too, and

he more than any, had felt that her smile, and her breath, and

her touch could drive him mad; and now that he was coming back,

the minutes were passing quickly--a very few were left--still

fewer--the last but one--the very last, as she heard his carriage

roll in through the great arched entrance almost directly under her

feet.

The doors were open beyond the drawing-room towards the

ante-chamber; one door only was shut between that and the outer

hall where the butler and footmen in deep mourning were waiting for

their master.

She heard it opened, a once familiar voice asked in a formal

tone where she was, and a servant answered. Then came the

well-remembered step. In the painful tension of her hearing she

heard it far away, even on the soft carpet, more clearly than she

had ever heard it on tiled floor or marble pavement.

She steadied herself for a moment against the corner of a heavy

table; and then the drawing-room door, which had been open, was

shut, and Montalto was in the room, grey and hollow-eyed, coming

towards her with thin hands outstretched in greeting. By a miracle

of strength she went forward and met them with her own; met his

eyes, and let him kiss her. She sank into a chair then, and he was

close beside her, trying to speak in his old formal way, though he

could hardly control his voice.

He seemed dreadfully changed, and when she saw him clearly a sharp

pang of pity wrung her heart. His hair and pointed beard were quite

grey, his colourless cheeks were painfully thin, and his hollow

eyes burned with a feverish fire; he stopped speaking suddenly, in

the middle of a sentence, as if he were paralysed, and his lips

were parched, but his burning gaze did not waver from her face. She

was a little frightened.

‘You are ill!’ she cried. ‘Let me get you something!’

She half rose, but his thin hand caught her and held her back.

‘No,’ he said hoarsely, ‘I am not ill. It is only that--that I have

not--seen you--for so long!’

The words came in gasps; the last ones broke out in a frantic sob.

She was moved, and willing to be touched, and though she had felt

the old physical repulsion for him again the instant he came near

her, she took one of his hands now and held it on her knees and

stroked it kindly.

‘Diego!’

She did not know what to say, so she pronounced his name as softly

and as affectionately as she could. But she had not spoken yet, and

at the sound of her sweet voice the man broke down completely.

‘Oh, Maria, Maria!’ he moaned, drawing her hand to his chest and

rocking himself a little. ‘It was all a dreadful dream--and I have

got you back again--Maria----’

The over-strained, over-wrenched nerves gave way and he broke into

a flood of tears; the drops ran down the furrows of his thin cheeks

and his grey beard and wet her hand as he pressed passionate kisses

upon it, rocking himself over it and sobbing convulsively.

Maria had lived through a good deal of suffering and some moments

that now seemed too horrible to have been real, but she had never

had any emotion forced upon her from without that had been harder

to bear calmly than what she felt now.

If anything could strengthen the physical repulsion that made her

shrink from her husband’s touch it was the sight of his unmanly

tears and the sound of his hysterical sobbing. If anything could

make it more difficult to hide her loathing it was the knowledge

that she had wronged him and that she owed him gratitude for his

free forgiveness. She would much rather have had him turn upon her

like a maniac and strike her than be obliged to watch the painful

heaving of his thin, bent shoulders, and feel the hot tears that

ran down upon her hands.

It was so unutterably disgusting that she felt a terribly strong

impulse to throw him off, to scream out that she would not take his

forgiveness at any price, that he must let her go back and lead her

own life with her child, as she had lived for so many years. He

would suffer a little more, but what was a little more or less to a

man who seemed half mad?

Then the wave of pity rushed back, and that was even worse. It was

the pity a delicate woman feels for some wretched living thing half

killed in an accident, so crushed and torn that the mere thought

of touching it makes her shrink back and shiver to her very feet

because the suffering creature is not her own. If it were hers but

ever so little, if it were her dog, she would feel nothing but the

instant womanly need of saving it if she could, of helping it to

die easily if she could not.

Maria’s hand shrank from the scalding tears and writhed under the

man’s frantic kisses. She shut her eyes and threw back her head;

her face was drawn and white, and she prayed as she had never

prayed in her life, for strength to bear all that was before her.

It had seemed just possible, because she had imposed it upon

herself as her honourable duty, and because the husband she

remembered had been before all things proud, and as full of a

certain exaggerated dignity and self-respect as Spaniards sometimes

are, though he was only half-Spanish. She had felt him coming back

to her from far away, like a dark instrument of fate, to which she

must give herself up body and mind, if she hoped to expiate her sin

to the end. It had seemed hard, even dreadfully hard; but this was

worse. Instead of the erect and formal figure and the grave dark

face that had a certain strength in it which she could at least

respect--instead of that, it was a broken-down man who came to her,

prematurely old, a neurasthenic invalid no better than a hysterical

woman, palsied with unmanly emotion, lacking all strength,

self-respect and dignity, and without even a rag of vanity that

might have passed for pride.

She was not stronger in her hands than other women, but she was

sure that it would be easy to throw him from her; he would fall in

a heap on the carpet, and would lie there helpless and sobbing. As

she felt the instant contempt for his weakness, she prayed the more

for courage to humble her own strength to it; and her eyes were

still shut tight and her face was white and drawn. This was but the

beginning of what must last for years, ten, twenty, as long as he

lived, or until she died of it.

The future stretched out before her in length without end; she

forgot everything else, and did not know that the tears ceased to

flow and presently dried, nor that Montalto drew back from her into

his own chair as the storm subsided within him. His voice woke her

from the dream of pain to come.

‘I trust you will forgive my first emotion, my dear,’ he said with

all his characteristic formality. ‘I see that I have made a painful

impression on you. I shall not allow it to occur again.’

It was such a quick relief to see him more like himself, that she

had almost a sensation of pleasure, and she smiled faintly while

she tried to say something.

‘No--please--I’m so sorry----’

She could find no connected sentence. He rose and began to walk up

and down before her, making half a dozen steps each way, a shadowy

figure in black, passing and repassing before her.

‘I believe that I have made everything clear in my letters,’ he

said, and then he glanced at her from time to time without pausing

in his walk while he talked. ‘I shall not repeat anything I have

written, but there are one or two other matters of which I must

speak to you before we begin life again together, Maria. They need

not be mentioned more than once either. It is better to be done

with everything which may be in the least painful to you as soon as

possible.’

In spite of the formal manner, there were kind inflections in his

tone. It seemed marvellous that he should have recovered himself so

soon, and it was only possible because such exhibitions of weakness

were not really natural to him. Maria had felt relieved as soon

as he had begun to talk quietly, and when he left his seat, her

physical repugnance to him began to subside within its old limits.

But at the same time she felt a vague fear that he was going to

speak of Leone.

‘You have shown remarkable tact, my dear,’ he went on, ‘and you

will have no difficulty in making your friends understand that our

long separation has been principally due to my mother’s condition,

and that since she is gone’--his voice sank a little--‘we have

resumed our married life. This will be easy, no doubt. May I ask,

without indiscretion, who your most intimate friends are?’

‘Giuliana Parenzo is my only intimate friend,’ Maria answered at

once.

‘I am glad of that,’ said Montalto, approving. ‘She is a thoroughly

nice woman in all ways, and everybody respects her. Are there any

others whom you see often?’

‘I have dined a good many times with the Campodonico and the

Saracinesca and the Boccapaduli--sometimes with the Trasmondo.

I have never gone to balls. On the whole, I have tried to be on

friendly terms with most of the people who have children of Leone’s

age.’

She had boldly brought forward the question which she thought he

meant to reach, and she waited for his reply. But he would not take

it up.

‘Leone,’ he repeated, in a musing tone. ‘Friends for Leone. Yes,

yes--that was quite right. I will see him by and by.’

‘He is waiting to be called,’ said Maria quickly, for she was

anxious to get over the difficult moment as soon as possible.

‘Presently,’ answered Montalto. ‘I have one or two things to

say while we are alone. First, as to your friends, I wish you to

understand that even if there are some whom I do not know, they

shall all be welcome here. They will be the more welcome because

they stood by my wife when she was in trouble.’

He put a little emphasis on the words, his figure had straightened

and he held his head high. She understood the great generosity of

what he said.

‘Thank you, Diego,’ she said in a low voice. ‘You are very good.’

‘There is only one person who shall not come here,’ he continued,

in a tone that was suddenly hard.

Maria almost started, but controlled herself; he could only mean

Castiglione.

‘Who is it?’ she asked, as steadily as she could.

‘Teresa Crescenzi,’ answered Montalto, turning rather sharply. ‘I

beg you never to receive her. She spoke against my mother, and I

will not have her in the house.’

Maria actually laughed, though a little nervously.

‘She is no friend of mine,’ she said. ‘I do not care to see her.’

‘You need not quarrel with her, my dear, if you meet. I shall take

the responsibility on myself, and I shall be careful to let her

know that it is I who forbid her my house.’

He was not a short man, and when he drew himself up he looked tall.

Maria no longer felt that she could throw him to the floor if he

took her hand.

‘I have not many real friends here now,’ he said, more gently. ‘One

whom I especially esteem is Monsignor Saracinesca. Do you ever see

him?’

‘I saw him not long ago, and I sometimes meet him at his father’s

house. We are on good terms.’

‘That is very pleasant,’ Montalto answered. ‘I shall often ask him

here, if you do not object.’

‘I shall always be glad to see him,’ returned Maria. ‘But, please,

Diego, do not consult me about such things. I am very deeply

conscious of your generosity in all ways, and this house is yours,

not mine.’

‘It is ours,’ said Montalto, ‘except for Teresa Crescenzi. I do not

wish you to think of it in any other way. And that brings me to

the last point. May I inquire whether you have found yourself in

any--how shall I say?--in any financial straits in which my fortune

can be of service to you?’

You may judge a man of the world’s wisdom by the sort of wife he

chooses, but the test of a gentleman is the way he treats his

wife. Maria was profoundly touched by her husband’s question. She

rose from her seat and went close to him, overcoming her repulsion

easily for the moment as she took his hand and spoke.

‘No, I have made no debts. But I have no words to thank you for

your kindness. I shall try to deserve it.’

‘It is only what I owe to my wife,’ Montalto answered, and he bent

over her hand with as much ceremony as if there had been twenty

people in the room.

‘I have something to tell you, too,’ she said. ‘You ought to know

it. Baldassare del Castiglione has come back to Rome. We have met

alone, and we have agreed never to see each other again--except as

we may chance to find ourselves in a friend’s house at the same

time.’

Montalto could not help dropping her hand as soon as she pronounced

Castiglione’s name, but his face changed little.

‘I daresay you were wise to see him once,’ he replied, a trifle

coldly. ‘We need not refer to him again.’

She could not have expected more than that, but when he had

answered she was a little sorry that she had spoken at all. He

would willingly have trusted her without that explanation.

With an evident wish to change the subject, he began to ask

questions about the apartment, inquiring how she liked it, and

whether she had found Schmidt efficient in carrying out her wishes.

‘Very,’ she answered to the last question. ‘He is a wonderful man.’

‘Yes,’ Montalto assented coldly, ‘in some ways he is an

extraordinary young man.’

There was something more reserved in the tone than in the words,

but Maria was very far from being intimate enough with her husband

yet to ask whether Schmidt had any fault or weakness that justified

his master’s evident doubts about him. She wondered what the

trouble might be.

‘Shall we go and see Leone now?’ Montalto suggested. ‘On the way

you can show me what you have done to the house. You have not

ruined me in furniture,’ he added with a smile, as he looked round

the rather empty drawing-room.

‘I left as much as possible to you,’ Maria answered.

She was thinking of Leone, and she already saw before her the

sturdy little blue-eyed boy with his thick and short brown hair.

They went on through the house to the door of Maria’s boudoir, at

the end of the great ball-room.

‘That is where I have installed myself,’ she said, pointing to it

and turning to the left, towards the masked door that led to the

living rooms in the other wing.

‘Yes, I remember,’ answered Montalto. ‘And this is your

dressing-room, I suppose,’ he added as they walked on. ‘And this

used to be your bedroom.’

‘Yes,’ said Maria steadily. ‘That is the door of my bedroom.’

Leone’s was the next, and in a moment they were standing in a flood

of afternoon light, and Maria bent down and kissed the small boy’s

hair because he would not turn up his cheek to her, being very

intent on examining Montalto’s face. But Maria dared not look at

her husband just then.

‘Here we are at last, dear,’ she said as well as she could, still

bending over him.

To some extent she could trust the child’s manners, for she had

brought him up herself, but her heart beat fast during the little

silence before Montalto spoke, and she wondered what his tone would

be much more than what he was going to say, for she felt sure that

the words would not be unkind.

Montalto held out his hand, and Leone took it slowly. He had never

been kissed by a man, and did not imagine that his newly-introduced

papa could be expected to kiss him. This was fortunate, for

Montalto had not the least intention of doing so.

‘Can you ride yet?’ he asked, with a smile.

‘No,’ Leone answered, but his face changed instantly. ‘Not yet.’

‘I will teach you, my boy, and as soon as you can trot and gallop

nicely you shall have a good horse of your own.’

Leone flushed with pleasure, a healthy red that was good to see.

‘Oh, how splendid!’ he cried, and his blue eyes lit up with

happiness. ‘Really, really?’

‘Yes, really.’

‘When shall I begin?’

‘To-morrow morning.’

‘Hurrah!’ yelled the small boy. ‘At last!’

Maria could have cried out too, or laughed, or burst into tears

from sheer relief. Montalto had unconsciously received one of those

happy inspirations which turn the mingling currents of meeting

lives; and Leone was already astride of a stick, prancing round the

room on an imaginary horse, shouting out the tune of the Italian

royal march and sabring the air to right and left with the first

thing he happened to pick up. It chanced to be the tooth-brush with

which he had been polishing his tin gun.

Montalto looked pleased, and Leone pranced towards him on the stick

and pretended to rein in a fiery steed before his papa, saluting

with the tooth-brush sabre in correct cavalry fashion.

‘Viva Papa!’ he bawled. ‘Viva Papa!’

Montalto, who rarely smiled, could not help laughing now. Maria

could hardly believe her senses, for she had dreaded most of all

moments the one in which the two were to meet. But now her husband

suddenly looked younger. He was thin, indeed, to the verge of

emaciation, his hands were shrunken and transparent, his beard was

quite grey, his eyes were hollow; but there was no feverish fire

in them, his face was not colourless, and there was life in his

movements. Maria wondered whether it were humanly possible that he

should not only be kind to her child but should actually like him,

and perhaps love him some day.

At all events what had happened had made it easier for her than she

had dared to expect, and though nothing could efface the painful

impression of her meeting with him, what had now taken place

certainly made a great difference.

During dinner he talked quietly about Rome and politics and old

friends, and if she saw his eyes fixed upon her now and then with

an expression that made her nervous, there was still the broad

table between them, and he looked away almost directly.

Afterwards he smoked Spanish cigarettes, taking them to pieces and

rolling them again in thin French paper, and he went on talking;

but as the hour advanced he said less and less, and his cigarette

went out very often, till at last he rose, saying that it was late,

and he kissed her hand ceremoniously and left her.

‘Good-night,’ she said, just before he disappeared through the door.

He bent his head a little but did not answer.

An hour later she had dismissed her maid and sat in a small

easy-chair in her boudoir under a shaded light; she was trying

to read, in the hope of growing sleepy. She wore a thin silk

dressing-gown, wide open at the throat and showing a little simple

white lace; her dark hair was taken up in a loose knot rather

low down at the back of her neck, as she had always done it at

bedtime ever since she had been a young girl. Her bare feet were

half hidden in a pair of rather shabby little grey velvet slippers

without heel or heel-piece, for the spring night was warm. She was

trying to read.

She thought some one knocked softly at the door; she started in her

chair and dropped the book, while her hand went up to her throat to

gather the silk folds and hide the lace underneath. She could not

speak.

Another knock, quite distinct this time, and followed by a question

in her husband’s voice.

‘May I come in?’

An instant’s pause, and she closed her eyes to say two words.

‘Come in.’

PART II

THE COUNTESS OF MONTALTO