"Well, sir, there's a lady there, in the Captain's sitting-room, and
she's not well, and she can't speak English."
"A lady?" cried Romanelli, suddenly interested. "Young or old?"
"Young, sir. She's Italian, I believe. And I thought, sir, that
perhaps you wouldn't mind assisting a friend of my master's."
"Of course not. Take me to her at once," he said. "Is she very ill?"
"She had a bad fainting fit," answered the servant as he led the way to
the sitting-room. She was still lying back in the chair, now quite
conscious, but still pale, dishevelled, and so exhausted as to be
scarcely able to move her limbs. They seemed paralysed by the
excruciating torture she had undergone.
The opening of the door aroused her, and looking up, her eyes met those
of the young Italian.
"You--Gemma!" he cried in profound surprise, rushing forward. "Why are
you here--in London? And in Tristram's rooms?"
She held her breath in amazement at this unexpected meeting.
"I--I called here," she explained in a low, weak voice, "and became
seized with a sudden faintness. I--I think I fell."
"I trust you're not hurt," he said quickly. "You are pale and
trembling. Shall I call a doctor?"
"No, no," she answered. "In a few minutes I shall be quite right
again."
Romanelli noticed her necklet at his feet, and picked it up. Then he
glanced across the room and saw the broken statuette, and his quick,
dark eyes detected signs of a struggle in the disarranged hearth-rug and
the chairs pushed out of place.
"Merely fainting did not break this," he said gravely, holding up the
chain and picking up the tiny medallion enamelled with the picture of a
dog's head with the words beneath, "Toujours Fidele." The chain and its
pendant were simple and old-fashioned, the one remaining link of her
girlhood days at the Convent of San Paolo della Croce.
She held out her hand in silence, and the young man placed both chain
and medallion in her palm. Then, with her great, pain-darkened eyes
fixed upon him, she kissed the chain reverently, afterwards slipping
both into her glove, and sighing.
"Gemma," continued Romanelli, bending beside her chair, "what does this
mean? Tell me. Why have you come to London?"
She shook her head.
"This man can't speak Italian," he explained, glancing at Smayle, who
stood beside wondering. "We can talk quite freely. Come, tell me what
has happened."
"Nothing," she assured him.
"But why are you in London? Were you not afraid?"
"Afraid?" she echoed. "Why should I be? I am just as safe here in
England, as I was in Florence or Livorno."
"Vittorina died within the first hour she set foot in London," he
observed with a grave, meaning look.
"You loved her," she said. "You have all my sympathy, Arnoldo. Some
day we shall know the truth; then those responsible for her death shall
receive no mercy at our hands."
"That chapter of my life has closed," the young Italian said, with a
touch of sorrow in his voice. "She has been murdered, but by whom we
cannot yet tell." He paused, then added, "What object had you, Gemma,
in leaving Italy? And why have you come here? Surely you know that you
have enemies in London--enemies as cruel, as unrelenting, as cunning as
those who killed poor Vittorina."
"I am well aware of that," she answered, stirring uneasily in her chair,
and putting up her hand to her bruised throat. "I know I have enemies.
To one person, at least, my death would be welcome," she added,
remembering the fierce struggle in that room an hour before.
"Then why have you risked everything and come here? You were safer in
Italy," he said.
"I was not safer there. I am safe nowhere," she replied. "The police
have discovered some of the facts, and--"
"The police!" he gasped in alarm. "Our secret is out, then?"
"Not entirely. I was warned to leave Livorno within twenty-four hours,
and advised to leave Italy altogether. Then--well, I came here."
"With your lover, eh?"
She nodded.
"And you will marry him?" the young Italian observed slowly. "You do
not fear the exposure which afterwards must come? These English are
fond of looking closely into the woman's past, you know."
She shrugged her shoulders, answering: "My past is secret. Fortunately
the one person who knows the truth dares not speak."
"Then what I know is of no account?" he said, somewhat surprised.
She laughed.
"If you and I have ever flirted, or even exchanged foolish letters, it
was long ago, when we had not the experience of the world we now have.
I do not dread exposure of your knowledge of my past."
"But this lover of yours, this Englishman--why does he believe in you so
blindly?" Romanelli inquired. "Is he so utterly infatuated that he
thinks you absolutely innocent of the world and its ways?"
"My affairs of the heart are of no concern to you now, Arnoldo," she
answered a trifle coquettishly.
"But if I come here to a man's rooms, and find you in his sitting-room
in a half-conscious state, trembling and afraid, with every sign of a
desperate struggle in your dress and in the room, and therefore I, once
your boy-lover, seek an explanation," he said. "True, the affection
between us is dead long, long ago, but remember that you and I both have
interests in common, and that by uniting we may effect the overthrow of
our enemies. If we do not--well, you know the fate that awaits us."
"Yes," she answered in a voice that sounded low and distant. "I know,
alas! too well--too well!"