Sylvie put a caressing arm around her. "Your father had the news this
morning," she said, "and we all decided to tell it to you as soon as we
came back from the Consulate. A wedding-surprise on our parts, Angela!
You know the picture was on view for the first time yesterday to some
of the critics and experts in Rome?"
Angela made a faint sign of assent. Her wistful eyes were full of
wonder and anxiety.
"Well, among them was a purchaser for America--Oh, you need not look at
me, my dear!--I have nothing to do with it! You shall see the letter
your father received--and you shall decide; but the end of the whole
matter is, Angela, that if you consent, the picture will be bought, not
by any private purchaser, but by the American nation."
"The American nation!" repeated Angela. "Are you really, really sure of
this?"
"Quite sure!" said Sylvie joyously. "And you must say good-bye to it
and let it go across the wide ocean--out to the New World all alone
with its grand and beautiful message,--unless you go with it and show
the Americans something even more perfect and beautiful in yourself
than the picture!--and you must be content to take twenty thousand
pounds for it, and be acknowledged as the greatest painter of the age
as well! This will be hard work, Angela!--but you must resign yourself!"
She laughed for pure delight in her friend's triumph,--but Angela
turned at once to her father.
"Dearest father!" she said softly. "I am glad--for your sake!"
He folded her in his arms, too deeply moved to speak, and then as he
felt her trembling, he led her to a chair and beckoned to Cyrillon
Vergniaud who had stood apart, watching the little scene in silence.
"Come and talk to this dear girl!" he said. "She is not at all a good
hostess to-day! She ought to entertain the bride and bridegroom
here,--but it seems as if she needed to be entertained herself!" And
then, as Cyrillon obeyed him, and drew near the idol of his thoughts
with such hesitating reverence as might befit a pilgrim approaching the
shrine of a beloved saint, he turned away and was just about to speak
to the Princesse D'Agramont when a servant entered and said hurriedly--
"Monsignor Gherardi desires to see Cardinal Bonpre!"
There was a dead pause. The group of friends looked at one another in
embarrassment. Angela rose from her chair trembling and glanced
instinctively at her picture--and for a moment no one seemed quite
certain what should be done next. The Princesse D'Agramont was the
first to recover her self-possession.
"Angela must not be here," she said. "She is not strong enough to stand
a scene. And no doubt Gherardi has come to make one! We will leave him
to you, Mr. Leigh--and to Gys Grandit!"
She withdrew at once with Angela, and in another moment Gherardi was
ushered in. He glanced quickly around him as he made his formal
salutation,--his eyes rested for a moment on Sylvie and Aubrey
Leigh--then he addressed himself to Prince Pietro.
"I am sorry to intrude upon you, Prince!" he said. "I have an urgent
matter to discuss with Cardinal Bonpre, and must see him at once."
"I regret that it is not in my power to gratify your desire,
Monsignor," said Prince Sovrani with stiff courtesy. "My brother-in-law
the Cardinal left Rome last night"
"Left Rome! Left Rome!" exclaimed Gherardi. "Who gave him permission to
leave Rome!"
"Was permission necessary?" asked Aubrey, stepping forward.
"I did not address you, sir," returned Gherardi haughtily. "I spoke to
Prince Sovrani."
"Prince Sovrani might well decline to answer you," said Aubrey
undauntedly. "Were I to make him acquainted with the fiendish plot you
have contrived against his daughter's fame and honour, he would
scarcely allow you to cross his threshold!"
Gherardi stood still, breathing quickly, but otherwise unmoved.
"Plot?" he echoed. "You must be mad! I have no plot against anyone. My
business is to uphold the cause of truth and justice, and I shall
certainly defend the name of the great artist who painted that
picture"--and he pointed to Angela's canvas--"Florian Varillo! Dead as
he is, his memory shall live!"
"Dead!" cried Prince Sovrani, springing forward. "Dead! Make me sure of
that, and I will praise God even for your lying tongue, if it could for
once speak such a welcome truth!"
Gherardi drew back amazed, instinctively recoiling from the flashing
eyes and threatening figure of the irate nobleman.
"Speak!" cried Sovrani again. "Tell me that the murderer of my child's
youth and joy is dead and gone to hell--and I will sing a Laus Deo at
St. Peter's! I will pay you a thousand pounds in masses to keep his
soul safe with the devil to whom it has gone!"
"Prince Sovrani, you are in ignorance of the facts," said Gherardi
coldly. "And you speak in an anger, which if what you suspect were
true, would be natural enough, but which under present circumstances is
greatly misplaced. The unfortunate Florian Varillo has been ill for
many days at a Trappist monastery on the Campagna. He had gone out
towards Frascati on a matter connected with some business before
starting for Naples, and as he was returning, he was suddenly met by
the news of the assassination of his betrothed wife--"
"And he knew nothing of it--" interposed Sovrani grimly. "Of course--he
knew nothing!"
"He knew nothing--how should he know!" responded Gherardi calmly--"The
terrible shock threw him into a delirium and fever--he was found in a
dead swoon and taken into the monastery for shelter. I saw him there
only yesterday."
He paused. No one spoke.
"He was to have come to Rome to-day, and a full explanation of his
absence would have been given. But last night the monastery was set on
fire--"
"Thank God!" said Sovrani.
Gherardi looked at him with an air of admirably affected sorrowful
reproach.
"I grieve for your injustice and cruelty, Prince!" he said--"Some
natural regret there should surely be in your mind at the tragic end of
one so highly gifted--one whom you had accepted as your future
son-in-law. He met with a terrible death! The monastery was set on
fire, as I have told you--but the doors had all been previously locked
within, it is supposed by one of the monks named Ambrosio, who was
subject to fits of insanity--with the tragic result that he and Varillo
perished in the flames, there being no possibility of rescue."
"Then the guillotine is saved unnecessary soiling," said Sovrani
fiercely. "And you, Monsignor Gherardi, should have a special
'Jubilate' sung for the world being well-rid of an exceptionally damned
and damnable villain!"
There was something terrific in the aspect of Sovrani's face and
threatening attitude, and for a moment Gherardi hesitated to go on with
his prepared sequence of lies. Rallying his forces at last with an
effort he made a very good assumption of his most authoritative manner.
"Prince, I must ask you to be good enough to hear me patiently," he
said. "Your mind has been grossly abused, and you are not aware of the
true position of affairs. You imagine with some few gossips in Rome,
that Florian Varillo, your daughter's betrothed husband, was guilty of
the murderous attack upon her life--you are mistaken!"
"Mistaken!" Prince Pietro laughed scornfully. "Prove my mistake!--prove
it!"
"I give you my word!" said Gherardi. "And I also swear to you that the
picture yonder, which, though offensive to the Church and blasphemous
in its teaching, is nevertheless a great masterpiece of painting, is
the work of the unfortunate dead man you so greatly wrong!"
"Liar!" And Cyrillon Vergniaud sprang forward, interposing himself
between Sovrani and the priest. "Liar!"
Gherardi turned a livid white.
"Who is this ruffian?" he demanded, drawing his tall form up more
haughtily than before. "A servant of yours?"
"Ay, a servant of his, and of all honest men!" returned Cyrillon. "I am
one whom your Church has learned to fear, but who has no fear of
you!--one whom you have heard of to your cost, and will still hear
of,--Gys Grandit!"
Gherardi glanced him up and down, and then turned from him in disgust
as from something infected by a loathly disease.
"Prince Sovrani!" he said. "I cannot condescend to converse with a
street ranter, such as this misguided person, who has most regrettably
obtained admission to your house and society! I came to see your
brother-in-law Cardinal Bonpre,--who has left Rome, you tell
me--therefore my business must be discussed with you alone. I must ask
you for a private audience."
Sovrani looked at him steadily.
"And I must refuse it, Monsignor! If in private audience you wish to
repeat the amazing falsehood you have just uttered respecting my
daughter's work--I am afraid I should hardly keep my hands off you!
Believe me you are safest in company!"
Monsignor Gherardi paused a moment,--then turned towards Sylvie.
"Contessa," he said very deliberately. "You can perhaps arrange this
matter better than I can. Florian Varillo is dead--as I have told you;
and for stating what I believe to be the truth regarding him I have
been subjected to insult in your presence. I have known you for many
years and I knew your father before you,--I have no wish to either
distress or offend you,--do you understand? I am in your hands!"
Sylvie looked him full in the face. "My husband will answer you,
Monsignor," she said. "I am in his hands!" Gherardi turned as crimson
as he had before been pale. "Your husband!" He strode forward with a
threatening movement--then stopped short, as he confronted Aubrey
Leigh. "Your husband! So! You are married then!"--and he laughed
fiercely--"Married by the law, and excommunicated by the Church! A
pleasant position for the last of the Hermensteins! Contessa, by your
own act you have ruined the fortunes of your friends! I would have held
my peace at your will,--but now all Rome shall know the truth!" "The
truth according to the convenience of papal Rome?" queried Aubrey
Leigh--"The truth, as expounded to the Comtesse Hermenstein in your
interview with her yesterday?"
Gherardi looked him over with superb indifference.
"My interview with the Comtesse Hermenstein was a private one"--he
said,--"And if a spy was present, he must prove himself a spy. And we
of the Church do not accept a spy's testimony!"
White with indignation Aubrey sprang forward,--but Cyrillon Vergniaud
restrained him. "Patience!" he said in a low tone--"Let him have his
way for the moment--it will then be my turn!"
"My word is law in Rome!"--went on Gherardi--"Whatsoever I choose to
say will be confirmed and ratified by the greatest authority in the
world--the Pope! I am ready to swear that Florian Varillo painted that
picture,--and the Pope is ready to believe it! Who will admit such a
masterpiece to be a woman's work? No one! Each member of the house of
Sovrani can bear witness to the fact that no one ever saw Angela
Sovrani painting it! But I know the whole story--I was the last to see
Florian Varillo before his death--and he confessed the truth--that he
had worked for his betrothed wife in order to give her the greater
fame! So that he was not, and could not have been her assassin--"
"Then her assassin must be found!" said Prince Pietro suddenly. "And
the owner of this sheath--the sheath of the dagger with which she was
stabbed--must claim his property!" And holding up the sheath in
question before Gherardi he continued--
"This _I_ found! This _I_ traced! Varillo's servant admitted it to be
his master's--Varillo's mistress recognised it as her lover's--a slight
thing, Monsignor!--but an uncomfortable witness! And if you dare to
promulgate your lie against my daughter and her work, I will accuse you
in the public courts of complicity in an attempted murder! And I doubt
whether the Pope will judge it politic, or a part of national
diplomacy, to support you then!"
For a moment Gherardi was baffled. His dark brows met in a frown of
menace and his lips tightened with his repressed fury. Then,--still
managing to speak with the utmost composure, he said,
"You will permit me to look at this dagger-sheath--this proof on which
you place so much reliance?"
In the certainty of his triumph, old Sovrani was ready to place it in
the priest's extended hand, when young Vergniaud interposed and
prevented him.
"No! You can admire it from a distance, Monsignor! You are capable in
your present humour of tearing it to atoms and so destroying evidence!
As the 'servant' of Prince Sovrani, it is my business to defend him
from this possibility!"
Gherardi raised his dark eyes and fixed them, full of bitterest scorn,
on the speaker.
"So YOU are Gys Grandit!" he said in accents which thrilled with an
intensity of hatred. "You are the busy Socialist, the self-advertising
atheist, who, like a yelping cur, barks impotently under the wheels of
Rome! You--Vergniaud's bastard--"
"Give that name to your children at Frascati!" cried Cyrillon
passionately. "And own them as yours publicly, as my father owned me
before he died!"
With a violent start, Gherardi reeled back as though he had been dealt
a sudden blow, and over his face came a terrible change, like the grey
pallor of creeping paralysis. White to the lips, he struggled for
breath . . . he essayed to speak,--then failing, made a gesture with
his hands as though pushing away some invisible foe. Slowly his head
drooped on his breast, and he shivered like a man struck suddenly with
ague. Startled and awed, everyone watched him in fascinated silence.
Presently words came slowly and with difficulty between his dry lips.
"You have disgraced me!" he said hoarsely--"Are you satisfied?" He took
a step or two close up to the young man. "I ask you--are you satisfied?
Or--do you mean to go on--do you want to ruin me?--" Here, moved by
uncontrollable passion he threw up his hands with a gesture of despair.
"God! That it should come to this! That I should have to ask you--you,
the enemy of the Church I serve, for mercy! Let it be enough I
say!--and I--I also will be silent!"
Cyrillon looked at him straightly.
"Will you cease to persecute Cardinal Bonpre?" he demanded. "Will you
admit Varillo's murderous treachery?"
Gherardi bent his head.
"I will!" he answered slowly, "because I must! Otherwise--" He clenched
his fist and his eyes flashed fire-then he went on--"But beware of
Lorenzo Moretti! He will depose the Cardinal from office, and separate
him from that boy who has affronted the Pope. He is even now soliciting
the Holy Father to intervene and stop the marriage of the Comtesse
Sylvie Hermenstein with Aubrey Leigh,--and--they are married! No
more--no more!--I cannot speak--let me go--let me go--you have won your
way!--I give you my promise!"
"What is your promise worth?" said Vergniaud with disdain.
"Nothing!" replied Gherardi bitterly. "Only in this one special
instance it is worth all my life!--all my position! You--even you, the
accursed Gys Grandit!--you have me in your power!"
He raised his head as he said this,--his face expressed mingled agony
and fury; but meeting Cyrillon's eyes he shrank again as if he were
suddenly whipped by a lash, and with one quick stride, reached the
door, and disappeared.
There was a moment's silence after his departure. Then Aubrey Leigh
spoke.
"My dear Grandit! You are a marvellous man! How came you to know
Gherardi's secrets?"
"Through a section of the Christian-Democratic party here"--replied
Cyrillon--"You must not forget that I, like you, have my disciples!
They keep me informed of all that goes on in Rome, and they have
watched Domenico Gherardi for years. We all know much--but we have
little chance to speak! If England knew of Rome what France knows, what
Spain knows,--what Italy knows, she would pray to be given a second
Cromwell! For the time is coming when she will need him!"