CHAPTER XL.

TWO days later, Paul Griggs stood beside Gloria. She was not dead yet,

but no earthly power could save her. She lay white and motionless on the

high trestle bed, unconscious of his presence. They had sent a messenger

for him, and he had come. The door was locked. Stefanone and his wife

whispered together on the landing. In the third room, beyond, the nurse

was shedding hysterical tears over the sleeping child.

The strong man stood stone still with shadowy, unblinking eyes, gazing

into the dying face. Not a muscle moved, not a feature was distorted,

his breath was regular and slow, for his grief had taken hold upon his

soul, and his body was unconscious of time, as though it were already

dead.

She had suffered horrible agonies for two nights and one day, and now

the end was very near, for the wracked nerves could no longer feel. She

lay on her back, lightly covered, one white arm and hand above the

coverlet, the other hidden beneath it.

The room was very hot, and the sun streamed through the narrow aperture

of the nearly closed shutters, and made a bright streak on the red

bricks, for it was morning still.

The purple lids opened, and Gloria looked up. There was no shiver now,

as she recognized the man she feared, for the nerves were almost dead.

Perhaps there was less fear, for she knew that it was almost over. The

dark eyes were fixed on his with a mysterious, wondering look.

He tried to speak, and his lips moved, but he could make no sound, and

his chest heaved convulsively, once. He knew what she had done, for they

had told him. He knew, now that he tried to speak and could not, that he

was half killed by grief. She saw the effort and understood, and faintly

smiled.

"Why?"

He wrenched the single broken word out of himself by an enormous effort,

and his throat swelled and was dry. Suddenly a single great drop of

sweat rolled down his pale forehead.

"I could not live," she answered, in a cool, far voice beyond suffering,

and still she smiled.

"Why? Why?"

The repeated word broke out twice like two sobs, but not a feature

moved. The dying woman's eyelids quivered.

"I was a burden to you," she said faintly and distinctly. "You are free

now, you have--only the child."

His calm broke.

"Gloria, Gloria! In the name of God Almighty, do not leave me so!"

He clasped her in his arms and lifted her a little, pressing his lips to

her face. She was inert as a statue. She feared him still, and she felt

the shiver of horror at his touch, but it could not move her limbs any

more. Her eyes opened and looked into his, very close, but his were

shut. The mask was gone. The man's whole soul was in his agonized face,

and his arm shook with her. Her mind was clear and she understood. She

was still herself, acting her play out in the teeth of death.

"I could not live," she said. "I could not be a millstone, dragging you

down, watching you as you killed yourself in working for me. It was to

be one of us. It was better so."

In his agony he laid his head beside hers on the pillow.

"Gloria--for Christ's sake--don't leave me--" The deep moan came from

his tortured heart.

"Bring--the child--Walter--" she said very faintly.

Even in death she could not bear to be alone with him. He straightened

himself, stood up, and saw the light fading in her eyes. Then, indeed, a

shiver ran through her and shook her. Then the lids opened wide, and she

cried out loudly.

"Quick--I am going--"

Rather than that she should not have what she wished, he tore himself

away and wrenched the door open, forgetting that it was locked.

"Bring the child!" he cried, into the face of old Nanna, who was

standing there, and he pushed her towards the door of the other room

with one hand, while he already turned back to Gloria.

He started, for she was sitting up, with wide eyes and outstretched

hands, gazing at the patch of sunlight on the floor. Dying, she saw the

awful vision of her dream again, rising stiff and stark from the bricks

to its upright horror between her and the light. Her hands pointed at it

and shook, and her jaw dropped, but she was motionless as she sat.

Nanna, sobbing, came in suddenly, holding up the little child straight

before her, that it might see its mother before she was gone forever.

The baby hands feebly beat its little sides, and it gasped for breath.

Words came from Gloria's open mouth, articulate, clear, but very far in

sound.

"An evil death on you and all your house!" the words said, as though

spoken by another.

The outstretched hands sank slowly, as the vision laid itself down

before her, straight and corpse-like. The beautiful head fell back upon

Griggs's arm, and the eyes met his.

[Illustration: "The last great, true note died away."--Vol. II., p.

219.]

Nanna prayed aloud, holding up the child mechanically, and the small

eyes were fixed, horrorstruck, upon the bed. A low cry trembled in the

air. Stefanone, his hat in his hand, stood against the door, bowed a

little, as though he were in church. The cry came again. Then there was

a sort of struggle.

In an instant Gloria was standing up on the bed to her full height. And

the hot, still room rang with a burst of desperate, ear-breaking song,

in majestic, passionate, ascending intervals.

"Calpesta il mio cadavere, ma salva il Trovator!"

The last great, true note died away. For one instant she stood up still,

with outstretched hands, white, motionless. Then the flame in the dark

eyes broke and went out, and Gloria fell down dead.

"Maria Addolorata! Maria Addolorata!" Nanna screamed in deadly terror,

as she heard the transcendent voice that one time, like a voice from the

grave.

She sank down, fainting upon the floor, and the little child rolled from

her slackened arms upon the coarse bricks and lay on its face, moaning

tremulously. No one heeded it.

Stefanone, with instinctive horror of death, turned and went blindly

down the steps, not knowing what he had seen, the death notes still

ringing in his ears.

On the bed, the man lay dumb upon the dead woman. Only the poor little

child seemed to be alive, and clutched feebly at the coarse red bricks,

and moaned and bruised its small face. It bore the slender inheritance

of fatal life, the inheritance of vows broken and of faith outraged, and

with it, perhaps, the implanted seed of a lifelong terror, not

remembered, but felt throughout life, as real and as deadly as an

inheritance of mortal disease. Better, perhaps, if death had taken it,

too, to the lonely grave of the outcast and suicide woman, among the

rocks, out of earshot of humanity. Death makes strange oversights and

leaves strange gleanings for life, when he has reaped his field and

housed his harvest.

They would not give Gloria Christian burial, for it was known throughout

Subiaco that she had poisoned herself, and those were still the old

days, when the Church's rules were the law of the people.

Paul Griggs took the body of the woman he had loved, and loved beyond

death, and he laid her in a deep grave in a hollow of the hillside. Such

words as he had to speak to those who helped him, he spoke quietly, and

none could say that they had seen the still face moved by sorrow. But as

they watched him, a human sort of fear took hold of them, at his great

quiet, and they knew that his grief was beyond anything which could be

shown or understood. It was night, and they filled the grave after he

had thrown earth into it with his hands. He sent them away, and they

left him alone with the dead, leaving also one of their lanterns upon a

stone near by.

All that night he lay on the grave, dumb. Then, when the dawn came upon

him, he kissed the loose earth and stones, and got upon his feet and

went slowly down the hillside to the town beyond the torrent. He went

into the house noiselessly, and lay down upon the bed on which she had

died. And so he did for two nights and two days. On the third, a great

carriage came from Rome, bringing twelve men, singers of the Sistine

Chapel and of the choir of Saint Peter's and of Saint John Lateran,

twelve men having very beautiful voices, as sweet as any in the world.

He had sent for them when he had been told that she could not have

Christian burial.

They were talking and laughing together when they came, but when they

saw his face they grew very quiet, and followed him in silence where he

led them. Two little boys followed them, too, wondering what was to

happen, and what the thirteen men were going to do, all dressed in

black, walking so steadily together.

When they all came to the hollow in the hillside, they saw a mound, as

of a grave, amidst the stones, and on it there lay a cross of black

wood. The singers looked at one another in silence, and they understood

that whoever lay in the grave had been refused a place in the

churchyard, for some great sin. But they said nothing. The man who led

them stood still at the head of the cross and took off his hat, and

looked at his twelve companions, who uncovered their heads. They had

sheets of written music with them, and they passed them quietly about

from one to another and looked towards one who was their leader.

Overhead, the summer sky was pale, and there were twin mountains of

great clouds in the northwest, hiding the sun, and in the southeast,

whence the parching wind was blowing in fierce gusts. It blew the dry

dust from the clods of earth on the grave, and the dust settled on the

black clothes of the men as they stood near.

The voices struck the first chord softly together, and the music for the

dead went up to heaven, and was borne far across the torrent to the

distance in the arms of the hot wind. And one voice climbed above the

others, sweet and clear, as though to reach heaven itself; and another

sank deep and true and soft in the full close of the stave, as though it

would touch and comfort the heart that was quite still at last in the

deep earth.

Then one who was young stood a little before the rest, a strong, pale

singer, with an angel's voice. And he sang alone to the sky and the

dusty rocks and the solemn grave. He sang the 'Cujus animam gementem

pertransivit gladius' of the Stabat Mater, as none had sung it before

him, nor perhaps has ever sung it since that day--he alone, without

other music.

They came also to the words 'Fac ut animae donetur Paradisi gloria,' and

the word was a name to him who listened silently in their midst.

Besides these they sang also a 'Miserere,' and last of all, 'Requiem

eternam dona eis.'

Then there was silence, and they looked at the still face, as though

asking what they should do. The mysterious eyes met theirs with shadows.

The pale head bent itself in thanks, twice or thrice, but there were no

words.

So they turned and left him there on the hillside, and went back to the

town, awestruck by the vastness of the man's sorrow. And afterwards, for

many years, when any of them heard of a great grief, he shook his head

and said that he and those who had sung with him over a lonely grave in

the mountains, alone knew what a man could feel and yet live.

And Paul Griggs lived through those days, and is still alive. His grief

could not spend itself, but his stern strength took hold of life again,

and he took the child with him and went back to Rome, to work for it

from that time forward, and to shield it from evil if he could, and to

bring it up to be a man, ignorant of what had happened in Subiaco in

those summer days, ignorant of the tie that made it his, to be a man

free from the burden of past fates and sins and broken vows and trampled

faith, and of the death his dead mother had died, having a clean name of

his own, with which there could be no memories of misery and fear and

horror.

He wrote a few short words to Angus Dalrymple, now Lord Redin at last,

to tell him the truth as far as he knew it. The hand that had laboured

so bravely for Gloria could hardly trace the words that told of her

death.

Then, when the summer heat was passed, he took little Walter Crowdie

with him, hiring an Englishwoman to tend the child, and he crossed the

ocean and gave it to certain kinsfolk of his in America, telling them

that it was the child of one who had been very dear to him, that he had

taken it as his own, and would provide for it and take it back when it

should be older. And so he did, and little Walter Crowdie grew up with

an angel's voice, and other gifts which made him famous in his day. But

many things happened before that time came.

He could do no better than that. For a time he strove to earn money with

his pen in his own country. But the land was still trembling from the

convulsion of a great war, and there were many before him, and he was

little known. After a year had passed, he saw that he could not then

succeed, and very heavy at heart he set his face eastward again, to

toil at his old calling as a correspondent for a great London paper, to

earn bread for himself and for the one living being that he loved.

PART III.

_DONNA FRANCESCA CAMPODONICO._

CHAPTER XLI.

NOT long after this Dalrymple returned to Rome, after an absence of

several years. Family affairs had kept him in England and Scotland

during his daughter's married life with Reanda; and after she had left

the latter, it was natural that he should not wish to be in the same

city with her, considering the view he took of her actions. Then, after

he had learned from Griggs's brief note that she was dead, he felt that

he could not return at once, hard and unforgiving as he was. But at last

the power that attracted him was too strong to be resisted any longer,

and he yielded to it and came back.

He took up his abode in a hotel in the Piazza di Spagna, not far from

his old lodgings. Long as he had lived in Rome, he was a foreigner there

and liked the foreigners' quarter of the city. He intended once more to

get a lodging and a servant, and to live in his morose solitude as of

old, but on his first arrival he naturally went to the hotel. He did not

know whether Griggs were in Rome. Reanda was alive, and living at the

Palazzetto Borgia; for the two had exchanged letters twice a year,

written in the constrained tone of mutual civility which suited the

circumstances in which they were placed towards each other.

In Dalrymple's opinion, Reanda had been to blame to a certain extent, in

having maintained his intimacy with Francesca when he was aware that it

displeased his wife. At the same time, the burden of the fault was

undoubtedly the woman's, and her father felt in a measure responsible

for it. Whether he felt much more than that it would be hard to say. His

gloomy nature had spent itself in secret sorrow for his wife, with a

faithfulness of grief which might well atone for many shortcomings. It

is certain that he was not in any way outwardly affected by the news of

Gloria's death. He had never loved her, she had disgraced him, and now

she was dead. There was nothing more to be said about it.

He was not altogether indifferent to the inheritance of title and

fortune which had fallen to him in his advanced middle age. But if

either influenced his character, the result was rather an increased

tendency to live his own life in scorn and defiance of society, for it

made him conscious that he should find even less opposition to his

eccentricities than in former days, when he had been relatively a poor

man without any especial claim to consideration.

Two or three days after he had arrived in Rome, he went to the

Palazzetto Borgia and sent in his card, asking to see Francesca

Campodonico. In order that she might know who he was, he wrote his name

in pencil, as she would probably not have recognized him as Lord Redin.

In this he was mistaken, for Reanda, who had heard the news, had told

her of it. She received him in the drawing-room. She looked very ill, he

thought, and was much thinner than in former times, but her manner was

not changed. They talked upon indifferent subjects, and there was a

constraint between them. Dalrymple broke through it roughly at last.

"Did you ever see my daughter after she left her husband?" he asked, as

though he were inquiring about a mere acquaintance.

Francesca started a little.

"No," she answered. "It would not have been easy."

She remembered her interview with Griggs, but resolved not to speak of

it. She would have changed the subject abruptly if he had given her

time.

"It certainly was not to be expected that you should," said Lord Redin,

thoughtfully. "When a woman chooses to break with society, she knows

perfectly well what she is doing, and one may as well leave her to

herself."

Francesca was shocked by the cynicism of the speech. The colour rose

faintly in her cheeks.

"She was your daughter," she said, reproachfully. "Since she is dead,

you should speak less cruelly of her."

"I did not speak cruelly. I merely stated a fact. She disgraced herself

and me, and her husband. The circumstance that she is dead does not

change the case, so far as I can see."

"Do you know how she died?" asked Francesca, moved to righteous anger,

and willing to pain him if she could.

He looked up suddenly, and bent his shaggy brows.

"No," he answered. "That man Griggs wrote me that she had died suddenly.

That was all I heard."

"She did not die a natural death."

"Indeed?"

"She poisoned herself. She could not bear the life. It was very

dreadful." Francesca's voice sank to a low tone.

Lord Redin was silent for a few moments, and his bony face had a grim

look. Perhaps something in the dead woman's last act appealed to him, as

nothing in her life had done.

"Tell me, please. I should like to know. After all, she was my

daughter."

"Yes," said Francesca, gravely. "She was your daughter. She was very

unhappy with Paul Griggs, and she found out very soon that she had made

a dreadful mistake. She loved her husband, after all."

"Like a woman!" interjected Lord Redin, half unconsciously.

Francesca paid no attention to the remark, except, perhaps, that she

raised her eyebrows a little.

"They went out to spend the summer at Subiaco--"

"At Subiaco?" Dalrymple's steely blue eyes fixed themselves in a look of

extreme attention.

"Yes, during the heat. They lodged in the house of a man called

Stefanone--a wine-seller--a very respectable place."

Lord Redin had started nervously at the name, but he recovered himself.

"Very respectable," he said, in an odd tone.

"You know the house?" asked Francesca, in surprise.

"Very well indeed. I was there nearly five and twenty years ago. I

supposed that Stefanone was dead by this time."

"No. He and his wife are alive, and take lodgers."

"Excuse me, but how do you know all this?" asked Lord Redin, with sudden

curiosity.

"I have been there," answered Francesca. "I have often been to the

convent. You know that one of our family is generally abbess. A

Cardinal Braccio was archbishop, too, a good many years ago. Casa

Braccio owns a good deal of property there."

"Yes. I know that you are of the family."

"My name was Francesca Braccio," said Francesca, quietly. "Of course I

have always known Subiaco, and every one there knows Stefanone, and the

story of his daughter who ran away with an Englishman many years ago,

and never was heard of again."

Lord Redin grew a trifle paler.

"Oh!" he exclaimed. "Does every one know that story?"

There was something so constrained in his tone that Francesca looked at

him curiously.

"Yes--in Subiaco," she answered. "But Gloria--" she lingered a little

sadly on the name--"Gloria wrote letters to her husband from there and

begged him to go and see her."

"He could hardly be expected to do that," said Lord Redin, his hard tone

returning. "Did you advise him to go?"

"He consulted me," answered Francesca, rather coldly. "I told him to

follow his own impulse. He did not go. He did not believe that she was

sincere."

"I do not blame him. When a woman has done that sort of thing, there is

no reason for believing her."

"He should have gone. I should have influenced him, I think, and I did

wrong. She wrote him one more letter and then killed herself. She

suffered horribly and only died two days afterwards. Shall I tell you

more?"

"If there is more to tell," said Lord Redin, less hardly.

"There is not much. I went out there last year. They had refused her

Christian burial. Paul Griggs bought a piece of land amongst the rock,

on the other side of the torrent, and buried her there. It is surrounded

by a wall, and there is a plain slab without a name. There are flowers.

He pays Stefanone to have it cared for. They told me all they knew--it

is too terrible. She died singing--she was out of her mind. It must have

been dreadful. Old Nanna, Stefanone's wife, was in the room, and fainted

with terror. It seems that poor Gloria, oddly enough, had an

extraordinary resemblance to that unfortunate nun of our family who was

burned to death in the convent, and whom Nanna had often seen. She sang

like her, too--at the last minute Nanna thought she saw poor sister

Maria Addolorata standing up dead and singing. It was rather strange."

Lord Redin said nothing. He had bowed his head so that Francesca could

not see his face, but she saw that his hands were trembling violently.

She thought that she had misjudged the man, and that he was really very

deeply moved by the story of his daughter's death. Doubtless, his

emotion had made him wish to control himself, and he had overshot the

mark and spoken cruelly only in order to seem calm. No one had ever

spoken to him of his wife, and even now he could hardly bear to hear her

name. It was long before he looked up. Then he rose almost immediately.

"Will you allow me to come and see you occasionally?" he asked, with a

gentleness not at all like his usual manner.

Francesca was touched at last, misunderstanding the cause of the change.

She told him to come as often as he pleased. As he was going, he

remembered that he had not asked after his son-in-law. Reanda had always

seemed to belong to Francesca, and it was natural enough that he should

inquire of her.

"Where is Reanda to be found?" he asked.

"He is very ill," said Francesca, in a low voice. "I am afraid you

cannot see him."

"Where does he live? I will at least inquire. I am sorry to hear that he

is ill."

"He lives here," she answered with a little hesitation. "He is in his

old rooms upstairs."

"Oh! Yes--thank you." Their eyes met for a moment. Lord Redin's

glittered, but Francesca's were clear and true. "I am sure you take good

care of him," he added. "Good-bye."

He left her alone, and when he was gone, she sat down wearily and laid

her head back against a cushion, with half-closed eyes. Her lips were

almost colourless, and her mouth had grown ten years older.

Reanda was dying, and she knew it, and with him the light was going out

of her life, as it had gone out long ago from Dalrymple's, as it had

gone out of the life of Paul Griggs. The idea crossed her mind that

these two men, with herself, were linked and bound together by some

strange fatality which she could not understand, but from which there

was no escape, and which was bringing them slowly and surely to the

blank horror of lonely old age.

The same thought occurred to Lord Redin as he slowly threaded the

streets, going back to his hotel, to his lonely dinner, his lonely

evening, his lonely, sleepless night. He alone of the three now knew all

that there was to know, and in the chronicle of his far memories all led

back to that day at Subiaco, long ago, when he had first knocked at the

convent gate--beyond that, to the evening when poor Annetta had told him

of the beautiful nun with the angel's voice. Many lives had been wrecked

since that first day, and every one of them owed its ruin to him. He

felt strangely drawn to Francesca Campodonico. There was something in

her face that very faintly reminded him of his dead wife, her

kinswoman, and of his dead daughter, another of her race. His gloomy

northern nature felt the fatality of it all. He never could repent of

what he had done. The golden light of his one short happiness shone

through the shrouding veil of fatal time. In his own eyes, with his

beliefs, he had not even sinned in taking what he had loved so well. But

all the sorrow he saw, came from that deed. Francesca Campodonico's eyes

were as clear and true as her heart. But he knew that Reanda's life was

everything on earth to her, and he guessed that she was to lose that,

too, before long. He would willingly have parted with his own, but

through all his being there was a rough, manly courage that forbade the

last act of fear, and there was a stern old Scottish belief that it was

wrong--plainly wrong.

He did not wish to see Paul Griggs any more than he had wished to see

his daughter after she had left her husband. But no thought of vengeance

crossed his mind. It seemed to him fruitless to think of avenging

himself upon fate; for, after all, it was fate that had done the dire

mischief. Possibly, he thought, as he walked slowly towards his hotel,

fate had brought him back to Rome now, to deal with him as she had dealt

with his. He should be glad of it, for he found little in life that was

not gloomy and lonely beyond any words. He did not know why he had come.

He had acted upon an impulse in going to see Francesca that day.

When he reached the Corso, instead of going to his hotel he walked down

the street in the direction of the Piazza del Popolo. He wished to see

the house in which Gloria had lived with Griggs, and he remembered the

street and the number from her having written to him when she wanted

money. He reached the corner of the Via della Frezza, and turned down,

looking up at the numbers as he went along. He glanced at the little

wine shop on the left, with its bush, its red glass lantern, and its

rush-bottomed stools set out by the door. In the shadow within he saw

the gleam of silver buttons on a dark blue jacket. There was nothing

uncommon in the sight.

He found the house, paused, looked up at the windows, and looked twice

at the number.

"Do you seek some one?" inquired the one-eyed cobbler, resting his black

hands on his knees.

"Did Mr. Paul Griggs ever live here?" asked Lord Redin.

"Many years," answered the cobbler, laconically.

"Where does he live now?"

"Always here, except when he is not here. Third floor, on the left. You

can ring the bell. Who knows? Perhaps he will open. I do not wish to

tell lies."

The old man grunted, bent down over the shoe, and ran his awl through

the sole. He was profoundly attached to Paul Griggs, who had always been

kind to him, and since Gloria's death he defended him from visitors with

more determination than ever.

Lord Redin stood still and said nothing. In ten seconds the cobbler

looked up with a surly frown.

"If you wish to go up, go up," he growled. "If not, favour me by getting

out of my light."

The Scotchman looked at him.

"You do not remember me," he observed. "I used to come here with the

Signore."

"Well? I have told you. If you want him, there is the staircase."

"No. I do not want him," said Lord Redin, and he turned away abruptly.

"As you please," growled the cobbler without looking up again.

CHAPTER XLII.

PAUL GRIGGS had gone back to the house in the Via della Frezza after his

return from America, and lived alone in the little apartment in which

the happy days of his life had been spent. He was a man able to live two

lives,--the one in the past, the other in the active present. It was his

instinct to be alone in his sorrow, and alone in the struggle which lay

before him, for himself and his child. But he would have with him all

that could make the memory of Gloria real. The reality of such things

softened with their contrast the hardness of life.

He had taken the same rooms again. Out of boxes and trunks stored in a

garret of the house, he had taken many things which had belonged to

Gloria. Alone, he had arranged the rooms as they used to be. His

writing-table stood in the same place, and near it was Gloria's chair;

beside it, the little stand with her needlework, her silks, her

scissors, and her thimble, all as it used to be. A novel she had once

read when sitting there lay upon the chair. Many little objects which

had belonged to her were all in their accustomed places. On the

mantelpiece the cheap American clock ticked loudly as in old days.

Day after day, as of old, he sat in his place at work. He had made the

room so alive with her that sometimes, looking up from a long spell of

writing, he forgot, and stared an instant at the bedroom door, and

listened for her footstep. Those were his happiest moments, though each

was killed in turn by the vision of a lonely grave among rocks.

With intensest longing he called her back to him. In his sleep, the last

words he had spoken to her were spoken again by his unconscious lips in

the still, dark night. Everything in him called her, his living soul and

his strong bodily self. There were times when he knew that if he opened

his eyes, shut to see her, he should see her really, there in her chair.

He looked, trembling, and there was nothing. In dreams he sought her and

could not find her, though he wandered in dark places, across endless

wastes of broken clods of earth and broken stone. It was as though her

grave covered the whole world round, and his path lay on the shadowed

arms of an infinite great cross. And again the grey dawn awoke him from

the search, to feel that, for pity's sake, she must be alive and near

him. But he was always alone.

Silent, iron-browed, iron-handed, he faced the world alone, doing all

that was required of him, and more also. As he had said to Gloria in

that very room, he was building up a superiority for himself, since

genius was not his. He had in the rough ore of his strength the metal

which some few men receive as a birth-gift from nature, ready smelted

and refined, ready for them to coin at a single stroke, and throw

broadcast to the applauding world. He had not much, perhaps, but he had

something of the true ore, and in the furnace of his untiring energy he

would burn out the dross and find the precious gold at last. It could

not be for her, now. It was not for himself, but it was to be for the

little child, growing up in a far country with a clean name--to be his

father's friend, and nothing more, but to be happy, for the dead woman's

sake who bore him.

As in all that made a part of Paul Griggs, there was in his memory of

Gloria and in his sorrow for her that element of endurance which was the

foundation of his nature. That portion of his life was finished, and

there could never be anything like it again; but it was to be always

present with him, so long as he lived. He was sure of that. It would

always be in his power to close his eyes and believe that she was near

him. If it were possible, he loved her more dead than he had loved her

living.

And she had loved him to the last, and had given her life in the mad

thought of lightening his burden. Her last words to him had told him

so. Her last wish had been to see the child. And the greatest sacrifice

he could now make to her was to separate himself from the child, and let

him grow up to look upon the man who provided for him as his friend, but

as nothing more. It was an exaggerated idea, perhaps, though it was by

far the wisest course. Yet in doing what he did, Griggs deprived himself

for months at a time of something that was of her, and he did it for her

sake. He knew that in her heart there had been the unspoken shame of her

ruined life. Shame should never come near little Walter Crowdie. The

secret could be kept, and Paul Griggs meant to keep it, as he kept many

things from the world.

All his lonely life grew in the perfect memory, cut short though it was

by fate's cruel scythe-stroke. Even that one fearful day held no shadow

of unfaithfulness. She had been mad, but she had loved him. She had done

a deed of horror upon herself, but she had loved him, and madly had done

it for his sake. She had laid down her life for him. All that he could

do would be nothing compared with that. All that he could tear from the

world and lay tenderly as an offering at her feet would be but a handful

of dust in comparison with what she had done in the madness of love.

His heart strings wound themselves about their treasure, closer and

closer, stronger and stronger. The two natures that strove together in

him, the natures of body and soul, were at one with her, and drew life

from her though she was gone. It seemed impossible that they could ever

again part and smite one another for the mastery, as of old, for one

sorrow had overwhelmed them both, and together they knew the depths of

one grief.

Again, as of old, he defied fate. Death could take the child from him,

but could not separate the three in death or life. So long as the child

lived, to do or die for him was the question, while life should last.

But Paul Griggs defied fate, for fate's grim hand could not uproot his

heart from the strong place of his great dead love, to buffet it and

tear it again. He was alone, bodily, but he was safe forever.

Out of the dimness of twilight shadows the pale face came to him, and

the sweet lips kissed his; in a light not earthly the dark eyes

lightened, and the red auburn hair gleamed and fell about him. In the

darkness, a tender hand stole softly upon his, and words yet more tender

stirred the stillness. He knew that she was near him, close to him, with

him. The truth of what had been made the half dream all true. Only in

his sleep he could not find her, and was wandering ever over a dreary

grave that covered the whole world.

So his life went on with little change, inwardly or outwardly, from day

to day, in the absolute security from danger which the dead give us of

themselves. The faith that had gone beyond her death could go beyond his

own life, too. He defied fate.

Then fate, silent, relentless, awful, knocked at his door.

He was at work as usual. It was a bright winter's day, and the high sun

of the late morning streamed across one corner of his writing-table. He

was thinking of nothing but his writing, and upon that his thoughts were

closely intent in that everlasting struggle to do better which had

nearly driven poor Gloria mad.

The little jingling bell rang and thumped against the outer door to

which it was fastened. He paid no attention to it, till it rang again,

an instant later. Then he looked up and waited, listening. Again, again,

and again he heard it, at equal intervals, five times in all. That was

the old cobbler's signal, and the only one to which Griggs ever

responded. He laid down his pen and went to the door. The one-eyed man,

his shoemaker's apron twisted round his waist, stood on the landing, and

gave him a small, thick package, tied with a black string, under which

was thrust a note. Griggs took it without a word, and the bandy-legged

old cobbler swung away from the door with a satisfied grunt.

Griggs took the parcel back to his work-room, and stood by the window

looking at the address on the note. He recognized Francesca

Campodonico's handwriting, though he had rarely seen it, and he broke

the seal with considerable curiosity, for he could not imagine why Donna

Francesca should write to him. He even wondered at her knowing that he

was in Rome. He had never spoken with her since that day long ago, when

she had sent for him and begged him to take Gloria back to her father.

He read the note slowly. It was in Italian, and the language was rather

formal.

"SIGNORE:--My old and dear friend, Signor Angelo

Reanda, died the day before yesterday after a long

illness. During the last hours of his life he

asked me to do him a service, and I gave him the

solemn promise which I fulfil in sending you the

accompanying package. You will see that it was

sealed by him and addressed to you by himself,

probably before he was taken ill, and he saw it

before he died and said that it was the one he

meant me to send. That was all he told me

regarding it, and I am wholly ignorant of the

contents. I have ascertained that you are in Rome,

and are living, as formerly, in the Via della

Frezza, and to that address I send the parcel.

Pray inform me that you have received it.

"Believe me, Signore, with perfect esteem,

"FRANCESCA CAMPODONICO."

Griggs read the note twice through to the end, and laid it upon the

table. Then he thrust his hands into his pockets, and turned

thoughtfully to the window without touching the parcel, of which he had

not even untied the black string.

So Reanda was dead at last. It was nothing to him, now, though it might

have meant much if the man had died two years earlier. Living people

were very little to Paul Griggs. They might as well be dead, he thought.

Nevertheless, the bald fact that Reanda was gone, made him thoughtful.

Another figure had disappeared out of his life, though it had not meant

very much. He believed, and had always believed, that Reanda had loved

Francesca in secret, though she had treated him as a mere friend, as a

protectress should treat one who needs her protection.

Griggs turned and took up the note to look at it keenly, for he believed

himself a judge of handwriting, and he thought that he might detect in

hers the indications of any great suffering. The lines ran down a little

at the end, but otherwise the large, careful hand was the same as ever,

learned in a convent and little changed since, even as the woman herself

had changed little. She was the same always, simple, honest, strangely

maidenlike, thoroughly good.

He turned to the window again. So Reanda was dead. He would not find

Gloria, to whatsoever place he was gone. The shadow of a smile wreathed

itself about the mouth of the lonely man--the last that was there for a

long time after that day. Gloria was dead, but Gloria was his, and he

hers, for ever and ever. Neither heaven nor hell could tear up his heart

nor loosen the strong hold of all of him that clung to her and had grown

about her and through her, till he and she were quite one.

Then, all at once, he wondered what it could be that Reanda had wished

to send him from beyond the grave. He turned, took the parcel, and

snapped the black string with his fingers, and took off the paper.

Within was the parcel, wrapped in a second paper and firmly tied with

broad tape. A few words were written on the outside.

"To be given to Paul Griggs when I am dead. A. R."

The superscription told nothing, but he looked at it curiously as one

does at such things, when the sender is beyond answer. He cut the white

tape, for it was tied so tightly that he could not slip a finger under

it to break it. There was something of hard determination in the way it

was tied.

It contained letters in their envelopes, as they had reached Reanda

through the post, all of the same size, laid neatly one upon the

other--a score or more of them.

Griggs felt his hand shake, for he recognized Gloria's writing. His

first impulse was to burn the whole package, as it was, reverently, as

something which had belonged to Gloria, in which he had no part, or

share, or right. He laid his hand upon the pile of letters, and looked

at the small fire to see whether it were burning well. Under his hand he

felt something hard inside the uppermost envelope. His fate was upon

him--the fate he had so often defied to do its worst, since all that he

had was dead and was his forever.

Without another thought, he took from the envelope the letter it

contained, and the hard thing which was inside the letter. He held it a

moment in his hand, and it flamed in the beam of sunlight that fell

across the end of the table, and dazzled him. Then he realized what it

was. It was Gloria's wedding ring, and twisted round and round it and in

and out of it was a lock of her red auburn hair, serpent-like, flaming

in the sunshine, with a hundred little tongues that waved and moved

softly under his breath.

An icy chill smote him in the neck, and his strong limbs shook to his

feet as he laid the thing down upon the corner of the table. There was a

fearful fascination in it. The red gold hairs stirred and moved in the

sunlight still, even when he no longer breathed upon them. It was her

hair, and it seemed alive.

In his other hand he still held the letter. Fate had him now, and would

not let him go while he could feel. Again and again the cruel chill

smote him in the back. He opened the doubled sheet, and saw the date and

the name of the place,--Subiaco,--and the first words--'Heart of my

heart, this is my last cry to you'--and it was to Angelo Reanda.

Rigid and feeling as though great icy hands were drawing him up by the

neck from the ground, he stood still and read every word, with all the

message of loathing and abject fear and horror of his touch, which every

word brought him, from the dead, through the other dead.

Slowly, regularly, without wavering, moved by a power not his own, his

hands took the other letters and opened them, and his eyes read all the

words, from the last to the first. One by one the sheets fell upon the

table, and all alone in the midst the lock of red auburn hair sent up

its little lambent flame in the sunshine.

Paul Griggs stood upright, stark with the stress of rending soul and

breaking heart.

As he stood there, he was aware of a man in black beside him, like

himself, ghastly to see, with shadows and fires for eyes, and thin,

parted lips that showed wolfish teeth, strong, stern, with iron hands.

"You are dead," said his own voice out of the other's mouth. "You are

dead, and I am Gorlias."

Then the strong teeth were set and the lips closed, and the gladiator's

unmatched arms wound themselves upon the other's strength, with grip and

clutch and strain not of earthly men.

Silent and terrible, they wrestled in fight, arm to arm, bone to bone,

breath to breath. Hour after hour they strove in the still room. The sun

went westering away, the shadows deepened. The night came stealing black

and lonely through the window. Foot to foot, breast to breast, in the

dark, they bowed themselves one upon the other, dumb in the agony of

their reeling strife.

Late in the night, in the cold room, Paul Griggs felt the carpet under

his hands as he lay upon his back.

His heart was broken.

CHAPTER XLIII.

LORD REDIN had barely glanced at the man in the blue jacket with silver

buttons, whom he had seen in the deep shadow of the little wine shop as

he strolled down the Via della Frezza. But Stefanone had seen him and

had gone to the door as he passed, watching him when he stood talking to

the one-eyed cobbler, and keeping his keen eyes on him as he passed

again on his homeward way. And all the way to the hotel in the Piazza di

Spagna Stefanone had followed him at a distance, watching the great

loose-jointed frame and the slightly stooping head, till the Scotchman

disappeared under the archway, past the porter, who stood aside, his

gold-laced cap in his hand, bowing low to the 'English lord.'

Stefanone waited a few moments and then accosted the porter civilly.

"Do you know if the proprietor wishes to buy some good wine of last

year, at a cheap rate?" he asked. "You understand. I am of the country.

I cannot go in and look for the proprietor. But you are doubtless the

director and you manage these things for him. That is why I ask you."

The porter smiled at the flattery, but said that he believed wine had

been bought for the whole year.

"The hotel is doubtless full of rich foreigners," observed Stefanone.

"It is indeed beautiful. I should prefer it to the Palazzo Borghese. Is

it not full?"

"Quite full," answered the porter, proud of the establishment.

"For instance," said Stefanone, "I saw a great signore going in, just

before I took the liberty of speaking with you. I am sure that he is a

great English signore. Not perhaps a mylord. But a great signore, having

much money."

"What makes you think that?" inquired the porter, with a superior smile.

"Eh, the reasons are two. First, you bowed to him, as though he were

some personage, and you of course know who he is. Secondly, he lifted

his hat to you. He is therefore a real signore, as good perhaps as a

Roman prince. We say a proverb in the country--'to salute is courtesy,

to answer is duty.' Therefore when any one salutes a real signore, he

answers and lifts his hat. These are the reasons why I say this one must

be a great one."

"For that matter, you are right," laughed the porter. "That signore is

an English lord. What a combination! You have guessed it. His name is

Lord Redin."

Stefanone's sharp eyes fixed themselves vacantly, for he did not wish to

betray his surprise at not hearing the name he had expected.

"Eh!" he exclaimed. "Names? What are they, when one is a prince. Prince

of this. Duke of that. Our Romans are full of names. I daresay this

signore has four or five."

But the porter knew of no other, and presently Stefanone departed,

wondering whether he had made a mistake, after all, and recalling the

features of the man he had followed to compare them with those younger

ones he remembered so distinctly. He went back to the Via della Frezza

and drank a glass of wine. Then he filled the glass again and carried it

carefully across the street to his friend the cobbler.

"Drink," he said. "It will do you good. A drop of wine at sunset gives

force to the stomach."

The one-eyed man looked up, and smiled at his friend, a phenomenon

rarely observed on his wrinkled and bearded face. He shrugged one round

shoulder, by way of assent, held his head a little on one side and

stretched out his black hand with the glass in it, to the light. He

tasted it, smelt it, and looked up at Stefanone before he drank in

earnest.

"Black soul!" he exclaimed by way of an approving asseveration. "This is

indeed wine!"

"He took it for vinegar!" observed Stefanone, speaking to the air.

"It is wine," answered the cobbler when he had drained the glass. "It is

a consolation."

Then they began to talk together, and Stefanone questioned him about his

interview with the tall gentleman an hour earlier. The cobbler really

knew nothing about him, though he remembered having seen him several

times, years ago, before Gloria had come.

"You know nothing," said Stefanone. "That signore is the father of Sor

Paolo's signora, who died in my house."

"You are joking," returned the cobbler, gravely. "He would have come to

see his daughter while she lived--requiescat!"

"And I say that I am not joking. Do you wish to hear the truth? Well.

You have much confidence with Sor Paolo. Tell him that the father of the

poor Signora Gloria came to the door and asked questions. You shall hear

what he will say. He will say that it is possible. Then he will ask you

about him. You will tell him, so and so--a very tall signore, all made

of pieces that swing loosely when he walks, with a beard like the Moses

of the fountain, and hard blue eyes that strike you like two balls from

a gun, and hair that is neither red nor white, and a bony face like an

old horse."

"It is true," said the cobbler, reflectively. "It is he. It is his

picture."

"You will also say that he is now an English lord, but that formerly

they called him Sor Angoscia. You, who are friends with Sor Paolo, you

should tell him this. It may be that Sor Angoscia wishes him evil. Who

knows? In this world the combinations are so many!"

It was long before the cobbler got an opportunity of speaking with

Griggs, and when he had the chance, he forgot all about it, though

Stefanone reminded him of it from time to time. But when he at last

spoke of the matter he was surprised to find that Stefanone had been

quite right, as Griggs admitted without the least hesitation. He told

Stefanone so, and the peasant was satisfied, though he had long been

positive that he had found his man at last, and recognized him in spite

of his beard and his age.

After that Stefanone haunted the Piazza di Spagna in the morning,

talking a little with the models who used to stand there in their

mountain costumes to be hired by painters in the days when pictures of

them were the fashion. Many of them came from the neighbourhood of

Subiaco, and knew Stefanone by sight. When Lord Redin came out of the

hotel, as he generally did between eleven and twelve if the day were

fine, Stefanone put his pipe out, stuck it into his breeches' pocket

with his brass-handled clasp-knife, and strolled away a hundred yards

behind his enemy.

If Lord Redin noticed him once or twice, it was merely to observe that

men still came to Rome wearing the old-fashioned dress of the

respectable peasants. Being naturally fearless, and at present wholly

unsuspicious, it never struck him that any one could be dogging his

footsteps whenever he went out of his hotel. In the evening he went out

very little and then generally in a carriage. Two or three times, on a

Sunday, he walked over to Saint Peter's and listened to the music at

Vespers, as many foreigners used to do. Stefanone followed him into the

church and watched him from a distance. Once the peasant saw Donna

Francesca, whom he knew by sight as a member of the Braccio family,

sitting within the great gate of the Chapel of the Choir, where the

service was held. Lord Redin always followed the frequented streets,

which led in an almost direct line from the Piazza di Spagna by the Via

Condotti to the bridge of Saint Angelo. It was the nearest way. He never

went back to the Via della Frezza, for he had no desire to see Paul

Griggs, and his curiosity had been satisfied by once looking at the

house in which his daughter had lived. He spent his evenings alone in

his rooms with a bottle of wine and a book. Luxury had become a habit

with him, and he now preferred a draught of Chateau Lafitte to the rough

Roman wine barely a year old, while three or four glasses of a certain

brandy, twenty years in bottle, which he had discovered in the hotel,

were a necessary condition of his comfort. He had the intention of going

out one evening, in cloak and soft hat, as of old, to dine in his old

corner at the Falcone, but he put it off from day to day, feeling no

taste for the coarser fare and the rougher drink when the hour came.

He often went to see Francesca Campodonico in the middle of the day, at

which hour the Roman ladies used to be visible to their more intimate

friends. An odd sort of sympathy had grown up between the two, though

they scarcely ever alluded to past events, and then only by an accident

which both regretted. Francesca exercised a refining influence upon the

gloomy Scotchman, and as he knew her better, he even took the trouble to

be less rough and cynical when he was with her. In character she was

utterly different from his dead wife, but there was something of family

resemblance between the two which called up memories very dear to him.

Her influence softened him. In his wandering life he had more than once

formed acquaintances with men of tastes more or less similar to his own,

which might have ripened into friendships for a man of less morose

character. But in that, he and Paul Griggs were very much alike. They

found an element in every acquaintance which roused their distrust, and

as men to men they were both equally incapable of making a confidence.

Dalrymple's life had not brought him into close relations with any woman

except his wife. For her sake he had kept all others at a distance in a

strange jealousy of his own heart which had made her for him the only

woman in the world. Then, too, he had hated, for her, the curiosity of

those who had evidently wished to know her story. That had been always a

secret. He had told it to his father, and his father had died with it.

No one else had ever known whence Maria had come, nor what her name had

been. If Captain Crowdie had ever guessed the truth, which was doubtful,

he had held his tongue.

But Angus Dalrymple was no longer the man he had been in those days. He

had changed very much in the past two or three years; for though he had

almost outlived the excesses into which he had fallen in his first

sorrow, his hardy constitution had been shaken, if not weakened, by

them. Physically his nerves were almost as good as ever, but morally he

was not the same man. He felt the need of sympathy and confidence, which

with such natures is the first sign of breaking down, and of the

degeneration of pride.

That was probably the secret of what he felt when he was with Francesca.

She had that rarest quality in women, too, which commands men without

inspiring love. It is very hard to explain what that quality is, but

most men who have lived much and seen much have met with it at least

once in their lives.

There is a sort of manifested goodness for which the average man of the

world has a profound and unreasonable contempt. And there is another

sort which most wholly commands the respect of that man who has lived

hardest. From a religious point of view, both may be equally real and

conducive to salvation. The cynic, the worn out man of the world, the

man whose heart is broken, all look upon the one as a weakness and the

other as a strength. Perhaps there is more humanity in the one than in

the other. A hundred women may rebuke a man for something he has done,

and he will smile at the reproach, though he may smile sadly. The one

will say to him the same words, and he will be gravely silent and will

feel that she is right and will like her the better for it ever

afterwards. And she is not, as a rule, the woman whom such men would

love.

"I have never before met a woman whom I should wish to have for my

friend," said Lord Redin, one day when he was alone with Francesca. "I

daresay I am not at all the kind of man you would select for purposes of

friendship," he added, with a short laugh.

Francesca smiled a little at the frankness of the words, and shook her

head.

"Perhaps not," she said. "Who knows? Life brings strange changes when

one thinks that one knows it best."

"It has brought strange things to me," answered Lord Redin.

Then he was silent for a time. He felt the strong desire to speak out,

for no good reason or purpose, and to tell her the story of his life.

She would be horrorstruck at first. He fancied he could see the

expression which would come to her face. But he held his peace, for she

had not met him half-way, and he was ashamed of the weakness that was

upon him.

"Yes," she said thoughtfully, after a little pause. "You must have had a

strange life, and a very unhappy one. You speak of friendship as men

speak who are in earnest, because there is no other hope for them. I

know something of that."

She ceased, and her clear eyes turned sadly away from him.

"I know you do," he answered softly.

She looked at him again, and she liked him better than ever before, and

pitied him sincerely. She had discovered that with all his faults he was

not a bad man, as men go, for she did not know of that one deed of his

youth which to her would have seemed a monstrous crime of sacrilege,

beyond all forgiveness on earth or in heaven.

Then she began to speak of other things, for her own words, and his,

had gone too near her heart, and presently he left her and strolled

homeward through the sunny streets. He walked slowly and thoughtfully,

unconscious of the man in a blue jacket with silver buttons, who

followed him and watched him with keen, unwinking eyes set under heavy

brows.

But Stefanone was growing impatient, and his knife was every day a

little sharper as he whetted it thoughtfully upon a bit of smooth

oilstone which he carried in his pocket. Would the Englishman ever turn

down into some quiet street or lane where no one would be looking? And

Stefanone's square face grew thinner and his aquiline features more and

more eagle-like, till the one-eyed cobbler noticed the change, and spoke

of it.

"You are consuming yourself for some female," he said. "You have white

hair. This is a shameful thing."

But Stefanone laughed, instead of resenting the speech--a curiously

nervous laugh.

"What would you have?" he replied. "We are men, and the devil is

everywhere."

As he sat on the doorstep by the cobbler's bench, which was pushed far

forward to get the afternoon light, he took up the short sharp

shoemaker's knife, looked at it, held it in his hands and pared his

coarse nails with it, whistling a little tune.

"That is a good knife," he observed carelessly.

The cobbler looked up and saw what he was doing.

"Black soul!" he cried out angrily. "That is my welt-knife, like a

razor, and he pares his hoofs with it!"

But Stefanone dropped it into the little box of tools on the front of

the bench, and whistled softly.

"You seem to me a silly boy!" said the cobbler, still wrathful.

"Apoplexy, how you talk!" answered Stefanone. "But I seem so to myself,

sometimes."

CHAPTER XLIV.

THE life of Paul Griggs was not less lonely than it had been before the

day on which he had received and read Gloria's letters to Reanda, but it

was changed. Everything which had belonged to the dead woman was gone

from the room in which he sat and worked as usual. Even the position of

the furniture was changed. But he worked on as steadily as before.

Outwardly he was very much the same man as ever. Any one who knew him

well--if such a person had existed--would have seen that there was a

little difference in the expression of his impassive face. The jaw was,

if possible, more firmly set than ever, but there was a line in the

forehead which had not been there formerly, and which softened the iron

front, as it were, with something more human. It had come suddenly, and

had remained. That was all.

But within, the difference was great and deep. He felt that the man who

sat all day long at the writing-table doing his work was not himself any

longer, but another being, his double and shadow, and in all respects

his slave, except in one.

That other man sometimes paused in his work, fingering the pen

unconsciously, as men do who hold it all day long, and thinking of

Gloria with an expression of horror and suffering in his eyes. But he,

the real Paul Griggs, never thought of her. The link was broken, the

thread that had carried the message of dead love between him and the

lonely grave beyond Subiaco was definitely broken. Stefanone came to

receive the small sum which Griggs paid him monthly for his care of the

place, and Griggs paid him as he would have paid his tailor,

mechanically, and made a note of the payment in his pocket-book. When

the man was gone, Griggs felt that his double was staring at the wall as

a man stares at the dark surface of the pool in which the thing he loves

has sunk for the last time.

It was always the other self that felt at such moments. He could

abstract himself from it, and feel that he was watching it; he could

direct it and make it do what he pleased; but he could neither control

its thoughts nor feel any sympathy for them. Until the fatal day, the

world had all been black to him; only by closing his eyes could he bring

into it the light that hovered about a dead woman's face.

But now the black was changed to a flat and toneless white in which

there was never the least variation. Life was to him a vast blank, in

which, without interest or sensation, he moved in any direction he

pleased, and he pleased that it should be always the same direction,

from the remembrance of a previous intention and abiding principle. But

it might as well have been any other, backwards, or to right or left. It

was all precisely the same, and it was perfectly inconceivable to him

that he should ever care whether in the endless journey he ever came

upon a spot or point in the blank waste which should prove to him that

he had moved at all. Nothing could make any difference. He was beyond

that state in which any difference was apprehensible between one thing

and another.

His double had material wants, and was ruled by material circumstances.

His double was a broken-hearted creature, toiling to make money for a

little child to which it felt itself bound by every responsibility which

can bind father to son; acknowledging the indebtedness in every act of

its laborious life, denying itself every luxury, and almost every

comfort, that there might be a little more for the child, now and in

time to come; weary beyond earthly weariness, but untiring in the

mechanical performance of its set task; fatally strong and destined,

perhaps, to live on through sixty or seventy years of the same unceasing

toil; fatally weak in its one deep wound, and horribly sensitive within

itself, but outwardly expressionless, strong, merely a little more pale

and haggard than Paul Griggs had been.

This was the being whom Paul Griggs employed, as it were, to work for

him, which he thoroughly understood and could control in every part

except in its thoughts, and they were its own. But he himself existed in

another sphere, in which there were neither interests nor

responsibilities, nor landmarks, nor touches of human feeling, neither

memories for the dead nor hopes for the living; in which everything was

the same, because there was nothing but a sort of universal impersonal

consciousness, no more attached to himself than to the beings he saw

about him, or to that particular being which was his former self,--in

which he chose to reside, merely because he required a bodily evidence

of some sort in order to be alive--and there was no particular reason

why he should not be alive. He therefore did not cease to live, but a

straw might have turned the balance to the side of death.

It was certainly true that, so far as it could be said that there was

any link between him and humanity, it lay in the existence of the little

boy beyond the water. But it would have been precisely the same if

little Walter Crowdie had died. He did not wish to see the child, for he

had no wishes at all. Life being what it was, it would be very much

better if the child were to die at once. Since it happened to be alive,

he forced his double to work for it. It was no longer any particular

child so far as he himself was concerned. It belonged to his double,

which seemed to be attached to it in an unaccountable way and did not

complain at being driven to labour for it.

At certain moments, when he seemed to have got rid of his double

altogether for a time, a question presented itself to his real self. The

question was the great and old one--What was it for? And to what was it

tending? Then the people he saw in the streets appeared to him to be

very small, like ants, running hither and thither upon the ant-hill and

about it, moved by something which they could not understand, but which

made them do certain things with an appearance of logical sequence, just

as he forced his double to work for little Walter Crowdie from morning

till night. So the people ran about anxiously, or strolled lazily

through the hours, careful or careless, as the case might be, but quite

unconscious that they were of no consequence and of no use, and that it

was quite immaterial whether they were alive or dead. Most of them

thought that they cared a good deal for life on the whole, and that it

held a multitude of pleasant and interesting things to be liked and

sought, and an equal number of unpleasant and dangerous things to be

avoided; all of which things had no real existence whatever, as the

impersonal consciousness of Paul Griggs was well aware. He watched the

people curiously, as though they merely existed to perform tricks for

his benefit. But they did not amuse him, for nothing could amuse him,

nor interest him when he had momentarily got rid of his double, as

sometimes happened when he was out of doors.

One day, the month having passed again, Stefanone came for his money. It

was very little, and the old peasant would willingly have undertaken

that the work should be done for nothing. But he was interested in Paul

Griggs, and he was growing very impatient because he could not get an

opportunity of falling upon Lord Redin in a quiet place. He had formed a

new plan of almost childlike simplicity. When Griggs had paid him the

money, he lingered a moment and looked about the room.

"Signore, you have changed the furniture," he observed. "That chair was

formerly here. This table used to be there. There are a thousand

changes."

"Yes," said Griggs, taking up his pen to go on with his work. "You have

good eyes," he added good-naturedly.

"Two," assented Stefanone; "each better than the other. For instance, I

will tell you. When that chair was by the window, there was a little

table beside it. On the table was the work-basket of your poor Signora,

whom may the Lord preserve in glory! Is it truth?"

"Yes," answered Griggs, with perfect indifference. "It is quite true."

The allusion did not pain him, the man who was talking with Stefanone.

It would perhaps hurt the other man when he thought of it later.

"Signore," said Stefanone, who evidently had something in his mind, "I

was thinking in the night, and this thought came to me. The dead are

dead. Requiescant! It is better for the living to live in holy peace.

You never see the father of the Signora. There is bad blood between you.

This was my thought--let them be reconciled, and spend an evening

together. They will speak of the dead one. They will shed tears. They

will embrace. Let the enmity be finished. In this way they will enjoy

life more."

"You are crazy, Stefanone," answered Griggs, impatiently. "But how do

you know who is the father of the Signora?"

"Every one knows it, Signore!" replied the peasant, with well-feigned

sincerity. "Every one knows that it is the great English lord who lives

at the hotel in the Piazza di Spagna this year. Signore, I have said a

word. You must not take it ill. Enmity is bad. Friendship is a good

thing. And then it is simple. With maccaroni one makes acquaintance

again. There is the Falcone, but it would be better here. We will cook

the maccaroni in the kitchen; you will eat on this table. What are all

these papers for? Study, study! A dish of good paste is better, with

cheese. I will bring a certain wine--two flasks. Then you will be

friends, for you will drink together. And if the English lord drinks too

much, I will go home with him to the hotel in the Piazza di Spagna. But

you will only have to go to bed. Once in a year, what is it to be a

little gay with good wine? At least you will be good friends. Then

things will end well."

Griggs looked at Stefanone curiously, while the old peasant was

speaking, for he knew the people well, and he suspected something though

he did not know what to think.

"Perhaps some day we may take your advice," he said coldly. "Good

morning, Stefanone; I have much to write."

"I remove the inconvenience," answered Stefanone, in the stock Italian

phrase for taking leave.

"No inconvenience," replied Griggs, civilly, as is the custom. "But I

have to work."

"Study, study!" grumbled Stefanone, going towards the door. "What does

it all conclude, this great study? Headache. For a flask of wine you

have the same thing, and the pleasure besides. It is enough. Signore,"

he added, reluctantly turning the handle, "I go. Think of what I have

said to you. Sometimes an old man says a wise word."

He went away very much discontented with the result of the conversation.

His mind was a medley of cunning and simplicity backed by an absolutely

unforgiving temper and great caution. His plan had seemed exceedingly

good. Lord Redin and Griggs would have supped together, and the former

would very naturally have gone home alone. Stefanone was oddly surprised

that Griggs should not have acceded to the proposition at once, though

in reality there was not the slightest of small reasons for his doing

so.

It was long since anything had happened to rouse Griggs into thinking

about any individual human being as anything more than a bit of the

world's furniture, to be worn out and thrown away in the course of time,

out of sight. But something in the absolutely gratuitous nature of

Stefanone's advice moved his suspicions. He saw, with his intimate

knowledge of the Roman peasant's character, the whole process of the old

wine-seller's mind, if only, in the first place, the fellow had the

desire to harass Dalrymple. That being granted, the rest was plain

enough. Dalrymple, if he really came to supper with Griggs, would stay

late into the night and finish all the wine there might be. On his way

home through the deserted streets, Stefanone could kill him at his

leisure and convenience, and nobody would be the wiser. The only

difficulty lay in establishing some sufficient reason why Stefanone

should wish to kill him at all, and in this Griggs signally failed,

which was not surprising.

All at once, as generally happened now, he lost all interest in the

matter and returned to his work; or rather, to speak as he might have

spoken, he set his mechanical self to work for him, while his own being

disappeared in blank indifference and unconsciousness. But on the

following day, which chanced to be a Sunday, he went out in the morning

for a walk. He rarely worked on Sundays, having long ago convinced

himself that a day of rest was necessary in the long run.

As he was coming home, he saw Lord Redin walking far in front of him

down the Corso, easily recognizable by his height and his loose,

swinging gait. Griggs had not proceeded many steps further when

Stefanone passed him, walking at a swinging stride. The peasant had

probably seen him, but chose to take no notice of him. Griggs allowed

him to get a fair start and then quickened his own pace, so as to keep

him in view. Lord Redin swung along steadily and turned up the Via

Condotti. Stefanone almost ran, till he, too, had turned the corner of

the street. Griggs, without running, nearly overtook him as he took the

same turn a moment later.

It was perfectly clear that Stefanone was dogging the Scotchman's

steps. The latter crossed the Piazza di Spagna, and entered the deep

archway of his hotel. The peasant slackened his speed at once and

lounged across the square towards the foot of the great stairway which

leads up to the Trinita de' Monti. Griggs followed him, and came up with

him just as he sat down upon a step beside one of the big stone posts,

to take breath and light his pipe. The man looked up, touched his hat,

smiled, and struck a sulphur match, which he applied to the tobacco in

the red clay bowl before the sulphur was half burned out, after the

manner of his kind.

"You have taken a walk, Signore," he observed, puffing away at the

willow stem and watching the match.

"You walk fast, Stefanone," answered Griggs. "You can walk as fast as

Lord Redin."

Stefanone did not show the least surprise. He pressed down the burning

tobacco with one horny finger, and carefully laid the last glowing bit

of the burnt-out wooden match upon it.

"For this, we are people of the mountains," he answered slowly. "We can

walk."

"Why do you wish to kill that signore?" inquired Griggs, calmly.

Stefanone looked up, and the pale lids of his keen eyes were contracted

as he stared hard and long at the other's face.

"What are you saying?" he asked, with a short, harsh laugh. "What is

passing through your head? What have I to do with the Englishman?

Nothing. These are follies!"

And still he gazed keenly at Griggs, awaiting the latter's reply. Griggs

answered him contemptuously in the dialect.

"You take me for a foreigner! You might know better."

"I do not know what you mean," answered Stefanone, doggedly. "It is

Sunday. I am at leisure. I walk to take a little air. It is my affair.

Besides, at this hour, who would follow a man to kill him? It is about

to ring midday. There are a thousand people in the street. Those who

kill wait at the corners of streets when it is night. You say that I

take you for a foreigner. You have taken me for an assassin. At your

pleasure. So much the worse for me. An assassin! Only this was wanting.

It is better that I go back to Subiaco. At least they know me there.

Here in Rome--not even dogs would stay here. Beautiful town! Where one

is called assassin for breakfast, without counting one, nor two."

By this time Griggs was convinced that he was right. He knew the man

well, and all his kind. The long speech of complaint, with its peculiar

tone, half insolent, half of injured innocence, was to cover the

fellow's embarrassment. Griggs answered him in his own strain.

"A man is not an assassin who kills his enemy for a good reason,

Stefanone," he observed. "How do I know what he may have done to you?"

"To me? Nothing." The peasant shrugged his sturdy shoulders.

"Then I have made a mistake," said Griggs.

"You have made a mistake," assented Stefanone. "Let us not talk about it

any more."

"Very well."

Griggs turned away and walked slowly towards the hotel, well aware that

Stefanone was watching him and would think that he was going to warn

Lord Redin of his danger. That, indeed, was Griggs's first impulse, and

it was probably his wisest course, whatever might come of the meeting.

But the Scotchman had made up his mind that he would not see Griggs

under any circumstances, and though the latter had seen him enter the

hotel less than ten minutes earlier, the servant returned almost

immediately and said that Lord Redin was not at home. Griggs understood

and turned away, thoughtfully.

Before he went down the Via Condotti again, he looked over his shoulder

towards the steps, and he saw that Stefanone was gone. As he walked

along the street, the whole incident began to fade away in his mind, as

all real matters so often did, nowadays. All at once he stopped short,

and roused himself by an effort--directing his double, as he would have

said, perhaps. There was no denying the fact that a man's life was

hanging in the balance of a chance, and to the man, if not to Griggs,

that life was worth something. If it had been any other man in the

world, even that fact would have left him indifferent enough. Why should

he care who lived or died? But Dalrymple was a man he had injured, and

he was under an obligation of honour to save him, if he could.

There was only one person in Rome who could help him--Francesca

Campodonico. She knew much of what had happened; she might perhaps

understand the present case. At all events, even if she had not seen

Lord Redin of late, she could not be supposed to have broken relations

with him; she could send for him and warn him. The case was urgent, as

Griggs knew. After what he had said to Stefanone, the latter, if he

meant to kill his man, would not lose a day.

CHAPTER XLV.

IT was past midday when Paul Griggs reached the Palazzetto Borgia and

inquired for Donna Francesca. He was told that she was out. It was her

custom, the porter said, always to breakfast on Sundays with her

relatives, the Prince and Princess of Gerano. Griggs asked at what time

she might be expected to return. The porter put on a vague look and said

that it was impossible to tell. Sometimes she went to Saint Peter's on

Sunday afternoon, to hear Vespers. Vespers began at twenty-two o'clock,

or half-past twenty-two--between half-past three and four by French

time, at that season of the year.

Griggs turned away, and wandered about for half an hour in the vicinity

of the palace, uncertain as to what he should do, and yet determined not

to lose sight of the necessity for immediate action of some sort. At

last he went back to the Piazza di Spagna, intending to write a word of

warning to Lord Redin, though he knew that the latter would pay very

little attention to anything of such a nature. Like most foreigners, he

would laugh at the idea of being attacked in the streets. Even in an

interview it would not be easy to persuade him of the truth which Griggs

had discovered more by intuition and through his profound knowledge of

the Roman character than by any chain of evidence.

Lord Redin had gone out, he was told. It was impossible to say with any

certainty whether this were true or not, and Griggs wrote a few words on

his card, sealed the latter in an envelope, and left it to be delivered

to the Scotchman. Then he went back to the Via della Frezza, determined

to renew his attempt to see Francesca Campodonico, at a later hour.

At the door of the little wine shop Stefanone was seated on one of the

rush stools, his hat tilted over his eyes, and his white-stockinged legs

crossed. He was smoking and looking down, but he recognized Griggs's

step at some distance, and raised his eyes. Griggs nodded to him

familiarly, passing along on the other side of the narrow street, and he

saw Stefanone's expression. There was a look of cunning and amusement in

the contraction of the pale lids, which the younger man did not like.

Stefanone spoke to him across the street.

"You are well returned, Signore," he said, in the common phrase of

greeting after an absence.

The words were civil enough, but there was something of mockery in the

tone. Griggs might not have noticed it at any other time, but his

thoughts had been occupied with Stefanone during the last two hours,

and he resented what sounded like insolence. The tone implied that he

had been on a fool's errand, and that Stefanone knew it. He said

nothing, but stood still and scrutinized the man's face. There was an

unwonted colour about the cheek bones, and the keen eyes sparkled under

the brim of the soft hat. Stefanone had a solid head, and was not given

to drinking, especially in the morning; but Griggs guessed that to-day

he had drunk more than usual. The man's next words convinced him of the

fact.

"Signore," he said, slowly rising, "will you favour us by tasting the

wine I brought last week? There is no one in the shop yet, for it is

early. If you will, we can drink a glass."

"Thank you," answered Griggs. "I have not eaten yet."

"Then Sor Angoscia did not ask you to breakfast!" laughed Stefanone,

insolently. "At midday, too! It was just the hour! But perhaps he

invited you to his supper, for it is ordered."

And he laughed again. Griggs glanced at him once more, and then went

quietly on towards his own door. He saw that the man had drunk too much,

and the idea of bandying words in the attempt to rebuke him was

distasteful. Griggs had very rarely lost his temper, so far as to strike

a man, even in former days, and it had seemed to him of late that he

could never be really angry again. Nothing could ever again be of

enough importance to make it worth while. If a man of his own class had

insulted him, he would have directed his double, as it were, to resent

the offence, but he himself would have remained utterly indifferent.

The one-eyed cobbler was not in his place, as it was Sunday. If he had

been there, Griggs would very possibly have told him to watch Stefanone

and to try and keep him in the wine shop until he should grow heavy over

his wine and fall asleep. In that state he would at least be harmless.

But the cobbler was not there. Griggs went up to his rooms to wait until

a later hour, when he might hope to find Francesca.

Stefanone, being left alone, sat down again, pulled his hat over his

eyes once more and felt in his pocket for his clasp-knife. His mind was

by no means clear, for he had eaten nothing, he had swallowed a good

deal of strong wine, and he had made up his mind that he must kill his

enemy on that day or never. The intention was well-defined, but that was

all. He had put off his vengeance too long. It was true that he had not

yet caught Dalrymple alone in a quiet street at night, that is to say,

under the most favourable circumstances imaginable; but more than once

he might have fallen upon him suddenly from a doorway in a narrow lane,

in which there had been but a few women and children to see the deed, if

they saw it at all. He knew well enough that in Rome the fear of being

in any way implicated in a murder, even as a witness, would have made

women, and probably men, too, run indoors or out of the way, rather than

interfere or pursue him. He told himself therefore that he had been

unreasonably cautious, and that unless he acted quickly Lord Redin,

being warned by Griggs, would take measures of self-defence which might

put him beyond the reach of the clasp-knife forever. Stefanone's ideas

about the power of an 'English lord' were vague in the extreme.

He had not been exactly frightened by Griggs's sudden accusation that

morning, but he had been made nervous and vicious by the certainty that

his intentions had been discovered. Peasant-like, not being able to hit

on a plan for immediate success, he had excited himself and stimulated

his courage with drink. His eyes were already a little bloodshot, and

the flush on his high cheek bones showed that he was in the first stage

of drunkenness, which under present circumstances was the most dangerous

and might last all day with a man of his age and constitution, provided

that he did not drink too fast. And there was little fear of that, for

the Roman is cautious in his cups, and drinks slowly, never wishing to

lose his head, and indeed very much ashamed of ever being seen in a

helpless condition.

By this time he was well acquainted with Lord Redin's habits; and though

Griggs had been told that the Scotchman was out, Stefanone knew very

well that he was at home and would not leave the hotel for another hour

or more.

Leaning back against the wall and tipping the stool, he swung his

white-stockinged legs thoughtfully.

"One must eat," he remarked aloud, to himself.

He held his head a little on one side, thoughtfully considering the

question of food. Then he turned his face slowly towards the low door of

the shop and sniffed the air. Something was cooking in the back regions

within. Stefanone nodded to himself, rose, pulled out a blue and red

cotton handkerchief, and proceeded to dust his well-blacked low shoes

and steel buckles with considerable care, setting first one foot and

then the other upon the stool.

"Let us eat," he said aloud, folding his handkerchief again and

returning it to his pocket.

He went in and sat down at one of the trestle tables,--a heavy board,

black with age. The host was nodding on a chair in the corner, a fat man

in a clean white apron, with a round red face and fat red prominences

over his eyes, with thin eyebrows that were scarcely perceptible.

Stefanone rapped on the board with his knuckles; the host awoke, looked

at him with a pleased smile, made an interrogatory gesture, and having

received an affirmative nod for an answer retired into the dark kitchen.

In a moment he returned with a huge earthenware plate of soup in which a

couple of large pieces of fat meat bobbed lazily as he set the dish on

the table. Then he brought bread, a measure of wine, an iron spoon, and

a two-pronged fork.

Stefanone eat the soup without a word, breaking great pieces of bread

into it. Then he pulled out his clasp-knife and opened it; the long

blade, keen as a razor and slightly curved, but dark and dull in colour,

snapped to its place, as the ring at the back fell into the

corresponding sharp notch. With affected delicacy, Stefanone held it

between his thumb and one finger and drew the edge across the fat boiled

meat, which fell into pieces almost at a touch, though it was tough and

stringy. The host watched the operation approvingly. At that time it was

forbidden to carry such knives in Rome, unless the point were round and

blunt. The Roman always stabs; he never cuts his man's throat in a fight

or in a murder.

"It is a prohibited weapon," observed the fat man, smiling, "but it is

very beautiful. Poor Christian, if he finds it between his ribs! He

would soon be cold. It is a consolation at night to have such a toy."

"Truly, it is the consolation of my soul," answered Stefanone.

"Say a little, dear friend," said the fat man, sitting down and resting

his bare elbows upon the table, "that arm, has it ever sent any one to

Paradise?"

"And then I should tell you!" exclaimed Stefanone, laughing, and he

sipped some wine and smacked his lips. "But no," he added presently. "I

am a pacific man. If they touch me--woe! But I, to touch any one? Not

even a fly."

"Thus I like men," said the host, "serious, full of scruples, people who

drink well, quiet, quiet, and pay better."

"So we are at Subiaco," answered Stefanone.

He cleaned his knife on a piece of bread very carefully, laid it open

beside him, and threw the crust to a lean dog that appeared suddenly

from beneath the table, as though it had come up through a trap-door;

the half-famished creature bolted the bread with a snap and a gulp and

disappeared again as suddenly and silently, just in time to avoid the

fat man's slow, heavy hand.

When he had finished eating, Stefanone produced his little piece of

oilstone, which he carried wrapped in dingy paper, and having greased it

proceeded to draw the blade over it slowly and smoothly.

"Apoplexy!" ejaculated the host. "Are you not contented? Or perhaps you

wish to shave with it?"

"Thus I keep it," answered the peasant, smiling. "A minute here, a

minute there. The time costs nothing. What am I doing? Nothing. I

digest. To pass the time I sharpen the knife. I am like this. I say it

is a sin to waste time."

Every now and then he sipped his wine, but there was no perceptible

change in his manner, for he was careful to keep himself just at the

same level of excitement, neither more nor less.

Half an hour later he was smoking his pipe in the Piazza di Spagna,

lounging near the great fountain in the sunshine, his eyes generally

turned towards the door of the hotel. He waited a long time, and

replenished his pipe more than once.

"This would be the only thing wanting," he said impatiently and half

aloud. "That just to-day he should not go out."

But Lord Redin appeared at last, dressed as though he were going to make

a visit. He looked about the square, standing still on the threshold for

a moment, and a couple of small open cabs drove up. But he shook his

head, consulted his watch, and strode away in the direction of the

Propaganda.