"BETTER THOU WERT DEAD BEFORE ME"
On the brow of the Hill Fiolesse, at a sharp angle in the white dusty
road, a man and woman stood talking. On one side of them was a grove of
flowering magnolias, and on the other a high, closely-trimmed hedge
skirted the grounds of the Villa Fiolesse. There was not another soul in
sight, but, as though the place were not secure enough from
interruption, the girl, every now and then, glanced half fearfully
around her, and more than once paused in the middle of a sentence to
listen. At last her fears escaped from her lips.
"Leonardo, I wish that you had not come!" she cried. "What is the good
of it? I shall have no rest till I know that you are beyond the sea
again."
His face darkened, and his tone was gloomy and sad.
"Beyond the seas, while my heart is chained forever here, Margharita!"
he answered. "Ah! I have tried, and I know the bitterness of it. You
cannot tell what exile has been like to me. I could bear it no longer.
Tell me, child! I watched you climb this hill together. You looked back
and saw me, and waited. Did she see me, too? Quick! answer me! I will
know! She saw me on the Marina. Did she know that I was following her?"
"I think she saw you. She said nothing when I lingered behind. It was as
though she knew."
The Sicilian clasped his hands, and looked away over the sea. The
moonlight fell upon his weary pallid face, and glistened in his dark sad
eyes. He spoke more to himself than her.
"She knew! And yet she would not wait to speak a single word to me! Ah!
it is cruel! If only she could know how night by night, in those
far-distant countries, I have lain on the mountain tops, and wandered
through the valleys, thinking and dreaming of her--always of her! It has
been an evil time with me, my sister, a time of dreary days and
sleepless nights. And this the end of it! My heart is faint and sick
with longing, and I hastened here before it should break. I must see
her, Margharita! Let us hasten on to the villa!"
She laid her hand upon his arm. Her eyes were soft with coming tears.
"Leonardo, listen," she cried. "It is best to tell you. She will not see
you. She is quite firm. She is angry with you for coming."
"Angry with me! Angry because I love her, so that I risk my life just to
see her, to hear her speak! Ah! but that is cruel! Let me go in and
speak to her! Let me plead with her in my own fashion!"
She shook her head.
"Leonardo, the truth is best," she said softly. "Adrienne does not love
you. She is quite determined not to see you again. Even I, pleading with
tears in my eyes, could not persuade her. She has locked herself in her
room while she prepares for the concert. You could not see her unless
you forced yourself upon her, and that would not do."
"No, I would not do that," he answered wearily. "Margharita, there is a
question; I must ask it, though the answer kill me. Is there--any one
else?"
She shook her head.
"There is no one else, Leonardo, yet. But what matter is that, since it
cannot be you? Some day it will come. All that a sister could do, I have
done. She pities you, Leonardo, but she does not love you. She never
will!"
He moved from the open space, where the moonlight fell upon his marble
face, to the shadow of the magnolia grove. He stood there quite silent
for a moment. Then he spoke in a strained, hard voice, which she
scarcely recognized.
"Margharita, you have done your best for me. You do not know what a
man's love is, or you would not wonder that I suffer so much. Yet, if it
must be, it must. I will give her up. I will go back to my exile and
forget her. Yet since I am here, grant me a last favor. Let me see her
to say farewell."
She looked up at him in distress.
"Leonardo, how can I? She has given orders that under no circumstances
whatever are you to be admitted."
"But to say farewell!"
"She would not believe it. It has been so before, Leonardo, and then you
have been passionate, and pleaded your cause all over again. I have
promised that I will never ask her to see you again."
"Then let me see her without asking. You can find an opportunity, if you
will. For my sake, Margharita!"
She laid her troubled, tear-stained face upon his shoulder.
"It is wrong of me, Leonardo. Yet, if you will promise me to say
farewell, and farewell only----"
"Be it so! I promise!"
"Well, then, each night we have walked past the Marina, and home by the
mountain road. It is a long way round and it is lonely; but we have
Pietro with us, and on these moonlight nights the view is like
fairy-land."
"And will you come that way home to-night, after the concert?"
"Yes."
"It is good."
"You will remember your promise, Leonardo," she said anxiously.
"I will remember," he answered. "And, Margharita, since this is to be
our farewell, I have something to say to you also, before I pass away
from your life into my exile. In Rome I was told a thing which for a
moment troubled me. I say for a moment, because it was for a moment only
that I believed it. The man who told me was my friend, or he would have
answered to me for it, as for an insult. Shall I tell you, Margharita,
what this thing was?"
Her face was troubled, and her eyes were downcast. The Sicilian watched
her confusion with darkening brows. Since she made no answer, he
continued:
"They told me, Margharita, that you, a Marioni, daughter of one of
Europe's grandest families, daughter of a race from which princes have
sprung, and with whom, in the old days, kings have sought alliance, they
told me that you were betrothed to some low American, a trader, a man
without family or honor. They told me this, Margharita, and I answered
them that they lied. Forgive me for the shadow of a doubt which crossed
my mind, sister. Forgive me that I beg for a denial from your own lips."
She lifted her head. She was pale, but her dark eyes had an indignant
sparkle in them.
"They did lie, Leonardo," she answered firmly, "but not in the fact
itself. It is true that I am engaged to be married."
"Betrothed! Without my sanction! Margharita, how is that? Am I not your
guardian?"
"Yes, but, Leonardo, you have been away, and no one knew when you would
return, or where you were."
"It is enough. Tell me of the man to whom you are betrothed. I would
know his name and family."
"Leonardo, his name is Martin Briscoe, and his family--he has no family
that you would know of. It is true that he is an American, but he is a
gentleman."
"An American! It is perhaps also true that he is a trader?"
His coolness alarmed her. She looked into his face and trembled.
"I do not know; it may be so. His father----"
The Sicilian interrupted her. His face was marble white, but his eyes
were afire.
"His father! Spare me the pedigree! I know it! Margharita, stand there,
where the moonlight touches your face. Let me look at you. Is it you, a
daughter of the Marionis, who can speak so calmly of bringing this
disgrace upon our name? You, my little sister Margharita, the
proud-spirited girl who used to share in my ambitions, and to whom our
name was as dear as to myself?"
"Leonardo, spare me!"
"Spare you? Yes, when you have told me that this is some nightmare, some
phantasm--a lie! Spare you! Yes, when you tell me that this presumptuous
upstart has gone back to his upstart country."
She dropped her hands from before her face, and stood before him, pale
and desperate.
"Leonardo, I cannot give him up, I love him!"
"And do you owe me no love? Do you owe no duty to the grandeur of our
race? _Noblesse oblige_, Margharita! We bear a great name, and with the
honor which it brings, it brings also responsibilities. I do not believe
that you can truly love this man; but if you do, your duty is still
plain. You must crush your love as you would a poisonous weed under your
feet. You must sacrifice yourself for the honor of our name."
"Leonardo, you do not understand. I love him, and cannot give him up. My
word is given; I cannot break it."
He drew a step further away from her, and his voice became harder.
"You must choose, then, between him and me; between your honor and your
unworthy lover. There is no other course. As my sister, you are the
dearest thing on earth to me; as that man's wife, you will be an utter
stranger. I will never willingly look upon your face, nor hear you
speak. I will write your name out of my heart, and my curse shall follow
you over the seas to your new home, and ring in your ears by day and by
night. I will never forgive; I swear it!"
He ceased and bent forward, as though for her answer. She did not speak.
The deep silence was broken only by the far-off murmur of the sea, and
the sound of faint sobbing from between her clasped hands. The sound of
her distress softened him for a moment; he hesitated, and then spoke
again more quietly.
"Margharita, ponder this over. Be brave, and remember that you are a
Marioni. Till to-morrow, farewell!"