Eleanor did not shrink. Her look met his in the first truly intimate gaze

that they had ever exchanged; hers infinitely sad, full of a dignity

recovered, and never to be lost again, the gaze, indeed, of a soul that

was already withdrawing itself gently, imperceptibly from the things of

earth and sense; his agitated and passionate. It seemed to him that he saw

the clear brown of those beautiful eyes just cloud with tears. Then they

dropped, and the moment was over, the curtain fallen, for ever.

They sighed, and moved apart. The coachman climbed upon the box.

'To-night!'--she said, smiling--waving her hand--'Till to-night.'

'_Avanti!_' cried the coachman, and the horses began to toil sleepily up

the hill.

* * * * *

'Sapphira was nothing to me!' thought Eleanor as she threw herself back in

the old shabby landau with a weariness of body that made little impression

however on the tension of her mind.

Absently she looked out at the trees above and around her; at the

innumerable turns of the road. So the great meeting was over! Manisty's

reproaches had come and gone! With his full knowledge--at his humble

demand--she held his fate in her hands.

Again that extraordinary sense of happiness and lightness! She shrank from

it in a kind of terror.

Once, as the horses turned corner after corner, the sentence of a

meditative Frenchman crossed her mind; words which said that the only

satisfaction for man lies in being _dans l'ordre_; in unity, that is, with

the great world-machine in which he finds himself; fighting with it, not

against it.

Her mind played about this thought; then returned to Manisty and Lucy.

A new and humbled Manisty!--shaken with a supreme longing and fear which

seemed to have driven out for the moment all the other elements in his

character--those baser, vainer, weaker elements that she knew so well. The

change in him was a measure of the smallness of her own past influence upon

him; of the infinitude of her own self-deception. Her sharp intelligence

drew the inference at once, and bade her pride accept it.

They had reached the last stretch of hill before the convent. Where was

Lucy? She looked out eagerly.

The girl stood at the edge of the road, waiting. As Eleanor bent forward

with a nervous 'Dear, I am not tired--wasn't it lovely to find this

carriage?' Lucy made no reply. Her face was stern; her eyes red. She helped

Eleanor to alight without a word.

But when they had reached Eleanor's cool and shaded room, and Eleanor was

lying on her bed physically at rest, Lucy stood beside her with a quivering

face.

'Did you tell him to go at once? Of course you have seen him?'

'Yes, I have seen him. Father Benecke gave me notice.'

'Father Benecke!' said the girl with a tightening of the lip.

There was a pause; then Eleanor said:

'Dear, get that low chair and sit beside me.'

'You oughtn't to speak a word,' said Lucy impetuously; 'you ought to rest

there for hours. Why we should be disturbed in this unwarrantable, this

unpardonable way, I can't imagine.'

She looked taller than Eleanor had ever seen her; and more queenly. Her

whole frame seemed to be stiff with indignation and will.

'Come!' said Eleanor, holding out her hand.

Unwillingly Lucy obeyed.

Eleanor turned towards her. Their faces were close together; the ghastly

pallor of the one beside the stormy, troubled beauty of the other.

'Darling, listen to me. For two months I have been like a person in a

delirium--under suggestion, as the hypnotists say. I have not been myself.

It has been a possession. And this morning--before I saw Edward at all--I

felt the demon--go! And the result is very simple. Put your ear down to

me.'

Lucy bent.

'The one thing in the world that I desire now--before I die--(Ah! dear,

don't start!--you know!)--the only, only thing--is that you and Edward

should be happy--and forgive me.'

Her voice was lost in a sob. Lucy kissed her quickly, passionately. Then

she rose.

'I shall never marry Mr. Manisty, Eleanor, if that is what you mean. It is

well to make that clear at once.'

'And why?' Eleanor caught her--kept her prisoner.

'Why?--why?' said Lucy impatiently--'because I have no desire to marry

him--because--I would sooner cut off my right hand than marry him.'

Eleanor held her fast, looked at her with a brilliant eye--accusing,

significant.

'A fortnight ago you were on the _loggia_--alone. I saw you from my room.

Lucy!--I saw you kiss the terra-cotta he gave you. Do you mean to tell me

that meant nothing--_nothing_--from you, of all people? Oh! you dear, dear

child!--I knew it from the beginning--I knew it--but I was mad.'

Lucy had grown very white, but she stood rigid.

'I can't be responsible for what you thought, or--for anything--but what I

do. And I will never marry Mr. Manisty.'

Eleanor still held her.

'Dear--you remember that night when Alice attacked you? I came into the

library, unknown to you both. You were still in the chair--you heard

nothing. He stooped over you. I heard what he said. I saw his face. Lucy!

there are terrible risks--not to you--but to him--in driving a temperament

like his to despair. You know how he lives by feeling, by imagination--how

much of the artist, of the poet, there is in him. If he is happy--if there

is someone to understand, and strengthen him, he will do great things. If

not he will waste his life. And that would be so bitter, bitter to see!'

Eleanor leant her face on Lucy's hands, and the girl felt her tears. She

shook from head to foot, but she did not yield.

'I can't--I can't'--she said in a low, resolute voice. 'Don't ask me. I

never can.'

'And you told him so?'

'I don't know what I told him--except that he mustn't trouble you--that we

wanted him to go--to go directly.'

'And he--what did he say to you?'

'That doesn't matter in the least,' cried Lucy. 'I have given him no right

to say what he does. Did I encourage him to spend these weeks in looking

for us? Never!'

'He didn't want encouraging,' said Eleanor. 'He is in love--perhaps for the

first time in his life. If you are to give him no hope--it will go hard

with him.'

Lucy's face only darkened.

'How can you say such things to me?' she said passionately. 'How can you?'

Eleanor sighed. 'I have not much right to say them, I know,' she said

presently, in a low voice. 'I have poisoned the sound of them to your

ears.'

Lucy was silent. She began to walk up and down the room, with her hands

behind her.

'I will never, never forgive Father Benecke,' she said presently, in a low,

determined voice.

'What do you think he had to do with it?'

'I know,' said Lucy. 'He brought Mr. Manisty here. He sent him up the

hill this morning to see me. It was the most intolerable interference and

presumption. Only a priest could have done it.'

'Oh! you bigot!--you Puritan! Come here, little wild-cat. Let me say

something.'

Lucy came reluctantly, and Eleanor held her.

'Doesn't it enter into your philosophy--tell me--that one soul should be

able to do anything for another?'

'I don't believe in the professional, anyway,' said Lucy stiffly--'nor in

the professional claims.'

'My dear, it is a training like any other.'

'Did you--did you confide in him?' said the girl after a moment, with a

visible effort.

Eleanor made no reply. She lay with her face hidden. When Lucy bent down to

her she said with a sudden sob:

'Don't you understand? I have been near two griefs since I came here--his

and the Contessa's. And mine didn't stand the comparison.'

'Father Benecke had no right to take matters into his own hands,' said Lucy

stubbornly.

'I think he was afraid--I should die in my sins,' said Eleanor wildly. 'He

is an apostle--he took the license of one.'

Lucy frowned, but did not speak.

'Lucy! what makes you so hard--so strange?'

'I am not hard. But I don't want to see Mr. Manisty again. I want to take

you safely back to England, and then to go home--home to Uncle Ben--to my

own people.'

Her voice showed the profoundest and most painful emotion. Eleanor felt a

movement of despair. What could he have said or done to set this tender

nature so on edge? If it had not been for that vision on the _loggia_, she

would have thought that the girl's heart was in truth untouched, and that

Manisty would sue in vain. But how was it possible to think it?

She lost herself in doubts and conjectures, while Lucy still moved up and

down.

Presently Cecco brought up their meal, and Eleanor must needs eat and drink

to soothe Lucy's anxiety. The girl watched her every movement, and Eleanor

dared neither be tired nor dainty, lest for every mouthful she refused

Manisty's chance should be the less.

After dinner she once more laid a detaining hand on her companion.

'Dear, I can't send him away, you know--at once--to please you.'

'Do _you_ want him to stay?' said Lucy, holding herself aloof.

'After all, he is my kinsman. There are many things to discuss--much to

hear.'

'Very well. It won't be necessary for me to take part.'

'Not unless you like. But, Lucy, it would make me very unhappy--if you were

unkind to him. You have made him suffer, my dear; he is not the meekest of

men. Be content.'

'I will be quite polite,' said the girl, turning away her head. 'You will

be able to travel--won't you--very soon?'

Eleanor assented vaguely, and the conversation dropped.

In the afternoon Marie took a note to the cottage by the river.

'Ask Father Benecke to let you stay a few days. Things look bad. What did

you say? If you attacked me, it has done you harm.'

* * * * *

Meanwhile Lucy, who felt herself exiled from the woods, the roads, the

village, by one threatening presence, shut herself up for a while in her

own room, in youth's most tragic mood, calling on the pangs of thought to

strengthen still more her resolve and clear her mind.

She forced her fingers to an intermittent task of needlework, but there

were long pauses when her hands lay idle on her lap, when her head drooped

against the back of her chair, and all her life centred in her fast beating

heart, driven and strained by the torment of recollection.

That moment when she had stepped out upon the road from the shelter of the

wood--the thrill of it even in memory made her pale and cold. His look--his

cry--the sudden radiance of the face, which, as she had first caught sight

of it, bent in a brooding frown over the dusty road, had seemed to her the

very image of discontent.

'Miss Foster!--_Lucy!_'

The word had escaped him, in his first rush of joy, his spring towards her.

And she had felt herself tottering, in a sudden blindness.

What could she remember? The breathless contradiction of his questions--the

eager grasp of her hand--the words and phrases that were the words and

phrases of love--dictated, justified only by love--then her first mention

of Eleanor--the short stammering sentences, which as she spoke them sounded

to her own ear so inconclusive, unintelligible, insulting--and his growing

astonishment, the darkening features, the tightening lips, and finally his

step backward, the haughty bracing of the whole man.

'Why does my cousin refuse to see me? What possible reason can you or she

assign?'

And then her despairing search for the right word, that would not come! He

must please, please, go away--because Mrs. Burgoyne was ill--because the

doctors were anxious--because there must be no excitement. She was acting

as nurse, but it was only to be for a short time longer. In a week or

two, no doubt Mrs. Burgoyne would go to England, and she would return to

America with the Porters. But for the present, quiet was still absolutely

necessary.

Then--silence!--and afterwards a few sarcastic interrogations, quick,

practical, hard to answer--the mounting menace of that thunderbrow,

extravagant, and magnificent,--the trembling of her own limbs. And at

last that sharp sentence, like lightning from the cloud, as to 'whims and

follies' that no sane man could hope to unravel, which had suddenly nerved

her to be angry.

'Oh! I was odious--odious!'--she thought to herself, hiding her face in her

hands.

His answering indignation seemed to clatter through her room.

'And you really expect me to do your bidding calmly,--to play this

ridiculous part?--to leave my cousin and you in these wilds--at this time

of year--she in the state of health that you describe--to face this heat,

and the journey home, without comforts, without assistance? It is a great

responsibility, Miss Foster, that you take, with me, and with her! I refuse

to yield it to you, till I have given you at least a little further time

for consideration. I shall stay here a few hours longer. If you change your

mind, send to me--I am with Father Benecke. If not--good-bye! But I warn

you that I will be no party to further mystification. It is undesirable for

us all. I shall write at once to General Delafield-Muir, and to my aunt. I

think it will be also my duty to communicate with your friends in London or

in Boston.'

'Mr. Manisty!--let me beg of you to leave my personal affairs alone!'

She felt again the proud flush upon her cheek, the shock of their two

wills, the mingled anguish and relief as she saw him turn upon his heel,

and go.

Ah! how unready, how _gauche_ she had shown herself! From the beginning

instead of conciliating she had provoked him. But how to make a plausible

story out of their adventure at all? There was the deciding, the fatal

difficulty! Her face burnt anew as she tried to think his thoughts, to

imagine all that he might or must guess; as she remembered the glow of

swift instinctive triumph with which he had recognised her, and realised

from it some of the ideas that must have been his travelling companions all

these weeks.

No matter: let him think what he pleased! She sat there in the gathering

dark; at one moment, feeling herself caught in the grip of a moral

necessity that no rebellion could undo; and the next, childishly catching

to her heart the echoes and images of that miserable half-hour.

No wonder he had been angry!

'_Lucy!_'

Her name was sweetened to her ear for ever. He looked way-worn and tired;

yet so eager, so spiritually alert. Never had that glitter and magic he

carried about with him been more potent, more compelling.

Alack! what woman ever yet refused to love a man because he loved himself?

It depends entirely on how she estimates the force of his temptation. And

it would almost seem as though nature, for her own secret reasons, had

thrown a special charm round the egotist of all types, for the loving and

the true. Is it that she is thinking of the race--must needs balance in it

the forces of death and life? What matters the separate joy or pain!

Yes. Lucy would have given herself to Manisty, not blind to risks,

expecting thorns!--if it had been possible.

But it was not possible. She rose from her seat, and sternly dismissed her

thoughts. She was no conscious thief, no willing traitor. Not even Eleanor

should persuade her. Eleanor was dying because she, Lucy, had stolen from

her the affections of her inconstant lover. Was there any getting over

that? None! The girl shrank in horror from the very notion of such a base

and plundering happiness.

CHAPTER XXIV

On the following morning when Lucy entered Eleanor's room she found her

giving some directions to Marie.

'Tell Mamma Doni that we give up the rooms next week--Friday in next week.

Make her understand.'

'_Parfaitement_, Madame.' And Marie left the room. Lucy advanced with a

face of dismay.

'Ten days more!--Eleanor.

Eleanor tapped her lightly on the cheek, then kissed her, laughing.

'Are you too hot?'

'Dear!--don't talk about me! But you promised me to be gone before August.'

She knelt down by Eleanor's bedside, holding her hands, imploring her with

her deep blue eyes.

'Well, it's only a few days more,' said Eleanor, guiltily. 'Do let's take

it leisurely! It's so horrid to be hurried in one's packing. Look at all

these things!'

She waved her hand desperately round the little room, choked up with

miscellaneous boxes; then laid both hands on Lucy's shoulders, coaxing and

smiling at her like a child.

Lucy soon convinced herself that it was of no use to argue. She must just

submit, unless she were prepared to go to lengths of self-assertion which

might excite Eleanor and bring on a heart attack.

So, setting her teeth, she yielded.

'Friday week, then--for the last, last day!--And Mr. Manisty?'

She had risen from her knees and stood looking down at Eleanor. Her cheek

had reddened, but Eleanor admired her stateliness.

'Oh, we must keep Edward. We want him for courier. I gave you trouble

enough, on the journey here.'

Lucy said nothing. Her heart swelled a little. It seemed to her that under

all this sweetness she was being treated with a certain violence. She went

to the balcony, where the breakfast had just been laid, that she might

bring Eleanor's coffee.

'It _is_ just a little crude,' Eleanor thought, uneasily. 'Dear bird!--the

net is sadly visible. But what can one do?--with so little time--so few

chances! Once part them, and the game is up!'

So she used her weakness once more as a tyranny, this time for different

ends.

The situation that she dictated was certainly difficult enough. Manisty

appeared, by her summons, in the afternoon, and found them on the _loggia_.

Lucy greeted him with a cold self-possession. Of all that had happened on

the previous day, naturally, not a word. So far indeed as allusions to the

past were concerned, the three might just have travelled together from

Marinata. Eleanor very flushed, and dressed in her elegant white dress and

French hat, talked fast and well, of the country folk, the _padre parroco_,

the Contessa. Lucy looked at her with alarm, dreading the after fatigue.

But Eleanor would not be managed; would have her way.

Manisty, however, was no longer deceived. Lucy was aware of some of the

glances that he threw his cousin. The trouble which they betrayed gave the

girl a bitter satisfaction.

Presently she left them alone. After her disappearance Eleanor turned to

Manisty with a smile.

'On your peril--not another word to her!--till I give you leave. That would

finish it.'

He lifted hands and shoulders in a despairing gesture; but said nothing.

In Lucy's absence, however, then and later, he did not attempt to control

his depression, and Eleanor was soon distracting and comforting him in

the familiar ways of the past. Before forty-eight hours had elapsed the

relations between them indeed had resumed, to all appearance, the old and

close intimacy. On his arm she crept down the road, to the Sassetto, while

Lucy drove with the Contessa. Or Manisty read aloud to her on the _loggia_,

while Lucy in the courtyard below sat chatting fast to a swarm of village

children who would always henceforward associate her white dress and the

pure oval of her face with their dreams of the Madonna.

In their _tête-à-têtes_, the talk of Manisty and Eleanor was always either

of Lucy or of Manisty's own future. He had been at first embarrassed or

reluctant. But she had insisted, and he had at length revealed himself

as in truth he had never revealed himself in the days of their early

friendship. With him at least, Eleanor through all anguish had remained

mistress of herself, and she had her reward. No irreparable word had passed

between them. In silence the old life ceased to be, and a new bond arose.

The stifled reproaches, the secret impatiences, the _ennuis_, the hidden

anguish of those last weeks at Marinata were gone. Manisty, freed from

the pressure of an unspoken claim which his conscience half acknowledged

and his will repulsed, was for his cousin a new creature. He began to

treat her as he had treated his friend Neal, with the same affectionate

consideration, the same easy sweetness; even through all the torments that

Lucy made him suffer. 'His restlessness as a lover,--his excellence as a

friend,'--so a man who knew him well had written of him in earlier days.

As for the lover, discipline and penance had overtaken him. But now that

Eleanor's claim of another kind was dead, the friend in him had scope.

Eleanor possessed him as the lover of Lucy more truly than she had ever yet

done in the days when she ruled alone.

One evening finding her more feeble than usual, he implored her to let him

summon a doctor from Rome before she risked the fatigue of the Mont Cenis

journey.

But she refused. 'If necessary,' she said, 'I will go to Orvieto. There is

a good man there. But there is some one else you shall write to, if you

like:--Reggie! Didn't you see him last week?'

'Certainly. Reggie and the first secretary left in charge, sitting in their

shirt-sleeves, with no tempers to speak of, and the thermometer at 96. But

Reggie was to get his holiday directly.'

'Write and catch him.'

'Tell him to come not later than Tuesday, please,' said Lucy, quietly, who

was standing by.

'Despot!' said Eleanor, looking up. 'Are we really tied and bound to

Friday?'

Lucy smiled and nodded. When she went away Manisty sat in a black silence,

staring at the ground. Eleanor bit her lip, grew a little restless, and at

last said:

'She gives you no openings?'

Manisty laughed.

'Except for rebuffs!' he said, bitterly.

'Don't provoke them!'

'How can I behave as though that--that scene had never passed between us?

In ordinary circumstances my staying on here would be an offence, of which

she might justly complain. I told her last night I would have gone--but for

your health.'

'When did you tell her?'

'I found her alone here for a moment before dinner.'

'Well?'

Manisty moved impatiently.

'Oh! she was very calm. Nothing I say puts her out. She thought I might be

useful!--And she hopes Aunt Pattie will meet us in London, that she may be

free to start for New York by the 10th, if her friends go then. She has

written to them.'

Eleanor was silent.

'I must have it out with her!' said Manisty presently under his breath. In

his unrest he rose, that he might move about. His face had grown pale.

'No--wait till I give you leave,' said Eleanor again, imploring. 'I never

forget--for a moment. Leave it to me.'

He came and stood beside her. She put out her hand, which he took.

'Do you still believe--what you said?' he asked her, huskily.

Eleanor looked up smiling.

'A thousand times more!' she said, under her breath. 'A thousand times

more.'

But here the conversation reached an _impasse_. Manisty could not

say--'Then why?--in Heaven's name!'--for he knew why. Only it was not

a _why_ that he and Eleanor could discuss. Every hour he realised more

plainly with what completeness Eleanor held him in her hands. The situation

was galling. But her sweetness and his own remorse disarmed him. To be

helpless--and to be kind!--nothing else apparently remained to him. The

only gracious look Lucy had vouchsafed him these two days had been in

reward for some new arrangement of Eleanor's sofa which had given the

invalid greater ease.

He returned to his seat, smiling queerly.

'Well, I am not the only person in disgrace. Do you notice how Benecke is

treated?'

'She avoids him?'

'She never speaks to him if she can help it. I know that he feels it.'

'He risked his penalty,' said Eleanor laughing. 'I think he must bear it.'

Then in another tone, and very softly, she added--

'Poor child!'

Manisty thought the words particularly inappropriate. In all his experience

of women he never remembered a more queenly and less childish composure

than Lucy had been able to show him since their scene on the hill. It

had enlarged all his conceptions of her. His passion for her was thereby

stimulated and tormented, yet at the same time glorified in his own eyes.

He saw in her already the _grande dame_ of the future--that his labour, his

ambitions, and his gifts should make of her.

If only Eleanor spoke the truth!

* * * * *

The following day Manisty, returning from a late walk with Father Benecke,

parted from the priest on the hill, and mounted the garden stairway to the

_loggia_.

Lucy was sitting there alone, her embroidery in her hands.

She had not heard him in the garden; and when he suddenly appeared she was

not able to hide a certain agitation. She got up and began vaguely to put

away her silks and thimble.

'I won't disturb you,' he said formally. 'Has Eleanor not come back?'

For Eleanor had been driving with the Contessa.

'Yes. But she has been resting since.'

'Don't let me interrupt you,' he said again.

Then he looked at her fingers and their uncertain movements among the

silks; at the face bent over the workbasket.

'I want if I can to keep some bad news from my cousin,' he said abruptly.

Lucy started and looked up. He had her face full now, and the lovely

entreating eyes.

'My sister is very ill. There has been another crisis. I might be summoned

at any time.'

'Oh!'--she said, faltering. Unconsciously she moved a step nearer to him.

In a moment she was all enquiry, and deep, shy sympathy--the old docile

Lucy. 'Have you had a letter?' she asked.

'Yes, this morning. I saw her the other day when I passed through Rome. She

knew me, but she is a wreck. The whole constitution is affected. Sometimes

there are intervals, but they get rarer. And each acute attack weakens her

seriously.'

'It is terrible--terrible!'

As she stood there before him in her white dress under the twilight, he

had a vision of her lying with shut eyes in his chair at Marinata; he

remembered the first wild impulse that had bade him gather her, unconscious

and helpless, in his arms.

He moved away from her. For something to do, or say, he stooped down to

look into her open workbasket.

'Isn't that one of the Nemi terra-cottas!'

He blundered into the question from sheer nervousness, wishing it unspoken

the instant it was out.

Lucy started. She had forgotten. How could she have forgotten! There in a

soft bed of many-coloured silks, wrapped tenderly about, yet so as to show

the face and crown, was the little Artemis. The others were beneath the

tray of the box. But this for greater safety lay by itself, a thin fold

of cotton-wool across its face. In that moment of confusion when he had

appeared on the _loggia_ she had somehow displaced the cotton-wool without

knowing it, and uncovered the head.

'Yes, it is the Artemis,' she said, trying to keep herself from trembling.

Manisty bent without speaking, and took the little thing into his hand. He

thought of that other lovelier head--her likeness?--whereof the fragments

were at that moment in a corner of his dressing-case, after journeying with

him through the mountains.

As for Lucy it was to her as though the little head nestling in his hand

must somehow carry there the warmth of her kisses upon it, must somehow

betray her. He seemed to hold a fragment of her heart.

'Please let me put it away,' she said hurriedly. 'I must go to Eleanor. It

is nearly time for dinner.'

He gave it up silently. She replaced it, smoothed down her silks and her

work, and shut the box. His presence, his sombre look, and watching eye,

affected her all the time electrically. She had never yet been so near the

loss of self-command.

The thought of Eleanor calmed her. As she finished her little task, she

paused and spoke again.

'You won't alarm her about poor Miss Manisty, without--without consulting

with me?' she said timidly.

He bowed.

'Would you rather I did not tell her at all? But if I have to go?'

'Yes then--then you must.'

An instant--and she added hastily in a voice that wavered,' I am so very,

very sorry--'

'Thank you. She often asks about you.'

He spoke with a formal courtesy, in his 'grand manner.' Her gleam

of feeling had made him sensible, of advantage, given him back

self-confidence.

The soft flutter of her dress disappeared, and he was left to pace up and

down the _loggia_ in alternations of hope and despair. He, too, felt with

Eleanor that these days were fatal. If he lost her now, he lost her for

ever. She was of those natures in which a scruple only deepens with time.

She would not take what should have been Eleanor's. There was the case in

a nutshell. And how insist in these circumstances, as he would have done

vehemently in any other, that Eleanor had no lawful grievance?

He felt himself bound and pricked by a thousand delicate lilliputian bonds.

The 'regiment of women' was complete. He could do nothing. Only Eleanor

could help.

* * * * *

The following day, just outside the convent gate, he met Lucy, returning

from the village, whither she had been in quest of some fresh figs for

Eleanor's breakfast. It was barely eight o'clock, but the sun was already

fierce. After their formal greeting, Lucy lingered a moment.

'It's going to be frightfully hot to-day,' she said, looking round her with

a troubled face at the glaring road, at the dusty patch of vines beyond

it, at the burnt grass below the garden wall. 'Mr. Manisty!--you will make

Eleanor go next Friday?--you won't let her put it off--for anything?'

She turned to him, in entreaty, the colour dyeing her pure cheek and

throat.

'I will do what I can. I understand your anxiety,' he said stiffly.

She opened the old door of the courtyard and passed in before him. As he

rejoined her, she asked him in a low voice--

'Have you any more news?'

'Yes. I found a letter at Selvapendente last night. The state of things is

better. There will be no need I hope to alarm Eleanor--for the present.'

'I am so glad!'--The voice hurried and then paused. 'And of course, for you

too,' she added, with difficulty.

He said nothing, and they walked up to the inner door in silence. Then as

they paused on the threshold, he said suddenly, with a bitter accent--

'You are very devoted!'

She looked at him in surprise. Her young figure drew itself erect. 'That

isn't wonderful--is it?--with her?'

Her tone pierced him.

'Oh! nothing's wonderful in women. You set the standard so high--the men

can't follow.'

He stared at her, pale and frowning. She laughed artificially, but he could

see the breath hurrying under the blue cotton dress.

'Not at all! When it comes to the serious difficulties we must, it seems,

apply to you. Eleanor is thankful that you will take her home.

'Oh! I can be a decent courier--when I put my mind into it,' he said

angrily. 'That, I dare say, you'll admit.'

'Of course I shall,' she said, with a lip that smiled unsteadily. 'I know

it'll be invaluable. Please, Mr. Manisty, let me pass. I must get Eleanor

her breakfast.'

But he still stood there, barring the way.

'Then, Miss Foster, admit something else!--that I am not the mere

intruder--the mere burden--that you took me for.'

The man's soreness expressed itself in every word, every movement.

Lucy grew white.

'For Eleanor's sake, I am glad you came,' she said struggling for

composure. But the dignity, the pride behind the agitation were so evident

that he dared not go a step further. He bowed, and let her pass.

* * * * *

Meanwhile the Contessa was useful. After a very little observation, based

on the suggestions of her letter from Home, she divined the situation

exactly. Her affection and pity for Mrs. Burgoyne grew apace. Lucy she

both admired and acquitted; while she half liked, half hated Manisty. He

provoked her perpetually to judgment, intellectual and moral; and they

fell into many a sparring which passed the time and made a shelter for

the others. Her daughter had just left her; and the more she smarted,

the more she bustled in and out of the village, the more she drove about

the country, attending to the claims, the sicknesses, and the animals of

distant _contadini_, the more she read her newspapers, and the more nimbly

did her mind move.

Like the Marchesa Fazzoleni, she would have no pessimism about Italy,

though she saw things in a less poetic, more practical way.

'I dare say the taxes are heavy--and that our officials and bankers and

_impiegali_ are not on as good terms as they might be with the Eighth

Commandment. Well! was ever a nation made in a night before? When your

Queen came to the throne, were you English so immaculate? You talk

about our Socialists--have we any disturbances, pray, worse than your

disturbances in the twenties and thirties? The _parroco_ says to me day

after day: "The African campaign has been the ruin of Italy!" That's only

because he wants it to be so. The machine marches, and the people pay

their taxes, and the farming improves every year, all the same. A month or

two ago, the newspapers were full of the mobbing of trains starting with

soldiers for Erythrea. Yet all that time, if you went down into the Campo

de' Fiori you could find poems sold for a _soldo_, that only the people

wrote and the people read, that were as patriotic as the poor King

himself.'

'Ah! I know,' said Manisty. 'I have seen some of them. The oddest, naïvest

things!--the metre of Tasso, the thoughts of a child--and every now and

then the cry a poet.'

And he repeated a stanza or two from these broad-sheets of the war, in a

rolling and musical Italian.

The Contessa looked at him with cool admiration; and then aside, at Lucy.

Certainly, when this Englishman was taking pains, his good-looks deserved

all that could be said of them. That he was one of the temperaments to

which other lives minister without large return--that she had divined at

once. But, like Lucy, she was not damped by that. The Contessa had known

few illusions, and only one romance; her love for her dead son. Otherwise

she took the world as it came, and quarrelled with very few of its marked

and persistent phenomena.

They were sitting on a terrace beneath the north-western front of the

Palazzo. The terrace was laid out in a formal garden. Fountains played;

statues stood in rows; and at the edge cypresses, black against the evening

blue and rose, threw back the delicate dimness of the mountains, made

their farness more far, and the gay foreground--oleanders, geraniums,

nasturtiums--more gay.

Eleanor was lying on a deck-chair, smiling often, and at ease. Lucy sat a

little apart, busy with her embroidery. She very seldom talked, but Eleanor

could not make a movement or feel a want without her being aware of it.

'But, Madame, I cannot allow you to make an enemy out of me!'--said Manisty

to the Contessa, resuming the conversation. 'When you talk to me of this

Country and its future, _vous prêchez un converti_.'

'I thought you were the Jonah of our day,' she said, with her abrupt and

rather disdainful smile.

Manisty laughed.

'A Jonah who needn't complain anyway that his Nineveh is too ready to hear

him.'

'Where is the preaching?' she asked.

'In the waste-paper basket,' said Manisty, throwing away his cigarette.

'Nowadays, apparently it is the prophets who repent.'

Involuntarily his eye wandered, sought for Lucy withdrew. She was hidden

behind her work.

'Oh! preach away,' cried the Contessa. 'Take up your book again. Publish

it. We can bear it.'

Manisty searched with both hands for his matches; his new cigarette between

his lips.

'My book, Madame'--he said coolly--' outlived the pleasure its author took

in writing it. My cousin was its good angel; but not even she could bring a

blunder to port. Eleanor!--_n'est-ce pas?_'

He gathered a spray of oleander that grew near him, and laid it on her

hand, like a caress. Eleanor's emaciated fingers closed upon it gently. She

looked up, smiling. The Contessa abruptly turned away.

'And besides--' said Manisty.

He puffed away steadily, with his gaze on the mountains.

'I wait,' said the Contessa.

'Your Italy is a witch,' he said, with a sudden lifting of eyes and voice,

'and there are too many people that love her!'

Lucy bent a little lower over her work.

Presently the Contessa went away.

Eleanor lay with eyes closed and hands crossed, very white and still. They

thought her asleep, for it was common with her now to fall into short

sleeps of pure exhaustion. When they occurred, those near her kept tender

and generally silent watch, joining hands of protection, as it were, round

her growing feebleness.

After a few minutes, however, Manisty bent across towards Lucy.

'You urged me once to finish the book. But it was she who told me the other

day she was thankful it had been dropped.'

He looked at her with the half irritable, half sensitive expression that

she knew so well.

'Of course,' said Lucy, hurriedly. 'It was much best.'

She rose and stooped over Eleanor.

'Dear!--It is getting late. I think I ought to call the carriage.'

'Let me,' said Manisty, biting his lip.

'Thank you,' said Lucy, formally. 'The coachman understood we should want

him at seven.'

When he came back, Lucy went into the house to fetch some wraps.

Eleanor opened her eyes, which were singularly animated and smiling.

'Listen!'

He stooped.

'Be angry!' she said, laying a light grasp on his arm. 'Be quite angry.

Now--you may! It will do no harm.'

He sat beside her, his head bent; gloomily listening, till Lucy reappeared.

But he took the hint, calling to his aid all his pride, and all his

singular power of playing any rôle in his own drama that he might desire to

play. He played it with energy, with desperation, counting meanwhile each

hour as it passed, having in view always that approaching moment in London

when Lucy would disappear within the doors of the Porters' house, leaving

the butler to meet the demands of unwelcome visitors with such equivalents

of 'Not at home' as her Puritan scruples might allow; till the newspapers

should announce the safe sailing of her steamer for New York.

He ceased to propitiate her; he dropped embarrassment. He ignored her. He

became the man of the world and of affairs, whose European interests and

relations are not within the ken of raw young ladies from Vermont. He had

never been more brilliant, more interesting, more agreeable, for Eleanor,

for the Contessa, for Benecke; for all the world, save one. He described

his wanderings among the Calabrian highlands. He drew the peasants, the

priests, the great landowners of the south still surrounded with their

semi-feudal state; he made Eleanor laugh or shudder with his tales of

the brigandage of the sixties; he talked as the artist and the scholar

may of the Greek memories and remains of the Tarentine coast. Then he

turned to English politics, to his own chances, and the humours of his

correspondence. The Contessa ceased to quarrel with him. The handsome

Englishman with the colour of a Titian, and the features of an antique,

with his eloquence, his petulance, his conceit, his charm, filled the

stage, quickened the dull hours whenever he appeared. Eleanor's tragedy

explained itself. The elder woman understood and pitied. As for Lucy

Foster, the Contessa's shrewd eyes watched her with a new respect. At what

stage, in truth, was the play, and how would it end?

Meanwhile for Lucy Foster alone, Manisty was not agreeable. He rose

formally when she appeared; he placed her chair; he paid her all necessary

courtesies. But his conversation never included her. Her coming generally

coincided--after she was ceremoniously provided for--with an outbreak of

talk between him and Eleanor, or between him and Benecke, more eager,

animated and interesting than before. But Lucy had no part in it. It

was not the early neglect and incivility of the villa; it was something

infinitely colder and more wounding; the frigidity of disillusion and

resentment, of kindness rebuffed and withdrawn.

Lucy said nothing. She went about her day's work as usual, making all

arrangements for their departure, devoting herself to Eleanor. Every now

and then she was forced to consult with Manisty as to arrangements for the

journey. They spoke as mere acquaintances and no more than was necessary;

while she, when she was alone, would spend much time in a silent

abstraction, thinking of her uncle, of the duties to which she was

returning, and the lines of her future life. Perhaps in the winter she

might do some teaching. Several people in Greyridge had said they would

employ her.

And, all the time, during the night hours when she was thus wrestling

down her heart, Manisty was often pacing the forest paths, in an orgie

of smoke and misery, cursing the incidents of the day, raging, doubting,

suffering--as no woman had yet made him suffer. The more truly he

despaired, the more he desired her. The strength of the moral life in her

was a revelation, a challenge to all the forces of his own being. He was

not accustomed to have to consider such things in women. It added to her

a wealth, a rarity, which made the conquest of her the only object worth

pursuing in a life swept bare for the moment of all other passions and

zests. She loved him! Eleanor knew it; Eleanor declared it. Yet in ten

days' time she would say,--'Good bye, Mr. Manisty'--with that calm brow

which he already foresaw as an outrage and offence to love. Ah! for some

means to cloud those dear eyes--to make her weep, and let him see the

tears!

CHAPTER XXV

'Hullo, Manisty!--is that you? Is this the place?'

The speaker was Reggie Brooklyn, who was dismounting from his bicycle at

the door of the convent, followed by a clattering mob of village children,

who had pursued him down the hill.

'I say, what a weird place!' said Reggie, looking about him,--'and at the

other end of nowhere. What on earth made Eleanor come here?'

Ho looked at Manisty in perplexity, wiping the perspiration from his brow,

which frowned beneath his fair curls.

'We were here last year,' said Manisty, 'on that little tour we made with

the D.'s. Eleanor liked it then. She came here when the heat began, she

thought it would be cool.'

'You didn't know where she was ten days ago,' said the boy, looking at him

queerly. 'And General Muir didn't know, for I heard from some one who had

seen him last week.'

Manisty laughed.

'All the same, she is here now,' he said drily.

'And Miss Foster is here too?'

Manisty nodded.

'And you say that Eleanor is ill?'

The young man had still the same hostile, suspicious air.

Manisty, who had been poking at the ground with his stick, looked up.

Brooklyn made a step backward.

'_Very_ ill,' he said, with a face of consternation. 'And nobody knew?'

'She would not let us know,' said Manisty slowly. Then he added, with the

authority of the older man, the man in charge--'now we are doing all we

can. We start on Friday and pick up a nurse at Genoa. When we get home, of

course she will have the best advice. Very often she is wonderfully bright

and like herself. Oh! we shall pull her round. But you mustn't tire her.

Don't stay too long.'

They walked into the convent together, Brooklyn all impatience, Manisty

moody and ill at ease.

'Reggie!--well met!' It was Eleanor's gayest voice, from the vine-leafed

shadows of the _loggia_. Brooklyn sat down beside her, gazing at her with

his troubled blue eyes. Manisty descended to the walled garden, and walked

up and down there smoking, a prey to disagreeable thoughts.

After half an hour or so Reggie came down to the convent gate to look out

for the ricketty diligence which had undertaken to bring his bag from

Orvieto.

Here he was overtaken by Lucy Foster, who seemed to have hurried after him.

'How do you do, Mr. Brooklyn?' He turned sharply, and let her see a

countenance singularly discomposed.

They looked at each other a moment in silence. He noted with amazement her

growth in beauty, in expression. But the sadness of the mouth and eyes

tortured him afresh.

'What is the matter with her?' he said abruptly, dropping her timidly

offered hand.

'An old illness--mostly the heart,' she said, with difficulty. 'But I think

the lungs are wrong too.'

'Why did she come here--why did you let her?'

The roughness of his tone, the burning of his eyes made her draw back.

'It seemed the best thing to do,' she said, after a pause. 'Of course, it

was only done because she wished it.'

'Her people disapproved strongly!'

'She would not consider that.'

'And here in this rough place--in this heat--how have you been able to look

after her?' said the young man passionately.

'We have done what we could,' said the girl humbly. 'The Contessa Guerrini

has been very kind. We constantly tried to persuade her to let us take her

home; but she couldn't bring herself to move.'

'It was madness,' he said, between his teeth. 'And now--she looks as though

she were going to die!'

He gave a groan of angry grief. Lucy turned aside, leaning her arm against

the convent gateway, and her face upon it. The attitude was very touching;

but Brooklyn only stared at her in a blind wrath. 'What did you ever come

for?'--was his thought--'making mischief!--and robbing Eleanor of her

due!--It was a bad bargain she wanted,--but she might have been allowed to

have him in peace. What did you come meddling for?'

At that moment the door of the walled garden opened. Manisty came out into

the courtyard. Brooklyn looked from him to Lucy with a tight lip, a fierce

and flashing eye.

He watched them meet. He saw Lucy's quick change of attitude, the return

of hardness and composure. Manisty approached her. They discussed some

arrangement for the journey, in the cold tones of mere acquaintance. Not a

sign of intimacy in manner or words; beyond the forced intimacy of those

who have for the moment a common task.

When the short dialogue was over, Manisty mumbled something to Brooklyn

to the effect that Father Benecke had some dinner for him at the house at

the foot of the hill. But he did not wait for the young man's company. He

hurried off with the slouching and yet swinging gait characteristic of him,

his shoulders bent as it were under the weight of his great head. The young

man and the girl looked after him. Then Reggie turned impulsively.

'I suppose it was that beastly book--partly--that knocked her up. What's he

done with it?'

'He has given it up, I believe. I heard him say so to Eleanor.'

'And now I suppose he will condescend to go back to politics?'

'I know nothing of Mr. Manisty's affairs.'

The young man threw her a glance first of distrust--then of something

milder and more friendly. They turned back to the convent together, Lucy

answering his questions as to the place, the people, the Contessa, and so

forth.

A step, quick and gentle, overtook them.

It was Father Benecke who stopped and greeted them; a venerable figure, as

he bared his white head, and stood for a moment talking to Brooklyn under

the great sycamore of the courtyard. He had now resumed his clerical dress;

not, indeed, the soutane; but the common round collar, and long black coat

of the non-Catholic countries. The little fact, perhaps, was typical of a

general steadying and settling of his fortunes after the anguish of his

great catastrophe.

Lucy hardly spoke to him. His manner was soft and deprecating. And Miss

Foster stood apart as though she liked neither it nor him. When he left

them, to enter, the Convent, Reggie broke out:--

And how does _he_ come to be here? I declare it's the most extraordinary

tangle! What's he doing in there?'

He nodded towards the building, which seemed to be still holding the

sunlight of the day, so golden-white it shone under the evening sky, and

against the engirdling forest.

'Every night--almost--he comes to read with Eleanor.'

The young man stared.

'I say--is she--is she going to become a Catholic?'

Lucy smiled.

'You forget--don't you? They've excommunicated Father Benecke.'

'My word!--Yes!--I forgot. My chief was awfully excited about it. Well, I'm

sure he's well quit of them!'--said the young man fervently. 'They're doing

their level best to pull this country about everybody's ears. And they'll

be the first to suffer--thank heaven!--if they do upset the coach. And so

it was Benecke that brought Manisty here?'

Lucy's movement rebuked him; made him feel himself an impertinent.

'I believe so,' she said coldly. 'Good-night, Mr. Brooklyn. I must go in.

There!--that's the stage coming down hill.'

He went to tell the driver to set down his bag at the house by the bridge,

and then he walked down the hill after the little rumbling carriage, his

hands thrust into the pockets of his blue flannel coat.

'She's not going to marry him!--I'll bet anything she's not! She's a

girl of the right sort--she's a brick, she is!'--he said to himself in a

miserable, a savage exultation, kicking the stones of the road furiously

down hill, after the disappearing diligence. 'So that's how a woman looks

when her heart's broken!--Oh! my God--Eleanor!--my poor, poor Eleanor!'

And before he knew what had happened to him, the young fellow found himself

sitting in the darkness by the roadside, grappling with honest tears, that

astonished and scandalised himself.

* * * * *

Next day he was still more bewildered by the position of affairs. Eleanor

was apparently so much better that he was disposed to throw scorn on his

own burst of grief under the starlight. That was the first impression. Then

she was apparently in Manisty's charge. Manisty sat with her, strolled with

her, read to her from morning till night. Never had their relations been

more intimate, more affectionate. That was the second impression.

Nevertheless, that some great change had taken place--above all in

Eleanor--became abundantly evident to the young man's quickened perception,

before another twenty-four hours had passed away. And with this new sense

returned the sense of irreparable tragedy. Eleanor stood alone--aloof from

them all. The more unremitting, the more delicate was Manisty's care, the

more tender was Lucy's devotion, the more plainly was Brooklyn aware of a

pathetic, a mysterious isolation which seemed already to bring the chill of

death into their little company.

The boy's pain flowed back upon him, ten-fold augmented. For seven or

eight years he had seen in Eleanor Burgoyne the woman of ideal distinction

by whom he judged all other women. The notion of falling in love with

her would have seemed to him ridiculous. But his wife, whenever he could

indulge himself in such a luxury, must be like her. Meanwhile he was most

naïvely, most boyishly devoted to her.

The sight of her now, environed as it were by the new and awful

possibilities which her state suggested, was a touch upon the young

man's nature, which seemed to throw all its energies into a fiery

fusion,--concentrating them upon a changed and poignant affection, which

rapidly absorbed his whole being. His pity for her was almost intolerable,

his bitterness towards Manisty almost beyond his control. All very well

for him now to be the guardian of her decline! Whatever might be the truth

about the American girl, it was plain enough that while she could still

reckon on the hopes and chances of the living, Eleanor had wasted her heart

and powers on an egotist, only to reap ingratitude, and the deadly fruit of

'benefits forgot.'

What chafed him most was that he had so little time with her; that Manisty

was always there. At last, two days after his arrival, he got an hour to

himself while Manisty and Father Benecke were walking, and Lucy was with

the Contessa.

He began to question her eagerly as to the future. With whom was she to

pass the remainder of the year--and where?

'With my father and Aunt Pattie of course,' said Eleanor, smiling. 'It will

be Scotland I suppose till November--then London.'

He was silent for a few moments, the colour flooding his smooth fair face.

Then he took her hand firmly, and with words and gestures that became him

well, he solemnly asked her to marry him. He was not fit to tie her shoes;

but he could take care of her; he could be her courier, her travelling

companion, her nurse, her slave. He implored her to listen to him. What

was her father to her--he asked her plainly--when had he ever considered

her, as she should be considered? Let her only trust herself to him. Never,

never should she repent that she had done him such an inconceivable honour.

Hang the diplomatic service! He had some money; with her own it would be

enough. He would take her to Egypt or the Cape. That would revive her.

Eleanor heard him very calmly.

'You dear, dear boy!' she said, when he paused for lack of breath. 'You

remind me of that pretty story--don't you remember?--only it was the other

way about--of Lord Giffard and Lady Dufferin. He was dying--and she married

him--that she might be with him to the end. That's right--for the woman.

It's her natural part to be the nurse. Do you think I'm going to let _you_

ruin your career to come and nurse me? Oh! you foolish Reggie!'

But he implored her; and after a while she grew restless.

'There's only one thing in the world you can do for me!--' she said at

last, pushing him away from her in her agitation.

Then reaching out from her sofa, she opened a drawer in a little table

beside her, and took out a double photograph-case, folded together. She

opened it and held it out to him.

'There!--help me bring those two together, Reggie--and I'll give you even

more of my heart than I do now!'

He stared, open-mouthed and silent, at the portraits, at the delicate,

illumined face.

'Come here'--she said, drawing him back towards her. 'Come and let us

talk.'

* * * * *

Meanwhile Manisty and Father Benecke were climbing the long hill, on the

return from their walk. There had been no full confidence between these

two. Manisty's pride would not allow it. There was too sharp humiliation

at present in the thought of that assurance with which he had spoken to

Benecke by the river-side.

He chose, therefore, when they were alone, rather to talk to the priest

of his own affairs, of his probable acceptance of the Old Catholic offers

which had been made him. Benecke did not resent the perfunctory manner of

his talk, the half-mind that he gave to it. The priest's shrewd humility

made no claims. He understood perfectly that the catastrophe of his own

life could have no vital interest for a man absorbed as Manisty was then

absorbed. He submitted to its being made a topic, a _passe-temps_.

Moreover, he forgave, he had always forgiven Manisty's dominant attitude

towards the forces which had trampled on himself. Often he had felt himself

the shipwrecked sailor sinking in the waves, while Manisty as the cool

spectator was hobnobbing with the wreckers on the shore. But nothing of

this affected his love for the man. He loved him as Vanbrugh Neal had

loved him; because of a certain charm, a certain indestructible youth and

irresponsibility at the very heart of him, which redeemed half his errors.

'Ah! my dear friend,' Manisty was saying as they neared the top of the

hill--with his largest and easiest gesture; 'of course you must go to Bonn;

you must do what they want you to do. The Old Catholics will make a great

deal of you. It might have been much worse.'

'They are very kind. But one transplants badly at sixty-six,' said the

priest mildly, thinking perhaps of his little home in the street of his

Bavarian town, of the pupils he should see no more, of the old sister who

had deserted him.

'_Your_ book has been the success,' said Manisty, impatiently. 'For you

said what you meant to say--you hit your mark. As for me--well, never mind!

I came out in too hot a temper; the men I saw first were too plausible; the

facts have been too many for me. No matter. It was an adventure like any

other. I don't regret it! In itself, it gave one some exciting moments,

and,--if I mistook the battle here--I shall still fight the English battle

all the better for the experience! _Allons donc_!--"To-morrow to fresh

woods and pastures new!"'

The priest looked at his handsome reckless air, with a mixture of

indulgence and repulsion. Manisty was 'an honourable man,' of many gifts.

If certain incalculable elements in his character could be controlled,

place and fame were probably before him. Compared with him, the priest

realised profoundly his own meaner, obscurer destiny. The humble servant

of a heavenly _patria_, of an unfathomable truth, is no match for these

intellectual soldiers of fortune. He does not judge them; he often feels

towards them a strange forbearance. But he would sooner die than change

parts!

* * * * *

As the convent came in sight, Manisty paused.

'You are going in to see her?'

The priest assented.

'Then I will come up later.'

They parted, and Father Benecke entered the convent alone.

Five days more! Would anything happen--or nothing? Manisty's wounded vanity

held him at arm's length; Miss Foster could not forgive him. But the

priest knew Eleanor's heart; and what else he did not know he divined. All

rested with the American girl, with the wounded tenderness, the upright

independence of a nature, which, as the priest frankly confessed to

himself, he did not understand.

He was not, indeed, without pricks of conscience with regard to her.

Supposing that she ultimately yielded? It was he who would have

precipitated the solution; he who would in truth have given her to Manisty.

Might he not, in so doing, have succoured the one life only to risk the

other? Were Manisty's the hands in which to place a personality so noble

and so trusting as that of the young girl?

But these qualms did not last long. As we have seen he had an invincible

tenderness for Manisty. And in his priestly view women were the adjuncts

and helpers of men. Woman is born to trouble; and the risks that she must

take grow with her. Why fret about the less or more? His own spiritual

courage would not have shrunk from any burden that love might lay upon it.

In his Christian stoicism--the man of the world might have called it a

Christian insensibility--he answered for Lucy.

Why suppose that she would shrink, or ought to shrink? Eve's burden is

anyway enormous; and the generous heart scorns a grudging foresight.

As to Mrs. Burgoyne--ah! there at least he might be sure that he had not

dared in vain. While Lucy was steel to him, Eleanor not only forgave him,

but was grateful to him with a frankness that only natures so pliant and so

sweet have the gift to show. In a few hours, as it seemed to him, she had

passed from fevered anguish into a state which held him often spellbound

before her, so consonant was it to the mystical instincts of his own life.

He thought of her with the tenderest reverence, the most sacred rejoicing.

Through his intercourse with her, moreover, while he guided and sustained

her, he had been fighting his own way back to the sure ground of spiritual

hope and confidence. God had not withdrawn from him the divine message! He

was about to step forth into the wilderness; but this light went with him.

On the stairs leading to Mrs. Burgoyne's rooms he met Reggie Brooklyn

coming down. The young man's face was pale and strained. The priest asked

him a question, but he ran past without an answer.

Eleanor was alone on the _loggia_. It was past eight o'clock, and the trees

in the courtyard and along the road were alive with fire-flies. Overhead

was the clear incomparable sky, faintly pricked with the first stars.

Someone was singing 'Santa Lucia' in the distance; and there was the

twanging of a guitar.

'Shall I go away?' he said, standing beside her. 'You wished me to come.

But you are fatigued.'

She gave him her hand languidly.

'Don't go, Father. But let me rest a little.'

'Pay me no attention,' he said. 'I have my office.'

He took out his breviary, and there was silence.

After a while, when he could no longer see even the red letters of his

little book and was trusting entirely to memory, Eleanor said, with a

sudden clearness of voice,--

A strange thing happened to me to-day, Father. I thought I would tell you.

For many many years I have been haunted by a kind of recurrent vision.

I think it must have come, to begin with, from the influence of a

clergyman--a very stern, imaginative, exacting man--who prepared me for

confirmation. Suddenly I see the procession of the Cross; the Lord in

front, with the Crown of Thorns dripping with blood; the thieves following;

the crowd, the daughters of Jerusalem. Nothing but that--but always very

vivid, the colours as bright as the colours of a Van Eyck--and bringing

with it an extraordinary sense of misery and anguish--of everything

that one wants to forget and refuse in life. The man to whom I trace it

was a saint, but a forbidding one. He made me afraid of him; afraid of

Christianity. I believed, but I never loved. And when his influence was

withdrawn, I threw it all behind me, in a great hurry. But this impression

remained--like a nightmare. I remember the day I was presented; there, in

the midst of all the feathers and veils and coronets, was the vision,--and

the tumult of ghastly and crushing thoughts that spread from it. I remember

hating Christianity that day; and its influence in the world.

'Last night, just before the dawn, I looked out; and there was the vision

again, sweeping over the forests, and up into the clouds that hung over

Monte Amiata. And I hated it no more. There was no accompanying horror.

It seemed to me as natural as the woods; as the just-kindling light. And

my own soul seemed to be rapt into the procession--the dim and endless

procession of all times and nations--and to pass away with it,--I knew not

where....

Her voice fell softly, to a note of dream.

'That was an omen,' he said, after a pause, 'an omen of peace.'

'I don't know,--but it soothed! As to what may be _true_, Father,--you

can't be certain any more than I! But at least our dreams are true--to

_us_.'... 'We make the heaven we hope indeed our home! All to the good if

we wake up in it after all! If not, the dream will have had its own use

here. Why should we fight so with our ignorance? The point is, as to the

_quality_ of our dreams! The quality of mine was once all dark--all misery.

Now, there is a change,--like the change from London drizzle and rain to

the clearness of this sky, which gives beauty to everything beneath it.

But, for me, it is not the first time--no, not the first--'

The words were no longer audible, her hands pressed against each other, and

he traced that sudden rigidity in her dim face which meant that she was

defending herself against emotion.

'It is all true, my friend,' he said, bending over her,--'the gospel of

Christ. You would be happier if you could accept it simply.'

She opened her eyes, smiling, but she did not reply. She was always eager

that he should read and talk to her, and she rarely argued. But he never

felt that intellectually he had much hold upon her. Her mind seemed to

him to be moving elusively in a sphere remote and characteristic, where

he could seldom follow. _Anima naturaliter Christiana_; yet with a most

stoic readiness to face the great uncertainties, the least flattering

possibilities of existence: so she often appeared to him.

Presently she dragged herself higher in her chair to look at the moon

rising above the eastern mass of the convent.

'It all gives me such extraordinary pleasure!' she said, as though

in wonder--'The moon--the fire-flies--those beautiful woods--your

kindness--Lucy in her white dress, when I see her there at the door. I know

how short it must be; and a few weeks ago I enjoyed nothing. What mystery

are we part of?--that moves and changes without our will. I was much

touched, Father, by all you said to me that great, great day; but I was not

conscious of yielding to you; nor afterwards. Then, one night, I went to

sleep in one mind; I woke up in another. The "grace of God," you think?--or

the natural welling back of the river, little by little, to its natural

bed? After all I never wilfully hurt or defied anybody before--that I can

remember. But what are "grace" and "nature" more than words? There is a

Life,--which our life perpetually touches and guesses at--like a child

fingering a closed room in the dark. What else do we know?'

'We know a great deal more,' he said firmly. 'But I don't want to weary you

by talking.'

'You don't weary me. Ah!'--her voice leapt--'what _is_ true--is the "dying

to live" of Christianity. One moment, you have the weight of the world

upon you; the next, as it were, you dispose of the world and all in it.

Just an act of the will!--and the thing verifies itself like any chemical

experiment. Let me go on--go on!' she said, with mystical intensity. 'If

the clue is anywhere it is there,--so far my mind goes with you. Other

races perceive it through other forms. But Christ offered it to us.'

'My dear friend,' said the priest tenderly--'He offers us _Himself_.'

She smiled, most brightly.

'Don't quarrel with me--with my poor words. He is there--_there!_'--she

said under her breath.

And he saw the motion of her white fingers towards her breast.

Afterwards he sat beside her for some time in silence, thinking of the

great world of Rome, and of his long conflict there.

Form after form appeared to him of those men, stupid or acute, holy or

worldly, learned or ignorant, who at the heart of Catholicism are engaged

in that amazing struggle with knowledge which perhaps represents the only

condition under which knowledge--the awful and irresistible--can in the

long run safely incorporate itself with the dense mass of human life. He

thought of scholar after scholar crushed by the most incompetent of judges;

this man silenced by a great post, that man by exile, one through the best

of his nature, another through the worst. He saw himself sitting side

by side with one of the most-eminent theologians of the Roman Church;

he recalled the little man, black-haired, lively, corpulent, a trifle

underhung, with a pleasant lisp and a merry eye; he remembered the

incredible conversation, the sense of difficulty and shame under which he

had argued some of the common-places of biology and primitive history, as

educated Europe understands them; the half patronising, half impatient

glibness of the other.--

'Oh! you know better, my son, than I how to argue these things; you are

more learned, of course. But it is only a matter for the Catechism after

all. Obey, my friend, obey!--there is no more to be said.'

And his own voice--tremulous:

'I would obey if I could. But unhappy as I am, to betray truths that are as

evident to me as the sun in heaven would make me still unhappier. The fate

that threatens me is frightful. _Aber ich kann nicht anders_. The truth

holds me in a vice.'--

'Let me give you a piece of counsel. You sit too close to your books.

You read and read,--you spin yourself into your own views like a cocoon.

Travel--hear what others say--above all, go into retreat! No one need know.

It would do you much good.'

'Eminence, I don't only study; I pray and meditate; I take pains to hear

all that my opponents say. But my heart stands firm.'

'My son, the tribunal of the Pope is the tribunal of Christ. You are

judged; submit! If not, I am sorry--regret deeply--but the consequence is

certain.'

And then his own voice, in its last wrestle--

'The penalty that approaches me appears to me more terrible the nearer it

comes. Like the Preacher--"I have judged him happiest who is not yet born,

nor doth he see the ills that are done under the sun." Eminence, give me

yet a little time.'

'A fortnight--gladly. But that is the utmost limit. My son, make the

"sacrificium intellectus!"--and make it willingly.'

Ah!--and then the yielding, and the treachery, and the last blind stroke

for truth!--

What was it which had undone him--which was now strangling the mental and

moral life of half Christendom!

Was it the _certainty_ of the Roman Church; that conception of life which

stakes the all of life upon the carnal and outward; upon a date, an

authorship, a miracle, an event?

Perhaps his own certainty, at bottom, had not been so very different.

But here, beneath his eyes, in this dying woman, was another certainty;

erect amid all confusion; a certainty of the spirit.

And looking along the future, he saw the battle of the certainties,

traditional, scientific, moral, ever more defined; and believed, like all

the rest of us, in that particular victory, for which he hoped!

* * * * *

Late that night, when all their visitors were gone, Eleanor showed

unusual animation. She left her sofa; she walked up and down their little

sitting-room, giving directions to Marie about the journey home; and at

last she informed them with a gaiety that made mock of their opposition

that she had made all arrangements to start very early the following

morning to visit the doctor in Orvieto who had attended her in June. Lucy

protested and implored, but soon found that everything was settled, and

Eleanor was determined. She was to go alone with Marie, in the Contessa's

carriage, starting almost with the dawn so as to avoid the heat: to spend

the hot noon under shelter at Orvieto; and to return in the evening. Lucy

pressed at least to go with her. So it appeared had the Contessa. But

Eleanor would have neither. 'I drive most days, and it does me no harm,'

she said, almost with temper. 'Do let me alone!'

When she returned, Manisty was lounging under the trees of the courtyard

waiting for her. He had spent a dull and purposeless day, which for a man

of his character and in his predicament had been hard to bear. His patience

was ebbing; his disappointment and despair were fast getting beyond

control. All this Eleanor saw in his face as she dismounted.

Lucy, who had been watching for her all the afternoon, was at the moment

for some reason or other with Reggie in the village.

Eleanor, with her hand on Marie's arm, tottered across the courtyard. At

the convent door her strength failed her. She turned to Manisty.

'I can't walk up these stairs. Do you think you could carry me? I am very

light.'

Struck with sudden emotion he threw his arms round her. She yielded like

a tired child. He, who had instinctively prepared himself for a certain

weight, was aghast at the ease with which he lifted her. Her head, in its

pretty black hat, fell against his breast. Her eyes closed. He wondered if

she had fainted.

He carried her to her room, and laid her on the sofa there. Then he saw

that she had not fainted, and that her eyes followed him. As he was about

to leave her to Marie, who was moving about in Lucy's room next door, she

touched him on the arm.

'You may speak again--to-morrow,' she said, nodding at him with a friendly

smile.

His face in its sudden flash of animation reflected the permission. He

pressed her hand tenderly.

'Was your doctor useful to you?'

'Oh yes; it is hard to think as much of a prescription in Italian as in

English--but that's one's insular way.'

'He thought you no worse?'

'Why should one believe him if he did?' she said evasively. 'No one knows

as much as oneself. Ah! there is Lucy. I think you must bid us good-night.

I am too tired for talking.'

As he left the room Eleanor settled down happily on her pillow.

'The first and only time!' she thought. 'My heart on his--my arms round his

neck. There must be impressions that outlast all others. I shall manage to

put them all away at the end--but that.'

When Lucy came in, she declared she was not very much exhausted. As to the

doctor she was silent.

But that night, when Lucy had been for some time in bed, and was still

sleepless with anxiety and sorrow, the door opened and Eleanor appeared.

She was in her usual white wrapper, and her fair hair, now much touched

with grey, was loose on her shoulders.

'Oh! can I do anything?' cried Lucy, starting up.

Eleanor came up to her, laid a hand on her shoulder, bade her 'be still,'

and brought a chair for herself. She had put down her candle on a table

which stood near, and Lucy could see the sombre agitation of her face.

'How long?' she said, bending over the girl--'how long are you going to

break my heart and his?'

The words were spoken with a violence which convulsed her whole frail form.

Lucy sprang up, and tried to throw her arms round her. But Eleanor shook

her off.

'No--no! Let us have it out. Do you see?' She let the wrapper slip from her

shoulders. She showed the dark hollows under the wasted collar-bones, the

knife-like shoulders, the absolute disappearance of all that had once made

the difference between grace and emaciation. She held up her hands before

the girl's terrified eyes. The skin was still white and delicate, otherwise

they were the hands of a skeleton.

'You can look at _that_,' she said fiercely, under her breath--'and then

insult me by refusing to marry the man you love, because you choose to

remember that I was once in love with him! It is an outrage to associate

such thoughts with me--as though one should make a rival of someone in her

shroud. It hurts and tortures me every hour to know that you have such

notions in your mind. It holds me back from peace--it chains me down to the

flesh, and to earth.'

'Eleanor!' cried the girl in entreaty, catching at her hands. But Eleanor

stood firm.

'Tell me,' she said peremptorily--'answer me truly, as one must answer

people in my state--you do love him? If I had not been here--if I had not

stood in your way--you would have allowed him his chance--you would have

married him?

Lucy bent her head upon her knees, forcing herself to composure.

'How can I answer that? I can never think of him, except as having brought

pain to you.'

'Yes, dear, you can,' cried Eleanor, throwing herself on her knees and

folding the girl in her arms. 'You can! It is no fault of his that I am

like this--none--none! The doctor told me this afternoon that the respite

last year was only apparent. The mischief has always been there--the

end quite certain. All my dreams and disappointments and foolish woman's

notions have vanished from me like smoke. There isn't one of them left.

What should a woman in my condition do with such things? But what

_is_ left is love--for you and him. Oh! not the old love,' she said

impatiently--persuading, haranguing herself no less than Lucy--'not an

ounce of it! But a love that suffers so--in his suffering and yours! A

love that won't let me rest; that is killing me before the time!'

She began to walk wildly up and down. Lucy sprang up, threw on some

clothes, and gradually persuaded her to go back to her own room. When

she was in bed again, utterly exhausted, Lucy's face--bathed in

tears--approached hers:

'Tell me what to do. Have I ever refused you anything?'

* * * * *

The morning broke pure and radiant over the village and the forest. The

great slopes of wood were in a deep and misty shadow; the river, shrunk to

a thread again, scarcely chattered with its stones. A fresh wind wandered

through the trees and over the new-reaped fields.

The Angelus had been rung long ago. There was the bell beginning for Mass.

Lucy slipped out into a cool world, already alive with all the primal

labours. The children and the mothers and the dogs were up; the peasants

among the vines; the men with their peaked hats, the women shrouded from

the sun under the heavy folds of their cotton head-gear; turned and smiled

as she passed by. They liked the Signorina, and they were accustomed to her

early walks.

On the hill she met Father Benecke coming up to Mass. Her cheek reddened,

and she stopped to speak to him.

'You are out early, Mademoiselle?'

'It is the only time to walk.'

'Ah! yes--you are right.'

At which a sudden thought made the priest start. He looked down. But this

time, he at least was innocent!

'You are coming in to tea with us this afternoon, Father?'

'If Mademoiselle does me the honour to invite me.'

The girl laughed.

'We shall expect you.'

Then she gave him her hand--a shy yet kind look from her beautiful eyes,

and went her way. She had forgiven him, and the priest walked on with a

cheered mind.

Meanwhile Lucy pushed her way into the fastnesses of the Sassetto. In its

very heart she found a green-overgrown spot where the rocks made a sort of

natural chair; one great block leaning forward overhead; a flat seat, and

mossy arms on either side.

Here she seated herself. The winding path ran above her head. She could be

perceived from it, but at this hour what fear of passers by?

She gave herself up to the rush of memory and fear.

She had travelled far in these four months!

'Is this what it always means?--coming to Europe?' she asked herself with a

laugh that was not gay, while her fingers pulled at a tuft of hart's-tongue

that grew in a crevice beside her.

And then in a flash she looked on into her destiny. She thought of Manisty

with a yearning, passionate heart, and yet with a kind of terror; of the

rich, incalculable, undisciplined nature, with all its capricious and

self-willed power, its fastidious demands, its practical weakness; the

man's brilliance and his folly. She envisaged herself laden with the

responsibility of being his wife; and it seemed to her beyond her strength.

One moment he appeared to her so much above and beyond her that it was

ridiculous he should stoop to her. The next she felt, as it were, the

weight of his life upon her hands, and told herself that she could not bear

it.

And then--and then--it was all very well, but if she had not come--if

Eleanor had never seen her--

Her head fell back into a mossy corner of the rock. Her eyes were blind

with tears. From the hill came the rumble of an ox-waggon with the shouts

of the drivers.

But another sound was nearer; the sound of a man's step upon the path. An

exclamation--a leap--and before she could replace the hat she had taken

off, or hide the traces of her tears, Manisty was beside her.

She sat up, staring at him in a bewildered silence. He too was

silent,--only she saw the labouring of his breath.

But at last--

'I will not force myself upon you,' he said, in a voice haughty and

self-restrained, that barely reached her ears. 'I will go at once if you

bid me go.'

Then, as she still said nothing, he came nearer.

'You don't send me away?'

She made a little despairing gesture that said, 'I can't!'--but so sadly,

that it did not encourage him.

'Lucy!'--he said, trembling--'are you going to take the seal off my

lips--to give me my chance at last?'

To that, only the answer of her eyes,--so sweet, so full of sorrow.

He stooped above her, his whole nature torn between love and doubt.

'You hear me,' he said, in low, broken tones--'but you think yourself a

traitor to listen?'

'And how could I not?' she cried, with a sudden sob. And then she found her

speech; her heart unveiled itself.

'If I had never, never come!--It is my fault that she is dying--only, only

my fault!'

And she turned away from him to hide her face and eyes against the rock, in

such an agony of feeling that he almost despaired.

He controlled himself sharply, putting aside passion, collecting his

thoughts for dear life.

'You are the most innocent, the most true of tender friends. It is in her

name that I say to you--Lucy, be kind! Lucy, dare to love me!'

She raised her arm suddenly and pointed to the ground between them.

'There'--she said under her breath, 'I see her there!--lying dead between

us!'

He was struck with horror, realising in what a grip this sane and simple

nature must feel itself before it could break into such expression. What

could he do or say?

He seated himself beside her, he took her hands by force.

'Lucy, I know what you mean. I won't pretend that I don't know. You think

that I ought to have married my cousin--that if you had not been there,

I should have married her. I might,--not yet, but after some time,--it

is quite true that it might have happened. Would it have made Eleanor

happy? You saw me at the villa--as I am. You know well, that even as a

friend, I constantly disappointed her. There seemed to be a fate upon us

which made me torment and wound her when I least intended it. I don't

defend myself,--and Heaven knows I don't blame Eleanor! I have always

believed that these things are mysterious, predestined--matters of

temperament deeper than our will. I was deeply, sincerely attached to

Eleanor--yet!--when you came--after those first few weeks--the falsity of

the whole position flashed upon me. And there was the book. It seemed to me

sometimes that the only way of extricating us all was to destroy the book,

and--and--all that it implied--or might have been thought to imply,--'

he added hurriedly. 'Oh! you needn't tell me that I was a blundering and

selfish fool! We have all got into a horrible coil--and I can't pose before

you if I would. But it isn't Eleanor that would hold you back from me,

Lucy--it isn't Eleanor!--answer me!--you know that?'

He held her almost roughly, scanning her face in an agony that served him

well.

Her lips moved piteously, in words that he could not hear. But her hands

lay passive in his grasp; and he hastened on.

'Ever since that Nemi evening, Lucy, I have been a new creature. I will

tell you no lies. I won't say that I never loved any woman before you. I

will have no secrets from you--you shall know all, if you want to know. But

I do say that every passion I ever knew in my first youth seems to me now a

mere apprenticeship to loving you! You have become my life--my very heart.

If anything is to be made of a fellow like me--it's you that'll give me a

chance, Lucy. Oh! my dear--don't turn from me! It's Eleanor's voice speaks

in mine--listen to us both!'

Her colour came and went. She swayed towards him, fascinated by his voice,

conquered by the mere exhaustion of her long struggle, held in the grasp of

that compulsion which Eleanor had laid upon her.

Manisty perceived her weakness; his eyes flamed; his arm closed round her.

'I had an instinct--a vision,' he said, almost in her ear, 'when I set

out. The day dawned on me like a day of consecration. The sun was another

sun--the earth reborn. I took up my pilgrimage again--looking for Lucy--as

I have looked for her the last six weeks. And everything led me right--the

breeze and the woods and the birds. They were all in league with me. They

pitied me--they told me where Lucy was--'

The low, rushing words ceased a moment. Manisty looked at her, took both

her hands again.

'But they couldn't tell me'--he murmured--'how to please her--how to make

her kind to me--make her listen to me. Lucy, whom shall I go to for that?'

She turned away her face; her hands released themselves. Manisty hardly

breathed till she said, with a trembling mouth, and a little sob now and

then between the words--

'It is all so strange to me--so strange and so--so doubtful! If there were

only someone here from my own people,--someone who could advise me! Is it

wise for you--for us both? You know I'm so different from you--and you'll

find it out perhaps, more and more. And if you did--and were discontented

with me--I can't be sure that I could always fit myself to you. I was

brought up so that--that--I can't always be as easy and pleasant as other

girls. My mother--she stood by herself often--and I with her. She was a

grand nature--but I'm sure you would have thought her extravagant--and

perhaps hard. And often I feel as though I didn't know myself,--what there

might be in me. I know I'm often very stubborn. Suppose--in a few years--'

Her eyes came back to him; searching and interrogating that bent look of

his, in which her whole being seemed held.

What was it Manisty saw in her troubled face that she could no longer

conceal? He made no attempt to answer her words; there was another language

between them. He gave a cry. He put forth a tender violence; and Lucy

yielded. She found herself in his arms; and all was said.

Yet when she withdrew herself, she was in tears. She took his hand and

kissed it wildly, hardly knowing what she was doing. But her heart turned

to Eleanor; and it was Eleanor's voice in her ears that alone commanded and

absolved her.

* * * * *

As they strolled home, Manisty's mood was of the wildest and gayest. He

would hear of no despair about his cousin.

'We will take her home--you and I. We will get the very best advice. It

isn't--it shan't be as bad as you think!'

And out of mere reaction from her weeks of anguish, she believed him, she

hoped again. Then he turned to speculate on the voyage to America he must

now make, on his first interviews with Greyridge and Uncle Ben.

'Shall I make a good impression? How shall I be received? I am certain you

gave your uncle the worst accounts of me.'

'I guess Uncle Ben will judge for himself,' she said, reddening; thankful

all the same to remember that among her uncle's reticent, old-fashioned

ways none was more marked than his habit of destroying all but an

infinitesimal fraction of his letters. 'He read all those speeches of

yours, last year. You'll have to think--how you're going to get over it.'

'Well, you have brought me on my knees to Italy,' he said, laughing. 'Must

I now go barefoot to the tomb of Washington?'

She looked at him with a little smile, that showed him once more the Lucy

of the villa.

'You do seem to make mistakes, don't you?' she said gently. But then

her hand nestled shyly into his; and without words, her heart vowed the

true woman's vow to love him and stand by him always, for better for

worse, through error and success, through fame or failure. In truth her

inexperience had analysed the man to whom she had pledged herself far

better than he imagined. Did her love for him indeed rest partly on a

secret sense of vocation?--a profound, inarticulate divining of his vast,

his illimitable need for such a one as she to love him?

* * * * *

Meanwhile Eleanor and Reggie and Father Benecke waited breakfast on the

_loggia_. They were all under the spell of a common excitement, a common

restlessness.

Eleanor had discarded her sofa. She moved about the _loggia_, now looking

down the road, now gathering a bunch of rose-pink oleanders for her white

dress. The _frou-frou_ of her soft skirts; her happy agitation; the flush

on her cheek;--neither of the men who were her companions ever forgot them

afterwards.

Manisty, it appeared, had taken coffee with Father Benecke at six, and had

then strolled up the Sassetto path with his cigarette. Lucy had been out

since the first church bells. Father Benecke reported his meeting with her

on the road.

Eleanor listened to him with a sort of gay self-restraint.

'Yes--I know'--she said, nodding--'I know.--Reggie, there is a glorious

tuft of carnations in that pot in the cloisters. Ask Mamma Doni if we may

have them. _Ecco_--take her a _lira_ for the baby. I must have them for the

table.'

And soon the little white-spread breakfast-table, with it rolls and fruit,

was aglow with flowers, and a little bunch lay on each plate. The _loggia_,

was in _festa_; and the morning sun flickered through the vine-leaves on

the bright table, and the patterns of the brick floor.

'There--there they are!--Reggie!--Father!--leave me a minute! Quick--into

the garden! We will call you directly.'

And Reggie, looking back with a gulp from the garden-stairs, saw her

leaning over the _loggia_, waving her handkerchief; the figure in its light

dress, tossed a little by the morning breeze, the soft muslin and lace

eddying round it.

They mounted. Lucy entered first.

She stood on the threshold a moment, looking at Eleanor with a sweet and

piteous appeal. Then her young foot ran, her arms opened; and with the

tender dignity of a mother rejoicing over her child Eleanor received her on

her breast.

* * * * *

By easy stages Manisty and Lucy took Mrs. Burgoyne to England. At the end

of August Lucy returned to the States with her friends; and in October she

and Manisty were married.

Mrs. Burgoyne lived through the autumn; and in November she hungered so

pitifully for the South that by a great effort she was moved to Rome.

There she took up her quarters in the house of the Contessa Guerrini, who

lavished on her last days all that care and affection could bestow.

Eleanor drove out once more towards the Alban hills; she looked once more

on the slopes of Marinata and the white crown of Monte Cavo; the Roman

sunshine shed round her once more its rich incomparable light. In December

Manisty and Lucy were expected; but a week before they came she died.

A German Old Catholic priest journeyed from a little town in Switzerland to

her burial; and a few days later the two beings she had loved stood beside

her grave. They had many and strong reasons to remember her; but for one

reason above all others, for her wild flight to Torre Amiata, the

only selfish action of her whole life, was she--at least, in Lucy's

heart--through all the years that followed the more passionately, the more

tragically enthroned.

FINIS