Astrardente was in some respects a picturesque place. The position of the
little town gave it a view in both directions from where it stood; for it
was built upon a precipitous eminence rising suddenly out of the midst of
the narrow strip of fertile land, the long and rising valley which, from
its lower extremity, conducted by many circuits to the Roman Campagna,
and which ended above in the first rough passes of the lower Abruzzi. The
base of the town extended into the vineyards and olive-orchards which
surrounded the little hill on all sides; and the summit of it was crowned
by the feudal palace-castle--an enormous building of solid stone, in the
style of the fifteenth century. Upon the same spot had formally stood a
rugged fortress, but the magnificent ideas of the Astrardente pope
had not tolerated such remains of barbarism; the ancient stronghold had
been torn down, and on its foundations rose a gigantic mansion,
consisting of a main palace, with great balconies and columned front,
overlooking the town, and of two massive wings leading back like towers
to the edge of the precipitous rock to northwards. Between these wings a
great paved court formed a sort of terrace, open upon one side, and
ornamented within with a few antique statues dug up upon the estates, and
with numerous plants, which the old duke had caused to be carefully
cultivated in vases, and which were only exposed upon the terrace during
the warm summer months. The view from the court was to the north--that is
to say, down the valley, comprehending ranges of hills that seemed to
cross and recross into the extreme distance, their outlines being each
time less clearly defined, as the masses in each succeeding range took a
softer purple hue.
Within, the palace presented a great variety of apartments. There were
suites of vaulted rooms upon the lower floor, frescoed in the good manner
of the fifteenth century; there were other suites above, hung with
ancient tapestry and furnished with old-fashioned marble tables, and
mirrors in heavily gilt frames, and one entire wing had been lately
fitted up in the modern style. In this part of the house Corona
established herself with Sister Gabrielle, and began to lead a life of
regular occupations and profound retirement, which seemed to be rather a
continuation of her existence in the convent where she had been educated
as a girl, than to form any part in the life of the superb Duchessa
d'Astrardente, who for five years had been one of the most conspicuous
persons in society. Every morning at eight o'clock the two ladies, always
clad in deep black, attended the Mass which was celebrated for them in
the palace chapel. Then Corona walked for an hour with her companion upon
the terrace, or, if it rained, beneath the covered balconies upon the
south side. The morning hours she passed in solitude, reading such books
of devotion and serious matter as most suited the sad temper of her mind;
precisely at mid-day she and Sister Gabrielle breakfasted together in a
sort of solemn state; and at three o'clock the great landau, with its
black horses and mourning liveries, stood under the inner gate. The two
ladies appeared five minutes later, and by a gesture Corona indicated
whether she would be driven up or down the valley. The dashing equipage
descended the long smooth road that wound through the town, and returned
invariably at the end of two hours, again ascended the tortuous way, and
disappeared beneath the dark entrance. At six o'clock dinner was served,
with the same solemn state as attended the morning meal; Corona and
Sister Gabrielle remained together until ten, and the day was over. There
was no more variation in the routine of their lives than if they had been
moved by a machinery connected with the great castle clock overhead,
which chimed the hours and the quarters by day and night, and regulated
the doings of the town below.
But in spite of this unchanging sequence of similar habit, the time
passed pleasantly for Corona. She had had too much of the brilliant
lights and the buzzing din of society for the last five years, too much
noise, too much idle talk, too much aimless movement; she needed rest,
too, from the constant strain of her efforts to fulfil her self-imposed
duties towards her husband--most of all, perhaps, she required a respite
from the sufferings she had undergone through her stifled love for
Giovanni Saracinesca. All this she found in the magnificent calm of
the life at Astrardente. She meditated long upon the memory of her
husband, recalling lovingly those things which had been most worthy in
him, willingly forgetting his many follies and vanities and moments of
petulance. She went over in her mind the many and varied scenes of the
past, and learned to love the sweet and silent solitude of the present by
comparison of it with all the useless and noisy activity of the world she
had for a time abandoned. She had not expected to find anything more than
a passive companion in Sister Gabrielle; but in the course of their daily
converse she discovered in her a character of extreme refinement and
quick perception, a depth of human sympathy and a breadth of experience
which amazed her, and made her own views of things seem small. The Sister
was devout and rigid in the observance of the institutions of her order,
in so far as she was able to follow out the detail of religious
regulation without interfering with the convenience of her companion;
but in her conversation she showed an intimate knowledge of character
which was a constant source of pleasure to Corona, who told the Sister
long stories of people she had known for the sake of hearing her
admirable comments upon social questions.
But besides her reading and her long hours of meditation and her talks
with Sister Gabrielle, Corona found occupation in the state of the town
below her residence. She attempted once or twice to visit the poor
cottages, in the hope of doing some good; but she found that she was
such an object of holy awe to the inmates that they were speechless in
her presence, or became so nervous in their desire to answer her
questions, that the information she was able to obtain concerning their
troubles was too vague to be of any use.
The Italian peasant is not the same in all parts of the country, as is
generally supposed; and although the Tuscan, who is constantly brought
into familiar contact with his landlord, and acquires a certain pleasant
faith in him, grows eloquent upon the conditions of his being, the same
is not true of the rougher race that labours in the valleys of the Sabine
and the Samnite hills. The peasant of the Agro Romano is indeed capable
of civilisation and he is able to understand his superiors, provided that
he is gradually accustomed to seeing them: unfortunately this occurs but
rarely. Many of the great Roman landholders spend a couple of months of
every year upon their estates: old Astrardente had in his later years
gone to considerable expense in refitting and repairing the castle, but
he had done little for the town. Men like the Saracinesca, however, were
great exceptions at that time; though they travelled much abroad, they
often remained for many months in their rugged old fortress. They knew
the inhabitants of their lands far and wide, and were themselves not only
known but loved; they spent their money in improving the condition of
their peasants, in increasing the area of their forests, and in fostering
the fertility of the soil, but they cared nothing for adorning the grey
stone walls of their ancestors' stronghold. It had done well enough for a
thousand years, it would do well enough still; it had stood firm against
fierce sieges in the dark ages of the Roman baronry, it could afford to
stand unchanged in its monumental strength against the advancing sea of
nineteenth-century civilisation. They themselves, father and son, were
content with such practical improvements as they could introduce for the
good of their people and the enriching of their land; a manly race,
despising luxury, they cared little whether their home was thought
comfortable by the few guests they occasionally invited to spend a week
with them. They saw much of the peasantry, and went daily among them,
understanding their wants, and wisely promoting in their minds the belief
that land cannot prosper unless both landlord and tenant do their share.
But Astrardente was a holding of a very different kind, and Corona, in
her first attempts at understanding the state of things, found herself
stopped by a dead wall of silence, beyond which she guessed that there
lay an undiscovered land of trouble. She knew next to nothing of the
condition of her people; she only imperfectly understood the relations in
which they actually stood to herself, the extent of her power over them,
and of their power over her. The mysteries of _emphyteusis, emphyteuma,_
and _emphyteuta_ were still hidden to her, though her steward spoke of
them with surprising loquacity and fluency. She laboured hard to
understand the system upon which her tenants held their lands from her,
and it was some time before she succeeded. It is easier to explain the
matter at once than to follow Corona in her attempts to comprehend it.
To judge from the terms employed, the system of holdings common in the
Pontifical States has descended without interruption from the time of the
Romans to the present day. As in old Roman law, _emphyteusis_, now spelt
_emfiteuse_, means the possession of rights over another person's land,
capable of transmission by inheritance; and to-day, as under the Romans,
the holder of such rights is called the _emphyteuta_, or _emfiteuta_. How
the Romans came to use Greek words in their tenant-law does not belong to
the matter in hand; these words are the only ones now in use in this part
of Italy, and they are used precisely as they were in remote times.
A tenant may acquire rights of _emfiteuse_ directly from the owner
of the land, like an ordinary lease; or he may acquire them by
settlement--"squatting," as the popular term is. Wherever land is lying
waste, any one may establish himself upon it and cultivate it, on
condition of paying to the owner a certain proportion of the yield of the
land--generally one quarter--either in kind or in money. The landlord
may, indeed, refuse the right of settlement in the first instance, which
would very rarely occur, since most people who own barren tracts of rock
and heath are only too glad to promote any kind of cultivation. But when
the landlord has once allowed the right, the right itself is constituted
thereby into a possession of which the peasant may dispose as he pleases,
even by selling it to another. The law provides, however, that in case of
transfers by sale, the landlord shall receive one year's rent in kind or
in money in addition to the rent due, and this bonus is paid jointly by
the buyer and the seller according to agreement. Such holdings are
inherited from father to son for many generations, and are considered to
be perpetual leases. The landlord cannot expel a tenant except for
non-payment of rent during three consecutive years. In actual fact, the
right of the _emfiteuta_ in the soil is far more important than that of
the landlord; for the tenant can cheat his landlord as much as he
pleases, whereas the injustice of the law provides that under no
circumstances whatsoever shall the landlord cheat the tenant. In actual
fact, also, the rents are universally paid in kind, and the peasant eats
what remains of the produce, so that very little cash is seen in the
land.
Corona discovered that the income she enjoyed from the lands of
Astrardente was collected by the basketful from the threshing-floors, and
by the barrel from the vineyards of some two hundred tenants. It was a
serious matter to gather from two hundred threshing-floors precisely a
quarter of the grain threshed, and from fifty or sixty vineyards
precisely a quarter of the wine made in each. The peasants all made their
wine at the same time, and all threshed their grain in the same week. If
the agent was not on the spot during the threshing and the vintage, the
peasant had no difficulty whatever in hiding a large quantity of his
produce. As the rent was never fixed, but depended solely on the yield of
the year, it was preeminently to the advantage of the tenant to throw
dust in the eyes of the landlord whenever he got a chance. The landlord
found the business of watching his tenants tedious and unprofitable, and
naturally resorted to the crowning evil of agricultural evils--the
employment of a rent-farmer. The latter, at all events, was willing to
pay a fixed sum yearly; and if the sum paid was generally considerably
below the real value of the rents, the arrangement at least assured a
fixed income to the landlord, with the certainty of getting it without
trouble to himself. The middleman then proceeded to grind the tenants at
his leisure and discretion in order to make the best of his bargain. The
result was, that while the tenant starved and the landlord got less than
his due in consideration of being saved from annoyance, the middleman
gradually accumulated money.
Upon this system nine-tenths of the land in the Pontifical States was
held, and much of the same land is so held to-day, in spite of the modern
tenant-law, for reasons which will be clearly explained in another part
of this history. Corona saw and understood that the evil was very great.
She discussed the matter with her steward, or _ministro_ as he was
called, who was none other than the aforesaid middleman; and the more she
discussed the question, the more hopeless the question appeared. The
steward held a contract from her dead husband for a number of years. He
had regularly paid the yearly sums agreed upon, and it would be
impossible to remove him for several years to come. He, of course, was
strenuously opposed to any change, and did his best to make himself
appear as an angel of mercy and justice, presiding over a happy family of
rejoicing peasants in the heart of a terrestrial paradise. Unfortunately
for himself, however, he had not at first understood the motive which
prompted Corona's inquiries. He supposed in the beginning that she was
not satisfied with the amount of rent he paid, and that at the expiration
of his contract she intended to raise the sum; so that, on the first
occasion when she sent for him, he had drawn a piteous picture of the
peasant's condition, and had expatiated with eloquence on his own
poverty, and on the extreme difficulty of collecting any rents at all. It
was not until he discovered that Corona's chief preoccupation was for the
welfare of her tenants that he changed his tactics, and endeavoured to
prove that all was for the best upon the best of all possible estates.
Then, to his great astonishment, Corona informed him that his contract
would not be renewed, and that at the expiration of his term she would
collect her rents herself. It had taken her long to understand the
situation, but when she had comprehended it, she made up her mind that
something must be done. If her fortune had depended solely upon the
income she received from the Astrardente lands, she would have made up
her mind to reduce herself to penury rather than allow things to go in
the way they were going. Fortunately she was rich, and if she had not all
the experience necessary to deal with such matters, she had plenty of
goodwill, plenty of generosity, and plenty of money. In her simple
theory of agrarian economy the best way to improve an estate seemed to be
to spend the income arising from it directly upon its improvement, until
she could take the whole management of it into her own hands. The
trouble, as she thought, was that there was too little money among the
peasants; the best way to help them was to put money within their reach.
The only question was how to do this without demoralising them, and
without increasing their liabilities towards the _ministro_ or middleman.
Then she sent for the curate. From him she learned that the people did
well enough in the summer, but that the winter was dreaded. She asked
why. He answered that they were not provident; that the land system was
bad; and that even if they saved anything the _ministro_ would take it
from them. She inquired whether he thought it possible to induce them to
be more thrifty. He thought it might be done in ten years, but not in
one.
"In that case," said Corona, "the only way to improve their condition is
to give them work in the winter. I will make roads through the estate,
and build large dwelling-houses in the town. There shall be work enough
for everybody."
It was a simple plan, but it was destined to be carried into execution,
and to change the face of the Astrardente domain in a few years. Corona
sent to Rome for an engineer who was also a good architect, and she set
herself to study the possibilities of the place, giving the man
sufficient scope, and only insisting that there should be no labour and
no material imported from beyond the limits of her lands. This provided
her with an occupation whereby the time passed quickly enough.
The Lenten season ended, and Eastertide ran swiftly on to Pentecost. The
early fruit-trees blossomed white, and the flowers fell in a snow-shower
to the ground, to give place to the cherries and the almonds and the
pears. The brown bramble-hedges turned leafy, and were alive with little
birds; and the great green lizards shot across the woodland paths upon
the hillside, and caught the flies that buzzed noisily in the spring
sunshine. The dried-up vines put forth tiny leaves, and the maize shot
suddenly up to the sun out of the rich furrows, like myriads of brilliant
green poignards piercing the brown skin of the earth. By the roadside the
grass grew high, and the broad shallow brooks shrank to narrow rivulets,
and disappeared in the overgrowing rushes before the increasing heat of
the climbing sun.
Corona's daily round of life never changed, but as the months wore on, a
stealing thought came often and often again--shy, as though fearing to be
driven away; silent at first, as a shadow in a dream, but taking form and
reality from familiarity with its own self, and speaking intelligible
words, saying at last plainly, "Will he keep his promise? Will he never
come?"
But he came not as the fresh colours of spring deepened with the rich
maturity of summer; and Corona, gazing down the valley, saw the change
that came over the fair earth, and half guessed the change that was
coming over her own life. She had sought solitude instinctively, but
she had not known what it would bring her. She had desired to honour her
dead husband by withdrawing from the world for a time and thinking of him
and remembering him. She had done so, but the youth in her rebelled at
last against the constant memory of old age--of an old age, too, which
had passed away from her and was dead for ever.
It was right to dwell for a time upon the thought of her widowhood, but
the voice said it would not be always right. The calm and noiseless tide
of the old man's ceasing life had ebbed slowly and reluctantly from her
shore, and she had followed the sad sea in her sorrow to the furthest
verge of its retreat; but as she stood upon the edge of the stagnant
waters, gazing far out and trying to follow even further the slow
subsiding ooze, the tide had turned upon her unawares, the fresh seaward
breeze sprang up and broke the dead calm with the fresh motion of crisp
ripples that once more flowed gladly over the dreary sand, and the waters
of life plashed again and laughed gladly together around her feet.
The thought of Giovanni--the one thought that again and again kept
recurring in her mind--grew very sweet,--as sweet as it had once been
bitter. There was nothing to stop its growth now, and she let it have its
way. What did it matter, so long as he did not come near her--for the
present? Some day he would come; she wondered when, and how long he would
keep his promise. But meanwhile she was not unhappy, and she went about
her occupations as before; only sometimes she would go alone at evening
to the balcony that faced the higher mountains, and there she would stand
for half an hour gazing southward towards the precipitous rocks that
caught the red glare of the sinking sun, and she asked herself if he were
there, or whether, as report had told her, he were in the far north.
It was but half a day's ride over the hills, he had said. But strain her
sight as she would, she could not pierce the heavy crags nor see into the
wooded dells beyond. He had said he would pass the summer there; had he
changed his mind?
But she was not unhappy. There was that in her which forbade unhappiness,
which would have broken out into great joy if she would have let it; but
yet she would not. It was too soon yet to say aloud what she said in her
heart daily, that she loved Giovanni with a great love, and that she knew
she was free to love him. In that thought there was enough of joy. But he
might come if he would; her anger would not be great if he broke his
promise now, he had kept it so long--six whole months. But by-and-by,
as the days passed, the first note of happiness was marred by the
discordant ring of a distant fear. What if she had too effectually
forbidden him to see her? What if he had gone out disappointed of all
hope, and was really in distant Scandinavia, as the papers said, risking
his life in mad adventures?
But after all, that was not what she feared. He was strong, young,
brave--he had survived a thousand dangers, he would survive these also.
There arose between her and the thought of him an evil shadow, the image
of a woman, and it took the shape of Donna Tullia so vividly that she
could see the red lips move and almost hear the noisy laugh. She was
angry with herself at the idea, but it recurred continually and gave her
pain, and the pain grew to an intolerable fear. She began to feel that
she must know where he was, at any cost, or she could have no peace. She
was restless and nervous, and began to be absent-minded in her
conversation with Sister Gabrielle. The good woman saw it, and advised a
little change--anything, an excursion of a day for instance. Corona, she
said, was too young to lead this life.
Her mind leaped at the idea. It was but half a day's ride, he had said;
she would climb those hills and look down upon Saracinesca--only once.
She might perhaps meet some peasant, and by a careless inquiry she would
learn whether he was there--or would be there in the summer. No one would
know; and besides, Sister Gabrielle had said that an excursion would do
Corona good. Sister Gabrielle had probably never heard that Saracinesca
was so near, and she certainly would not guess that the Duchessa had any
interest in its lord. She announced her intention, and the Sister
approved--she herself, she said, was too weak to undergo the fatigue.
On the following morning, Corona alone entered her carriage and was
driven many miles up the southward hills, till the road was joined by a
broad bridle-path that led eastwards towards the Abruzzi. Here she was
met by a party of horsemen, her own _guardiani_, or forest-keepers, as
they are called, in rough dark-blue coats and leathern gaiters. Each man
wore upon his breast a round plate of chiselled silver, bearing the arms
of the Astrardente; each had a long rifle slung behind him, and carried a
holster at the bow of his huge saddle. A couple of sturdy black-browed
peasants held a mule by the bridle, heavily caparisoned in the old
fashion, under a great red velvet Spanish saddle, with long tarnished
trappings that had once been embroidered with silver. A little knot of
peasants and ragged boys stood all around watching the preparations
with interest, and commenting audibly upon the beauty of the great lady.
Corona mounted from a stone by the wayside, and the young men led her
beast up the path. She smiled to herself, for she had never done such a
thing before, but she was not uneasy in the company of her rough-looking
escort. She knew well enough that she was as safe with them as in her own
house.
As the bridle-path wound up from the road, the country grew more rugged,
the vegetation more scanty, and the stones more plentiful. It was a
wilderness of rocky desolation; as far as one could see there was no sign
of humanity, not a soul upon the solitary road, not a living thing upon
the desolate hills that rose on either side in jagged points to the sky.
Corona talked a little with the head-keeper who rode beside her with a
slack rein, letting his small mountain horse pick its own way over the
rough path. He told her that few people ever passed that way. It was the
short road to Saracinesca. The princes sometimes sent their carriage
round by the longer way and rode over the hills; and in the vintage-time
there was some traffic, as many of the smaller peasants carried grapes
across the pass to the larger wine-presses, and sold them outright. It
was not a dangerous road, for the very reason that it was so
unfrequented. The Duchessa explained that she only wanted to see the
valley beyond from the summit of the pass, and would then return. It was
past mid-day when the party reached the highest point,--a depression
between the crags just wide enough to admit one loaded mule. The keeper
said she could see Saracinesca from the end of the narrow way, before the
descent began. She uttered an exclamation of surprise as she reached the
spot.
Scarcely a quarter of a mile to the right, at the extremity of a broad
hill-road, she saw the huge towers of Saracinesca, grey and storm-beaten,
rising out of a thick wood. The whole intervening space--and indeed the
whole deep valley as far as she could see--was an unbroken forest of
chestnut-trees. Here and there below the castle the houses of the town
showed their tiled gables, but the mass of the buildings was hidden
completely from sight. Corona had had no idea that she should find
herself so near to the place, and she was seized with a sudden fear lest
Giovanni should appear upon the long straight path that led into the
trees. She drew back a little among her followers.
"Are the princes there now?" she asked of the head-keeper.
He did not know; but a moment later a peasant, riding astride of a bag of
corn upon his donkey's back, passed along the straight road by the
entrance to the bridle-path. The keeper hailed him, and put the question.
Seeing Corona upon her mule, surrounded by armed men in livery, the man
halted, and pulled off his soft black-cloth hat.
Both the princes were in Saracinesca, he said. The young prince had been
there ever since Easter. They were busy building an aqueduct which was to
supply the whole town with water; it was to pass above, up there among
the woods. The princes went almost every day to visit the works. Her
Excellency might, perhaps, find them there now, or if not, they were at
the castle.
But her Excellency had no intention of finding them. She gave the fellow
a coin, and beat a somewhat hasty retreat. Her followers were silent men,
accustomed to obey, and they followed her down the steep path without
even exchanging a word among themselves. Beneath the shade of an
overhanging rock she halted, and, dismounting from her mule, was served
with the lunch that had been brought. She ate little, and then sat
thoughtfully contemplating the bare stones, while the men at a little
distance hastily disposed of the remains of her meal. She had experienced
an extraordinary emotion on finding herself suddenly so near to Giovanni;
it was almost as though she had seen him, and her heart beat fast, while
a dark flush rose from time to time to her cheek. It would have been so
natural that he should pass that way, just as she was halting at the
entrance to the bridle-path. How unspeakably dreadful it would have been
to be discovered thus spying out his dwelling-place when she had so
strictly forbidden him to attempt to see her! The blush burned upon her
cheeks--she had done a thing so undignified, so ill befitting her
magnificent superiority. For a moment she was desperately ashamed. But
for all that, she could not repress the glad delight she felt at
knowing that he was there after all; that, if he had kept his word, in
avoiding her, he had, nevertheless, also fulfilled his intention of
spending the summer in Saracinesca. He had even been there since Easter,
and the story of his going to the North had been a mere invention of the
newspapers. She could not understand his conduct, nor why he had gone to
Paris--a fact attested by people who knew him. It had probably been for
some matter of business--that excuse which, in a woman's mind, explains
almost any sudden journey a man may undertake. But he was there in the
castle now, and her heart was satisfied.
The men packed the things in the basket, and Corona was helped upon her
mule. Slowly the party descended the steep path that grew broader and
more practicable as they neared the bottom; there the carriage awaited
her, and soon she was bowling along the smooth road towards home, leaving
far behind her the mounted guards, the peasants, and her slow-paced mule.
The sun was low when the carriage rolled under the archway of
Astrardente. Sister Gabrielle said Corona looked much the better for her
excursion, and she added that she must be very strong to bear such
fatigue so well. And the next day--and for many days--the Sister noticed
the change in her hostess's manner, and promised herself that if the
Duchessa became uneasy again she would advise another day among the
hills, so wonderful was the effect of a slight change from the ordinary
routine of her life.
That night old Saracinesca and his son sat at dinner in a wide hall of
their castle. The faithful Pasquale served them as solemnly as he was
used to do in Rome. This evening he spoke again. He had ventured no
remark since he had informed them of the Duca d'Astrardente's death.
"I beg your Excellencies' pardon," he began, adopting his usual formula
of apologetic address.
"Well, Pasquale, what is it?" asked old Saracinesca.
"I did not know whether your Excellency was aware that the Duchessa
d'Astrardente had been here to-day."
"What?" roared the Prince.
"You must be mad, Pasquale?" exclaimed Giovanni in a low voice.
"I beg your Excellencies' pardon if I am wrong, but this is how I know.
Gigi Secchi, the peasant from Aquaviva in the lower forest, brought a bag
of corn to the mill to-day, and he told the miller, and the miller told
Ettore, and Ettore told Nino, and Nino told--"
"What the devil did he tell him?" interrupted old Saracinesca.
"Nino told the cook's boy," continued Pasquale unmoved, "and the cook's
boy told me, your Excellency, that Gigi was passing along the road to
Serveti coming here, when he was stopped by a number of _guardiani_ who
accompanied a beautiful dark lady in black, who rode upon a mule, and the
_guardiani_ asked him if your Excellencies were at Saracinesca; and when
he said you were, the lady gave him a coin, and turned at once and rode
down the bridle-path towards Astrardente, and he said the _guardiani_
were those of the Astrardente, because he remembered to have seen one of
them, who has a scar over his left eye, at the great fair at Genazzano
last year. And that is how I heard."
"That is a remarkable narrative, Pasquale," answered the Prince, laughing
loudly, "but it seems very credible. Go and send for Gigi Secchi if he is
still in the neighbourhood, and bring him here, and let us have the story
from his own lips."
When they were alone the two men looked at each other for a moment, and
then old Saracinesca laughed again; but Giovanni looked very grave, and
his face was pale. Presently his father became serious again.
"If this thing is true," he said, "I would advise you, Giovanni, to pay a
visit to the other side of the hills. It is time."
Giovanni was silent for a moment. He was intensely interested in the
situation, but he could not tell his father that he had promised Corona
not to see her, and he had not yet explained to himself her sudden
appearance so near Saracinesca.
"I think it would be better for you to go first," he said to his father.
"But I am not at all sure this story is true."
"I? Oh, I will go when you please," returned the old man, with another
laugh. He was always ready for anything active.
But Gigi Secchi could not be found. He had returned to Aquaviva at once,
and it was not easy to send a message. Two days later, however, Giovanni
took the trouble of going to the man's home. He was not altogether
surprised when Gigi confirmed Pasquale's tale in every particular.
Corona had actually been at Saracinesca to find out if Giovanni was there
or not; and on hearing that he was at the castle, she had fled
precipitately. Giovanni was naturally grave and of a melancholy temper;
but during the last few months he had been more than usually taciturn,
occupying himself with dogged obstinacy in the construction of his
aqueduct, visiting the works in the day and spending hours in the evening
over the plans. He was waiting. He believed that Corona cared for him,
and he knew that he loved her, but for the present he must wait
patiently, both for the sake of his promise and for the sake of a decent
respect of her widowhood. In order to wait he felt the necessity of
constant occupation, and to that end he had set himself resolutely to
work with his father, whose ideal dream was to make Saracinesea the most
complete and prosperous community in that part of the mountains.
"I think if you would go over," he said, at the end of a week, "it would
be much better. I do not want to intrude myself upon her at present, and
you could easily find out whether she would like to see me. After all,
she may have been merely making an excursion for her amusement, and
may have chanced upon us by accident. I have often noticed how suddenly
one comes in view of the castle from that bridle-path."
"On the other hand," returned the Prince with a smile, "any one would
tell her that the path leads nowhere except to Saracinesca. But I will go
to-morrow," he added. "I will set your mind at rest in twenty-four
hours."
"Thank you," said Giovanni.