Six weeks later two young Americans were sitting on the deck of the
Cunarder _Siberia_, which had that morning left the Queenstown harbor.
"Jack," said the one, laying his hand on the other's shoulder in a way
that expressed an untold amount of friendliness, "I don't think it is
good policy to keep silence any longer. I know I have committed my
monumental piece of folly, as you prophesied, but I need hardly tell
you, Jack, that I didn't know at the time what--what I know now," he
finished, hurriedly.
"I never doubted that, Harry," answered the other with a certain
solemn impressiveness. "But don't let us talk. I have not reached the
stage yet when I can mention her name without a pang; and I fear--I
fear I never shall."
They sat for a long while smoking in silence and gazing pensively
toward the dim coast-line of Europe, which was gradually fading away
upon the eastern horizon.
"Jack," began Vincent abruptly, "I feel as if I had passed through a
severe illness."
"So you have, Harry," retorted Cranbrook.
"Oh, pshaw! I don't mean that. That little physical suffering was
nothing more than I deserved. But a fever, they say, sometimes
purifies the blood, and mine, I think, has left me a cleaner and a
wiser fellow than it found me."
The steamer kept ploughing its broad pathway of foam through the
billows; a huge cloud of fantastic shape loomed up in the east, and
the vanishing land blended with and melted away among its fleecy
embankments.
"Are you perfectly sure, Jack," said Vincent, throwing the burning
stump of his cigar over the gunwale, "that the experiences of the past
year have not been all an excursion into the 'Arabian Nights'? If it
were not for that fine marble relief in my trunk which I bought of
that miserable buffoon in the Via Sistina, I should easily persuade
myself that the actual world were bounded on the east by the Atlantic
and on the west by the Pacific Ocean. I was just considering whether I
should try to smuggle it through the custom-house, or whether,
perhaps, it would be wiser to give Uncle Sam his due."
"And what does the relief represent?" asked Cranbrook, half
indifferently.
"It is a copy from an antique one. Agamemnon robbing Achilles of
his--"
Cranbrook gave a start, and walked rapidly toward the other end of the
boat. In half an hour he returned, stopped in front of Vincent,
grasped his hand warmly and said:
"Harry, let us agree never to refer to that which is passed. In your
life it was an episode, in mine it was a catastrophe."
Since that day, Annunciata's name has never passed their lips.
There is, however, an epilogue to this tale which cannot well be left
untold. In the winter of 187-, ten years after their first Italian
sojourn, the two friends again visited Rome together. One beautiful
day in February, they found themselves, perhaps not quite by accident,
in the neighborhood of the well-remembered villa. They rang the bell
at the garden gate and were admitted by a robust young man who seemed
to be lounging among the overgrown hedges in some official capacity.
The mossy Triton was still prosecuting his thankless task in the midst
of his marble basin; the long stairs to the terrace were yet as damp
and slippery as of old, and the noseless Roman senator was still
persevering in his majestic attitude, although a sprig of maiden-hair
was supporting its slender existence in the recess of his countenance
which had once been occupied by his stately nose. Vincent and
Cranbrook both regarded these familiar objects with peculiar emotions,
but faithful to their agreement, they made no comment. At last they
stopped before the sarcophagus--and verily Babetta was still there. A
clean and chubby-faced Italian baby with large black eyes rose out of
its marble depth and hailed them with simple, inarticulate delight.
Cranbrook gazed long at the child, then lifted it up in his arms and
kissed it. The young man who had opened the gate for them stood by
observing the scene with a doubtful expression of suspicion and
wonder. As the stranger again deposited the child on the blanket in
the bottom of the sarcophagus, he stepped up before the door and
called:
"Annunciata!"
A tall, comely matron appeared in the door--and the strangers hastened
away.