"But tell me," cried Mary, utterly amazed at the unhappy man's startling
allegations, "do you actually declare that Dubard and Mr Macbean have
conspired in order to throw the opprobrium upon you?"
"I do," he answered in a low, hard tone. "I am convinced of it.
Macbean is an Englishman living in London--secretary to an English
deputy named Morgan-Mason."
"He is a friend of mine," she remarked quietly. "I know him quite
well."
"Then do not trust him," Solaro urged. "He is the--" But he hesitated,
as though fearing to make any direct charge against one who was her
friend.
"The what?" she inquired eagerly.
For a few moments he remained silent.
"He is the man who, with Dubard, was the cause of my downfall," he
responded, although from his hesitating tone she felt assured that those
words were not what he had first intended to utter.
"And Dubard?" she asked, her face now very grave.
"What use is it to discuss either of them?" he said bitterly. "I am
their victim--that is all."
"But with what motive?" she asked, bewildered at this revelation. "What
connection can Mr Macbean possibly have with these false scandalous
charges against you?"
"Ah! the motive is more than I can tell," he declared. "I can only
surmise it."
"But there surely must be some motive!" she remarked, at the same time
recollecting what she had learnt, that the information furnished by
Dubard formed the basis of the charges intended to be levelled by the
Socialists against her father.
"I have never had an opportunity of ascertaining it," he said. "I
would, however, desire to warn you most strongly against that man
Macbean."
Mary remained silent. What he had said puzzled and mystified her. His
words were not prompted by motives of jealousy. That was impossible,
for he was unaware of Macbean's presence in Rome. As far as she knew,
the two men had never been acquainted--the one an officer in garrison in
the Alps, and the other living in far-off London. She endeavoured to
induce him to speak more plainly, but it was evident that her
acknowledgment that Macbean was her friend prevented him from opening
his mind concerning him.
All her sympathies being with the imprisoned man, she felt a distinct
suspicion arising within her concerning the young Englishman.--She
wondered whether after all he had really schemed to obtain an
appointment in the Ministry; if his present position was only in
furtherance of some sinister object?
She spoke of Dubard, but the prisoner was equally silent concerning him.
"What I can tell you about either of them amounts to nothing without
proof, and without my liberty I cannot obtain that. They know it!" he
said angrily. "They know that while I am here, in prison, my lips are
sealed!"
"But it is infamous!" exclaimed the red-faced old general. "If you were
the victim of a plot laid by these two fellows, whoever they are, the
matter ought to be sifted to the bottom. I don't believe you are
guilty, Solaro! I told His Excellency the Minister so!"
"Ah, my dear general, you have been my best friend," declared the man
now clothed in sacking in lieu of a uniform. "But your efforts must all
be unavailing. They are sending me to the loneliness of Gorgona, that
place where many a better man than myself has been driven insane by
solitude. They know that on Gorgona I shall not live very long--indeed,
they will take very good care of that."
"They--who are they?" inquired Mary quickly.
"My enemies."
"Mr Macbean and Dubard, you mean?"
"No, others--others I need not name," he responded vaguely, with a
careless shrug of his shoulders.
"But if you are the victim of a plot it must have been a most elaborate
one, for the mass of evidence against you seems overwhelming. What
object could the conspirators have had in view? Were they friends of
yours?"
"Yes--once. Their object was probably not of their own--but that of
others," he added.
His words left the impression upon her that his conviction was part of
the elaborate scheme of Angelo Borselli. And yet was not that very man
now urging her to secure his release!
The affair was increased in mystery a thousandfold.
"Then if Mr Macbean was only slightly known to you why should he have
plotted to secure your ruin and imprisonment?" she queried in eagerness.
"As I have already said, they were both in peril as long as I was at
liberty. It was to their own interests--indeed for their own safety--
that I should be sent here."
"What do they fear?"
"They fear what I could reveal--the facts that I could prove if I were
not held here a prisoner," he said bitterly.
"And would those facts be strange ones?"
"They would be startling--they would create a sensation throughout
Italy. They would throw a new light on certain affairs connected with
the Ministry of War that would come as a thunderclap upon the people."
"You defied the Minister, remember," his general remarked gravely.
"I know. I lost my head. I broke my sword and threw the pieces at his
feet in defiance. I was foolish--ah! very foolish. Only I was angry at
his refusal to order a revision of my trial."
"Yes," the general admitted. "You have prejudiced yourself in His
Excellency's eyes, I fear. Your indignation was but natural, but it was
ill-advised at that moment. The Minister Morini is not the man to brook
defiance in that manner."
"But I do defy him still!" cried the desperate man, turning to the
tragic figure in black. "Although he is your father, signorina, I
repeat that he has done me an injustice--and that injustice is because
he, like the others, fears to give me my liberty!"
"But if you were released--if I could manage to obtain for you a
pardon--would you make the revelations of which you have spoken?"
For some minutes he was silent, thinking deeply, apparently reflecting
upon the consequences of speaking the truth. Then he answered--
"No. I think not."
"Why not?"
"Because--well, because there are one or two facts of which I have no
absolute proof."
"But you are certain of Dubard's connection with the false charges
against you?"
"Positive. He arranged with Filomena Nodari for _my_ betrayal."
"But why? I cannot see the motive, and yet he must have had one!"
"In his own interests, as well as those of the Englishman."
"You mean Macbean?"
"Yes--the betrayer!"
Mary's heart beat quickly. She could not grasp his meaning, yet he
refused to tell her plainly the whole of the strange circumstances,
apparently fearing to give her pain because she had declared herself to
be a friend of the Englishman. He was, of course, in ignorance of their
friendship, just as he was in ignorance of her engagement to Jules
Dubard.
She was in a dilemma--a dilemma absolute and complete. What Borselli
had declared--namely, that the unfortunate captain was in possession of
some facts which he would prove if he regained his liberty--seemed to be
the truth. Yet if she secured his liberty by pressing her father to
pardon him, she would only be deliberately giving to his political
enemies a weapon whereby they might hound him from office. While,
further, he refused to make her a direct promise to tell the truth, or
make the revelations--even if liberated.
What could she do? How could she act? His allegations held her amazed,
speechless. He had declared himself to be the victim of the ingenious
conspiracy formed by the Frenchman and by George Macbean--the latter, of
all men! The whole affair was an enigma that was inexplicable.
That Macbean had entered into a plot against him was utterly beyond her
comprehension. He was essentially a Londoner, and had surely no
interest whatsoever in the Alpine defences of Italy! Dubard was
certainly his friend. Had he not, indeed, told her so? He had, only a
fortnight before, expressed a hope that Dubard would soon return from
the Pyrenees.
And yet that broken, desperate man--the man with whom she had had that
pleasant flirtation during one Roman season--had fallen their victim!
But if so, why was Borselli now anxious that he should be freed in order
to make his revelations against the very man Dubard who was his intimate
friend--the man who it was said had furnished the Opposition with
facts--most of them false--regarding her father's political
shortcomings?
She tried to reason it all out, but became the more and more utterly
bewildered.
The reason of the captain's denunciation of George Macbean was a
mystery. When he mentioned the Englishman's name she had noticed a
flash in his deep-set eyes betokening a deadly, deep-rooted hatred. And
yet it was upon this very man that all her thoughts and reflections had
of late been centred.
As they were alone in that grim, gloomy room with its barred partition--
the governor having granted them a private conference--she explained how
the Socialists had endeavoured to make capital out of the charges
against him with a view to obtaining her father's dismissal from office.
She made no mention of her compact with Dubard or her engagement to
him, but merely explained how at the eleventh hour, while Montebruno was
on his feet in the Chamber of Deputies, the mysterious note had been
placed in his hand which had had the effect of arresting the charges he
was about to pour forth.
Solaro listened to her in silence while she gave a description of the
scene in the Chamber, and related certain details of the conspiracy
which she had learned through her father, the details gathered in secret
by Vito Ricci.
"Ah?" he sighed at last, having listened open-mouthed. "It is exactly
as I expected. Your father's enemies are mine. Having drawn me safely
into their net, they intend to use my condemnation as proof of the
insecurity of the frontier and the culpability of the Minister of War."
"But if they attack the Minister they must attack me personally?"
exclaimed the general in surprise; for he had been in ignorance of the
widespread intrigue to hold the Ministry of War up to public ridicule
and condemnation. "As the frontier is under my command, I am personally
responsible for its security?"
"Exactly," Solaro said in a somewhat quieter tone. "If His Excellency
had ordered a revision of my trial, I should most certainly have been
proved innocent, and that being so, the Socialists would have had no
direct charge which they could level against the Ministry. But as it
is, I stand here condemned, imprisoned as a traitor, and therefore my
general is culpable, and above him the Minister himself."
"My father should have pardoned you long ago. It is infamous!" Mary
declared, with rising anger. "By refusing your appeal for a new trial
he placed himself in this position of peril!"
"Had I been released I would have given into his hands certain
information by which he could have crushed the infamous intrigue against
him," said the man behind the bars in a low, desperate tone. "But now
it is too late for a revision of my sentence. Our enemies have
triumphed. I am to be sent to Gorgona, sent to my death, while the plot
against His Excellency still exists, and the _coup_ will be made against
him at the very moment when he feels himself the most secure." Then,
watching the pale face, he added suddenly, "Forgive me, signorina, for
speaking frankly like this; he is, I recollect, your father. But he has
done me a grave injustice; he could have saved me--saved himself--if he
had cared to do so."
"But you have said that my father fears to give you your liberty?" She
remarked. "If that is so, it is fear, and not disinclination, that has
prevented him granting you a pardon?"
"It is both," he declared hoarsely.
"But is there no one else who could assist you--who would expose these
enemies and their plot?" she asked.
"No one," he answered. "The most elaborate preparations were made to
set the trap into which I unfortunately fell. I was watched in Paris,
in Bologna, in Turin--in garrison and out of it. My every movement was
noted, in order that it might be misconstrued. That Frenchman who
struck up an acquaintance with me in Paris, and who afterwards lent me
money, was in the pay of my enemies; and from that all the damning
evidence against me was constructed with an ingenuity that was fiendish.
I, an innocent man, was condemned without being given any opportunity
of proving my defence! Ask Dubard, or the Englishman. Ask them to tell
the truth--if they dare!"
"But tell me more of Mr Macbean," she cried eagerly. "What do you
allege against him?"
"I make no allegations," he answered in a low, changed voice. "I can
suffer in silence. Only when you meet that man tell him that Felice
Solaro, from his prison, sends him his warmest remembrances. Then watch
his face--that is all. His countenance will tell you the truth."