"But it is impossible!" she declared quickly. "There must surely be some mistake!"

"I heard it on the very best authority," was the young Frenchman's calm answer. "A court-martial has, it seems, been held with closed doors, and as a result the man Solaro has been dismissed and sentenced to imprisonment for a term of fifteen years."

"Dismissed the army!" she exclaimed blankly. "Then the court-martial found him guilty?"

"Certainly. But did you know the man?"

She hesitated a moment, then faltered--

"Yes, I knew him once. But what you tell me seems utterly impossible.

He was the very last man to betray Italy."

"They say that a woman induced him to prepare the plans," remarked the Frenchman. "But how far that is true I have no idea."

Mary's face was paler than before. Her brows were contracted, and in her dark, luminous eyes was a look of quick determination.

"Is my father aware of all this?" she demanded.

"Undoubtedly. He, of course, must have signed the decree dismissing Solaro from the army. I believe the matter is being kept as quiet as possible, but unfortunately the Socialists have somehow obtained knowledge of the true facts, and will go to the country with the cry that Italy, under the present Cabinet, is in danger." Then, after a slight pause, he went on, "I look upon your father as my friend, you know, signorina, therefore I think he ought to know the plot being formed against him. They intend to make certain distinct charges against him, of bribery, of receiving money from contractors who have supplied inferior goods, and of being directly responsible for the recent reverses in Abyssinia. If they do--" Pausing, he elevated his shoulders without concluding the sentence.

"But it is impossible, Count Dubard, that the man you name could have sold our military secrets?"

"You know him sufficiently well, then, to be aware of his loyalty?"

sniffed her companion suspiciously.

"I know that he would never be guilty of an act of treason," she answered quickly. "Therefore if he really has been convicted of such an offence, he must be the victim himself of some conspiracy."

The count regarded her heated declaration as the involuntary demonstration of a bond of friendship, and looked into her eyes in undisguised wonder. She stood facing him, her white hand upon the broken marble of an ancient vase, yellow and worn smooth by time.

"You appear to repose the utmost confidence in him," he remarked, surprised. "Why?"

"Because I am certain that he has fallen the victim of a plot," she declared, her face hard set and desperate. "If those enemies of my father's are endeavouring so cleverly to oust him from office, is it not quite feasible that they have laid the blame purposely upon Captain Solaro?"

"Why purposely?"

She paused, and again his eyes met hers.

"Because they knew that if Captain Solaro were accused," she said slowly, "my father, as Minister, would show him no clemency."

"Why?"

"There is a reason," she responded hoa.r.s.ely, adding, "I know that he is innocent--he _must_ be innocent."

"But he has been tried by a competent court-martial, and found guilty,"

remarked her companion.

"With closed doors?"

"And is not that the usual procedure in cases of grave offence? It would never do for the public to learn that the loyalty of Italy's officers had been found wanting. That would shake the confidence of the country."

"And yet my father's enemies are preparing to strike a crushing blow at him by making capital out of it?" she exclaimed. "Ah yes. I see--I see it all!" she cried. "It is a vile, despicable conspiracy which has sent to prison in disgrace an innocent man--a second case of Dreyfus!"

The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders but made no reply.

"You said that a woman's name had been mentioned in connection with the affair," she went on. "Was her name Nodari--Filomena Nodari--and does she not live in Bologna?"

Her companion's lips pressed themselves together, but so slightly that she did not notice the almost imperceptible expression of annoyance upon his face.

"I do not know," he declared. "I merely heard that there was a woman in the case, and that she had given certain evidence before the military court that left no doubt of the guilt of the accused. But," he added, half apologetically, "I had no idea, signorina, that Solaro was a friend of yours."

"Oh, he is not a friend, only an acquaintance," she protested.

"Then why are you so intensely interested in his welfare?" he inquired.

"Because I have certain reasons. An injustice has been done, and I shall at once ask my father to have the most searching inquiry made. He will do so, if it is my wish," she added confidently.

"Then you intend to champion the cause of the man who is accused of being a traitor to Italy?" remarked the wily Parisian, regarding her furtively as he spoke. "I fear, signorina, if you adopt any such course you will only place in the hands of your father's enemies a further weapon against him. No; if you desire to a.s.sist His Excellency at this very critical moment, you must refrain from taking any action which they could construe into your own desire, or your father's intention, to liberate the man who is convicted of having sold his country to its enemy."

"But it is unjust! He is innocent."

"Be that how it may, your duty surely is to help your father, not to act in a manner which would convince the public that he had connived at the sale of the military secrets of Tresenta."

Her dark eyes fixed themselves upon the distant towers and cupolas of Florence, down where the grey mists were now rising. They were filled with tears, and her chest beneath her laces heaved slowly and then fell again.

And the man lounging at her side with studied grace laughed within himself, triumphant at his own clever diplomacy.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

IN THE SILENCE OF NIGHT.

Dinner at the Villa San Donato was always a stately meal, served in that huge, lofty _sala di pranzo_, or dining-room, with its marble floor, its high prison-like windows closely barred with iron, its antique frescoed walls, and old low settees covered with dark green damask running right round the apartment.

In that enormous echoing room nothing had been touched for two hundred years. The old oak furniture had been well-preserved, the great high-backed chairs, covered with leather and studded with big bra.s.s nails, the fine carved buffet, and the graven shield over the door bearing the arms of the princely house that had once owned the place, all spoke of a brilliant magnificence of days bygone when those huge halls had echoed to the tread of armed men, and the lord of San Donato entertained his retainers and bravoes with princely generosity. The villa was so huge that the guest easily lost himself in its ramifications, its long corridors and huge salons each leading from one to the other. Like all the fortified villas of the cinquecento, every window on the ground floor was closely barred, and this, combined with the bareness of the rooms, gave to them an aspect of austerity. Over the whole place was a comfortless air, like that of most Italian houses, save in Madame Morini's rose boudoir, and the little sitting-room which Mary had arranged in English style, and called her own.

In the great dining-room there was sitting accommodation for two hundred, and yet on that evening the party only numbered six: Her Excellency, Mary, Jules Dubard, an English schoolfellow of Mary's named Violet Walters, the fair-haired daughter of an eminent KC, and two sisters, named Anna and Eva Fry, daughters of an English merchant at Genoa whom Her Excellency had invited up for the vintage.

The voices of the little party echoed strangely in that enormous old apartment, and from time to time a peal of laughter came back from the corners of the place with weird and startling repet.i.tion. The party had that day made an excursion over to another estate which the Minister possessed above the Arno, at Empoli, where the vintage was in full swing. The trip had been delightful, and the peasantry had received them with that deep homage and generous hospitality which the Tuscan _contadini_ extend to their lord.

All were in good spirits except Mary, who, in a gown of pale carnation pink, sat conversing mechanically in English with her friend Violet, a pretty girl, about a year her senior, but within herself reflecting deeply upon what the man sitting opposite her had told her when out upon the terrace an hour before.

Her father was in peril; it was her duty to warn him. Felice Solaro had fallen a victim of some dastardly plot, but for what reason and how was an utter mystery.

She longed to explain to her father all that the count had told her, but in reply to a question, her mother had said that she did not expect him to leave Rome for at least a fortnight. Therefore she remained thoughtful, apprehensive, and undecided how to act. At first she had contemplated explaining everything to her mother, but on reflection she saw that there were certain reasons why her anxiety should not be aroused. Her Excellency was in very delicate health, and while in London had consulted a physician, who had told her that she must have as little mental worry as possible. For that reason Mary resolved to hide the serious truth from her.

Dubard, with his studied elegance of manner, was entertaining the ladies with droll stories, for he was something of a humourist, and essentially a ladies' man. Once or twice as Mary's eyes met his he saw in them an expression of deep anxiety, and of course knew well the reason.

The Fry girls were particularly interested in the young Frenchman, of whom they had heard as a new star in the social firmament in Rome during the previous season, but, being provincials, they had not met him. Both were dark and fairly good-looking; Eva aged about twenty-one, and Anna two years her senior. Their father, Henry Fry, was an exporter of marble and of olive oil, who, like his father before him, carried on business in Genoa, and had ama.s.sed a considerable fortune; but Mrs Fry's death three years previously had left the girls to shift for themselves in the social world, and their mother having long been an intimate friend of Her Excellency, the latter each year invited the girls up to San Donato as company for Mary.

Dinner ended at last, and the little party pa.s.sed through the three great salons lit by the thousand wax candles in their antique sconces, into the minor drawing-room beyond, which was always used of an evening because it was cosier and small enough to be carpeted.