"Nay, nay, Loo, no fear of that!"

"On the contrary, papa, every hope of it! The best thing I could ask for would be oblivion."

"My dear Loo," said he, impressively, "the world has not got one half so good a memory as you fancy. It is our own foolish timidity--what certain folk call conscience--that suggests the idea how people are talking of us, and, like the valet in the comedy, we begin confessing our sins before we 're accused of them!"

"I know that is _your_ theory, papa," said she, laughing, "and that one ought always to 'die innocent.'"

"Of course, my dear. It is only the jail chaplain benefits by what is called 'a full disclosure of the terrible tragedy.'"

"I hear my carriage creeping up quietly to the door," said she, listening. "Be sure you let me see you early tomorrow. Good-night."

CHAPTER XXXVI. A GRAVE SCENE IN LIGHT COMPANY

Moralists have often found a fruitful theme in the utter barrenness of all the appliances men employ for their pleasures. What failures follow them, what weariness, what satiety and heart-sickness! The feast of Belshazzar everywhere!

To the mere eye nothing could be more splendid, nothing more suggestive of enjoyment, than the Pergola of Florence when brilliantly lighted and thronged with a gay and merry company. Character figures in every variety fancy or caprice could suggest--Turks, Styrians, Highlanders, Doges, Dervishes, and Devils--abounded, with Pifferari from Calabria, Muleteers, Matadors, and Conjurers; Boyards from Tobolsk jostled Male Crusaders, and Demons that might have terrified St. Anthony flitted past with Sisters of Charity! Strange parody upon the incongruities of our every-day life, costume serving but to typify the moral incompatibilities which are ever at work in our actual existence! for are not the people we see linked together--are not the social groupings we witness--just as widely separated by every instinct and every sentiment as are these characters in all their motley? Are the two yonder, as they sit at the fireside, not as remote from each other as though centuries had rolled between them? They toil along, it is true, together; they drag the same harden, but with different hopes and fears and motives. Bethink you "the friends so linked together" are like-minded? No, it is all masquerade; and the motley is that same easy conventionality by which we hope to escape undetected and unknown!

Our business now is not with the mass of this great assemblage; we are only interested for two persons,--one of whom, a tall figure in a black domino, leans against a pillar yonder, closely scrutinizing each new-comer that enters, and eagerly glancing at the sleeve of every yellow domino that passes.

He has been there from an early hour of the evening, and never left it since. Many a soft voice has whispered some empty remark on his impassiveness; more than once a jest-ing sarcasm has been uttered upon his participation in the gayety around; but he has never replied, but with folded arms patiently awaited the expected one. At last he is joined by another, somewhat shorter and stouter, but dressed like him, who, bending close to his ear, whispers,--

"Why are you standing here,--have you not seen her?"

"No; she has never passed this door."

"She entered by the stage, and has been walking about this hour. I saw her talking to several, to whom, to judge by their gestures, her remarks must have been pointed enough; but there she is,--see, she is leaning on the arm of that Malay chief. Join her; you know the signal."

Paten started suddenly from his lounging attitude, and cleft his way through the crowd, little heeding the comments his rude persistence called forth. As he drew nigh where the yellow domino stood, he hesitated and glanced around him, as though he felt that every eye was watching him, and only after a moment or so did he seem to remember that he was disguised. At last he approached her, and, taking her sleeve in his hand, unpinned the little cross of tricolored ribbon and fastened it on his own domino. With a light gesture of farewell she quickly dismissed her cavalier and took his arm.

[Illustration: 392]

As he led her along through the crowd, neither spoke, and it was only at last, as seemingly baffled to find the spot he sought for, she said,--

"All places are alike here. Let us talk as we walk along."

A gentle pressure on her arm seemed to assent, and she went on:--

"It was only at the last moment that I determined to come here this evening. You have deceived me. Yes; don't deny it Paten is with you here, and you never told me."

He muttered something that sounded like apology.

"It was unfair of you," said she, hurriedly, "for I was candid and open with you; and it was needless, besides, for we are as much apart as if hundreds of miles separated us. I told you already as much."

"But why not see him? He alone can release you from the bond that ties you; he may be more generous than you suspect."

"He generous! Who ever called him so?"

"Many who knew him as well as you," cried he, suddenly.

With a bound she disengaged her arm from him, and sprang back.

"Do not touch me; lay so much as a finger on me, and I 'll unmask and call upon this crowd for protection!" cried she, in a voice trembling with passion. "I know you now."

"Let me speak with you a few words,--the last I shall ever ask,"

muttered he, "and I promise all you dictate."

"Leave me--leave me at once," said she, in a mere whisper. "If you do not leave me, I will declare aloud who you are."

"Who _we_ are; don't forget yourself," muttered he.

"For that I care not I am ready."

"For mercy's sake, Loo, do not," cried he, as she lifted her hand towards the strings of her mask. "I will go. You shall never see me more. I came here to make the one last reparation I owe you, to give you up your letters, and say good-bye forever."

"That you never did,--never!" cried she, passionately. "You came because you thought how, in the presence of this crowd, the terror of exposure would crush my woman's heart, and make me yield to any terms you pleased."

"If I swear to you by all that I believe is true--"

"You never did believe; your heart rejected belief. When I said I knew you, I meant it all: I do know you. I know, besides, that when the scaffold received one criminal, it left another, and a worse, behind.

For many a year you have made my life a hell. I would not care to go on thus; all your vengeance and all the scorn of the world would be light compared to what I wake to meet each morning, and close my eyes to, as I sleep at night."

"Listen to me, Loo, but for one moment. I do not want to justify myself.

You are not more wretched than I am,--utterly, irretrievably wretched!"

"Where are the letters?" said she, in a low whisper.

"They are here,--in Florence."

"What sum will you take for them?"

"They shall be yours unbought, Loo, if you will but hear me.

"I want the letters; tell me their price."

"The price is simply one meeting--one opportunity to clear myself before you--to show you how for years my heart has clung to you."

"I cannot buy them at this cost. Tell me how much money you will have for them."

"It is your wish to outrage, to insult me, then?" muttered he, in a voice thick with passion.

"Now you are natural; now you are yourself; and now I can speak to you.

Tell me your price."

"Your shame!--your open degradation! The spectacle of your exposure before all Europe, when it shall have been read in every language and talked of in every city."

"I have looked for that hour for many a year, Paul Hunt, and its arrival would be mercy, compared with the daily menace of one like _you_."