The old Duca appeared again, and slipped quietly into his place, as before. But at the end of a week there was an unexpected flaring-up of energy, as it were, in his docile and affectionate being. When he and his wife and Veronica were with Gianluca, he suddenly declared that the situation must end, and that they must all go down to Naples. Veronica should send for the syndic, and have the legal marriage at once, and then they would all go down together. It was quite clear in his mind, as simple as daylight, as easy of performance as breathing, as satisfactory as satisfaction itself. The d.u.c.h.essa was with him, and supported all he said with approving nods and futile gestures and incoherent phrases thrown in, as one throws straws upon a stream to see the current carry them away.

Gianluca said nothing, and Veronica stood alone against them all, for she knew that he was on his father's side. She guessed, perhaps, that Gianluca had made up his mind never to leave her roof except as her lawful husband, clinging to her, as he had tried to cling to her skirt on that most eventful day when she had gone to the window for a moment; and she understood why, having spoken once, he would not speak again. He was too proud to repeat such a request, but his love was far too obstinate to be satisfied with less than its fulfilment. But his own hope for his recovery was more alive than hers.

Instinctively, as she opposed them all, Veronica looked round for Taquisara. It was not often that she needed help, and she knew that he could have helped her, had he been there. But she had to speak for herself. She said what she could; but in that self-examination which self-defence forces upon those who have never dissected their own hearts, a new and fearful truth sprang up, clear of all others, bright, keen, and terrible.

It was no longer for her people's sake that she was waiting in the hope of Gianluca's recovery. It was no longer for her own, nor for his. It was out of her deadly love for Taquisara that all her nature rose against that final bond of the law, and the world, and society. So long as that was not yet welded and made fast upon her, there was the fleeting shadow of a desperate hope that she might still be free.

It rose and smote her between the eyes, and clutched at her heart; and when she knew its face, she stopped in the midst of her speech, and turned white, even to her lips and her throat.

"I do not know. I will think about it," she said faintly.

As her power to oppose gave way, the Duca's astonishment at his victory swelled his weakness to violence; and he raved of duties and obligations, of paternal authority, of the obedience of children and children-in-law, in all the boundless, self-a.s.sured incoherence of feebleness suddenly let loose against smitten strength.

Veronica seemed to hear nothing. She had resumed her seat beside Gianluca, and was stroking his white hand,--less thin than it had been, but somehow even more lifeless,--and she looked down at it very thoughtfully, while he watched her face. He was happier than he had been for a long time, for he knew that she was going to make a concession, and that he had not asked for it.

There was silence, and Veronica raised her head. The old Duca's face was red with the exertion of much speaking. He was a good man and meant well, but in that moment Veronica hated him as she had never hated any one, not even Matilde Macomer. And yet she knew that his intention was all for the best, and that it was natural that he should press his point and exult when she gave up the fight. She opened her lips to speak.

At that moment the door turned on its hinges opposite her eyes, and Taquisara stood before her. He came in quietly and not knowing that anything extraordinary was occurring. But his eyes met hers for one moment, and instantly her cheek reddened in the evening light.

"I will give you a promise," she said slowly. "This is the first week in December. If Gianluca is not much better by the first of January, I will do as you ask. The civil marriage shall take place here, and if he wishes to go down to Naples, we will all go together."

The Duca began to speak again, sure that he could press her further. But she interrupted him. Taquisara had gone to the window and was turning his back on them all.

"No," said Veronica. "That is what I will do, and I will do it--I have promised--that, and nothing else."

She had risen, and as she p.r.o.nounced the last words, she left Gianluca's side and, with her eyes fixed before her, went straight to the door, pale and erect. She felt that she had given her life a second time.

Taquisara heard her footsteps, left the window, and opened the door for her to pa.s.s, standing aside while she went by. He saw her head move a little, as though she would turn and look at him, and he saw how resolutely she resisted and looked before her. He understood that she would not trust herself to see his eyes again, and he quietly closed the door behind her. She knew what he must have felt when she had spoken, and he felt a lofty pride that she should trust him to bear the knife without warning, sure that he would utter no cry.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

The tenth of December was at hand, on which day Don Teodoro had been in the habit of going to Naples to pay his annual visit to his friend Don Matteo. When Taquisara told him of what had taken place, the priest knew that he need not disturb Veronica for permission to leave Muro, merely for the sake of gaining a day or two. One day was all he needed, and there would be three weeks from the tenth of December to the first of January. He made his preparations for the little journey with much care, and went away with more luggage than usual. He also set all his ma.n.u.scripts and books in order. When he was going away he gave the key of his little house to Taquisara.

"I do not expect to come back," he said. "But you will hear from me. It will be kind of you to have my books and ma.n.u.scripts sent to an address which I will give you in my letter. I do not think that we shall meet again. Good-bye. If I were not what I am, I would bless you. Good-bye."

Taquisara held his hand for a moment.

"We shall all bless you," he answered, "if you can end this trouble."

"I can," said the priest. "And your blessing is worth having."

He went away quickly, as though not trusting himself to speak any more.

He had taken leave of Veronica and the rest as hastily as he could without giving offence to any one. It was not until he looked back at the poor people who waved their hands at him as he went out of the village that the hot tears streamed down his cheeks.

He was twenty-four hours in reaching Naples, as usual, and his friend greeted him with open arms as he always did. He thought that Don Teodoro looked ill and tired, and as it was a fine day they walked the short distance from Don Matteo's house to the cafe where the priest had sat with Bosio, and they each drank a cup of chocolate.

Don Matteo observed that the tenth of December had been a fine day in the preceding year, too, and Don Teodoro tried to remember in what year it had last rained on that date. They ate little puffed bits of pastry with their chocolate, and they sat a long time over it, while Don Matteo told Don Teodoro of an interesting doc.u.ment of the fourteenth century which he had discovered in a private library. Don Teodoro spoke rarely, but not at random, for the thinking habit of the scholarly mind does not easily break down, even under a great strain.

Then they went back to Don Matteo's house, and sat down together in the study. Don Matteo wondered why his friend did not unpack and arrange his belongings, especially as he had brought more luggage than usual with him, but he saw that he was tired, and said nothing. Don Teodoro took off his spectacles, and rubbed them bright with the corner of his mantle. He looked at them and took a long time over polishing them, for he was thinking of all the things he had seen through the old silver-rimmed gla.s.ses, some of which he should never see again.

"My friend," he said at last, "I wish to tell you a secret."

Don Matteo turned slowly in his seat, uncrossed his knees, and looked at him.

"You may trust me," he answered.

"I know that," said Don Teodoro. "But there are reasons, as you will see, why you cannot receive this as an ordinary secret. I wish to tell it to you as a confession. You will then have to consult the archbishop, before giving me absolution--and advice."

"Is it as serious as that?" asked Don Matteo, very much surprised, for only the very gravest matters, and generally the most terrible crimes, are referred to the bishop by a confessor.

"It is a grave matter," answered Don Teodoro. "Have the kindness to get your stole, and I will make my confession, here. But we will lock the enter door of the outer room, if you please."

He was shivering, and his face was white as he rose to go and slip the bolt. Re-entering the room, he locked the inner door also behind him.

Don Matteo had produced from a drawer an old violet stole with tarnished silver embroidery. It was carefully wrapped up in thin, clean, white paper. A priest always wears the stole in administering any of the seven sacraments. He pa.s.sed it over his head, and the broad bands fell over his breast, and he held the ends, upon which were embroidered small Greek crosses, in one of his hands. Grave and silent, he sat down beside the table, resting his elbow upon it and shading his eyes with his other hand.

Don Teodoro knelt down, beside him at the table, and each said his part of the preliminary form in a low voice. When Don Teodoro had said the first half of the 'Confiteor,' he was silent for some time, and Don Matteo was aware that his tall, thin frame was trembling, for the table shook under his elbow. Then he began to speak, as follows:--

"I must tell the story of my life. My father was an officer in the army of King Ferdinand, under the former government, and I was his only child. He had a little fortune, and his pay was relatively large for those days, so that I was brought up as a gentleman's son. My father, who had been so fortunate as to make many advantageous friendships in the course of his career, wished me to enter the military academy and the army. By his interest I should have had rapid advancement. But this was not my inclination. Ever since I can remember anything, I know that I ardently wished to be a priest. As a little boy, I used to make a small altar in a dark room behind my own, and I used to adorn it and dress it for the feast days, and light tapers on it, and save my pocket money to buy tiny silver ornaments for it. Before I could read I knew the Rosary and the short Litanies, and I used to say them very devoutly before my little altar, with genuflexions and other gestures such as I saw the priests make in church. My father smiled sometimes, but he did not interfere. He was a devout man, though he was a soldier. I had some facility for learning, also, and was fond of all books. My mother died when I was four years old.

"I need not tell how the devout pa.s.sion increased in me as I grew older.

I pa.s.sed through all the stages of such development very quickly. My father believed that I had a true vocation for the Church, and yielding to my entreaties and to the advice of his friends, who told him that he could never make a soldier of such a boy, he allowed me to enter a seminary. I was very happy, and my love of books and my earnest desire to be a priest continued to increase. I was made a deacon and received the tonsure. Then I fell ill. It was the will of Heaven, for I never was ill before that, nor have been since. It was a long illness, a dangerous fever. Just before that time, while I was in the seminary, my father had married a second time, a young and very beautiful woman, scarcely two years older than I. They both took care of me, and she was very kind and liked me from the first.

"I loved her. That was perhaps an illness also, for I never suffered in that way again. It was very terrible, for I knew what a great sin it was to love my father's wife. I never told her that I loved her, and she was always the same, kind and good. My heart was red-hot iron in my breast, day and night, and it was very long before I was really well again.

After that, I confessed my sin many times, but I could not feel repentance for it. My father wondered, and so did she, why I would not go back to the seminary for the few months that remained to complete my studies. It would have been better if I had gone back. But I loved her, and I could not. I could not confess the sin in my heart to the confessor of the seminary, for whom I had great esteem and who had known me so long, I was ashamed, and waited, thinking that it would pa.s.s. But I wished to escape.

"I joined myself as a lay brother to a Franciscan mission that was going to Africa. My father made many objections to this, but I overcame them. I think he guessed that I loved his wife, and though he loved me, too, he was glad that I should go away. As for me, I trusted that in the labours of a distant mission I should forget my love, feel honest repentance, receive absolution, and be ordained a true priest by a missionary bishop.

"We were seven who started together upon that mission. After two years I alone was left alive. One after the other they died of the fever of that country. We had written for help, but I knew afterwards that our letters had not reached the sea. That was why no one came to bring help. We had converted people amongst those savages and had built a chapel. Even those who were not converted were friendly, for we had taught them many things. My companions all died, one by one, and I buried the last. But I myself was never ill of the fever. Yet the people there clung around me.

I committed a great sin. They had no priest, and they did not understand that I was not one, for I dressed like the others. If there were no more services in the little chapel, they would think that Christianity was dead, and they would fall back to their former condition. I took the sin upon myself, and I said ma.s.s for them, knowing that it was no ma.s.s, and praying that G.o.d would forgive me, and that it might not be a sacrilege.

I did not fall ill. I lived amongst them, and received their confessions and administered all the sacraments when they were required, for the s.p.a.ce of a year and a half, during which I sent many appeals for help. But in my letters I did not explain what I was doing, for I intended to go to the bishop if I ever got home alive, and confess to him.

"At last help came, priests and lay brothers. It pleased Heaven that they should come at last at the very moment when I was saying ma.s.s for the people. Of course there was no bishop amongst them, and none of them knew that I was not a priest. I should have confessed the truth to the eldest of them, but I had no courage, for I did not do it at once, but put it off, and as every priest said ma.s.s every day, I said mine, too, on the first morning after the others had come. I wished to go away at once. But I alone knew all the people, and could preach a little in their language, and I was much loved by them, for I had been alone with them during eighteen months. So my new brethren would not let me go, and after what I had done so far, I was ashamed to tell the truth about myself. They looked up to me as a superior, because I had been so long in the mission and had lived through what had killed so many. They thought me very humble and praised my humility. But it was not humility--it was shame.

"During two years more I remained with them, and two of them died, but the rest lived, for I had learned how men should live in that country in order to escape the fevers, and I taught them. The mission grew, and many people were converted. Then they began to speak of sending home two of their number to Rome, to give an account of the work, and to get more help, if possible, in order that the conversion might be carried further into the country; and they decided to do so. It was my right to be one of the two, and I took it. My companion was a young priest less strong than the rest, and we left the mission and after a long journey we got home safely. I meant to go to the first bishop I met, and make my confession.

"But when we came to Rome and we were giving an account of what had been done, the young priest thrust me forward to speak, as was natural, and I seemed to be a personage of importance, because I had lived through so many perils and had outlived so many. We two were invited to dinner by cardinals, and were admitted to a private audience of the Pope.

Everybody seemed to know what I had done, and even the liberal newspapers praised my courage and devotion.

"I had no courage, for being full of vanity, I never confessed my sin.

But I would not go back to the mission, and when I could leave Rome, I left the young priests there and went to Naples to see my father. He had read what had been written about me, and was proud of me, and he received me gladly, for he loved me and was a devout man. Six years had pa.s.sed since I had seen his wife, and though I trembled when I was just about to see her, yet when she entered the room I knew that I did not love her any more, and I was very much pleased to find that this sin, at least, had left me.

"I lived with them several years, devoting myself to study, and I used to say my ma.s.s in a church close by. For I was a priest by nature and heart, and I had grown so used to my sin of sacrilege, that I shut my eyes, and told myself that it was the wish of Heaven. But the truth is, I was a coward. It was then that you first knew me and you know how my father died and my stepmother married again, and how I undertook to be the tutor of poor Bosio Macomer. But with years, the city grew distasteful to me, and I wished to be alone, for Bosio was grown up, and I had no heart for teaching any one else. I was also very poor, having spent what my father left me, both on books, and in other ways of which I need not speak because there was nothing wrong in what I did with the money.

"And then, Count Macomer--the one who is now insane--offered to make me curate of Muro and chaplain of the castle of the Serra, all of which you know. And I, accustomed to my wickedness, and feeling myself a priest, though I was not one, accepted it for the peace of it.