"Are you fond of sweets? I always keep them for Cesare; he is a perfect baby over any kind of lollipops."

"R-r-really? Well, you must get him s-some more to-morrow and give me these to take with me. No, let me p-p-put the toffee in my pocket; it will console me for all the lost joys of life. I d-do hope they'll give me a bit of toffee to suck the day I'm hanged."

"Oh, do let me find a cardboard box for it, at least, before you put it in your pocket! You will be so sticky! Shall I put the chocolates in, too?"

"No, I want to eat them now, with you."

"But I don't like chocolate, and I want you to come and sit down like a reasonable human being. We very likely shan't have another chance to talk quietly before one or other of us is killed, and------"

"She d-d-doesn't like chocolate!" he murmured under his breath. "Then I must be greedy all by myself. This is a case of the hangman's supper, isn't it? You are going to humour all my whims to-night. First of all, I want you to sit on this easy-chair, and, as you said I might lie down, I shall lie here and be comfortable."

He threw himself down on the rug at her feet, leaning his elbow on the chair and looking up into her face.

"How pale you are!" he said. "That's because you take life sadly, and don't like chocolate----"

"Do be serious for just five minutes! After all, it is a matter of life and death."

"Not even for two minutes, dear; neither life nor death is worth it."

He had taken hold of both her hands and was stroking them with the tips of his fingers.

"Don't look so grave, Minerva! You'll make me cry in a minute, and then you'll be sorry. I do wish you'd smile again; you have such a d-delightfully unexpected smile. There now, don't scold me, dear! Let us eat our biscuits together, like two good children, without quarrelling over them--for to-morrow we die."

He took a sweet biscuit from the plate and carefully halved it, breaking the sugar ornament down the middle with scrupulous exactness.

"This is a kind of sacrament, like what the goody-goody people have in church. 'Take, eat; this is my body.' And we must d-drink the wine out of the s-s-same gla.s.s, you know--yes, that is right. 'Do this in remembrance----'"

She put down the gla.s.s.

"Don't!" she said, with almost a sob. He looked up, and took her hands again.

"Hush, then! Let us be quiet for a little bit. When one of us dies, the other will remember this. We will forget this loud, insistent world that howls about our ears; we will go away together, hand in hand; we will go away into the secret halls of death, and lie among the poppy-flowers.

Hush! We will be quite still."

He laid his head down against her knee and covered his face. In the silence she bent over him, her hand on the black head. So the time slipped on and on; and they neither moved nor spoke.

"Dear, it is almost twelve," she said at last. He raised his head.

"We have only a few minutes more; Martini will be back presently.

Perhaps we shall never see each other again. Have you nothing to say to me?"

He slowly rose and walked away to the other side of the room. There was a moment's silence.

"I have one thing to say," he began in a hardly audible voice; "one thing--to tell you----"

He stopped and sat down by the window, hiding his face in both hands.

"You have been a long time deciding to be merciful," she said softly.

"I have not seen much mercy in my life; and I thought--at first--you wouldn't care----"

"You don't think that now."

She waited a moment for him to speak and then crossed the room and stood beside him.

"Tell me the truth at last," she whispered. "Think, if you are killed and I not--I should have to go through all my life and never know--never be quite sure----"

He took her hands and clasped them tightly.

"If I am killed---- You see, when I went to South America---- Ah, Martini!"

He broke away with a violent start and threw open the door of the room.

Martini was rubbing his boots on the mat.

"Punctual to the m-m-minute, as usual! You're an an-n-nimated chronometer, Martini. Is that the r-r-riding-cloak?"

"Yes; and two or three other things. I have kept them as dry as I could, but it's pouring with rain. You will have a most uncomfortable ride, I'm afraid."

"Oh, that's no matter. Is the street clear?"

"Yes; all the spies seem to have gone to bed. I don't much wonder either, on such a villainous night. Is that coffee, Gemma? He ought to have something hot before he goes out into the wet, or he will catch cold."

"It is black coffee, and very strong. I will boil some milk."

She went into the kitchen, pa.s.sionately clenching her teeth and hands to keep from breaking down. When she returned with the milk the Gadfly had put on the riding-cloak and was fastening the leather gaiters which Martini had brought. He drank a cup of coffee, standing, and took up the broad-brimmed riding hat.

"I think it's time to start, Martini; we must make a round before we go to the barrier, in case of anything. Good-bye, for the present, signora; I shall meet you at Forli on Friday, then, unless anything special turns up. Wait a minute; th-this is the address."

He tore a leaf out of his pocket-book and wrote a few words in pencil.

"I have it already," she said in a dull, quiet voice.

"H-have you? Well, there it is, anyway. Come, Martini. Sh-sh-sh! Don't let the door creak!"

They crept softly downstairs. When the street door clicked behind them she went back into the room and mechanically unfolded the paper he had put into her hand. Underneath the address was written:

"I will tell you everything there."

CHAPTER II.

IT was market-day in Brisigh.e.l.la, and the country folk had come in from the villages and hamlets of the district with their pigs and poultry, their dairy produce and droves of half-wild mountain cattle. The market-place was thronged with a perpetually shifting crowd, laughing, joking, bargaining for dried figs, cheap cakes, and sunflower seeds. The brown, bare-footed children sprawled, face downward, on the pavement in the hot sun, while their mothers sat under the trees with their baskets of b.u.t.ter and eggs.

Monsignor Montanelli, coming out to wish the people "Good-morning," was at once surrounded by a clamourous throng of children, holding up for his acceptance great bunches of irises and scarlet poppies and sweet white narcissus from the mountain slopes. His pa.s.sion for wild flowers was affectionately tolerated by the people, as one of the little follies which sit gracefully on very wise men. If anyone less universally beloved had filled his house with weeds and gra.s.ses they would have laughed at him; but the "blessed Cardinal" could afford a few harmless eccentricities.

"Well, Mariuccia," he said, stopping to pat one of the children on the head; "you have grown since I saw you last. And how is the grandmother's rheumatism?"

"She's been better lately, Your Eminence; but mother's bad now."