"I wish it were. I love your daughter with all my heart and soul. I did, before I saved her life last night."

The Princess's anger gave way to stupefaction.

"Well--but then? I do not understand. There is something else?"

"Yes, there is something else. I have kept the secret a long time, and it is not all my own."

"I have a right to know it," the Princess answered firmly, and bending her brows.

"I never expected to tell it to any one," Malipieri said, in a low voice, and evidently struggling with himself. "I see that I shall have to trust you."

"You must," insisted the Princess. "My daughter has a right to know, as well as I; and you say that you love her."

"I am married."

"Good heavens!"

She sank back in her chair, overwhelmed with surprise at the simple statement, which, after all, need not have astonished her so much, as she reflected a moment later. She had never heard of Malipieri until that day, and since he had never told any one of his marriage, it was impossible that her daughter should have known of it. She was tolerably sure that the latter's adventure would not be known, but she had formed the determination to take advantage of it in order to secure Malipieri for Sabina, and had been so perfectly sure of the result that she fell from the clouds on learning that he had a wife already.

On his part, he was not thinking of what was passing in her mind, but of what he should have thought of himself, had he, with his character, been in her position. The bald statement that he was married and his confession of his love for Sabina looked badly side by side, in the clear light of his own honour; all the more, because he knew that, without positively or directly speaking out his heart to the girl, he had let her guess that he was falling in love with her. He had said so, though in jest, on that night when he had been alone with her in Volterra's house; his going there, on the mere chance of seeing her alone, and the interest he had shown in her from their first meeting, must have made her think that he was in love. Moreover, he really was, and like most people who are consciously in love where they ought not to be, he felt as if everybody knew it; and yet he was a married man.

"I am legally married under Italian law," he said, after a pause. "But that is all. My wife bears my name, and lives honourably under it, but that is all there has ever been of marriage in my life. I can honestly say that not even a word of affection ever passed between us."

"How strange!" The Princess listened with interest, wondering what was coming next.

"I never saw her but once," Malipieri continued. "We met in the morning, we were married at noon, at the municipality, we parted at the railway station twenty minutes later, and have never met again."

"But you are not married at all!" cried the Princess. "The Church would annul such a marriage without making the least trouble."

"We were not even married in church," said Malipieri. "We were married at the municipality only."

"It is not a marriage at all, then."

"Excuse me. It is perfectly valid in law, and my wife has a certified copy of the register to prove that she has a right to my name."

"Were you mad? What made you do it? It is utterly incomprehensible--to bind yourself for life to a woman you had never seen! What possible motive--"

"I will tell you," said Malipieri. "It all happened long ago, when I was little more than twenty-one. It is not a very long story, but I beg you not to tell it. You do not suppose me capable of keeping it a secret in order to make another marriage, not really legal do you?"

"Certainly not," answered the Princess. "I believe you to be an honourable man. I will not tell your story to any one."

"You may tell Donna Sabina as much of it as you think she need hear.

This is what happened. I served my time in a cavalry regiment--no matter where, and I had an intimate friend, nearly of my own age, and a Venetian. He was very much in love with a young girl of a respectable family, but not of his own station. Of course his family would not hear of a marriage, but she loved him, and he promised that he would marry her as soon as he had finished his military service, in spite of his own people. He would have been of age by that time, for he was only a few months younger than I, and he was willing to sacrifice most of his inheritance for love of the girl. Do you understand?"

"Yes. Go on."

"He and I were devotedly attached to each other, said I sympathized with him, of course, and promised to help him if he made a runaway match. He used to get leave for a couple of days, to go and see her, for she lived with her parents in a small city within two hours of our garrison town. You guess what happened.--They were young, they were foolish, and they were madly in love."

The Princess nodded, and Malipieri continued.

"Not long afterwards, my friend was killed by a fall. His horse crushed him. It was a horrible accident, and he lived twelve hours after it, in great pain. He would not let the doctors give him morphia. He said he would die like a man, and he did, with all his senses about him. While he lay dying, I was with him, and then he told me all the truth. The girl would not be able to conceal it much longer. There was no time to bring her to his bedside and marry her while he still breathed. He could not even leave her money, for he was a minor. He could do nothing for her and her parents would turn her into the street; in any case she was ruined. He was in frightful agony of mind for her sake, he was dying before my eyes, powerless to help her and taking his suffering and his fault with him to the next world, and he was my friend. I did what I could. I gave him my word of honour that I would marry her legally, give her and her child my name, and provide for them as well as I could. He thanked me--I shall never forget how he looked--and he died quietly, half an hour afterwards.

You know now. I kept my word. That is all."

The Princess looked at his quiet face a moment in silence, and all that was best in her rose up through all that was artificial and worldly, and untruthful and vain.

"I did not know that there were such men," she said simply.

CHAPTER XX

"So he got out," said Gigi to Toto, filling the latter's glass to the brim.

"May he die assassinated!" answered Toto. "I will burn a candle to the Madonna every day, in order that an apoplexy may seize him. He is the devil in person, this cursed engineer. Even the earth and the water will not have him. They spit him out, like that."

Toto illustrated the simile with force and noise before drinking.

Gigi's cunning face was wreathed in smiles.

"You know nothing," he observed.

"What is it?" asked Toto, with his glass in his hand and between two sips.

"There was old Sassi, who was hurt, and the engineer's gaol-bird mason-servant. They were with him. It was all in the _Messaggero_ this morning."

"I know that without the newspaper, you imbecile. It was I that told you, for I saw all three pass under the window while I was locked in.

Is there anything else you know?"

"Oh, yes! There was another person with them."

"I daresay," Toto answered, pretending blank indifference. "He must have been close to the wall as they went by. What difference does it make since that pig of an engineer got out?"

"The other person was caught with him when the water rose," said Gigi, who meant to give his information by inches.

"Curse him, whoever he was! He helped the engineer and that is why they got out. No man alone could have broken through that wall in a night, except one of us."

"The other person was only a woman, after all," answered Gigi. "But you do not care, I suppose."

"Speak, animal of a Jesuit that you are!" cried Toto. "Do not make me lose my soul!"

Gigi smiled and drank some of his wine.

"There are people who would pay to know," he said, "and you would never tell me whether the sluice gate of the 'lost water' is under number thirteen or not."

"It is under number thirteen, Master Judas. Speak!"