"Oh! do not say too much, dear n.o.bili," she repeated almost to herself, "or--" Her voice dropped. She looked toward the spot where the snake had fallen, and shuddered.

n.o.bili did not then reply, but, taking Enrica by the hand, he led her up a flight of steps to a higher terrace, where a cypress avenue threw long shadows across the marble pavement.

"You are mine," he whispered, "mine--as by a miracle!"

There was such rapture in his voice that heaven came down into her heart, and every doubt was stilled.

At this moment Fra Pacifico's towering figure appeared ascending a lower flight of steps toward them, coming from the house. He trod with that firm, grand step churchmen have in common with actors--only the stage upon which each treads is different. Behind Fra Pacifico was the short, plump figure and the white hat of Cavaliere Trenta (a dwarf beside the priest), his rosy face rosier than ever from the rapid drive from Lucca. Trenta's kind eyes twinkled under his white eyebrows as he spied Enrica above, standing side by side with n.o.bili. How different the dear child looked from that last time he had seen her at Lucca!

Enrica flew down the steps to meet him. She threw her arms round his neck. Count n.o.bili followed her; he shook hands with the cavaliere and Fra Pacifico.

"His reverence and I thought we should find you two together," said Cavaliere Trenta, with a chuckle. "Count n.o.bili, I wish you joy."

His voice faltered a little, and a spotless handkerchief was drawn out and called into service. n.o.bili reddened, then bowed with formal courtesy.

"It is all come right, I see."--Trenta gave a sly glance from one to the other, though the tears were in his eyes.--"I shall live to open the marriage-ball on the first floor of the palace yet. Bagatella! I would have tried to give the dear child to you myself, had I known how much she loved you--but you have taken her. Well, well--possession is better than gift."

"She gave herself to me, cavaliere. Last night's work only made the gift public," was n.o.bili's reply.

There was a tone of triumph in n.o.bili's voice as he said this. He stooped and pressed his lips to Enrica's hand. Enrica stood by with downcast eyes--a spray of pink oleander swaying from the terrace-wall in the light breeze above her head, for background.

The old cavaliere nodded his head, round which the little curls set faultlessly under his white hat.

"My dear Count n.o.bili, permit me to offer my advice. You must settle this matter at once--at once, I say;" and Trenta struck his stick upon the marble bal.u.s.trade for greater emphasis.

"I quite agree with you," put in Fra Pacifico in his deep voice. "The impression made by your courage last night must not be lost by delay.

I never saw an act of greater daring. Had you not come, I should have tried to save Enrica, but I am past my prime; I should have failed."

"You cannot count on the marchesa's grat.i.tude," continued Trenta; "an excellent lady, and my oldest friend, but proud and capricious. You must take her like the wind when it blows--ha! ha! like the wind. I am come here to help you both."

"Cavaliere," said n.o.bili, turning toward him (his vagrant eyes had wandered off to Enrica, so charming, with the pink oleander and its dark-green leaves waving above her blond head), "do me the favor to ask the Marchesa Guinigi at what hour she will admit me to sign the marriage-contract. I have pressing business that calls me back to Lucca to-day."

"So soon, dear n.o.bili?" a soft voice whispered at his ear, "so soon?"

And then there was a sigh. Surely her paradise was very brief! Enrica had thought in her simplicity that, once met, they two never should part again, but spend the live-long days together side by side among the woods, lingering by flowing streams; or in the rich shade of purple vine-bowers; or in mossy caves, shaded by tall ferns, hid on the mountain-side, and let time and the world roll by. This was the life she dreamed of. Could any grief be there?

"Yes, love," n.o.bili answered to her question. "I must return to Lucca to-night. I started on the instant, as the cavaliere knows. Before I go, however, all must be settled about our marriage, and the contract signed. I will take no denial."

n.o.bili spoke with the determination that was in him. Enrica's heart gave a bound. "The contract!" She had never thought of that. "The contract and the marriage!"--"Both close at hand!--Then the life she dreamed of must come true in very earnest!"

The cavaliere looked doubtingly at Fra Pacifico. Fra Pacifico shrugged his big shoulders, looked back again at Cavaliere Trenta, and smiled rather grimly. There was always a sense of suppressed power, moral and physical, about Fra Pacifico. In conversation he had a way of leaving the burden of small talk to others, and of reserving himself for special occasions; but when he spoke he must be listened to.

"Quick work, my dear count," was all the priest said to n.o.bili in answer. "Do you think you can insure the marchesa's consent?" Now he addressed the cavaliere.

"Oh, my friend will be reasonable, no doubt. After last night, she must consent." The cavaliere was always ready to put the best construction upon every thing. "If she raises any obstacles, I think I shall be able to remove them."

"Consent!" cried n.o.bili, fiercely echoing back the word, "she must consent--she will be mad to refuse."

"Well--well--we shall see.--You, Count n.o.bili, have done all to make it sure. The terms of the contract (I have heard of them from Fra Pacifico) are princely." A look from Count n.o.bili stopped Trenta from saying more.

"Now, Enrica," and the cavaliere turned and took her arm, "come in and give me some breakfast. An old man of eighty must eat, if he means to dance at weddings."

"You, n.o.bili, must come with me," said Fra Pacifico, laying his hand on the count's shoulder. "We will wait the cavaliere's summons to return here over a bottle of the marchesa's best vintage, and a cutlet cooked by Maria. She is my best cook; I have one for every day in the week."

So they parted--Trenta with Enrica descending flight after flight of steps, leading from terrace to terrace, down to the villa; n.o.bili mounting upward to the forest with Fra Pacifico toward Corellia, to await the marchesa's answer.

CHAPTER VI.

THE CONTRACT.

Fra Pacifico, with Adamo and Pipa, had labored ever since-daybreak to arrange the rooms at the villa before the marchesa rose. Pipa had freely used the broom and many pails of water. All the windows were thrown open, and clouds of invisible incense from the flowers without sweetened the fusty rooms.

The villa had not been inhabited for nearly fifty years. It was scantily provided with furniture, but there were chairs and tables and beds, and all the rough necessaries of life. To make all straight, whole generations of beetles had been swept away; and patriarchal spiders, which clung tenaciously to the damp spots on the walls. A scorpion or two had been found, which, firmly resisting to quit the c.h.i.n.ks where they had grown and multiplied, had died by decapitation.

Fra Pacifico would not have owned it, but he had discovered and killed a nest of black adders that lay concealed, curled up in a curtain.

He had with his own hands, in the early morning, carefully fashioned the s.p.a.cious sala on the ground-floor to the marchesa's liking. A huge sofa, with a faded amber cover, had been drawn out of a recess, and so placed that the light should fall at her back.--She objected to the sunshine, with true Italian perverseness. Some arm-chairs, once gilt, and still bearing a coronet, were placed in a semicircle opposite. The windows of the sala, and two gla.s.s doors of the same size and make, looked east and west; toward the terraces and the garden on one side, and over the cliffs and the chasm to the opposite mountains on the other. The walls were broken by doors of varnished pine-wood. These doors led, on the right, to the chapel, Enrica's bedroom, and many empty apartments; on the left, to the marchesa's suite of rooms, the offices, and the stone corridor which communicated with the now ruined tower. High up on the walls of the sala, two large and roughly-painted frescoes decorated the empty s.p.a.ces. A Dutch seaport on one side, with sloping roofs and tall gables, bordering a broad river, upon which ships sailed vaguely away into a yellow haze. (Not more vaguely sailing, perhaps, than many human ships, with life-sails set to catch the wind of fortune--ships which never make more way than these painted emblems!) Opposite, a hunting-party of the olden time picnicked in a forest-glade; a brown and red palace in the background, in front lords and ladies lounging on the gra.s.s--bundles of satin, velvet, powder, ribbons, feathers, shoulder-knots, ruffles, long-tailed coats, and trains.

A door to the left opened. There was a sound of voices talking.

"My honored marchesa," the cavaliere was heard to say in his most dulcet tones, "in the state of your affairs, you cannot refuse. Why then delay? The day is pa.s.sing by; Count n.o.bili is impatient. Let me implore you to lose no more time."

While he was speaking the marchesa entered the sala, pa.s.sing close under the fresco of the vaguely-sailing ships upon the wall.--Can the marchesa tell whither she is drifting more than these?--She glanced round approvingly, then seated herself upon the sofa. Trenta obsequiously placed a footstool at her feet, a cushion at her back.

Even the tempered light, which had been carefully prepared for her by closing the outer wooden shutters, could not conceal how sallow and worn she looked, nor the black circles that had gathered round her eyes. Her dark dress hung about her as if she had suddenly grown thin; her white hands fell listlessly at her side. The marchesa knew that she must consent to Count n.o.bili's conditions. She knew she must consent this very day. But such a struggle as this knowledge cost her, coming so close upon the agitation of the previous night, was more than even her iron nerves could bear. As she leaned back upon the sofa, shading her eyes with her hand, as was her habit, she felt she could not frame the words with which to answer the cavaliere, were it to save her life.

As for the cavaliere, who had seated himself opposite, his plump little person was so engulfed in an arm-chair, that nothing but his snowy head was visible. This he waved up and down reflectively, rattled his stick upon the floor, and glanced indignantly from time to time at the marchesa. Why would she not answer him?

Meanwhile a little color had risen upon her cheeks. She forced herself to sit erect, arranged the folds of her dark dress, then, in a kind of stately silence, seemed to lend herself to listen to what Trenta might have to urge, as though it concerned her as little as that rose-leaf which comes floating in from the open door and drops at her feet.

"Well, marchesa, well--what is your answer?" asked Trenta, much nettled at her a.s.sumed indifference. "Remember that Count n.o.bili and Fra Pacifico have been waiting for some hours."

"Let n.o.bili wait," answered the marchesa, a sudden glare darting into her dark eyes; "he is born to wait for such as I."

"Still"--Trenta was both tired and angry, but he dared not show it; only he rattled his stick louder on the floor, and from time to time aimed a savage blow with it against the carved legs of a neighboring table--"still, why do the thing ungraciously? The count's offers are magnificent. Surely in the face of absolute ruin--Fra Pacifico a.s.sures me--"

"Let Fra Pacifico mind his own business," was the marchesa's answer.

"n.o.bili saved Enrica's life last night; that cannot be denied."

"Yes--last night, last night; and I am to be forced and fettered because I set myself on fire! I wish I had perished, and Enrica too!"

A gesture of horror from the cavaliere recalled the marchesa to a sense of what she had uttered.

"And do you deem it nothing, Cesare Trenta, after a life spent in building up the ancient name I bear, that I should be brought to sign a marriage-contract with a peddler's son?" She trembled with pa.s.sion.

"Yet it must be done," answered Trenta.