Gone!--n.o.bili gone! Never to speak to her again in that sweet voice!--never to press his lips to hers!--never to gather her to him in those firm, strong arms! O G.o.d! then she must die! If n.o.bili were gone, she must die! A terrible pang shot through her; then a great calmness came over her, and she was very still. "Die!--yes--why not?--Die!"

Clutching the letter in her icy hand, Enrica looked round with pale, tremulous eyes, from which the light has faded. It could not be the same world of an hour ago. Death had come into it--she is about to die. Yet the sun shone fiercely upon her face as she turned it upward and struck upon her eyes. The children laughed over the chestnuts spluttering in the ashes. Pipa sang merrily above at the open window.

A bird--was it a raven?--poised itself in the air; the cattle grazed peacefully on the green slopes of the opposite mountain, and a drove of pigs ran downward to drink at a little pool. She alone has changed.

A dull, dim consciousness drew her forward toward the low wall, and the abyss that yawned beneath. There she should lie at peace. There the stillness would quiet her heart that beat so hard against her side--surely her heart must burst! She had a dumb instinct that she should like to sleep; she was so weary. Stronger grew the pa.s.sion of her longing to cast herself on that cold bed--deep, deep below--to rest forever. She tried to move, but could not. She tottered and almost fell. Then all swam before her. She sank backward against the door; with her two hands she clutched the post. Her white face was set. But in her agony not a sound escaped her. Her secret--n.o.bili's secret--must be kept, she told herself. No one must ever know that n.o.bili had left her--that she was about to die--no one, no one!

With a last effort she tried to rush forward to take that leap below which would end all. In vain. All nature rushed in a wild whirlwind around her! A deadly sickness seized her. Her eyes closed. She dropped beside the door, a little ruffled heap upon the ground, n.o.bili's letter clasped tightly in her hand.

"My love he is to Lucca gone, To Lucca fair, a lord to be, And I would fain a message send, But who will tell my tale for me?"

Sang out Pipa from above.

"All the folk say that I am brown; The earth is brown, yet gives good corn; The clove-pink, too, although 'tis brown, In hands of gentlefolk is borne."

"They say my love is brown; but he Shines like an angel-form to me; They say my love is dark as night, To me he seems an angel bright!"

Not hearing the children's voices, and fearing some trick of naughty Angelo against the peace of her precious Gigi, Pipa leaned put over the window-sill. "My babe, my babe, where art thou?" was on her lips to cry; instead, Pipa gave a piercing scream. It broke the mid-day silence. Argo barked loudly.

"Dio Gesu!" Pipa cried wildly out. "The signorina, she is dead! Help!

help!"

CHAPTER III.

BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH

Many hours had pa.s.sed. Enrica lay still unconscious upon her bed, her face framed in her golden hair, her blue eyes open, her limbs stiff, her body cold. Sometimes her lips parted, and a smile rippled over her face; then she shuddered, and drew herself, as it were, together. All this time n.o.bili's letter was within her hand; her fingers tightened over it with a convulsive grasp.

Pipa and the cavaliere were with her. They had done all they could to revive her, but without effect. Trenta, sitting there, his hands crossed upon his knees, his eyes fixed upon Enrica, looked suddenly aged. How all this had come about he could not even guess. He had heard Pipa's screams, and so had the marchesa, and he had come, and he and Pipa together had raised her up and placed her on her bed; and the marchesa had charged him to watch her, and let her know when she came to her senses. Neither the cavaliere nor Pipa knew that Enrica had had a letter from n.o.bili. Pipa noticed a paper in her hand, but did not know what it was. The signorina had been struck down in a fit, was Pipa's explanation. It was very terrible, but G.o.d or the devil--she could not tell which--did send fits. They must be borne. An end would come. She had done all she could. Seeing no present change, Trenta rose to go to the marchesa. His joints were so stiff he could not move at all without his stick, and the furrows which had deepened upon his face were moistened with tears.

"Is Enrica no better?" the marchesa asked him, in a voice she tried to steady, but could not. She trembled all over.

"Enrica is no better," he answered.

"Will she die?" the marchesa asked again.

"Who can tell? She is in the hands of G.o.d."

As he spoke, Trenta shot an angry scowl at his friend--he knew her so well. If Enrica died the Guinigi race was doomed--that made her tremble, not affection for Enrica. A word more from the marchesa, and Trenta would have told her this to her face.

"We are all in the hands of G.o.d," the marchesa repeated, solemnly, and crossed herself. "I believe little in doctors."

"Still," said Trenta, "if there is no change, it is our duty to send for one. Is there any doctor at Corellia?"

"None nearer than Lucca," she replied. "Send for Fra Pacifico. If he thinks it of any use, a man shall be dispatched to Lucca immediately."

"Surely you will let Count n.o.bili know the danger Enrica is in?"

"No, no!" cried the marchesa, fiercely. "Count n.o.bili comes back here to marry Enrica or not at all. I will not have him on any other terms.

If the child dies, he will not come. That at least will be a gain."

Even on the brink of death and ruin she could think of this!

"Enrica will not die! she will not die!" sobbed the poor old cavaliere, breaking down all at once. He sank upon a chair and covered his face.

The marchesa rose and placed her hand upon his shoulder. Her heart was bleeding, too, but from another cause. She bore her wounds in silence.

To complain was not in the marchesa's nature. It would have increased her suffering rather than have relieved it. Still she pitied her old friend, although no word expressed it; nothing but the pressure of her hand resting upon his shoulder. Trenta's sobs were the only sound that broke the silence.

"This is losing time," she said. "Send at once for Fra Pacifico. Until he comes, we know nothing."

When Fra Pacifico's rugged, mountainous figure entered Enrica's room, he seemed to fill it. First, he blessed the sweet girl lying before him with such a terrible mockery of life in her widely-opened eyes.

His deep voice shook and his grave face twitched as he p.r.o.nounced the "Beatus." Leaning over the bed, Fra Pacifico proceeded to examine her in silence. He uncovered her feet, and felt her heart, her hands, her forehead, lifting up the shining curls as he did so with a tender touch, and laying them out upon the pillow, as reverently as he would replace a relic.

Cavaliere Trenta stood beside him in breathless silence. Was it life or death? Looking into Fra Pacifico's motionless face, none could tell. Pipa was kneeling in a corner, running her rosary between her fingers; she was listening also, with mouth and eyes wide open.

"Her pulse still beats," Fra Pacifico said at last, betraying no outward emotion. "It beats, but very feebly. There is a little warmth about her heart."

"San Ricardo be thanked!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Trenta, clasping his hands.

With the mention of his ancestral saint, the cavaliere's thoughts ran on to the Trenta chapel in the church of San Frediano, where they had all stood so lately together, Enrica blooming in health and beauty at his side. His sobs choked his voice.

"Shall I send to Lucca for a doctor?" Trenta asked, as soon as he could compose himself.

"As you please. Her condition is very precarious; nothing can be done, however, but to keep her warm. That I see has been attended to. She could swallow nothing, therefore no doctor could help her. With such a pulse, to bleed her would be madness. Her youth may save her. It is plain to me some shock or horror must have struck her down and paralyzed the vital powers. How could this have been?"

The priest stood over her, lost in thought, his bushy eyebrows knit; then he turned to Pipa.

"Has any thing happened, Pipa," he asked, "to account for this?"

"Nothing your reverence," she answered. "I saw the signorina, and spoke to her, not ten minutes before I found her lying in the doorway."

"Had any one seen her?"

"No one."

"I sent a letter to her from Count n.o.bili. Did you see the messenger arrive?"

"No; I was cleaning in the upper story. He might have come and gone, and I not seen him."

"I heard of no letter," put in the bewildered Trenta. "What letter? No one mentioned a letter."

"Possibly," answered Fra Pacifico, in his quiet, impa.s.sible way, "but there was a letter." He turned again to interrogate Pipa. "Then the signorina must have taken the letter herself." Slightly raising his eyebrows, a sudden light came into his eyes. "That letter has done this. What can n.o.bili have said to her? Did you see any letter beside her, Pipa, when she fell?"

Pipa rose up from the corner where she had been kneeling, raised the sheet, and pointed to a paper clasped in Enrica's hand. As she did so, Pipa pressed her warm lips upon the colorless little hand. She would have covered the hand again to keep it warm, but Fra Pacifico stopped her.

"We must see that letter; it is absolutely needful--I her confessor, and you, cavaliere, Enrica's best friend; indeed, her only friend."