Armstrong was not appeased, but could hardly do other than accept the situation. After seeing the car depart from the court-yard, Uncle Peabody and Miss Thayer strolled out to the garden, where he arranged their chairs so that they might gain the choicest view of the moon-illumined city and the winding river, silver in the soft, pale light.

"I have kept you from an interesting experience," Uncle Peabody began, "but I know how much it will mean to Helen to have her husband all to herself. You understand, I am sure."

"I do understand, perfectly," replied Inez, heartily. "I am only ashamed that I did not think of it myself; but it is difficult to oppose Mr.

Armstrong in anything he has his heart set on, and I confess that I do not possess your courage."

"I doubt if I should have been so courageous had I realized how disagreeable he would be. Armstrong has changed much in the few weeks I have known him."

Uncle Peabody made his a.s.sertion boldly, and then waited for a response.

Inez looked up quickly.

"I think it is hard for any one to understand Mr. Armstrong without seeing him at his work. He has changed, as you say, but it is a change which no one--least of all himself--could prevent."

Uncle Peabody expected a defence--that was but natural.

"I don't think I quite follow you," he said, wishing to draw her out.

"Would you mind telling me more about the work, and what there is in it to affect him in this way?"

"I wish I could make it clear to you, for unless you understand it you will do him a great injustice." Inez again keyed herself up to her self-appointed task. "Helen asked me the same question last evening, and I realized while talking with her how poorly fitted I myself am to attempt any explanation."

The girl paused. She knew that her companion would a.n.a.lyze what she said much more thoroughly than Helen had done.

"Were you ever under an hypnotic influence?" she asked, suddenly.

"Yes," replied Uncle Peabody, calmly. "But you don't mean to say that this has happened to Jack?"

"Yes and no," Inez continued. "If I believed in reincarnation I should say without hesitation that Mr. Armstrong was living over again, here in Florence, an existence which he had previously experienced centuries ago. As I don't believe in this, I can simply say that there is a something which comes from an intimate contact with these master-spirits of the past which is so compelling that it takes one out of the present and a.s.sumes complete control over him. While we are at the library all else is forgotten. I work there beside him hour after hour, yet he seems entirely unconscious of my presence except to the extent to which it a.s.sists his own efforts. All personality is absolutely obliterated. I understand it, because to a lesser degree I have felt it myself. When we leave the library he becomes more like himself again; but as he gets deeper into his work, his absorption is greater, and for that reason alone, I believe, he is less mindful of the usual every-day conventions.

I wish I could make it clear to you."

Uncle Peabody did not reply at once. What Inez had said gave him a new viewpoint both of Armstrong and of her.

"How long do you think this will continue?" he asked at length.

"Until his work is finished."

"And when will that be?"

"Another month, at least."

Uncle Peabody was again silent, weighing the situation from the present standpoint. "What is to become of Helen in the mean time?" he asked, abruptly.

Miss Thayer had antic.i.p.ated this question. "Helen understands the situation perfectly," she said, confidently. "She has talked it over with him and with me. It is a sacrifice on her part to be separated from her husband, especially at this time, but it is one which she is willing to accept for her husband's sake."

"Would you be willing to accept it were the conditions reversed?"

Inez flushed, but stood her ground bravely. "Perhaps not," she admitted; "but Helen is a stronger woman than I."

"She does not think so."

"Helen is a much stronger woman than she herself realizes."

Uncle Peabody was thoughtful. "Let me ask you one more question. Do you think that this spell, or influence, or whatever you may call it, in any way affects Armstrong's affection for his wife?"

"I am sure that it does not," replied Inez, with decision. "His devotion to Helen must be even stronger, because he can but appreciate the splendid generosity she is showing."

"He certainly adopts curious methods of demonstrating it."

"But consider the influences he is under!" Inez urged.

Uncle Peabody admired the girl's handling of the catechising he had given her. He looked steadily into her face before replying.

"You are a n.o.ble champion, Miss Thayer," he said, at length.

"That is because I have faith in the cause," responded Inez, smiling. "I have been brought up to believe that every married woman must at some time in her life make a supreme sacrifice for her husband. I only hope that when my turn comes the sacrifice may be made for so good a cause."

"This is another version of the chastening of the spirit," added Uncle Peabody; "but I am thinking of a certain spirit which received so much chastening that it never revived. I sincerely trust that history may not repeat itself."

XIV

Uncle Peabody was entirely right when he stated that Armstrong had become a changed man since he first came to Florence; Miss Thayer was right when she attributed this change to the a.s.sociations into which he had thrown himself--yet both were wrong in thinking him unconscious of his own altered condition. As he told Helen, he had ever felt some irresistible influence drawing him back to Florence, even while engrossed in the duties of his profession. Just what the craving was he could not have explained even to himself. What he should find in Florence had taken no definite form in his mind, yet the longing possessed him in spite of all he could do to reason with himself against it.

After his arrival in Florence, even, it was not until Cerini suggested the Michelangelo letters that he formulated any plan to gratify his long-antic.i.p.ated expectations. His arguments with himself had prepared him for a disappointment. It had been a boyish fancy, he said, inwardly; he had felt the influences of his environment simply because he had been young and impressionable, and it was quite impossible that he should now, man-grown, prove susceptible to anything so inexplicable as what he had felt in his earlier days.

Then came the experience with Cerini and Miss Thayer. She was a woman, truly, and subject to a woman's physical frailties, yet she was intellectually strong, and could not so have yielded to anything but a controlling power. Here, then, was a second personality affected in a like manner as himself by the same influences. He did not try to explain it; he accepted it as an evidence that this influence, whatever it was, existed and made itself manifest. From that moment he merged his own individuality into those to whom Cerini with gentle suasion introduced him. The librarian incited him by his own enthusiasm, and then directed him along the paths which he himself so loved to tread.

But Cerini did not foresee the extremes to which his pupil's devotion would carry him. Day by day Armstrong felt himself becoming more and more separated from all about him, and more and more amalgamated with those forces which had preceded him. The society of any save those who acted and thought as he did failed to appeal to him. His affection for Helen suffered no change, except that she became less necessary to him.

As the work progressed the intervals away from the library seemed longer, and he found it more difficult to enter into the life about him.

Then came an irritability, entirely foreign to his nature, which he could not curb.

Yet through it all he was entirely conscious of what was happening. He compared himself more than once to a man in a trance, painfully alive to all the preparations going on about him for his own entombment, yet unable to cry out and put a stop to it all. He wished that Helen would object to his absences and force him to become a part of her life again.

He wished that Miss Thayer would tire of the work and leave him alone in it. In contemplating either event he suffered at the mere thought of what such an interruption would mean to him, he knew that he would interpose strenuous objections--yet in a way he longed for the break to come.

Armstrong had been in one of these inexplicably irritable moods when Uncle Peabody crossed him in his plan for the moonlight ride to San Miniato. As a matter of fact, it was only because Miss Thayer had complained of a headache as they left the library that the idea of a ride had occurred to him at all; and to have Mr. Cartwright calmly propose that she drop out of the planned excursion struck him as a distinct intrusion upon his own prerogatives. The automobile fever was out of his blood now; the motor-car had become to him merely a convenience, and no longer an exhilaration. It was quite inevitable that Miss Thayer should acquiesce in Uncle Peabody's suggestion--in fact, she could do nothing else; yet at the library she accepted even his slightest suggestion without question, and Armstrong preferred this latter responsive att.i.tude. All in all, he would have been glad to find some excuse for giving up the ride altogether; but none offered itself, so, with every movement an obvious protest, he had helped Helen into the tonneau and stepped in after her.

Helen was hardly in a happier frame of mind, yet she found herself so eager for this time alone with her husband that she raised none of the obstacles which she would have done a month earlier. It was a perfect June evening, with the air cooled enough by the light wind to make the breeze raised by the speed of the car agreeable to the face. The moon was just high enough to cause deep shadows to fall across the roadway and merge into fantastic shapes as the machine approached and pa.s.sed over them. The peasants were out-of-doors, and expressed their contentment by s.n.a.t.c.hes of song, rendered in the rich, melodious voices which are the natural heritage of this light-hearted people. The toil of the day was over, and they were entering into a well-earned _riposo_ before the duties of the next sunrise claimed their strength.

"How peaceful this is!" Helen exclaimed, turning to her husband. The breeze had blown back the lace scarf from her head, and the moon fell full upon her luxuriant hair, lighting her upturned face. "All nature is at rest and peace, and the people reflect the contentment of the land."

"Your uncle is becoming very dictatorial," replied Armstrong, quite at variance with her mood.

"Why, Jack!"

Helen was mildly reproachful, yet she instinctively felt the necessity of being cautious. Perhaps she could make him forget his resentment.

"Uncle Peabody only meant to give us an opportunity to be by ourselves.