Inez saw in Armstrong's suggestion a relaxing of the strained condition which she had brought upon herself.

"Perhaps Monsignor Cerini will join us," she added.

"Never!" replied the librarian, with sudden fervor. "I may indulge myself in air-ships when once they become popular, but never in an automobile! I will have Maritelli telephone for your car."

Inez smiled at Jack as they watched Cerini disappear through the door of his study. Then Armstrong's face grew serious.

"The old man loves me as if I were his son," he said, feelingly. "He is more proud of what I have done than if he had accomplished it himself."

"He has reason to be proud," replied Inez; "and so have we all."

In olden days the bishop who was obliged to visit his diocese at San Domenico or at Fiesole had not spoken so lightly of the trip. Setting out on mule-back, and scattering blessings as he left the Porta a Pinti by the road still called the Via Fiesolana, he hoped to reach the "Riposo dei Vescovi" in time for dinner. There, after a bountiful repast, he discarded his faithful beast of burden, and entered the ox-drawn sledge which the monks of San Domenico were bound to provide, reaching the hill-top, if all went well, about sunset. But this was before the days even of the stage-coaches, and before the modern tramway enabled Mother Florence to reach out and enfold her daughters in her arms.

The chauffeur carefully picked his way through the narrow Borgo San Lorenzo into the more s.p.a.cious Piazza del Duomo. Pa.s.sing around the apse of the cathedral, they entered the Via de' Servi.

"Sometime we must stop and take a look at these fine old palaces," said Armstrong, leaning forward and pointing down the street. "The Antinori, for instance, has just been restored, and it has one of the most stunning Renaissance court-yards in all Florence. We shall pa.s.s by it in a moment."

The car crossed the square of the SS. Annunziata, where they stopped for a moment again to admire Andrea Della Robbia's swaddled babies on the facade of the Foundling Hospital, and to look up from Tacca's statue of Duke Ferdinand to the window of the Antinori Palace, hoping for a glimpse of that face from the past, whose history is recorded by Browning in his "Statue and the Bust." From this point the road was clearer, pa.s.sing up the Via Gino Capponi, where Armstrong again pointed out the house of Andrea del Sarto--"the little house he used to be so gay in"--past the Capponi Palace, and also that of San Clemente, where lived and died the last Stuart Pretender. With increasing speed, they crossed the Viale Principe Amedeo, past the gloomy Piazza Savonarola, around the Cemetery of the Misericordia, to San Gervasio, where the real ascent began.

The sudden change from the close atmosphere of the library to the invigorating air acted as a tonic on Armstrong and his companion; and in addition to this the tension of three months' close application was lightened. The book was actually written! Inez thought she had never seen him in so incomparable a mood, as he called her attention to many little points of interest which, during other rides, had been pa.s.sed unnoticed. On they went, olive gardens alternating with splendid villas on either side, until, almost before they realized it, San Domenico was reached, and they paused to regard the magnificent panorama spread out before their eyes. Armstrong looked back and saw the Via della Piazzola behind him. Then his glance turned to the steep hill in front. In a flood of memory came back to him the details of the last time he had been there--alone with Helen, so soon after their arrival in Florence.

"I measure everything by that day at Fiesole," she had said to him; "I believe it was the happiest day I ever spent."

How long ago it seemed to him, and how much had happened since! She was not happy now--she had told him so with her own lips; she had even been forced to acknowledge it to Emory. He had been forgetful of her during these weeks of study; but it was over now, and he would make it up to her. When she saw him back in his old semblance again her pain would pa.s.s away, her happiness return, and the present misunderstanding be forgotten.

His thoughts of Helen reminded him of his intention to return to the villa in time for luncheon, after which he would tell her how deeply he regretted all that had happened.

"Turn around, Alfonse," he said, looking at his watch, "and run home as fast as you can; we have hardly time to get there."

The return toward Florence was quickly made in spite of the sudden bends and narrow roads. Turning sharply at Ponte a Mensola, Alfonse increased his speed as they approached the hill leading from the Piazza of Settignano to the villa.

"Careful at the next turn, Alfonse; it's a nasty one," cautioned Armstrong, aware that his instructions were being carried out too literally.

The machine was nearer to the corner than Alfonse realized. He saw the danger, and with his hand upon the emergency-brake he threw his weight upon the wheel. Something gave way, and in another moment the car crashed against the masonry wall, the engine made a few convulsive revolutions, and then lay inert and helpless.

Inez was thrown over the low wall, landing without injury in the cornfield on the other side. Alfonse jumped, and found himself torn and bruised upon the road, with no injuries which could not easily be mended. But Armstrong, sitting nearest to the point of contact, lay amid the wreckage of the machine, still and lifeless, with a gash in the side of his head, showing where he had struck the wall.

By the time Inez had found an opening Alfonse had gathered himself up, and together they lifted Armstrong on to the gra.s.s by the side of the road. Two frightened women and a boy hurried out from the peasant's cottage near by, the women wringing their hands, the boy stupefied by fear.

"Some water, quick!" commanded Inez; and one of the women hastened to obey.

Wetting her handkerchief and kneeling beside the still figure, Inez bathed Armstrong's face and washed the blood from the ugly cut. She chafed his hands and felt his pulse. There was no response, and she turned her ashen face to the women watching breathless beside her.

"He is dead," she said, in an almost inarticulate voice. The women crossed themselves and burst into tears.

"May we take him in there," she asked, pointing to the cottage, "while the chauffeur brings his wife?"

Between them the body was gently lifted into the cottage and laid upon the bed in the best room. Then Alfonse set out upon his solemn mission.

"Leave me with him," Inez begged rather than commanded the woman who remained. "I will stay with him until they come."

She closed the door. Leaning against it for support, with her hand upon the latch, she gazed at the inanimate form upon the bed. The necessity of action had dulled her realization of the horror, and, sinking upon the floor, she buried her face in her hands, giving way for the first time to the tears which until now had been denied. The first paroxysm over, she raised her head and looked about the room. Every object in it burned itself into her mind: the straw matting on the floor, the cheap prints upon the wall, the rough cross and the crucified Saviour hanging over the bed. Dead--dead!

"Oh, G.o.d," she murmured, incoherently, to herself, "is this to be the solution of this awful problem--inexplicable in life, unendurable in death!"

Suddenly she rose from the floor and stood erect. She looked at the closed door--then turned to where the body lay. She rested her hand upon Armstrong's forehead. Then sitting upon the edge of the bed she gently lifted his arm and grasped his hand as her body became convulsed with heart-breaking sobs.

"Jack!" she cried, covering his hands with kisses, "Jack--speak to me!

Tell me that you are not dead," she implored. "Oh no, no--that cannot be; you are too grand, too n.o.ble to die like this!"

She rose and stood for a moment looking down at him.

"Dead!" she repeated, piteously--"dead!" A hectic glow came into her face. "Then you are mine!" she cried, fiercely. "Jack, my beloved, you are mine, dear--do you hear?--and I am yours. Oh, Jack, how I have loved you all these weeks! Now I can tell you of it, dear--it will do no harm!"

Again she sat upon the bed and placed her hands upon his cheeks.

"My darling, my beloved!" she whispered. "Open your eyes just once and tell me that I may call you mine if only for this one terrible moment.

This is our moment, dear--no one can take it from us! Have you not seen how I have loved you, how I have struggled to keep you from knowing it.

Jack, Jack! this is the beginning and the end."

The room seemed to spin around, and before her eyes a mist gathered.

"I am dying, too, Jack," she said, frankly--"thank G.o.d, I am dying, too."

At last Nature applied her saving balm to the strained nerves, and Inez' sufferings were temporarily a.s.suaged by that sweet insensibility which stands between the human mind and madness. So Helen found her, a few moments later, when pale and trembling she entered the room.

BOOK III

CO-PARTNER WITH NATURE

XXIII

Helen received the heart-breaking news from Alfonse with a degree of control which surprised even Uncle Peabody. Her questions were few, but so vital in their directness that by the time she had learned the nature and the seriousness of the accident, and the location of the cottage where her husband's body lay, she was hurrying to the scene of the calamity.

"Do you know where to reach an American or English surgeon?" she promptly asked Uncle Peabody, and his affirmative reply as he hastened to the telephone was the last word she heard as she left the villa.

Once in the cottage, she followed the guidance of the weeping, awe-struck peasants, who silently pointed out to her the room of death.

She opened the door, and crossed the room with a firm step. Sinking to her knees beside the bed, she buried her face for a brief moment in her hands--then she rose quickly to her feet. With the help of the woman who had entered with her, she lifted Inez' inert figure from across her husband's body.