"Pray do not speak of it!" I urged, forcing something like a lover's ardor into my voice. "I regret beyond measure that it is my misfortune to have hands like those of your late husband! I a.s.sure you I am quite miserable about it. Can you forgive me?"

She was recovering quickly, and she was evidently conscious that she had behaved somewhat foolishly. She smiled a weak pale smile; but she looked very scared, worn and ill. She rose from her chair slowly and languidly.

"I think I will go to my room," she said, not regarding Mere Marguerite, who had withdrawn to a little distance, and who stood rigidly erect, immovably featured, with her silver crucifix glittering coldly on her still breast.

"Good-bye, Cesare! Please forget my stupidity, and write to me from Avellino."

I took her outstretched hand, and bowing over it, touched it gently with my lips. She turned toward the door, when suddenly a mischievous idea seemed to enter her mind. She looked at Madame la Vicaire and then came back to me.

"Addio, amor mio!" she said, with a sort of rapturous emphasis, and throwing her arms round my neck she kissed me almost pa.s.sionately.

Then she glanced maliciously at the nun, who had lowered her eyes till they appeared fast shut, and breaking into a low peal of indolently amused laughter, waved her hand to me, and left the room.

I was somewhat confused. The suddenness and warmth of her caress had been, I knew, a mere monkeyish trick, designed to vex the religious scruples of Mere Marguerite. I knew not what to say to the stately woman who remained confronting me with downcast eyes and lips that moved dumbly as though in prayer. As the door closed after my wife's retreating figure, the nun looked up; there was a slight flush on her pallid cheeks, and to my astonishment, tears glittered on her dark lashes.

"Madame," I began, earnestly, "I a.s.sure you--"

"Say nothing, signor," she interrupted me with a slight deprecatory gesture; "it is quite unnecessary. To mock a religieuse is a common amus.e.m.e.nt with young girls and women of the world. I am accustomed to it, though I feel its cruelty more than I ought to do. Ladies like the Countess Romani think that we--we, the sepulchers of womanhood--sepulchers that we have emptied and cleansed to the best of our ability, so that they may more fittingly hold the body of the crucified Christ; these grandes dames, I say, fancy that WE are ignorant of all they know--that we cannot understand love, tenderness or pa.s.sion. They never reflect--how should they?--that we also have had our histories--histories, perhaps, that would make angels weep for pity! I, even I--" and she struck her breast fiercely, then suddenly recollecting herself, she continued coldly: "The rule of our convent, signer, permits no visitor to remain longer than one hour--that hour has expired. I will summon a sister to show you the way out."

"Wait one instant, madame," I said, feeling that to enact my part thoroughly I ought to attempt to make some defense of Nina's conduct; "permit me to say a word! My fiancee is very young and thoughtless. I really cannot think that her very innocent parting caress to me had anything in it that was meant to purposely annoy you."

The nun glanced at me--her eyes flashed disdainfully.

"You think it was all affection for you, no doubt, signor? very natural supposition, and--I should be sorry to undeceive you."

She paused a moment and then resumed:

"You seem an earnest man--may be you are destined to be the means of saving Nina; I could say much--yet it is wise to be silent. If you love her do not flatter her; her overweening vanity is her ruin. A firm, wise, ruling master-hand may perhaps--who knows?" She hesitated and sighed, then added, gently, "Farewell, signor! Benedicite!" and making the sign of the cross as I respectfully bent my head to receive her blessing, she pa.s.sed noiselessly from the room.

One moment later, and a lame and aged lay-sister came to escort me to the gate. As I pa.s.sed down the stone corridor a side door opened a very little way, and two fair young faces peeped out at me. For an instant I saw four laughing bright eyes; I heard a smothered voice say, "Oh!

c'est un vieux papa!" and then my guide, who though lame was not blind, perceived the opened door and shut it with an angry bang, which, however, did not drown the ringing merriment that echoed from within.

On reaching the outer gates I turned to my venerable companion, and laying four twenty-franc pieces in her shriveled palm, I said:

"Take these to the reverend mother for me, and ask that ma.s.s may be said in the chapel to-morrow for the repose of the soul of him whose name is written here."

And I gave her Guido Ferrari's visiting-card, adding in lower and more solemn tones:

"He met with a sudden and unprepared death. Of your charity, pray also for the man who killed him!"

The old woman looked startled, and crossed herself devoutly; but she promised that my wishes should be fulfilled, and I bade her farewell and pa.s.sed out, the convent gates closing with a dull clang behind me.

I walked on a few yards, and then paused, looking back. What a peaceful home it seemed; how calm and sure a retreat, with the white Noisette roses crowning its ancient gray walls! Yet what embodied curses were pent up in there in the shape of girls growing to be women; women for whom all the care, stern training and anxious solicitude of the nuns would be unavailing; women who would come forth from even that abode of sanct.i.ty with vile natures and animal impulses, and who would hereafter, while leading a life of vice and hypocrisy, hold up this very strictness of their early education as proof of their unimpeachable innocence and virtue! To such, what lesson is learned by the daily example of the nuns who mortify their flesh, fast, pray and weep? No lesson at all--nothing save mockery and contempt. To a girl in the heyday of youth and beauty the life of a religieuse seems ridiculous. "The poor nuns!" she says, with a laugh; "they are so ignorant. Their time is over--mine has not yet begun." Few, very few, among the thousands of young women who leave the scene of their quiet schooldays for the social whirligig of the world, ever learn to take life in earnest, love in earnest, sorrow in earnest. To most of them life is a large dressmaking and millinery establishment; love a question of money and diamonds; sorrow a solemn calculation as to how much or how little mourning is considered becoming or fashionable. And for creatures such as these we men work--work till our hairs are gray and our backs bent with toil--work till all the joy and zest of living has gone from us, and our reward is--what? Happiness?--seldom.

Infidelity?--often. Ridicule? Truly we ought to be glad if we are only ridiculed and thrust back to occupy the second place in our own houses; our lady-wives call that "kind treatment." Is there a married woman living who does not now and then throw a small stone of insolent satire at her husband when his back is turned? What, madame? You, who read these words--you say with indignation: "Certainly there is, and _I_ am that woman!" Ah, truly? I salute you profoundly!--you are, no doubt, the one exception!

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Avellino is one of those dreamy, quiet and picturesque towns which have not as yet been desecrated by the Vandal tourist. Persons holding "through tickets" from Messrs. Cook or Gaze do not stop there--there are no "sights" save the old sanctuary called Monte Virgine standing aloft on its rugged hill, with all the memories of its ancient days clinging to it like a wizard's cloak, and wrapping it in a sort of mysterious meditative silence. It can look back through a vista of eventful years to the eleventh century, when it was erected, so the people say, on the ruins of a temple of Cybele. But what do the sheep and geese that are whipped abroad in herds by the drovers Cook and Gaze know of Monte Virgine or Cybele? Nothing--and they care less; and quiet Avellino escapes from their depredations, thankful that it is not marked on the business map of the drovers' "RUNS." Shut in by the lofty Apennines, built on the slope of the hill that winds gently down into a green and fruitful valley through which the river Sabato rushes and gleams white against cleft rocks that look like war-worn and deserted castles, a drowsy peace encircles it, and a sort of stateliness, which, compared with the riotous fun and folly of Naples only thirty miles away, is as though the statue of a nude Egeria were placed in rivalry with the painted waxen image of a half-dressed ballet-dancer. Few lovelier sights are to be seen in nature than a sunset from one of the smaller hills round Avellino--when the peaks of the Apennines seem to catch fire from the flaming clouds, and below them, the valleys are full of those tender purple and gray shadows that one sees on the canvases of Salvator Rosa, while the town itself looks like a bronzed carving on an old shield, outlined clearly against the dazzling l.u.s.ter of the sky. To this retired spot I came--glad to rest for a time from my work of vengeance--glad to lay down my burden of bitterness for a brief s.p.a.ce, and become, as it were, human again, in the sight of the near mountains. For within their close proximity, things common, things mean seem to slip from the soul--a sort of largeness pervades the thoughts, the cramping prosiness of daily life has no room to a.s.sert its sway--a grand hush falls on the stormy waters of pa.s.sion, and like a chidden babe the strong man stands, dwarfed to an infinite littleness in his own sight, before those majestic monarchs of the landscape whose large brows are crowned with the blue circlet of heaven.

I took up my abode in a quiet, almost humble lodging, living simply, and attended only by Vincenzo. I was tired of the ostentation I had been forced to practice in Naples in order to attain my ends--and it was a relief to me to be for a time as though I were a poor man. The house in which I found rooms that suited me was a ramblingly built, picturesque little place, situated on the outskirts of the town, and the woman who owned it, was, in her way, a character. She was a Roman, she told me, with pride flashing in her black eyes--I could guess that at once by her strongly marked features, her magnificently molded figure, and her free, firm tread--that step which is swift without being hasty, which is the manner born of Rome. She told me her history in a few words, with such eloquent gestures that she seemed to live through it again as she spoke: her husband had been a worker in a marble quarry--one of his fellows had let a huge piece of the rock fall on him, and he was crushed to death.

"And well do I know," she said, "that he killed my Toni purposely, for he would have loved me had he dared. But I am a common woman, see you--and it seems to me one cannot lie. And when my love's poor body was scarce covered in the earth, that miserable one--the murderer--came to me--he offered marriage. I accused him of his crime--he denied it--he said the rock slipped from his hands, he knew not how. I struck him on the mouth, and bade him leave my sight and take my curse with him! He is dead now--and surely if the saints have heard me, his soul is not in heaven!"

Thus she spoke with flashing eyes and purposeful energy, while with her strong brown arms she threw open the wide cas.e.m.e.nt of the sitting-room I had taken, and bade me view her orchard. It was a fresh green strip of verdure and foliage--about eight acres of good land, planted entirely with apple-trees.

"Yes, truly!" she said, showing her white teeth in a pleased smile as I made the admiring remark she expected. "Avellino has long had a name for its apples--but, thanks to the Holy Mother, I think in the season there is no fruit in all the neighborhood finer than mine. The produce of it brings me almost enough to live upon--that and the house, when I can find signori willing to dwell with me. But few strangers come hither; sometimes an artist, sometimes a poet--such as these are soon tired of gayety, and are glad to rest. To common persons I would not open my door--not for pride, ah, no! but when one has a girl, one cannot be too careful."

"You have a daughter, then?"

Her fierce eyes softened.

"One--my Lilla. I call her my blessing, and too good for me. Often I fancy that it is because she tends them that the trees bear so well, and the apples are so sound and sweet! And when she drives the load of fruit to market, and sits so smilingly behind the team, it seems to me that her very face brings luck to the sale."

I smiled at the mother's enthusiasm, and sighed. I had no fair faiths left--I could not even believe in Lilla. My landlady, Signora Monti as she was called, saw that I looked fatigued, and left me to myself--and during my stay I saw very little of her, Vincenzo const.i.tuting himself my majordomo, or rather becoming for my sake a sort of amiable slave, always looking to the smallest details of my comfort, and studying my wishes with an anxious solicitude that touched while it gratified me. I had been fully three days in my retreat before he ventured to enter upon any conversation with me, for he had observed that I always sought to be alone, that I took long, solitary rambles through the woods and, across the hills--and, not daring to break through my taciturnity, he had contented himself by merely attending to my material comforts in silence. One afternoon, however, after clearing away the remains of my light luncheon, he lingered in the room.

"The eccellenza has not yet seen Lilla Monti?" he asked, hesitatingly.

I looked at him in some surprise. There was a blush on his olive-tinted cheeks and an unusual sparkle in his eyes. For the first time I realized that this valet of mine was a handsome young fellow.

"Seen Lilla Monti!" I repeated, half absently; "oh, you mean the child of the landlady? No, I have not seen her. Why do you ask?"

Vincenzo smiled. "Pardon, eccellenza! but she is beautiful, and there is a saying in my province: Be the heart heavy as stone, the sight of a fair face will lighten it!"

I gave an impatient gesture. "All folly, Vincenzo! Beauty is the curse of the world. Read history, and you shall find the greatest conquerors and sages ruined and disgraced by its snares."

He nodded gravely. He probably thought of the announcement I had made at the banquet of my own approaching marriage, and strove to reconcile it with the apparent inconsistency of my present observation. But he was too discreet to utter his mind aloud--he merely said:

"No doubt you are right, eccellenza. Still one is glad to see the roses bloom, and the stars shine, and the foam-bells sparkle on the waves--so one is glad to see Lilla Monti."

I turned round in my chair to observe him more closely--the flush deepened on his cheek as I regarded him. I laughed with a bitter sadness.

"In love, amico, art thou? So soon!--three days--and thou hast fallen a prey to the smile of Lilla! I am sorry for thee!"

He interrupted me eagerly.

"The eccellenza is in error! I would not dare--she is too innocent--she knows nothing! She is like a little bird in the nest, so soft and tender--a word of love would frighten her; I should be a coward to utter it."

Well, well! I thought, what was the use of sneering at the poor fellow!

Why, because my own love had turned to ashes in my grasp, should I mock at those who fancied they had found the golden fruit of the Hesperides?

Vincenzo, once a soldier, now half courier, half valet, was something of a poet at heart; he had the grave meditative turn of mind common to Tuscans, together with that amorous fire that ever burns under their lightly worn mask of seeming reserve.

I roused myself to appear interested.

"I see, Vincenzo," I said, with a kindly air of banter, "that the sight of Lilla Monti more than compensates you for that portion of the Neapolitan carnival which you lose by being here. But why you should wish me to behold this paragon of maidens I know not, unless you would have me regret my own lost youth."

A curious and perplexed expression flitted over his face, At last he said firmly, as though his mind were made up: