Frances Peard (continued 3)

“There must be a golden sea on the other side of Etna,” she said, “and I wish I was there. Don’t you?”

“No. I’m content.”

She laughed, and sprang up.

“No? Well this ought to content one, certainly. But to punish you for not fretting after the unattainable, I am going back.”

He followed silently, and they said very little as they went down the uneven street, past the Palazzo Corvaij, where slender columns support Gothic arches, and bands of black lava contrast with yellow stone, past the vast dark holes in which the people live and die and have shops and make merry, and so out of the little hillside town by the Messina gate. But just as they reached a great sumach-tree in a bend of the road, Teresa, who had been thinking, put an imprudent question—

“Do you really never want the unattainable?”

Wilbraham’s hands were clenched, his face turned away.

“Oh, my God!” he cried, under his breath, “do I not!”

Chapter Thirteen.

Mrs Brodrick was sitting under an awning on the broad terrace when Mrs Maxwell stepped out of the window. She was never very comfortable at having Mary Maxwell alone. It seemed to her that her shrewd eyes saw too many things. But she put down her book and welcomed her.

“They haven’t bestowed much of a shade upon you,” said Mrs Maxwell, glancing up.

“I don’t take much. Age shrinks.” She moved her chair, smiling.

“Don’t talk about age. It’s an unpleasant subject,” Mrs Maxwell complained, dropping into a chair. “And as for you, you are younger than any of us. It’s only people of the same standing who would call you old. Don’t you know? Elderly people always talk about their contemporaries as ‘old Mr Smith,’ ‘old Mr Jones.’ It’s their way of pretending to be still young.”

“Well, I won’t pretend,” said Mrs Brodrick. “But I know the temptation so well, that I very often go away and read my Rabbi Ben Ezra. I was noticing to-day that my shadow looked old, and that’s a great step.”

“Oh, granny, nonsense!”

“And, after all, it is always interesting to reach new experiences. For instance, I have just found out that one is less seldom disappointed, but sooner discouraged.”

She was keeping the talk upon herself only because she was afraid of its drifting elsewhere; but Mrs Maxwell had a purpose.

“Where is Sylvia?” she asked suddenly.

“Isn’t she picking irises in the garden behind me?”

“I see. Where’s Teresa?”

“Sketching.”

“And Mr Wilbraham?”

“Really, I don’t know,” said Mrs Brodrick, with a touch of displeasure. “Probably with your husband.”

“Oh, my husband! My husband is worshipping a silly forged Greek coin,” said Mrs Maxwell irrepressibly.

“Each one seems to be having a solitary time of it.”

“I wish you and Teresa were improving it by meditating on your imprudences. No, really I must speak. I get frightened for poor Sylvia. Don’t you see? Those two are so unsuited!”

“Really?” Mrs Brodrick drew herself up.

“Oh, you know it!” cried Mrs Maxwell, in a transport of self-sacrifice. “I hate speaking so brutally, but one must do horrid things for those one cares for; and I am sure, unless you interfere, there will be some awful dénouement. He isn’t thinking about Sylvia.”

“Mary!”

“He isn’t. He is awaking to a much bigger emotion; and you know, as well as I do, that Sylvia, with all her prettiness, isn’t the girl to inspire a great passion. If it’s not Sylvia, who is it?”

Mrs Brodrick remained silent. Mary Maxwell came and knelt by her side, laying her head on her lap.

“Granny, don’t be angry! You know you’re frightened, and you know I care about you all. But you’re dreadfully high-minded. Isn’t there anything you can do?”

Mrs Brodrick suddenly collapsed.

“Nothing,” she said miserably. “How can any one move? It rests between him and Sylvia, and Sylvia, poor child, is absolutely—piteously content. She doesn’t see.”

“And never will!” thought Mrs Maxwell; “Heaven help us, for there must be some way out of this tangle, if one could only find it!” She said aloud, hesitatingly, “Could Teresa speak to her?”

“Could she?” Mrs Brodrick turned a pallid face, and Mrs Maxwell shook her head.

“True—impossible. Teresa must be kept out of it. Is there any hint that Sylvia would accept? Granny, you might try.”

“As if I hadn’t tried—twenty times!”

“And she won’t take it?”

“It isn’t that she won’t. She doesn’t realise that there can be anything I want to say.”

Mary Maxwell already felt better for having extracted a confidence which proved her to be in the right.

“It’s awful,” she said cheerfully. “All

(Two pages missing here: pp 240,241.)

purple and white irises, stopped lazily to watch the lizards darting in and out of the sun-baked wall, and then gone in to write a letter. She had few correspondents, but there was an old nurse who thought all the world of her, and was made happy by a sheet of unformed, straggling writing, and bare bones of fact, always supported by a dictionary, and unimpeded by stops.

“It is very pleasant here,” Sylvia wrote; “there are so many flowers. We make expeditions”—sh decided against by help of the dictionary—“and the weather is beautiful Granny and Teresa are quite well I am very happy—” She had reached so far when Wilbraham came in. She flung down her pen and jumped up joyfully.

“Oh, Walter, where have you been? I was wondering so!”

“Down by the shore.”

There was a set, hunted look on his face, as if he had not slept, which was true. He had extracted the key of a side door from the chambermaid, and had wandered for hours through the mystical southern night.

“Oh, you promised to take me to the shore when you went.”

“Did I?”

“Never mind. I will go next time,” said Sylvia happily. Whatever he did or did not do contented her. “I have been very busy.”

“Yes?”

“Yes; picking flowers. They are all ready now for Teresa to put in when she comes. Have you seen her?”

“No.”

“She does wander so far by herself; I wonder she isn’t afraid. Shall we go and look for her? I have nearly finished, Walter. I have written all this to Dobbin. Look!” She held up the sprawly sheet for his admiration. “Haven’t I been good?”

“You are always good,” he said remorsefully. And he glanced at her, thinking for the hundredth time how pretty she was, and wondering why everything she said should be so flatly ineffective. But he had something to tell her, and he dashed at it hurriedly—

“I’m afraid, I’m very much afraid, that I shall have to go back to England.”

“To England!” She looked at him incredulously.

“Yes. I’m wanted there.”

“But not yet. You’ve had no letters to-day.”

He cursed his want of premeditation. He had forgotten that every now and then Sylvia developed an odd practical shrewdness.

“Not to-day.”

“Not to-day, and only two from your mother since we’ve been here.”

“I must go all the same,” he said, taking refuge in obstinacy. “I’ve been pleasuring too long.”

Evidently and unusually she was puzzled.

“But,” she said slowly, at last, “but—I don’t understand. You can’t go all in a minute. We have to see Syracuse and Palermo, and—a great many things. Indeed, Walter, you can’t! It wouldn’t be right. Why should you? I remember you told me you would not go home until you took me.”

“Things change.”

“What has changed?”

He looked at her, and thought bitterly how little she knew that she was pleading against herself—against his better self. The other half of him wanted to stay, swore it was folly to give up an hour of the only happiness which life still held, and all for a scruple. He was going to stick to Sylvia. That much stood firm amid the general earthquake.

“I’d better go,” he said doggedly.

“Oh, no,” returned Sylvia decidedly; “you mustn’t.” After a momentary pause she added, “It would be so odd!”

“Would it?” He flung hasty thought at what the others would say on the matter, and his leaving immediately looked so suspicious in his own eyes, that he felt as if it must proclaim his secret to the world. He forced a laugh, however.

“What’s odd in having business to see after?”

“Oh, but they all know you haven’t.”

Silence.

“I wish I knew what makes you want to go home,” said Sylvia wonderingly. “I can’t think! Won’t you tell me?”

Wilbraham moved uneasily. He could not lie to her, and the truth was impossible. He chose a middle course.

“If you really dislike it so much, I’ll stay. It shall make no difference,” he promised his conscience.

“I was sure you would not go,” was all she said, and he was vaguely surprised, expecting delight and surprise in a gush, but thankful they were not lavished upon him.

Through that day and the next, and the next, he kept iron hands on himself, close to Sylvia’s side. Teresa was too well pleased to see him there so much as to wonder why once or twice he avoided her—almost rudely. She went on her way light-heartedly, and began to sing when she was alone. She painted here, there, everywhere, the women carrying their empty pitchers to the fountain lengthways on their heads, or coming back upright, supple, with the heavy weight poised securely; the old people hurrying with their chairs to a little homely church, sunk in a narrow street; the Catania Gate, with its long flight of outer steps, and its odd crooked arches; walls blistered by sun, and overhung by grey-green prickly pear and red shoots of pomegranate; Gothic arches, rose windows; sunrise and sunset; glory of noonday; flash of falling rain, and sullen overshadowing of thunder-cloud. The little city, hanging on its hillside, had for her a charm which never wearied.

The only one who seemed restless and dissatisfied was Nina. Teresa began to be sorry that she had brought her, though she had imagined it would make travelling easier for her grandmother. But the little Viterbo woman frankly hated the place, and Italians of her class are too much like children to attempt to disguise their feelings. Then she had spilt oil on the day of their departure, and only the Madonna knew what disasters that might not bring! There was a bottle of wine close by, and why should not that have been knocked over instead, when such an upset would have ensured good luck? For want of other listeners, she talked of this to Peppina, and watched the girl’s face as she spoke. Peppina shrugged her shoulders.

“Eh, who knows?” she answered carelessly. “For that you have to take your chance with the rest.”

Peppina had learnt from Cesare to mock at omens which came to others, but she could not help being still terrified when she encountered them herself.

“That is news!” retorted Nina scornfully. “If it was not for the chance it would be easy.”

“You or another. There are enough of you! One, two, three, four, five,” the girl counted on her fingers. “Five chances. Try the cards if you want to know which.”

“Who it comes from, rather,” said the other with significance.

Peppina darted a look from under her long eyelashes, and her voice slightly shook.

“Will they tell you that? I do not believe it.”

“Will they? Altro! One as much as the other,” said Nina, enjoying her uneasiness. “And I say an apoplexy upon whoever it is! An apoplexy!”

“Be quiet!” cried Peppina angrily, a spasm crossing her face, and her hand almost unconsciously signing against the evil eye; “be quiet with your jay’s voice, when my signora is trying to sleep above. Who talks of apoplexies?”

Nina was too well pleased with the effect she had produced to be affronted.

“Is she ill then?”

“Her head aches. It wants to be amused.”

Peppina was uncomfortably aware that she had said too much once more. She yawned intentionally, flinging her arms over her head. “Diamine, I could sleep myself,” she added drowsily, but looking at Nina through half-closed lids.

“Well, sleep—sleep if you will. There is nothing to be done—not so much as a ricotta making in this nest of owls,” said Nina, waving Taormina away from her with disdain. “You will wake in time to see Cesare.”

“Cesare!” Peppina started up as if struck with a whip. “What do you say?”

“Did you not know he was here? Then I am wiser than you, for once. He should have been to see you before—a pretty girl like you! But there—those men!” Nina shook her head sympathetically. “There is the Cianchetti, of course.”

“Hold your tongue! If he is here, he will come, beyond a doubt!” cried the girl, eyeing her furiously, and panting to acknowledge that she had passed an hour with her lover the evening before. “The Cianchetti! A creature like that!”

“A creature, as you say, but then she is pretty. And that he should be here and not tell you!”

Nina held up her hands, perfectly aware of what was struggling in Peppina’s breast, and amused at her easy victory.

“I tell you he will come!” exclaimed the girl breathlessly.

“We shall see.”

Nina nodded many times, and there was a short pause, in which Peppina’s fear grew stronger than her vanity.

“How do you know he is here?”

“Eh-h-h-h-h! One has eyes,” answered Nina carelessly. “Why does he come?”

“Who knows?” said the girl, wary again.

“What it is to have money for travelling!” exclaimed Nina, who was sure that Peppina had somehow got the money from Mrs Maxwell. “It is wine he must have upset, not oil like me.”

“Do you still think of it?” said Peppina, anxious to turn the conversation.

“I shall sort the cards to-night, and try to find out who the ill-luck comes from. Whoever it is, an apoplexy on him!” cried Nina vengefully.

Chapter Fourteen.

There had been a slight, a very slight change in Sylvia since the day when Wilbraham so abruptly announced that he was going to England. She was not quite so confident; once or twice Mrs Brodrick had fancied she was not confident at all. Teresa, blinded by art and sunshine, flung off her cares, and enjoyed herself to the full. Mrs Maxwell, growing slightly bored, began to talk of going on to Syracuse. She said it was because Mrs Brodrick looked pale.

“I shall be so sorry to go myself. It’s a delightful place,” she declared, yawning.

“A rare good hole for Greek coins,” said her husband, “and a lot more coming next week. I want to see them.”

She glanced at him pityingly.

“Ten days more?” pleaded Teresa. “Come, that will carry us over Easter and the processions. Think of a procession in the streets of Taormina!” Mrs Maxwell, who liked to see everything, reflected and agreed.

“But I’m very uncomfortable here,” she added. “I should wish you all to know that Peppina is really no good to me at all. See how she’s done my hair to-day. A perfect fright, in spite of the lessons I showered upon her.”

“Our servants are not quite successful. Nina looks as she looked when she had toothache, and I can’t say more! She is prejudiced against Sicily.”

“They might consider us a little,” said Mrs Maxwell. “But your Nina does serve you faithfully. Now, Peppina would not care what happened to me, so long as she clutched the lire. Why don’t I part with her? Oh, she’s so pleasant, I can’t. She makes up for all Jem’s shortcomings, and they’re many. He always stumps about when I’ve a headache.”

“What’s that?” asked Colonel Maxwell.

“Nothing. I only said if I were weighed against a Greek coin—forged, my dear, that’s the sting of it,” she whispered to Teresa—“I shouldn’t have a chance.”

But her eyes smiled kindly as she looked at her big husband, whom she teased and adored.

Teresa laughed, and went back to get her drawing things. Nina carried them for her, almost the only personal service which the marchesa accepted. She looked so miserable that Teresa began to question her—

“What is the matter, Nina? Have you, perhaps, toothache again?”

“It is an ache here, eccellenza,” said Nina, laying her hand dramatically on her heart. “It is because there are bad people in the world.”

In spite of herself Donna Teresa laughed.

“At that rate I don’t know when the ache will stop. Have you met with any specially bad people at Taormina?”

“Altro!” Nina cried emphatically. “It is an evil place. See here, eccellenza, do not permit the signorina’s Englishman to walk at night. The nights are not wholesome.”

“Not wholesome? You mean dangerous? Ma, che! What absurdity!” She altered her tone a little. “If you are so unhappy away from Rome, I will send you back.”

“What good will that do the Englishman?” asked Nina gloomily. “Send Peppina, that might be better, eccellenza.”

“Peppina!” Teresa laughed again.

She knew that the two disagreed, and thought that Nina was inclined to be hard on the girl. “And why?”

“She is hot-headed, and the air here is not good for that illness.”

“The air? It is perfect.”

“Not at night, eccellenza. It has been known to carry a man off as quickly as if—”

“As if?”

“As if he had had a knife in his heart,” Nina said slowly, in a low whisper, and glancing round. Two men were coming up behind, and she immediately raised her voice to a more cheerful key. “Is it to be the blessed Santa Caterina to-day, eccellenza? Not that I believe she can have anything to say to such ignorant people as these, but it is more lucky to sit where a saint looks down upon you, since she might be obliged to do something for her own credit.”

She talked so persistently all the rest of the way that it was evident she meant to say nothing more on the subject of unwholesome air. Teresa, who knew her prejudices, was quite undisturbed by her hints, and occupied in her drawing. She sat in a little angle of the long street, which the Arabs called El Kasr—so linking it with the Luxor of Egypt—facing the beautiful doorway of Santa Caterina’s Church. The colouring is exquisite, for the wood has been faded by sun and soft winds into a grey blue—the exact shade of Saint Peter’s dome—veined here and there by pink, while high above door and cornice stands a small graceful figure of the saint, leaning on her wheel, and shaded by delicate grasses.

Teresa’s eagerness about whatever interest absorbed her was apt to leave other impressions in the lurch. She was very well content to believe that things were greatly improved between Sylvia and Wilbraham, and that there was no need for her to waste uneasiness in that direction; indeed, she had persuaded herself that her past uneasiness had been born of mere over-anxiety. All along she had ranked the girl’s prettiness unduly high in its effect, but now she was sure that her after qualms were unnecessary. As for Nina’s chatter, that she dismissed with all the Tuesdays and Fridays, hunchbacks and oil-spilling, which haunted the little Viterbo woman’s days. She was, indeed, unusually gay at heart, probably from her out-of-door life in that delicious air, which was now gently sweeping off the almond petals on the hillside.

Mrs Maxwell was very much disappointed by the processions in Holy Week. After waiting for days, as she said, to see them, she had expected something better than a few white-hooded men straggling before the baldacchino. Yet the Duomo, empty of interest as it is—except to those who penetrate to the embroideries in the sacristy—lends itself picturesquely to effect, with its fine doorways and its red marble steps. And on Good Friday, as she, Sylvia, and Wilbraham waited in a little piazza just inside an inner gate, Teresa saw something which she will never forget.

A church stands on one side, facing Etna and the many-coloured sea. Here the procession began to gather, and out of the church and down the steps was borne an inexpressibly scarred and forbidding-looking dead Christ on his bier. Through the gate it was carried towards the Duomo, while down a steep and stony lane the Madonna, high uplifted, came to join her divine Son. So far, though interesting, there was nothing very striking or impressive in the scene, but when the procession crept out again from the shadow of the Duomo, and, making its way back, wound slowly along the whole length of Taormina, it was different. The narrowness of the street, with its balconies and leaning figures, the white-draped, white-hooded men, the multitude of moving twinkling lights, the flashes here and there of colour, the priests in their vestments, the swaying baldacchino—smote home, overpowered sordid details. Teresa looked at it with wet eyes.

Wilbraham was standing mutely next her; Sylvia, full of exclamations, beyond him. Suddenly Teresa became aware that one of the hooded figures had turned his head towards them. There was no more than a slit for the eyes, yet she knew without seeing that some gaze, fierce and menacing, burnt behind the hood. So sure was she, that she spoke impetuously to Wilbraham when the figure had passed—

“Did you see? Who was it?”

“Some fellow who means to know me again,” he said after a momentary pause.

“No. It was some one who hated you,” she answered with a trembling voice. Nina’s words, “a knife in the heart,” came driving back, and moved her strangely.

His head whirled. In unconscious excitement she had pressed a little closely to him, her sleeve brushed his. He was forced to guard his voice, lest it should betray joy that his possible danger should have so moved her. Sylvia spoke twice and he did not hear.

“Thank you,” he said in a low voice. “Thank you.”

Something of strained repression in his voice startled her. She looked at him in sudden dismay, and the revelation was so impossible, so astounding, that it for the instant left her dazed. She felt as if a cold hand had been laid upon her heart. The next moment the consciousness of Sylvia gave her back herself. Had she seen? Did she know? It was of Sylvia that she must think, it was Sylvia whom she must protect, it was to her she spoke very gently—

“I’m going back now, and you will come when you like.” Amazement, not emotion, had shaken her, and, afraid lest he should think she was in any degree sharing his, she looked coolly in his face. “Don’t let Sylvia overtire herself,” she said. “That would be much more serious than for a man to stare at us behind his hood.”

But, as she walked swiftly along the white road, fear and amazement at her discovery swept over her again. The odiousness of the situation appalled her. She raged against herself, beginning to realise her folly in trying to bolster up Wilbraham’s short-lived love. She had put Sylvia in the best positions, hidden the emptiness of the girl’s mind by her own quickness, been kind to Wilbraham for her sister’s sake until now, now—

Mrs Brodrick was startled by Teresa, white-faced and shaken, appearing suddenly in her room.

“Granny,” she began breathlessly and flinging herself by her side, “things are going very badly indeed.”

And their eyes met, full of understanding.

“It had to come,” said Mrs Brodrick with a sigh.

“But not this. Nothing so wretched as this! I don’t think I can tell you,” she went on, flinging her head back and staring dismally at her grandmother. Mrs Brodrick met her look without a vestige of the surprise she expected.

“Poor Teresa!” she said, laying her hand on hers. “Has he been making love to you instead of to Sylvia? What has he done?”

There was a certain relief in not having to explain the first miserable discovery, and she told her tale in short gasps which ended in a half-laugh of contempt.

“Nina was so odd in her warnings,” she explained, “that although I did not mind them at the time, when I saw that man glaring I was seized with terror. Something—of course it was a ridiculous fancy—made me think it was Cesare. And, granny,—I shall never forgive myself!—I was frightened, and I suppose he thought I cared for him. But how could he! How could he!”

“It had to come,” Mrs Brodrick repeated, but a perplexed frown gathered on her forehead, for she was trying to think what would come next. “Put yourself out of your thoughts, dear,” she added after a moment’s pause. “It does not much matter what has brought the climax. What matters a great deal is the effect upon—Sylvia. She—she does not see so quickly as some girls would.”

“I know, and I know that I am to blame,” said Donna Teresa very humbly. “I will do anything you think best. Must she be told?” she suggested hesitatingly. “It takes so little to make her happy!”

“There are two to make happy,” answered her grandmother, smiling sadly.

The young marchesa flung up her head haughtily.

“He! I do not think of him!”

“Then you do not really blame yourself, for it is he whom you have injured.”

“Oh,” cried Teresa with an angry light in her eyes, “I shall never forgive him!”

Mrs Brodrick took no notice.

“It always comes back to one fact,” she said presently. “I suppose you or I will have to speak to poor Sylvia.”

Teresa sprang up, and began to walk about the room.

“What can we say?” she asked, stopping. “Not everything?”

“No, certainly. You mustn’t come into it. We must tell her that—that we think there has been a mistake. That perhaps she should give him back his word—”

“Tell her she ought,” Teresa broke in drearily. “Sylvia is so good, she will do anything she thinks she ought. Why is it the good people who always have to suffer? Little Sylvia! And I meant her to be so happy! Granny, be very, very kind to her. Must it be to-day?”

“No,” said Mrs Brodrick, considering. “Let us wait a day.”

“Till Monday.”

“Well—till Monday. Perhaps he will speak. Perhaps something will come to her. Do you think that man was really Cesare?”

“What do I care if it was?”

But in spite of her indifference her grandmother, without mentioning the incident, asked Mrs Maxwell whether Peppina’s lover was in Taormina.

“I wonder?” returned Mrs Maxwell meditatively. “She broke a scent bottle this morning—I believe he is.”

Peppina, however, asked casually where her lover now was, swore with so much detail that her Cesare, poor fellow, was in Rome, working on the Avanti staff; that her sister had seen him the day before and had heard from him how he had been obliged to have the doctor for Angelo, the poor cripple, and the doctor had said it was good broth the creature wanted—but how could Cesare, with his wages, get good broth?—that Mrs Maxwell melted into conviction and five lire.

No one thought of asking Nina, and no one except she was aware that on that same night Peppina was leaning over a wall, under a golden moon, talking to a man whose movements were very like those of Cesare. She was pressing something into his hand.

“Diamine,” she was saying, “and why not, when I tell you I have more than I want?”

“But how, how? That is my question. You do not ask for it?” he added suddenly, his anger rising.

“And if I did, what is that to you?” she retorted, swinging away. “But I do not. They raise my wages.”

“Again?” said Cesare, still suspicious. “Per Bacco, and for what?”

“For what? For nothing. I tell you they fling their money, they have so much. To me, or to others, what does it matter? And so long as you want it and do not waste it on—the Cianchetti, for instance—”

Her breath came shortly; but Cesare, who had grown used to these hints, for which indeed Nina only was responsible, took no notice, and as her moods changed quickly and she was impressionable the soft stillness of the night calmed her.

“Cesare mio, what are you going to do? Do not be rash. There is danger with these cold-blooded English,” she went on, speaking very tenderly.

“I am not afraid. There is no danger here. And if there were, I do not know that I care. Now or then, what does it matter? But I am not afraid. I have friends.”

She swayed towards him whispering a word in his ear, and the next moment his hand was on her lips, and roughly.

“Mother of Heaven,” he exclaimed, “be quiet! I will not have you speak of that, do you hear? I will not!”

She pushed away his hand and laughed.

“You and the lizards. There is no other to be the wiser.”

He stood silent for some minutes, presently reverting to what she had said—

“They fling their money, do they? And on Monday I went to the Bianchis’ house—you know the Bianchi?”

She nodded.

“Livia is ill—the little white one who always suffers, always! But now she is worse. I tell you she has nothing. She lies on the floor and moans till your heart swells. They took her to the hospital, the one at Sant’ Onofrio—”

Peppina nodded again.

“The Bambino Gesu, yes.”

“And they shut the door in their faces. There was room, but no money. They are good women, I do not blame them. But no money. And these, these fling theirs here, there, where they will, while we die.” He went on gloomily, “We shall change all that before we have done.”

“Eh,” said the girl happily, “and then you will be rich in your turn.”

She closed her eyes, lapping herself in delicious thoughts of how she would have a dress which should outshine the Cianchetti’s wildest attempts, and plenty of good things to eat without working for them. Cesare was clever. But he must not be imprudent. And she did not mean to ask him what was in his mind. She could forgive him anything except love for the Cianchetti.

Perhaps Cesare had not heard her last words. His worn and eager eyes looked out over the almond-trees to where dark Etna lay stretched along the land. There were things he saw in the night of which he never spoke to Peppina; often a haunting girl’s face changing from laughter into sudden terrible reproach. He did not regret his deed. He looked upon himself as a righteous executioner despising ordered law, and believing that he and others of his own way of thinking were bound to execute judgment where it was called for. But his belief did not shut out the face, and he had now a curious thought that any other eyes looking out of the darkness would be more bearable than hers, so long—so long as they were not a woman’s.

Chapter Fifteen.

One day, two days, passed. Mrs Brodrick and Teresa felt like conspirators watching for a sign. As they did not get one, the telling Sylvia on the appointed day grew more disquieting in prospect. Evidently she was not quick enough to read faces, or she must have discovered for herself that something was wrong, that Wilbraham was gloomy, Teresa angry, and her grandmother uneasy. On Tuesday they were to go to Syracuse.

“And we shall see him depart in another direction,” said Teresa with decision.

“If,” said her grandmother—“if all this had never happened, do you believe you might some day have liked him?”

The question had been on her lips more than once. The young marchesa hesitated.

“Perhaps,” she answered frankly. “Perhaps—I don’t know. I liked him better at Assisi.”

“He has been a fool,” thought Mrs Brodrick, turning away.

At this moment Sylvia came hurriedly into the room.

“Is Mary here?” she asked.

“No; she is watching Peppina pack. Where are you going?”

Teresa with a heavy heart tried to speak playfully, and failed.

“Past the cemetery, and down towards the sea.”

“Ah, I never get you to myself nowadays.”

“But you know I love you, don’t you, Teresa?” said the girl anxiously.

“My dear!” cried the marchesa, still with a poor pretence at gaiety. She looked at her grandmother.

“Must you go? Or can you first come to my room for half an hour?” asked Mrs Brodrick in a voice a little tremulous, and with lines showing suddenly in her face.

“Oh, I can’t, granny, I can’t now,” Sylvia returned; “Walter is waiting for me. When I come back I shall have plenty of time. Oh, please!”

“Well, go then,” said Mrs Brodrick with a sigh.

Sylvia went down the long room, putting one or two things in tidy order as she passed. Wilbraham was waiting for her in the little look-out place behind the hotel. The ground, dotted with great prickly-pear clumps, fell very steeply towards the water, and folds of blue hills stretched from Monte Venere towards Messina. Across a radiant sea, snow gleamed on Aspromonte. Two fishermen were coming up a narrow pathway.

“Where are we going? By the cemetery?” asked Sylvia.

Wilbraham roused himself with a start.

“That’s as good a way as any—and the end of all things,” he muttered under his breath, so that she did not hear. “But if she had heard,” he reflected bitterly, “she would not have understood.” He scarcely now took the trouble to conceal things from her, always feeling secure that she would not understand.

They went away together down stony tracks. The gate of the little burying-place was open; they could see its great bushes of scarlet geranium, and yellow daisies, and ugly staring tombs lying in sunshine. Sylvia wondered a great deal, as usual, whether people lived a long time at Taormina, whether there was a doctor, whether the children went to school. To all, Wilbraham answered impatiently that he did not know.

Every now and then, however, she was silent, which was unusual, but struck him as a relief.

They skirted the wall, fennel towering high on the other side, and turned into a small steep path running down through flowery banks and fields, sheeted with red and blue vetches.

“How funny it is to have fields like these!”

Sylvia’s remarks were above all things wanting in suggestiveness. Answers did not spring from them, but had to begin an altogether separate existence.

“Are you tired?” asked Wilbraham, “or shall we go down to the shore? I think you wanted to see the caves?”

“I wanted so much to see a flying-fish. I think it must look so odd, don’t you? But then, of course, if we went, we might not see one. Shall we sit on this bank?”

“If you like.”

“And talk?”

“That too—if you like.”

“I wanted to say something.”

He bit his lip, used to Sylvia’s utterances.

“Well, my dear child, I’m listening.”

He was not thinking of her. His mind had shot away to Teresa, Teresa with an angry light in her eyes, for which he loved her the more. Hopeless, he would not have had her different; but different—to him—what might she not have been! Suddenly, unexpectedly, a word of Sylvia’s caught his attention.

“I don’t think that people ought to marry unless they love each other. Every one always says they ought not,” she was remarking in a nervously excited voice. “I think we had better give it up.”

“Give it up? Do you mean break off our engagement?” he faltered. “Sylvia!”

She was twisting a few blades of grass into a plait, and looking down at that. But his words evidently distressed her.

“Oh, don’t you think we had better?” she exclaimed, with the appeal of a child.

He had been conscious of so exquisite a relief that his honour took alarm.

“Why?” he said, leaning forward. “What is your reason?”

She looked up at him, evidently troubled; the prettiness of her face pathetically touched with the quite new struggle to explain a feeling.

“Don’t you know what I mean? I can’t say it exactly, Walter. I thought you would be sure to understand. Don’t you know? People must be very fond of each other, mustn’t they?”

All the better part of him was quickened by a perception of her sweetness and humility. But the devil set him answering with conscious untruth, and almost roughness—

“So, Sylvia, you’ve never cared for me!”

Her distress shamed him.

“I did, I did, you know I did, Walter! Of course I did. And I have been so happy! Oh, please, don’t say you don’t think so. What can I say, what can I do, to make you know? Do know, do understand.”

All her body was working with quick excited movements, all her heart was in her eyes. Wilbraham covered his own.

“God forgive me, you poor little girl!” he groaned brokenly.

“Ah! then you do know,” she said in a voice that was almost pleased. A little pride in her rose up, because she had been able to convince him, for generally she never attempted to argue, accepting dutifully whatever view of the situation he or Teresa took. This time it was she herself who had made the impression. She put her hand into his.

“Oh, don’t be sorry,” she said consolingly.

“But if you—if you love me?”

“Still, we’ve both got to do it, haven’t we?” she said, and looked at him doubtfully. Was she perhaps mistaken after all? Walter had believed her when she reassured him, and so—if he were to say the same to her, well, then certainly she must believe him, too. And how glad she would be! How very very glad! She looked at him again. He was sorry, not pleased.

“Walter?” She hesitated.

“Yes, Sylvia?”

“Will you tell me?”

“What?”

“If I am right. I want to do what’s right, but it’s so funny, it doesn’t seem to be quite easy. I thought one always knew.”

She sighed—an odd disjointed little sigh, and any sigh was so unlike Sylvia, that Wilbraham cursed himself again. But what a question she was putting.

“How can I help you? Ask your own heart.”

Always literal, she tried to obey him, but in a few minutes turned a puzzled face.

“I don’t think I know how to do it. My heart doesn’t say anything different—at least, I don’t say anything, if that’s the same thing? It is, isn’t it? It’s you that must tell me.”

“I’ll make you happy. I swear I will!”

And he meant it.

“Yes,” said the girl, speaking more slowly than was usual with her. “Oh, I should be happy, of course.”

“Well, then?”

“But that isn’t it, is it? It isn’t my being happy—I wish you could help me,” she added, twisting her fingers nervously, and frowning—“I wish you could tell me.”

He started up, then flung himself down by her side, burying his face.

“For God’s sake, Sylvia, what do you want me to say?”

“Why, what you would like, of course,” she returned simply. “We ought both of us to love each other, oughtn’t we?”

He made a slight movement of his head.

“One—isn’t enough?”

Silence. But Sylvia must always have an answer.

“Is it, Walter?”

He twisted himself.

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“Why, you know everything,” she said proudly. “Of course you know. And please tell me, because I get so puzzled when I have to settle things for myself—”

Suddenly he caught her hands.

“You told no one what you were going to say to me?”

“There was no one I could quite ask,” she replied drearily. “I thought granny would be too old.”

Teresa’s name she did not mention. Why not? he wondered guiltily.

“And so it is you who must tell me. Have you forgotten what it is?”

“No, I haven’t forgotten,” he stammered, hot with shame. “If I don’t love you as much as I should, Sylvia, I—I think we should get along all right. I’d do my best.”

“Oh! of course you would.” She looked away. “I suppose people can’t always help making those mistakes, can they? How funny it is they should!”

She sighed, trying to smile.

“And there is something else to ask you.”

He felt as if another of these problems would drive him mad.

“What shall I call you now?” said Sylvia, staring at him. “I suppose I mustn’t say Walter, and Mr Wilbraham sounds so odd!”

The pathos and the pettiness of it! The little mind casting about for props, and following so faithfully where those she had guided her!

“Sylvia,” he blurted out, “I’ve been a brute—try me once more, dear. I’ll do better, I swear it.”

She shook her head, smiling sadly.

“You see, I’m not clever like Teresa; but I am quite sure no two people ought to marry unless they love each other very much. I thought you meant you did, and so I don’t suppose I asked you questions enough. Then we might have found out, of course; but I didn’t. We needn’t say any more about it, need we?”

“I’ll rid you of my company to-morrow.”

“Won’t you come to Syracuse? Oh, but you wanted to see something there, didn’t you? It seems such a pity you should not see it! If you come, I shan’t tease you, indeed. Granny will be very glad to have me to walk with her. And if once or twice I do forget and call you Walter, I hope you won’t mind much?”

“My God, Sylvia,” he cried, “you punish me!”

“Punish you! Oh!” she exclaimed in distress—“but haven’t I explained rightly? I thought we should all be just as we were before Assisi. You used to walk about with us then, don’t you know, and I don’t see why this should make any difference.” She stood up. “Shall we go back, or did you want to go on farther?”

Go on! He had a revulsion of feeling which swept remorse into the background. If she could say all this—if there was no more than a bare surface an inch deep to be stirred, he need not scourge himself with having troubled it for a few weeks. She could suggest his remaining with them, could bear to see him day by day, could ask at this moment whether he would not like to walk farther! This was not love. To lose this could cost nothing. She was a little pale—that was all.

“I think we had better go back,” he said in a cold voice.

As they clambered up the steep flowery path—Sylvia in her pretty pale green frock, chosen carefully by Teresa, looking the very creature to be moving through this flower-laden earth—he was already feeling a breezy exultation, a sense of freedom, which sent the blood coursing joyfully. And gradually, as this possessed him, other possibilities rushed into his vision. Surely Teresa would see for herself, would understand, that he was not so much to blame? She, if any one, must be aware of Sylvia’s shallowness, must recognise that a man could not be content to pass through life with no other companion, would excuse, forgive—ah, if he could but make her love him, how much would not she forgive?

And poor Sylvia—already forgotten, because she had not the power of impressing her little individuality—stumbled in front, while he walked on air behind. She was so unhappy that now and then she could not see the path for tears which blurred her eyes; but her only fear was lest Wilbraham might find them out and blame himself. There was something heroic—or, if you will, true womanly—about the simple, unaffected manner in which she had done what she had determined ought to be done. She threw no thought at her own wrongs; cast no reproach at Wilbraham; did not look forward or shudder at the picture of dull grey days, such as have been known to drive women to despair; did not exaggerate her sorrows.

And so, perhaps, even in hearing her story, there are few who will pity her.

They had met no one, and had only noticed a few peasants working in the fields; yet, as they again passed the cemetery gate, a man was walking not far behind. A labourer, gnawing a root of fennel, paused as he saw him, and made a movement of his head.

“That way,” he said significantly.

“I know,” returned the man, without quickening his steps.

Chapter Sixteen.

Teresa was in her room—the room the sisters shared—when Sylvia came in. The girl’s steps dragged with a suggestion of weariness, but she was smiling, and gave Teresa no impression of anything serious or sad having touched her life.

“Where is Nina?” she asked.

“Nina is going about singing mournfully—

“Venerdi e dì di Marte Non si sposa, e non si parte.

“We shall break Nina’s heart with all the bad luck we set to work to bring down on our devoted heads. To-morrow is Tuesday, and we travel.”

“Must we?” said Sylvia uneasily.

“Oh, baby!” She kissed her. “Well, I’m glad you’re at home. I believe there’s a thunderstorm on the way. Look at Etna.”

Clouds—dark, splendid clouds—were rolling up behind the great mountain. The light seemed suddenly to die out of the room.

“I hope it won’t come in the night,” said the girl. “Do you think it will? Of course, you don’t know; but I do think one sees it more in the dark.”

Teresa’s thoughts were not with the storm. They tenderly wrapped Sylvia, wondering how deep the pain would go.

“Darling, didn’t granny say she wanted you? Perhaps you’d better go to her; and then, then, mind you come back to me. To me,” she repeated tenderly.

“There’ll be time before dinner,” Sylvia objected without moving.

“She’s waiting, dear.”

“I’d rather talk to you, Teresa, please. There’s something I want to say. And it’s all so funny!” she went on, breaking into a nervous laugh.

The laugh reassured Teresa. The first words had sent the blood back to her heart.

“I’m listening,” she said gaily. “I hope it’s very, very funny.”

“Well, it is. At least I suppose most people would think so. Oh yes, it’s funny, of course. Teresa, you will marry him, won’t you?”

The marchesa turned a whitely-amazed face to her sister.

“I? Marry! Who—what?”

“Walter. Oh, I shall be able to call him Walter then, of course,” said Sylvia, laughing again and nodding. And suddenly the laugh frightened Teresa. She laid her two hands on the girl’s shoulders and looked into her eyes.

“Don’t laugh, please, dear,” she said gravely; “but tell me what you have in your mind. Has Walter said anything to you?”

“I told him,” Sylvia answered proudly.

“What?”

“That we ought not to marry unless we both loved each other. You know, Teresa, that is quite right; and you know, too, that he isn’t fond of me any more, so, of course, we couldn’t. He thought we could. He thought perhaps it would do if I was happy; but I was sure I ought to say no. And so—” she drew a long breath—“I said it.”

“Ah, my poor dear!” cried Teresa, pulling down the pretty head upon her shoulder, and kissing her again. For the moment she had forgotten Sylvia’s first question, and it was the girl herself who reminded her.

“So now you will marry him, won’t you?”

Teresa had to keep check on herself, for she saw that Sylvia was in a state of tremulous excitement, and that she must speak very quietly, though inwardly fuming.

“What has put such a thing into your head—such an amazing thing? What could make you imagine that, under any possibility, I could marry Walter Wilbraham?”

“Because he likes you,” said Sylvia simply.

“Likes me? Likes everybody, I suppose!”—scornfully.

“Not me. If he did, of course we should be married. Now it will be much better that he should marry you.”

Teresa felt sick with the difficulty of convincing, and the remembrance of Wilbraham’s look. Sylvia’s ideas came but rarely, but once come it was next to impossible to dislodge them. She lifted the girl’s chin, and looked steadily into her eyes while she spoke.

“Listen, dear,” she said slowly. “I want you to understand very clearly. You have made a great mistake. He is nothing to me, nothing, nothing—he never can be anything.”

“He likes you,” repeated Sylvia obstinately.

“Don’t say such horrid things!” Teresa cried more hotly.

“And I should like him to have what he wants. I shall be so sorry if he goes away to-morrow.”

“Of course he must go.”

“Why?”

“Sylvia, I could shake you! Because if he is to be nothing to you, nobody else wants him.”

Sylvia stood staring out at the gathering clouds.

“Oh, but I want him,” she said at last.

“Dear! Why? How can you?”

“Of course I want him to be happy. When you are fond of any one—”

Teresa stared at her. What could she say? She saw that the girl was over-strained—nervous; but this firm grasp of the one point she had seized was not to be loosened.

“Ah, her love was worth something!” thought her sister, turning away with a sigh. She perceived that she must temporise.

“Dear, Mr Wilbraham—Walter—will do what he himself thinks best; we can’t possibly decide for him—”

“Please, ask him to stay,” Sylvia interrupted without heeding.

“Ah, that I can’t do.”

The girl twisted her fingers.

“Then I must,” she said. “I’m afraid I shan’t persuade him, because, of course, I never can—but I must try. It’s all so funny, isn’t it?”

“It’s horribly sad,” said Teresa to herself, “but certainly there will be no fear of the man staying. If it had been earlier in the day, he might have packed himself off at once. As it is, for a few hours, one must make the best of him and of it, and be thankful,”—she sighed—“that it has ended. I never wish to see him again. Oh, Sylvia, my little Sylvia! And I daresay he is persuading himself she doesn’t feel.”

“I think I shall go and talk to Nina,” said the girl. Her eyes looked bright, and a feverish spot burned in each cheek.

“Dear—stay here.”

“Must I?” The old wistful dependence upon Teresa had come back. “I think it’s going to thunder, and that always frightens me. Nina says things which are nice.”

“Lie down on your bed. I’ll hang up something over the window; Nina shall come and sit with you, and you’ll find yourself asleep before you know where you are. I’ll come back before dinner.”

“Nina is going to make me some latte di gallina to-night,” said Sylvia, unresisting.

Teresa made her lie down, covered, coaxed, kissed her, then shrouded the window, guiltless of shutters. Nothing could be seen of Etna behind heavy menacing clouds which swept stormily up, and drifted sullenly along the purple slopes. The sea was lashing its white wild waves, which raced and plunged and flung themselves each on the other. Sylvia chattered about a hundred trifles—what Mary Maxwell had heard from England; whether her hat could not go in with Teresa’s; whether they had really better start on a Tuesday. If Teresa succeeded in stopping her, she quickly began again. Her sister decided at last that Nina might manage better, and was going to seek her. But when she reached the door, there was a sharp sudden terrified cry from Sylvia.

“Teresa! Don’t go! Don’t leave me here by myself!”

She had started up. Her sister instantly went back.

“I won’t, dear, I won’t. I was only going to find Nina, because there isn’t the ghost of a bell in the house.”

“Yes, I should like Nina,” said the girl, settling down again. Teresa called from the door, and the little woman hurried in with her long “Eh-h-h-h-h!” at sight of the darkened room.

“It is the storm,” Teresa explained.

“Eh, the storm? It will not come yet,” said Nina, with the almost unerring certainty by which an Italian peasant foretells the weather. “The signorina may sleep, and I will be here, but the storm not yet. Ecco!”

Sylvia seemed content. Teresa flew to her grandmother’s room, longing to give vent to her pent-up indignation. She felt herself in the most hateful position in the world, and, woman-like, flung the whole weight of blame on Wilbraham. But Mrs Brodrick, whose eyes had long been open, was juster.

“It was time it ended,” she said. “It has been a dreary mistake from first to last, and every day would have made it worse.”

“I suppose so. And yet, and yet—”

“Yes?”

“If you had heard! Not one of us could have taken it so well. I don’t think she once remembered that it was hard on herself. Oh, I shall never forgive him!”

“Ah!”

“He had no right, no right!” cried Teresa hotly.

“Ah!”

“I—who have only tried to look at him with Sylvia’s eyes, for Sylvia’s sake!”

“There you have it,” said Mrs Brodrick, with a smile. “The poor man was bewildered between two sets of eyes. I’m much more charitable, and so I’m not surprised.”

“You’re very nearly as bad as he!” cried Teresa indignantly. “And, oh, what shall we do to stop Mary Maxwell’s remarks!”

“Let her make them, I suppose; they will finish the sooner.”

“There will be a great many to endure before they finish.”

“Life is made up of such endurances,” said her grandmother patiently. “She can talk to me. I am old and dull; but a figure-head will serve at a stretch for a listener, and always has the advantage of not answering back again.”

“And after all,” said Teresa hopefully, “her being with us is more cheerful for Sylvia. I think, poor dear, we shall be able to make her happy again in a little while—when he is well out of the way, as he will be soon.”

Mrs Brodrick took up her knitting.

“Shall you speak to him?” she asked carelessly.

“If he wishes it. Certainly.”

Teresa had thrown her head back like a spirited horse as she spoke, and at the same moment a knock came at the door. The English gentleman would be obliged if her excellency would give him a few words on the terrace.

“Her excellency will,” she returned, flinging a defiant look at her grandmother, and resenting a shadow of doubt in her manner. She went out of the room quickly and silently, and Wilbraham, who was watching the windows from the end of the terrace, threw away his cigar and came to meet her. She saw that he was very pale, and her own manner was hard as she stood waiting for him to speak.

“I feel that I owe you an explanation,” he began.

“I thought, on the contrary, that you might be asking for one from us,” said Teresa at once coldly. “Sylvia has broken her engagement, she tells me.”

He hesitated, and turned away his look.

“I should have tried to make her happy,” he said, weighing his words.

“You have failed, however, so far.”

“It seems so.” He had hesitated again.

“It is a pity,” went on Teresa relentlessly, “that you had not discovered the extent of your powers before attempting to apply them. You might have been saved this—”

“Humiliation?”

“Humiliation.”

She stood upright, a slim dark figure, her eyes judging him gravely and coldly. Behind her were the thunder-clouds of Etna.

“If humiliation were all, it would be nothing,” he said, his breath coming shortly. Perhaps he hoped she would have questioned him further. But her thoughts were with Sylvia.

“No,” she said, “nothing.”

“Of course,”—the words shot out from him in spite of himself—“you only see one side. I suppose I can’t induce you to judge fairly?”

“I cannot see that my opinion is concerned. The affair is my sister’s. She has decided for herself. Absolutely independently,” she added, with the desire to drive home Sylvia’s capability.

“But you approve?”

“I think she has acted for her own happiness,” said Teresa guardedly.

He looked gloomily at her.

“Some day you may be kinder to me.”

“Do you think so?” Her tone was not pleasant. “You will leave us to-morrow, of course, and it is unlikely that we shall often meet again.”

He walked away a few steps and returned.

“I tell you we will!” he said in a sharp passionate voice, which stung Teresa’s anger like a lash. She flung back her head and cried.

“I never wish to see you again.”

“That may be.” His words breathed thickly. “But I will see you.”

A sudden dread of a scene swept over her, and forced self-control.

“Whether we meet or not is of no possible consequence,” she said coolly. “I do not think it would be pleasant, and I hope you will have left Rome when we return. Meanwhile you and Sylvia must get through this evening as best you can. You have misunderstood her hitherto, and I suppose you will misunderstand her to the end.”

She nodded and left him, not without thankfulness that he did not follow. It had been a sharp interview, charged with dangerous feeling, which enraged her against him. The table d’hôte hour was near, and she went to her own room, hoping to find Sylvia sleeping. As she opened the door, however, she heard her chatter.

“Oh, Sylvia,” she said reproachfully—“when I wanted you to rest! And you haven’t even the excuse of a thunderstorm,” she added, pulling down her defence from the window, “for it has not come.”

“But it is coming, eccellenza,” said Nina, joining her and speaking in a low voice. “It is coming in less than three hours. And there will be enough of it. It will keep people in the house to-night, that is one good thing.”

“Why?” laughed Teresa.

Nina’s face expressed blank unconsciousness.

“Why? Who knows! We have a saying in my country, eccellenza, that where the eye does not see, mischief will not reach. A foolish saying, eh-h-h-h-h! But there are foolish ones everywhere, even at Viterbo.”

“Get up and dress, Sylvia,” said her sister cheerfully. “And put on your prettiest frock.”

But Sylvia for once was determined to wear nothing but a black which she generally hated.

“What does it matter?” reflected Teresa. And yet she was wrong.

Two or three Austrians had arrived that afternoon, so that there was a larger company than usual at the table, where great bunches of white and purple irises were stuck at intervals. The Maxwells came in late and tired, having climbed to the castle at the back of Taormina. Teresa was glad that Mary was thinking more of her fatigue and her dinner than of Sylvia’s affairs, and that the talk contrived to be general. It grew early dark, for the sky was by this time heavy with cloud, and thunder was muttering. The little Hungarian doctor and his wife were smoking cigarettes. Maxwell and Wilbraham had got hold of an English newspaper; Maxwell was confounding his own luck in not having his juniors’ chances over some of the little wars which England was waging, and Wilbraham answering at long intervals. Teresa took Mary Maxwell in hand, and goaded herself into sympathy over an account of her woes with her mother-in-law, hoping to leave Sylvia to talk or not as she liked. She found her work hard, for Mrs Maxwell was far too shrewd to put up with a perfunctory attention, and Teresa’s own mind was running through many sensations. She could not be sure how much Sylvia felt, how it would affect her; whether the kind of light chatter, into which she heard her break, acted as a relief or carried danger. She was sure that Wilbraham would construe it into the indifference of a trivial nature, and was torn between her desire that he should hold Sylvia less lightly and satisfaction that he could not believe himself mourned. The idea that it was she, she, whom ironical fate had chosen to interpose between Sylvia’s image and Wilbraham’s heart, made her coldly, cruelly contemptuous. That he should dream!

“I shall go to bed,” yawned Mrs Maxwell, “though I don’t believe I shall be able to sleep a wink. Shall I take Jem away? He is such a blind old goose, he never sees that he is monopolising our lovers. But Sylvia is in high spirits to-night.”

“Oh, don’t disturb anybody,” implored Teresa. “The thunder is getting nearer, and I shall have to sweep away Sylvia in ten seconds; she hates it so! I’ll come up for a minute afterwards if I may speak to you.”

“Haven’t we been speaking?” laughed Mrs Maxwell, opening her eyes. “But come, come, by all means.”

Her movement brought about others. Her husband went after her to fetch some newly-acquired treasure, which he wanted to show to the Hungarians; Wilbraham stood up, flung a hesitating glance on the group near the table, and stepped out on the terrace. Sylvia instantly and unexpectedly followed him. Teresa half rose, but Mrs Brodrick pulled her back.

“Leave her,” she said. “It is her right. What a flash! What—”

They stared at each other. Before the almost instantaneous answer of the thunder rolled out, a sharp short report anticipated it. The Hungarian doctor sprang up and dashed through the window, Teresa only a step behind him.

“My God! Who is shot?” she heard him cry.

Chapter Seventeen.

Dazzled by the lightning glare, for a few instants Teresa could distinguish nothing but a heap of blackness. Then she saw Wilbraham kneeling on the ground with Sylvia in his arms.

“Hold her—she’s hurt!” he cried hoarsely.

As the doctor and Teresa raised her, he sprung to his feet and dashed into the gaping darkness.

Teresa never could remember how the next few minutes passed. The shot must have startled others, for Nina, the padrone, Colonel Maxwell, all came running. Mrs Brodrick, too, was there.

“Take her through the window to her room,” she said quietly.

“Come on then,” said Colonel Maxwell, trying to speak cheerfully; “somebody open the window on the other side, and we shall soon see what’s wrong. Tell them, for Heaven’s sake, not to make such a confounded row,” he added to the Hungarian, who knew a little English.

Teresa was voiceless, though all that was to be done she did with absolute precision. She helped to raise her, helped to lay her on the bed, sent the others away, and stayed alone with the doctor and her dead.

For Sylvia was dead.

The shot, which might have missed Wilbraham, had struck her full in the heart. Probably, in her black dress, undistinguishable in the darkness, she had been altogether unseen. There had not been time for a cry, a quiver. The life had gone out of her before she dropped.

The little Hungarian doctor, his rosy face strangely moved, raised himself, and looked pitifully at Teresa, who held the candle. She stopped his faltering words, putting up her hand.

“I know,” she said. “I knew it from the first.”

He wanted very much to comfort her.

“There could have been no pain, no consciousness—”

“Oh yes, there was pain enough—as much as she could bear!” Teresa cried, the words wrung from her by the torture of an almost unbearable anguish. “If only she had died yesterday!”

The doctor looked at her, and realised that here was something he could not understand, and had better not question.

“You are overdone, Donna Teresa, and no wonder, after such a terrible shock,” he said quietly. “And there is also your grandmother to be considered. Will you go to her room, and take what I will send you? I will inform the others, and see to the necessary details. Indeed, you should not remain here.”

His mind ran professionally forward to all that had to be done: the police, the strangers who would have to come and see for themselves. For this was no quiet death-bed where the mourners might sit silent in the hush of sorrow. Already there was a clamour of weeping outside the door—Peppina’s the loudest—and Teresa’s strange words made him afraid for her brain, so that he pressed her again.

“Send in your own woman. She has got her wits about her. Afterwards, I give you my word, you shall come back.”

Teresa waved him aside with a quiet gesture full of strength.

“I shall not leave her,” she said, “and you need have no fears for me. There must be a great deal for you to do. Please see to it, and let Colonel Maxwell help you. Will you go to my grandmother first, and ask her to come to me in ten minutes? She and Nina—no one else.”

So she had ten minutes alone with her dead—ten minutes in which to stand and gaze at the fair young face, unmarred by the withering finger of illness, still round, still soft, still smiling, yet suddenly invested with that great dignity which Death alone can give to those he calls. Never before had Sylvia looked inscrutable, mysterious, far away, far above them all. Teresa touched her, kissed her, strained her in her arms. She was not yet cold; her young limbs were still supple. Teresa could have believed life was lingering but for that look—the look of something more than life, something into which life had suddenly sprung, something which came back across a gulf. In one little moment, Sylvia, ignorant Sylvia, had solved the great problem, and smiled at them from beyond an immeasurable vastness. Teresa stretched out her arms—speechless—and grasped air.

A sound disturbed her, and she looked round. There stood Wilbraham, haggard, breathless, drenched to the skin, changed almost out of recognition. At the door Nina had tried to stop him, but he pushed her aside. The two eyed each other.

“Too—late?”

Teresa only just caught the whisper.

“It was momentary.” Her quiet amazed herself.

His eyes persistently held away from Sylvia. He raised his hand to his wet hair, fingering it impatiently.

“I did not catch him.”

“Him? Who?”

“The fellow who shot her—who shot at me.”

“Who?” Teresa frowned, trying to remember. In the rush of the tragedy, she had forgotten that some one was responsible for it. “Oh,” she cried desperately, “what of that!”

She turned away again. Against his will, Wilbraham’s blood-shot eyes followed hers to where Sylvia lay, serenely lifted above his level.

“God forgive me!” he groaned.

And before that supreme look of her dead, Teresa’s anger dropped into pity, and the saving tears rushed to her eyes.

“And she, too!—She does, she does!” she cried brokenly, stretching out her hands.

He seized them.

“And you?”

“And I.”

He had his forgiveness. He would never have more.

The End.

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Chapter 1

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Chapter 2

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Chapter 3

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Chapter 4

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Chapter 5

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Chapter 6

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Chapter 7

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Chapter 8

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Chapter 9

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Chapter 10

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Chapter 11

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Chapter 12

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Chapter 13

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Chapter 14

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Chapter 15

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Chapter 16

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Chapter 17

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