William Le Queux (continued 4)

As she sat at the piano on this chilly night, she looked eminently beautiful in a loose, rich tea-gown of sage-green plush, with front of pale pink silk, a gown of striking magnificence, with its heavy silver belt glittering beneath the shaded lamplight. It was made in a style which no English dressmaker could accomplish, and fastened at the throat by a quaint brooch consisting of three tiny golden playing-cards, set with diamonds and rubies, and fastened together by a pearl-headed pin, a charming little phantasy. The pink silk, in combination with the sombre green, set off her fair beauty admirably, yet her face was a trifle wan as she mechanically fingered the keys with all the suppleness and rapidity of a good player. But she was Tuscan, and the love of music was in her inborn. In her own far-off country one could hear the finest opera for sixpence, and there was scarcely any household that did not possess its mandoline, and whose members did not chant those old canzonette amorose. Music is part of the Italian’s life.

She stopped at last, slowly glancing around the handsome room, and drawing a heavy sigh. At that moment a sense of utter loneliness oppressed her. Her companion, Mrs Nenci, had retired to bed half an hour before, and the Doctor was still in his study, where he usually spent the greater part of his time. He was often locked in alone for hours together, and was careful never to allow any one to enter on any pretext. She had, indeed, never seen the interior of Malvano’s den, and was often seized with curiosity to know how he spent his time there through so many hours. As she sat silent, she pondered, as she ever did, over her lost lover, and wondered if he were still in England, or if, weary and despairing, he had left for the Continent again.

“He has misjudged me,” she murmured—“cruelly misjudged me.”

Her fathomless blue eyes glistened with tears, as, turning again to the instrument, she commenced to play and sing, in a soft, sweet contralto, the old Tuscan love-song, “Ah! non mi amava”; the song sung by the contadinelle in the vineyards and the maize-fields, where the green lizards dart across the sun-baked stones—where life is without a care, so long as one has a handful of baked chestnuts, or a plate of polenta di castagne—where the air is sweet and balmy and the very atmosphere breathes of love.

“E mi diceva che avria sfidato, Per ottenermi tutto il creato; Che nel mio sguardo, nel mio sorriso Stavan le gioie del Paradiso. E mentre al core cosi parlava. Ah! non mi amava! no, non mi amava! “Tu sei, diceva, l’angelo mio: Tu sei la stella d’ogni desio: Il sol mio bene sei che m’avanza; Tu de’ miei giorni se’ la speranza. Fin le sue pene mi raccontava, Ah! non mi amava! no, non mi amava!”

Slowly, in a voice full of emotion, she sang the old song she had heard so many times when a child, until its sad, serious air trembled through the room.

Behind her were two long windows, which, opening upon the lawn, were now heavily curtained to keep out the icy draughts. Blasts of cold air seemed to penetrate to every corner of that high-up house, exposed as it was to the chill winds sweeping across the hills. As she was singing, one of the maids entered with her candle, and placing it upon the table, wished her good-night.

“Good-night!” she answered in her pretty broken English; and, when the girl had gone, went on playing, but very softly, so as not to disturb the household. Her voice, full of emotion, had repeated the final words of that passionate verse—

“Non aveva core che per amarmi Con i suoi detti ei m’ingannava, Ah! non mi amava! no, non mi amava!”

when the curtains before one of the windows behind her suddenly stirred, and an eager face peered through between them. The slight sound attracted her, and she turned quickly with a low exclamation of fear. Next, instant, however, she sprang up from the piano with a glad cry, for the man who had thus secretly entered was none other than Charles Armytage.

“You, Nino!” she gasped, pale and trembling, holding aloof from him in the first moments of her surprise.

“Yes,” he replied in a low, intense tone, standing before her in hat and overcoat. “I came here to see the Doctor, but hearing your well-remembered voice outside, and finding the window unfastened, came in. You—you do not welcome me,” he added with disappointment. “Why are you here?”

“Welcome you!” she echoed. “You, who are in my thoughts every day, every hour, every moment; you who, by leaving me, have crushed all hope, all life from me, Nino! Ah! no; I—I welcome you. But forgive me; I never expected that we should meet in this house, of all places.”

“Why?”

She hesitated. Her fingers twitched nervously.

“Because—well, because you ought not to come here,” she answered ambiguously. She remembered Nenci’s covert threat, and knew well what risks her lover ran. He was in deadly peril, and only she herself could shield him.

“I don’t understand you,” he exclaimed. “I have for the past month searched everywhere for you. You left the hotel and disappeared; I have made inquiries in Livorno and in Florence, believing you had returned to Italy, and here to-night, as I passed across the lawn, I heard your voice, and have now found you.”

“Why?” she inquired, her trembling hand still upon the piano. “Is not all our love now of the past? I am unworthy of you, Nino, and I told you so honestly. I could not deceive you further.”

“Heaven knows!” he cried, “you deceived me enough. You have never even told me your real name.”

She looked at him with an expression of fear in her eyes. “Ah!” she cried. “You know the truth, Nino. I see by your face!”

“I know that you, whom I have known as Gemma Fanetti, are none other than the Contessa Funaro!”

Her breast heaved and fell quickly, and she hung her head.

“Well?”

He moved towards her, his hands still in the pockets of his heavy tweed overcoat.

“Well,” he repeated, “and what excuse have you for so deceiving me?”

“None,” she answered in her soft Tuscan, her eyes still downcast. “I loved you, Nino, and I feared—”

She hesitated, without finishing the sentence.

“You feared to tell me the truth, even though you well knew that I was foolishly infatuated; that I was a love-blind idiot? No; I don’t believe you,” he cried fiercely. “You had some further, some deeper motive.” She was silent. Her nervous fingers hitched themselves in the lace of her gown, and she grew pallid and haggard.

“I now know who you are; how grossly you have deceived me, and how ingeniously I have been tricked,” he cried bitterly, speaking Italian with difficulty. “You whom I believed honest and loving, I have found to be only an adventuress, a woman whose notoriety has spread from Como to Messina.”

“Yes,” she cried hoarsely, “yes, Nino, I am an adventuress. Now that my enemies have exposed me, concealment is no longer possible. I deceived you, but with an honest purpose in view. My name, I well know, is synonymous with all that is vicious. I am known as The Funaro—the extravagant woman whose lovers are legion, and of whom stories of reckless waste and ingenious fraud are told by the jeunesse dorée in every city in Italy. Ask of any of the smart young men who drink at the Gambrinus at Milan, at Genoa, at Rome, or at Florence, and they will relate stories by the hour of my wild, adventurous life, of my loves and my hatreds, of my gaiety and my sorrow. Yes, I, alas I know it all. I have the reputation of being the gayest woman in all gay Italy; and yet—and yet,” she added in a soft voice, “I love you, Nino.”

“No!” he cried, drawing from her with repugnance, as if in fear that her hands should touch him; “it is not possible that we can exchange words of affection after this vile deceit. All is now plain why the police of Livorno ordered you to leave the city; why Hutchinson, the Consul, urged me to part from you; why, when we drove together in those sun-baked streets, every one turned to look at you. They knew you!” he cried. “They knew you—and they pitied me!”

She shrank at these cruel, bitter words as if he had dealt her a blow. From head to foot she trembled as, with an effort, she took a few uneven steps towards him.

“You denounce me!” she cried in a low tone. “You, the man I love, declare that I am base, vile, and heartless. Well, if you wish, I will admit all the charges you thus level against me. Only one will I refute. You say that I am an adventuress; you imply that I have never loved you.”

“Certainly,” he cried. “I have been your dupe. You led me to believe in your innocence, while all the time the papers are commenting upon your adventures, and printing scandals anent your past. Because I did not know your language well, and because I seldom read an Italian newspaper, you were bold enough to believe that I should remain in utter ignorance. But I have discovered the extent of your perfidy. I know now, that in dealing with you, I’m dealing with one whose shrewdness and cunning are notorious throughout the whole of Italy.”

“Then you have no further love for me, Nino?” she asked blankly, after a brief space.

“Love! No, I hate you!” he cried. “You led me to believe in your uprightness and honesty, yet I find that you, of all women in Italy, are the least desirable, as an acquaintance—the least possible as a wife!”

“You hate me?” she gasped hoarsely. “You—Nino!—hate me?”

“Yes,” he cried, his hands clenched in excitement, “I hate you!”

“Then why have you come here?” she asked. “Even if you had heard my voice, you need not have entered this room to taunt me.”

“I have come to call upon the Doctor,” he answered.

“Eleven o’clock at night is a curious hour at which to call upon a friend,” she observed. “Your business with him must be very pressing.”

“It is—it is,” he answered quickly, striding to and fro. “I must see him to-night.”

“Why?”

“Because I leave England to-morrow.”

“You leave England?” she said hoarsely. “You intend to leave me here?”

“Surely you are comfortable enough? Malvano is Italian, and, although I was not aware that you were acquainted with him, he is nevertheless a very good fellow, and no doubt you are happy.”

“Happy!” she cried. “Happy without you, Nino! Ah! you are too cruel! If you could but know the truth; if you could but know what I have suffered, what I am at this moment suffering for your sake, you would never treat me thus—never.”

“Ah! your story is always the same—always,” he laughed superciliously. “I know now why you would never invite me to your house in Florence. You could not well take me to your great palazzo without me knowing its name. Again, you lived in that small flat in the Viale at Livorno instead of at your villa at Ardenza, that beautiful house overlooking the sea, coveted by all the Livornesi.”

“I have a reason for not living there,” she exclaimed quickly. “I have not entered it now for two years. Perhaps I shall never again cross its threshold.”

“And it is untenanted?”

“Certainly. I do not wish to let it.”

“Why?”

“It is a caprice of mine,” she answered. “To a woman of my character caprices are allowed, I suppose?” Then, after a slight hesitation, she raised her fine eyes to his, saying, “Now tell me candidly, Nino, why have you come here to-night?”

“To see the Doctor. I want to consult him.”

“Are you ill?” she asked with some alarm, noticing that he was unusually pale.

“No, I want his advice regarding another matter, a matter which concerns myself.” As he spoke he kept his eyes fixed upon her, and saw how handsome she was. In that loose gown of silk and plush, with its heavy girdle, she looked, indeed, the notorious Countess Funaro about whom he had heard so much scandalous gossip.

Slowly she advanced towards him, her small white hands outstretched, her arms half bare, her beautiful face upturned to his. Those eyes were so blue and clear, and that face so perfect an incarnation of purity, that it was hard to believe that she was actually the notorious woman who had so scandalised Florentine society. He stood before her again, fascinated as he always had been in her presence in those bygone sunny days in Tuscany, when he had basked daily in her smiles and idled lazily beside the Mediterranean.

“Nino,” she said, in a soft crooning voice scarcely above a whisper—a voice which showed him she was deeply in earnest—“Nino, if it pleases you to break my heart then I will not complain. I know I deserve all the terrible punishment I am now enduring, for I’ve sinned before Heaven and have sinned against you, the man who loved me. You cast me aside as a worthless woman because of my evil reputation; you credit all the base libellous stories circulated by my enemies; you believe that I have toyed with your affection and have no real genuine love for you. Well, Nino,” she sighed, “let it be so. I know that now you are aware of my identity you can never believe in my truth and honesty; but I tell you that I still love you, even though you may denounce and desert me.”

He turned from her with a gesture of impatience.

“Tell me, Nino,” she went on eagerly, following him and grasping his arm convulsively, “tell me the truth. Why are you here to-night?”

He turned quickly upon her, and made a movement to free himself from her grasp.

“Malvano is Italian,” he answered. “I have come to consult him upon a matter in which only an Italian can assist me.”

“I am Italian,” she said quickly. “Will you not let me render you at least one service, even if it be the last?” She looked earnestly into his face, and her soft arms wound themselves around his neck.

“I have no faith in you,” he answered. “I was a fool to enter here, but your voice brought back to me so many memories of those days that are dead, and I couldn’t resist.”

“Then you still think of me sometimes, caro,” she said, clinging to him. “Your love is not yet dead?”

“It is dead,” he declared, fiercely disengaging himself. “Gemma, whom I knew and loved in Livorno, will ever remain a sad sweet memory throughout my life; but the wealthy, wanton Contessa Funaro, the woman against whom every finger is pointed in Italy, I can never trust, I can never love.”

She fell back, crushed, humiliated, ashamed. A deathlike pallor overspread her face, and her eyes grew large, dark, and mournful. There are some griefs that are too deep, even for tears.

“You cannot trust me, Nino,” she cried a moment later. “But you can nevertheless heed one word which I speak in deepest earnest.”

“Well?”

“Leave this house. Do not seek this man, Malvano.”

“Why?” he inquired, surprised. “He’s my friend. We have met once or twice since we shot together in Berkshire.”

Again she advanced close to him, so close that he felt her breath upon his cheek, and the sweet odour of lilac from her chiffons filled his nostrils.

“If you absolutely refuse to tell me the reason you have come here to-night, then I will tell you,” she whispered. “You are in fear.”

“In fear? I don’t understand.”

“You have enemies, and you wish to consult the Doctor with regard to them,” she went on boldly. Then, in a voice scarcely audible, she added, whispering into his ear: “You have received warning.”

He started suddenly, looking at her dismayed.

“Who told you? How did you know?” he gasped.

“I cannot now explain,” she answered breathlessly, still holding his arm in convulsive grasp, panting as she spoke. “It is sufficient for you to know the intention of your enemies, so that you may be forewarned against them.”

“Then it is actually true that I’m in personal danger!” he cried. “To my knowledge I’ve never done an evil turn to anybody, and this is all a puzzling enigma. The letter here”—and he drew from his overcoat a note which had been delivered by a boy-messenger at his chambers in Ebury Street—“this letter is evidently written by an Italian, because of the flourish of the capitals: and I came here to-night to ask Malvano the best course to pursue. I’m staying in the neighbourhood, over at Apethorpe.”

“Then leave at once,” she urged earnestly. “To-morrow, get away by the first train to London, and thence to the Continent again. Take precautions that you are not followed. Go to France, to Germany, to Spain, anywhere out of reach. Then write to me at the Poste Restante, at Charing Cross, and I will come to you.”

“But why? How do you know all this?”

“Look at that letter, Nino,” she said in a low, deep tone. “Look once again at the handwriting.”

He opened it beneath the silk-shaded lamp and scanned it eagerly.

“It’s yours,” he gasped, the truth suddenly dawning upon him. “You yourself have given me this warning!” She nodded.

“Tell me why, quickly,” he cried, placing his hand upon her shoulder. “Tell me why.”

“I warned you, Nino,” she answered, in a soft, hoarse voice; “I warned you because I love you.”

“But what have I to fear?” he demanded. “If I’m threatened I can seek protection of the police. To my knowledge I haven’t a single enemy.”

“We all of us blind ourselves with that consolation,” she replied. “But listen. Of all men, avoid Malvano. Leave this house at once, and get out of England at the earliest moment. Your enemies are no ordinary ones; they are desperate, and hold life cheap.”

“But you!” he cried, puzzled. “You are here, in the house of this very man against whom you warn me!”

“Ah! do not heed me,” she answered. “Your love for me is dead. Yet I am still yours, and in this matter you must, if you value your safety, trust me.”

“But Malvano is an excellent fellow,” he protested. “I must just wish him good-night. What would he think if he knew I had been here and had this private interview with you?”

“No, Nino,” she cried, her countenance pale and earnest. “You must not! You hear me? You must not. If it were known that I had given you warning then my position would be one of greater peril than it now is.”

“But surely I need not fear the Doctor? Every one about here knows him. He’s the most popular man for miles around.”

“And the most dangerous,” she whispered. “No, for my sake, fly, Nino. He may enter this room at any moment. I love you, and no harm shall befall you if you will obey me. Leave this place at once, and promise me not to make any attempt to see Malvano.” His eyes met hers, and he saw in them a love-light that was unmistakable. By her clear open glance he became almost convinced that she was speaking the truth. Yet he still hesitated.

“Ah!” she cried, suddenly flinging her arms again about his neck. “Go, Nino; you are unsafe here. Leave England to-morrow for my sake—for my sake, caro. But kiss me once,” she implored in her sweet, lisping Italian. “Give me one single kiss before you part from me.”

His brow darkened. He held his breath.

“No, no,” she cried wildly, divining his disinclination, “I am not the Contessa Funaro, now. I am Gemma—the woman who loves you, the woman who is at this moment risking her life for you. Kiss me. Then go. Fly, caro, abroad, and may no harm befall you, Nino, my beloved!” Then she raised her beautiful face to his.

His countenance relaxed, he bent swiftly, and their lips met in one long, tender, passionate caress. Then, urged by her, he wished her a whispered farewell, and disappeared through the heavy curtains before the window as silently as he had come, while she stood panting, breathless, but in an ecstasy of contentment. Once again he had pressed her lips and breathed one single word of love.

Chapter Twenty Two.

The Unknown.

In winter the roads in Rutlandshire are none too good for cycling. When wet they are too heavy; when frosty they are apt to be rutty and dangerous. Once or twice Gemma had been out with the two daughters of the rector of a neighbouring parish, but as she could not understand half a dozen words they said, and discovered them to be of that frigid genus peculiar to the daughters-of-the-cloth, she preferred riding alone. In January the country around Uppingham is bleak, brown, and bare, different indeed from winter in her own sunny land, but it was the exhilarating sensation of cycling that delighted her, and she did not ride for the purpose of seeing the district. The hills around Lyddington were poor indeed after the wild grandeur of the Lucca Mountains, or the Apennines, but on bright mornings she found her ride very delightful, and always returned fresh, rosy, and hungry.

A fortnight had gone by since the night Charles Armytage had visited her, but she had received no word from him, because the address she gave was at the Poste Restante at Charing Cross and she had not been to London. The kiss he had given her before parting reassured her, and now, instead of being pensive, pale-faced, and wan, she had resumed something of her old reckless gaiety, and would go about the house humming to herself the chorus of that gay song, popular to every café-concert in Italy, “M’abbruscia, m’abbruscia, ’t capa, signurè,” or jingle upon the piano for the amusement of the Doctor and Mrs Nenci, “Pennariale,” “La Bicicletta,” “Signo’, dicite si,” and a host of other equally well-known ditties. Both Malvano, who always treated her with studied courtesy, and her female companion were surprised at her sudden change of manner. Neither, however, knew the truth. Armytage had evidently succeeded in leaving the house and gaining the road without having been seen by the servants.

The frosty wind was sweeping keen as a knife across the uplands one morning as she mounted her cycle, and with a laughing farewell to the Doctor, who was just ascending into his high trap to visit a patient some five miles away in an opposite direction, she allowed her machine to run rapidly down the hill for nearly a mile without pedalling. The roads were hard and rutty, but she eared nothing for that, and rode straight as an arrow, taking both hands from the handles in order to readjust the pin which held her neat little toque. Few women rode better than she, and few looked more graceful or pedalled more evenly. In the leafy Cascine at Florence, in the Public Gardens at Milan, in the Bois at Paris, and along the Viale at Livorno, her riding had been many times admired. But here, on these Rutlandshire highways there was no crowd of gossiping idlers, none to remark her beauty, none to whisper strange stories of “the pretty Contessa,” and for the first time for months she now felt free from the trammels of her past.

About a mile and a half from Lyddington, she turned off suddenly on to a byroad, rutty and ill-kept, and, still downhill, rode towards Seaton Station. The Doctor expected a small parcel of drugs from London, and, as it could be tied to her handle-bar, she had that morning made it the object of her ride. Malvano, however, had been compelled to scribble a line to the station-master for, as she could not speak English, and the local railway official could not be expected to have any knowledge of Tuscan, the note would obviate any complications.

Shortly before reaching the station, the road crossed the railway by a level-crossing kept by a lame man, one of the company’s servants, who had been injured years before, and who now led a life of comparative ease in his snug little cottage beside the line. As she approached, she saw that the great gates were closed, and, riding up to them, she dismounted and called to the cottager for the way to be opened.

The grey-headed old man appeared at the door in his shabby overcoat, shook his head, and cast a glance down the line. Then, almost next instant, the Continental express from Harwich to Birmingham flew past. The gatekeeper drew back one of the levers beside his door, entered the house for a moment, then came forth with something in his hand.

“This letter has been left for you, miss,” he said, politely touching his cap and handing a note to her. “It’s been here these four days, and I was told not to send it up to the Doctor’s, but to give it to you personally next time you passed alone.”

“Who gave it to you?” she asked quickly, in Italian, as she took the letter in one hand, holding her cycle with the other.

But the man, unacquainted with strange languages, regarded her rather suspiciously, and answered—

“I don’t understand French, miss.”

They both laughed, and from her purse she gave the man some coppers. Not until she got to a lonely part of the road, on her return journey, did she dismount to read the secret missive. It consisted of five words only, in Italian, scribbled in pencil upon a piece of that common foreign notepaper ruled in tiny squares. The words were—“Bonciani, Monday, at five. Urgent.”

It bore no signature, no date, nothing to give a clue whence the mysterious appointment emanated. She examined its superscription, but utterly failed to recognise the handwriting.

For a long time she stood beneath the leafless oaks with the scrap of paper in her hand, meditating deeply. It was plain that whoever had summoned her to London feared to sign the note lest it should fall into other hands; furthermore, the writer evidently knew that it was unsafe to send a message through the post direct to the Doctor’s house. Being unable to speak English, she could not ask the railway watchman to describe the person who had placed it in his hands. She could only act as the unknown writer demanded, or, on the other hand, take no notice of the strange communication.

It was not from Charles, for she well knew his bold, sprawly hand. This was decidedly the writing of one of her compatriots; but as she reflected, she could not think of any one who could desire her urgent attendance at the obscure little restaurant in Regent Street. She had often heard of the Bonciani, even while in Italy, but had never visited it. Then suddenly the sweet, distant sound of church bells, borne to her on the frosty wind, sounded so different to that from the old sun-blanched campanili of the Tuscan churches, and brought to her recollection that the day was Sunday, a festal day in her own land, and that the appointment with the unknown was on the morrow.

Irresolute and puzzled, she tore up both envelope and paper, and cast them to the wind; then, seating herself in her saddle, she rode onward up the long incline which led to Lyddington.

That afternoon there were two or three callers—the wife and daughter of a retired manufacturer living at Laxton, and a couple of young men, sons of old Squire Gregory, of Apethorpe, who had seen Gemma cycling and driving with the Doctor, and who had been struck by her extraordinary chic. One of them, the elder, spoke Italian a little, and they chatted together in the drawing-room, after which tea was served. She did not care for that beverage, and only drank it because it seemed to her the proper thing to do in England. She would have much preferred a glass of menta, or one or other of those brilliantly coloured syrups so dear to the palate of the Italian.

With that ineffable politeness of his race, Malvano entertained his visitors in a manner polished and refined, while Mrs Nenci, a rather striking figure in black, spoke broken English with them, and did the honours of the house. People often called at the Doctor’s in the afternoon, for he was a merry bachelor with the reputation of being the most good-hearted, generous, easy-going man in the county; and on this Sunday the assembly was quite a pleasant one, the more so to Gemma when she found a good-looking young man to whom she could chat.

They were standing together in the deep bay of the old-fashioned window, half hidden by the heavy curtains. The room was filled with the gay chatter of the visitors, and he now saw his opportunity to speak to her.

“Signorina,” he said in a low whisper, “a friend of mine is our mutual friend.”

“I don’t understand you?” she inquired, starting in surprise, and glancing quickly at him.

“Charles Armytage,” young Gregory answered. “He was staying with me until about a fortnight ago. Then he left suddenly.”

“Well?”

“He doesn’t dare to write to you here, but has written to me.”

“Where is he?” she inquired eagerly.

“Abroad,” the young man replied hurriedly. “In his letter to me yesterday, he asked me to call here at once, see you, and tell you that he is in Brussels; and that if you write, address him at the Poste Restante.”

“He is still there?” she asked. “Then a telegram to-day—now—would reach him?”

“Certainly,” her young companion replied. “He says he will send me word the moment he changes his address, and asks me to request you to write. He says it is unsafe, however, under the circumstances, for him to respond to your letter.”

“Thank you,” she answered, breathing more freely. The knowledge that he had escaped to Brussels, and that she could give him further warning, if needed, was to her reassuring. “It is extremely kind of you to bring me this welcome message. I had no idea that you knew Mr Armytage.”

“We were at Eton together,” Gregory answered. “I’ve known him ever since I can remember. But I see my brother is going to drive the Blatherwycke parson home, so I must say good-bye; and I hope to call again, as soon as I have any further news—if I may.”

She answered him with a glance. Then together they returned into the centre of the room, chatting as if no confidences had been exchanged, and a moment later he took leave of her.

Next morning, in a dark stuff walking dress, she mounted her cycle, having announced her intention to ride over to King’s Cliffe and lunch with some friends of Malvano’s who had invited her. Instead, however, she went to Gretton Station, placed her cycle in the cloakroom, and took a first-class ticket to London, determined to keep the mysterious appointment. It was nearly three o’clock when she arrived, and she at once lunched at the railway buffet, idled there for half an hour, and then took a cab to Regent Street, where she whiled away the time gazing into the windows of the milliners and dressmakers, unaware that a shabby, middle-aged, unimportant-looking man was narrowly watching her movements, or that this man was Inspector Elmes of Vine Street.

At last she glanced at her little watch, with its two hearts set in diamonds on the back—a beautiful souvenir which her absent lover had given her in the early days of their acquaintance—and found it wanted ten minutes to five. She had passed the obscure rendezvous, and glanced at its window with the sickly looking palms and india-rubber plants, the long-necked wine-flasks she knew so well, and the two framed menus; therefore, considering it time to enter the place, she retraced her steps from Piccadilly Circus, and a few minutes later opened the door and walked into the long, narrow salon, with its marble-topped tables and plush lounges.

Two or three men, whom she at once recognised as compatriots, were sipping coffee and smoking. As she passed, they eyed her admiringly; but without a glance at them she walked to the further end, and seating herself at a table on the left, ordered coffee.

Scarcely had it been brought, when the door again opened, and there lounged in leisurely a tall, well-built, handsome man in long dark overcoat and brown soft felt hat. Without hesitation he walked straight to her table, bowed politely, and with a word of greeting seated himself. Her face went white as the marble before her; she held her breath. In that instant she recollected it was the day, the hour, and the place mentioned in that remarkable letter found upon her unfortunate friend Vittorina—that letter which had so puzzled and mystified the Ambassador, the police, the newspaper reporters, and the British public.

She had been entrapped.

Chapter Twenty Three.

A Ruler of Europe.

“Well?” Gemma exclaimed, quickly recovering herself, and looking keenly into the dark face of the newcomer.

“Well?” he said, imitating with a touch of sarcasm the tone in which she had spoken, at the same time taking a cigarette from his case and lighting it with a vesta from the china stand upon the table.

“What does this mean?” she inquired in Italian, regarding him with a look which clearly showed his presence was unwelcome.

“Finish your coffee and come out with me. I must speak with you. Here it’s too risky. We might be overheard. St. James’s Park is near, and we can talk there without interruption,” he said. Evidently a gentleman, aged about fifty-five, with long iron-grey side-whiskers and hair slightly blanched. His eyes were intelligent and penetrating, his forehead broad and open, his chin heavy and decisive, and he was undoubtedly a man of stern will and wide achievements. He spoke polished Italian, and his manner was perfect.

Gemma kept her eyes fixed upon him, fascinated by fear. Her gloved hand trembled perceptibly as she raised her cup to her lips.

“You had no idea that you would meet me—eh?” he laughed, speaking in an undertone. “Well, drink your coffee, and let us take a cab to the Park.” He flung down sixpence to the waiter, and they went out together. She walked mechanically into the street, dumbfounded, stupefied.

By his side she staggered for a few paces, then halting said, in a sudden tone of anger—

“Leave me! I refuse to accompany you.”

Her companion smiled. It was already dark, the shop windows were lit, and the hurrying crowd of passers-by did not notice them.

“You’ll come with me,” the man said sternly. “I want to talk to you seriously, and in privacy. It was useless in that place with half a dozen people around, all with ears open. Besides,” he added, “in a café of that sort I may be recognised.” Then he hailed a passing cab.

“No, no!” she cried, as it drew up to the kerb. “I won’t go—I won’t!”

“But you shall!” he declared firmly, taking her arm. “You know me well enough to be aware that I’m not to be trifled with. Come, you’ll obey me.”

She hesitated for a moment, gazed blankly around her as if seeking some one to protect her, sighed, and then slowly ascended into the vehicle.

“Athenaeum Club,” he shouted to the driver, and sprang in beside the trembling woman. It was evident from her manner that she held him in repugnance, while he, cool and triumphant, regarded her with satisfaction.

During the drive they exchanged few words. She was pensive and sullen, while he addressed her in a strangely rough manner for one of such outward refinement. They alighted, and descending the steps into the Mall at the point where a relic of old-time London still remains in the cow-sheds where fresh milk can be obtained, crossed the roadway and entered the Park by one of the deserted paths which ran down to the ornamental water.

“You thought to escape me—eh?” her companion exclaimed when at last they halted at one of the seats near the water. He was well acquainted with that quarter of London, for he had served as attaché at the Court of St. James twenty years ago.

“I had no object in so doing,” she answered boldly. In their drive she had decided upon a definite plan, and now spoke fearlessly.

“Why, then, have you not answered my letters?”

“I never answer letters that are either reproachful or abusive,” she replied, “even though they may be from the Marquis Montelupo, His Majesty’s Minister for Foreign Affairs.”

“If you had deigned to do so, it would have obviated the necessity of me coming from Rome to see you at all this personal risk.”

“It’s well that you risk something, as well as myself. I’ve risked enough, Heaven knows!” she answered.

“And you’ve found at last a confounded idiot of a lover who will prove our ruin.”

“My love is no concern of yours,” she cried quickly. “He may be left entirely out of the question. He knows nothing; and further, I’ve parted from him.”

“Because he has ascertained who you really are,” the great statesman said.

“For that I have to thank you,” she retorted quickly. “If you had been a trifle more considerate and had not allowed the police of Livorno to act as they did, he would still have been in ignorance.”

“I acted as I thought fit,” her companion said in an authoritative tone, lighting another cigarette from the still burning end of the one he had just consumed.

“You’ve brought me here to abuse me!” she cried, her eyes flashing fiercely upon him.

“Because you played me false,” he answered bitterly. “You thought it possible to conceal your identity, marry this young fool of an Englishman, and get away somewhere where you would not be discovered. For that reason you’ve played this double game.” Then he added meaningly, “It’s only what I ought to have expected of a woman with such a reputation as yours.”

“Charles Armytage is no fool,” she protested. “If he found you here, speaking like this to me, he’d strangle you.”

The Marquis, whose dark eyes seemed to flash with a fierce light, laughed sarcastically.

“No doubt by this time he’s heard lots of stories concerning you,” he said. “A man of his stamp never marries an adventuress.”

“Adventuress!” she echoed, starting up with clenched hands. “You call me an adventuress—you, whose past is blacker than my own—you who owe to me your present position as Minister!”

He glanced at her surprised; he had not been prepared for this fierce, defiant retort.

Again he laughed, a laugh low and strangely hollow.

“You forget,” he said, “that a word from me would result in your arrest, imprisonment, and disgrace.”

She held her breath and her brows contracted. That fact, she knew, was only too true. In an instant she perceived that for the present she must conciliate this man, who was one of the rulers of Europe. The game she was now playing was, indeed, the most desperate in all her career, but the stake was the highest, the most valuable to her in all the world, her own love, peace, and happiness.

“And suppose you took this step,” she suggested, finding tongue with difficulty at last. “Don’t you think you would imperil yourself? A Foreign Minister, especially in our country, surrounded as he is by a myriad political foes, can scarcely afford to court scandal. I should have thought the examples of Crispi, Rudini, and Brin were sufficient to cause a wary man like yourself to hesitate.”

“I never act without due consideration,” the Marquis replied. The voice in which he spoke was the dry, business-like tone he used towards Ambassadors of the Powers when discussing the political situation, as he was almost daily compelled to do. In Rome, no man was better dressed than the Marquis Montelupo; no man had greater tact in directing matters of State; and in no man did his Sovereign place greater faith. As he sat beside her in slovenly attire, his grey moustaches uncurled, his chin bearing two or three days’ growth of grey beard, it was hard to realise that this was the same man who, glittering with orders, so often ascended the great marble and gold staircase of the Quirinal, to seek audience with King Humbert; whose reputation as a statesman was world-wide, and whose winter receptions at his great old palazzo in the Via Nazionale were among the most brilliant diplomatic gatherings in Europe.

“I have carefully considered the whole matter,” he said, after a moment’s pause. “I arrived in London yesterday, and from what I have learnt I have decided to take certain steps without delay.”

“Then you have been to the Embassy!” she exclaimed breathless. “You’ve denounced me to Castellani!”

“There was no necessity for that,” he answered coldly. “He already knows that you are his enemy.”

“I his enemy!” she echoed. “I have never done him an evil turn. He has heard some libellous story, I suppose, and, like all the world, believes me to be without conscience and without remorse.”

“That’s a pretty good estimate of yourself,” the Marquis observed. “If you had any conscience whatever you would have replied to my letters, and not maintained a dogged silence through all these months.”

“I had an object in view,” she answered in a chilling tone. She, quiet and stubborn, was resolved, insolent, like a creature to whom men had never been able to refuse anything.

“What was it?”

She shrugged her shoulders, and, laughing again, replied—

“You have threatened me with arrest, therefore I will maintain silence until it pleases you to endeavour to ruin me. Then together we will provide a little sensationalism for the Farfalla, the Tribuna, the Secolo, and one or two other journals who will only be too ready to see a change of Ministry.”

He hesitated, seeming to digest her words laboriously. She glanced quickly at his dark face, which the distant rays of a lamp illumined, and in that instant knew she had triumphed.

“You would try and ruin me, eh?” he cried in a hoarse menace.

“To upset the whole political situation in Rome is quite easy of accomplishment, I assure you, my dear Marquis,” she declared, smiling. “The Opposition will be ready to hound out of office you and all your rabble of bank-thieves, blackmailers, adventurers, and others who are so ingeniously feathering their nests at the expense of Italy. Ah, what a herd!”

Montelupo frowned. He knew quite well that she spoke the truth, yet with diplomatic instinct he still maintained a bold front.

“Bah!” he cried defiantly. “You cannot injure me. When you are in prison you’ll have little opportunity for uttering any of your wild denunciations. The people, too, are getting a little tired of the various mare’s-nest scandals started almost daily by the irresponsible journals. They’ve ceased to believe in them.”

“Yes, without proofs,” she observed.

“You have no proof. You and I are not strangers,” Montelupo said.

“First, recollect we are in England, and you cannot order my immediate arrest. Days must elapse before your application reaches London from Rome. In the meantime I am free to act.” Then, with a tinge of bitter sarcasm in her voice, she added, “No, Excellency, your plan does not do you credit. I always thought you far more shrewd.”

“Whatever so-called proofs you possess, no one will for an instant believe you,” he laughed with fine composure. “Recollect I am Minister for Foreign Affairs; then recollect who you are.”

“I am your dupe, your victim,” she cried in a fierce paroxysm of anger. “My name stinks in the nostrils of every one in Italy—and why? Because you, the man who now denounces me, wove about me a network of pitfalls which it was impossible for me to avoid. You saw that, because I moved in smart society, because I had good looks and hosts of friends, I was the person to become your catspaw—your stepping-stone into office. You—”

“Silence, curse you!” Montelupo cried fiercely, his hands clenched. “I’m too busy with the present to have any time for recollecting the past. It was a fair and business-like arrangement. You’ve been paid.”

“Yes, with coin stolen from the Treasury by your rogues and swindlers who pose before Italy as patriots and politicians.”

“It matters not to such a woman as you whence comes the money you require to keep up your fine appearance,” he said angrily, for this reference to his political party had raised his blood to fever-heat.

“Even though I have this unenviable reputation which you have been pleased to give me throughout Italy, I am at least honest,” she cried.

“Towards your lovers—eh?”

Standing before him, in a violent outburst of anger, she shook both her gloved hands in his face, saying—

“Enough—enough of your insults! For the sake of the land I love, for the sake of Italy’s power and prestige, and for your reputation I have suffered. But remember that the bond which fetters me to you will snap if stretched too far; that instead of assisting you, I can ruin you.”

“You speak plainly certainly,” he said, after a moment’s hesitation.

“I do. Through your evil machinations I have no reputation to lose. With artful ingenuity you compromised me, you spread scandals about me in Florence, in Venice, in Rome, scandals that were the vilest libels man ever uttered. In your club you told men that there was something more between us than mere friendship, that I was extravagant, and that I cost you as much in diamonds at Fasoli’s in the Corso, on a single afternoon, as the Government paid you in a whole year. Such were the lies you spread in order to ruin me,” she cried bitterly. “Never have I had a soldo from your private purse, never a single ornament, and never have your foul lips touched mine. You, who boldly announced yourself my lover, I have ever held in scorn and hatred as I do now. The money I received was from the Treasury—part of that sum yearly filched from the Government funds to keep up your rickety old castle outside Empoli; but bound as I was by my oath of secrecy I could utter no word in self-defence, nor prosecute the journals which spread their highly-spiced libels. You held me beneath your thrall, and I, although an honest woman, have remained crushed and powerless.” Then she paused.

“Proceed,” he observed with sarcasm. “I am all attention.”

“No more need be said,” she answered. “I will now leave you, and wish you a pleasant journey back to Rome,” and she bowed and turned away.

“Come,” he cried, dragging her by force back to the seat. “Don’t be an idiot, Gemma, but listen. I brought you here,” he commenced, “not to fence with you, as we have been doing, but to make a proposal; one that I think you will seriously consider.”

“Some further shady trick, I suppose. Well, explain your latest scheme. It is sure to be interesting!”

“As you rightly suggest, it is a trick, Contessa,” he said, in a tone rather more conciliatory, and for the first time speaking without any show of politeness. “Within the past ten days the situation in Rome has undergone an entire change, although the journals know nothing; and in consequence I find Castellani, who has for years been my friend and supporter, is now one of my bitterest opponents. If there is a change of government he would no doubt be appointed Foreign Minister in my place.”

“Well, you don’t fear him, surely?” she said. “You are Minister, and can recall him at any moment.”

“No. Castellani holds a certain document which, if produced, must cause the overthrow of the Government, and perhaps the ruin of our country,” he answered in deep earnestness. “Before long, in order to clear himself and place himself in favour, he must produce this paper, and if so the revelations will startle Europe.”

“Well, that is nothing to me,” she said coldly. “It is entirely your affair.”

“Listen!” he exclaimed eagerly. He was now confiding to her one of the deepest secrets of the political undercurrent. “This document is in a sealed blue envelope, across the face of which a large cross has been drawn in blue pencil. Remember that. It is in the top left-hand drawer in the Ambassador’s writing-table in his private room. You know the room; the small one looking out into Grosvenor Square. You no doubt recollect it when you were visiting there two years ago.”

“Certainly,” she contented herself with replying, still puzzled at the strangeness of his manner. The wind moaned mournfully through the bare branches above them.

“You are friendly with Castellani’s daughter,” he went on earnestly. “Call to-morrow with the object of visiting her, and then you must make some excuse to enter that room alone.”

“You mean that I must steal that incriminating paper?” she said.

He nodded.

“Impossible!” she replied decisively. “First, I don’t intend to run any risk, and, secondly, I know quite well that nobody is allowed in that room alone. The door is always kept locked.”

“There are two keys,” he interrupted. “Here is one of them. I secured it yesterday.”

“And in return for this service, what am I to receive?” she inquired coldly, sitting erect, without stirring a muscle.

“In return for this service”—he answered gravely, his dark eyes riveted upon hers—“in return for this service you shall name your own price.”

Chapter Twenty Four.

By Stealth.

Before she had parted from the Marquis she had made a demand boldly and fearlessly, to which, not without the most vehement protest, he had been compelled to accede. She knew him well, and was aware that, in order to gain his own ends, he would betray and denounce his nearest relative; that, although a shrewd, clever statesman, he had won universal popularity and esteem in Italy by reason of certain shady transactions by which he had posed as the saviour of his country. The revelations she could make regarding the undercurrent of affairs in Rome would astound Europe. For that reason he had been forced to grant her what she asked in return for the incriminating paper from the archives of the Embassy.

For over an hour they sat together in the darkness engaged in a strange discussion, when at last they rose and together walked on, still deep in conversation. The Marquis had an appointment, and was about to take leave of her when, as they crossed the wide deserted space between the Admiralty and the Horse Guards, a man in a heavy fur-trimmed overcoat and felt hat, in hurrying past, gazed full into the faces of both. At that moment they were beneath one of the lamps flickering in the gusty wind, and he had full view of them.

Gemma’s eyes met his, and instantly the recognition was mutual.

It was the man who had attempted to take her life—Frank Tristram. He had evidently arrived from the Continent by the day express from Paris, left his despatches at the Foreign Office, and was walking to his chambers in St. James’s Street by the nearest way across the Park. He usually preferred to walk home in order to stretch his legs, cramped as they were by many tedious hours in railway carriages.

When he had passed he turned quickly as if to reassure himself, then, with some muttered words, he strode forward with his hands deep in his pockets and his head bent towards the cold boisterous wind.

“Did you notice that man who has just passed?” Gemma gasped, in a low voice betraying alarm.

“No; who was he?” asked the Marquis, turning back to glance at the retreating figure.

“A man you know; Tristram, the English Foreign Office messenger.”

“Tristram!” ejaculated Montelupo quickly. “He’s never recognised me?”

“I think so,” she replied. “He looked straight into your face.”

The Minister ejaculated a fierce Italian oath. “Then the fact that I’m in London will be at once made known,” he said.

“That is not of much importance, is it? Castellani already knows, for you’ve been to the Embassy.”

“But he will be silent. I’m here incognito,” the Marquis cried quickly, in a changed voice. “I have several matters with regard to Abyssinia and our foreign policy to settle with the British Government, but am procrastinating with an object. If they know yonder at the Foreign Office that I am in London, and have not called upon their Minister, it will be considered an insult, and may strain our relations with England. This we can’t afford to do. These English are useful to us. Italy has nothing to fear from the alliance of France and Russia, but nevertheless her only safe policy consists in a firm union with England. The Anglo-Italian naval alliance preserves the peace of Europe by throwing its weight into the scale against any disturber of tranquillity. We shall want English ships to fight and protect us in the Mediterranean when France invades us on the Tuscan shore.” Then, after a moment’s reflection, he glanced at the illuminated clock-face of Big Ben, and added, “No, I must leave London at once, for in this direction I see a pressing danger. It’s now nearly seven. I’ll dine and get away by the night-mail for Paris. I must be back in Rome again at the earliest possible moment.”

“Am I still to go to the Embassy?” she asked.

“Of course,” he answered quickly. “Don’t delay an instant. It is imperative that we should obtain that document, and you are the only person who can successfully accomplish the task. When you have done so bring it to me in Rome. Our safety lies in the expeditious way in which you effect this coup.”

“In Rome?” she echoed. “That’s impossible.”

“Why? With us everything is possible.”

“You forget that, owing to your absurd and foolish action a few months ago, I shall find myself arrested the moment I cross the frontier,” she answered.

“Ah, yes, I quite forgot,” he replied. “But that’s easily remedied.”

They were passing through the square of the Horse Guards at that moment, and halting beneath a lamp where stood a cavalry sentry motionless and statuesque, he took from his bulky wallet a visiting-card and scribbled a few words upon its back. Then, handing it to her, said—“This is your passport. If there is any difficulty in reaching me, present this.”

She took it, glanced at the scribbled words, and thrust it into her glove. Then, upon the wide pavement in Parliament Street, a few moments later, he lifted his hat politely, and they parted.

At noon next day Gemma called at the Embassy, and was shown into the waiting-room. She had not remained there five minutes when suddenly the Ambassador’s daughter burst into the room with a loud cry of welcome, and kissed her visitor enthusiastically on both cheeks in Italian fashion. Slight, and strange rather than pretty, she had a delicate face, dark eyes, a small quivering nose, a rather large, ever-ruddy mouth, and curling, straggling black locks, which ever waved as in a perpetual breeze.

“I’m so glad, so very glad you’ve called, dear,” Carmenilla said enthusiastically. “Father mentioned the other day that you were in England, and I’ve wondered so often why you’ve never been to see us.”

“I’ve been staying with friends in the country,” Gemma explained. “I suppose you speak English quite well now.”

“A little. But oh! it is so difficult,” she laughed. “And it is so different here to Firenze or Rome. The people are so strange.”

“Yes,” Gemma sighed. “I have also found it so.”

In their girlhood days they had been close friends through five years at the grey old convent of San Paolo della Croce in the Via della Chiesa at Firenze, and afterwards at Rome, where Carmenilla had lived with a rather eccentric old aunt, the Marchesa Tassino, while her father had been absent fulfilling the post of Ambassador at Vienna.

“I’m so very glad you’ve called,” Castellani’s daughter repeated. “Come to my room; take off your things and stay to luncheon. Father is out, and I’m quite alone.”

“The Count is out,” repeated her visitor in a feigned tone of regret. Truth to tell, however, it was intelligence most welcome to her. “I’m sorry he’s not at home. We haven’t met for so long.”

“Oh, he’s dreadfully worried just now!” his daughter answered. “The work at this Embassy is terrible. He seems writing and interviewing people from morning until night. He works much harder now than any of the staff; while at Brussels it was all so different. He had absolutely nothing to do.”

“But this England is such a great and wonderful country, while Belgium is such a tiny one,” Gemma observed. “The whole diplomatic world revolves around London.”

“Yes, of course,” she resumed. “But to sustain Italy’s prestige we are compelled to do such lots of entertaining. I’m terribly sick of it all. The situation in Rome began to change almost as soon as father was appointed here, and now it has become extremely grave and critical. The men who were once his friends are now his bitterest foes. He has adjusted several most difficult matters recently, but no single word of commendation has he received from the Marquis Montelupo.”

“Perhaps the Marquis is not his friend,” Gemma hazarded, for the purpose of ascertaining the extent of her knowledge.

“No. He is his enemy; of that I’m absolutely confident,” the girl replied. “I hate him. He’s never straightforward. Once, in Rome, he tried to worm from me a secret of my father’s, and because I would not speak he has never forgiven me.”

“Was it some very deep secret?” Gemma inquired. “Yes. It concerned the prestige of Italy and my father’s reputation for probity,” she replied. “Why the King trusts him so implicitly, I can never understand.”

“If there are serious political complications in Rome, as you seem to think, then the days of his power are numbered,” observed her visitor, now master of herself again. “The Ministry will be thrown out.”

“Ah! that would be the best thing that could happen to Italy,” she declared with a look of wisdom. “Montelupo is my father’s enemy; he seeks to fetter him in every action, in order that his reputation as a diplomat may be ruined, so that the King may be forced to send him his letters of recall. Truly the post of Ambassador in London is no sinecure.”

Gemma was silent. She hesitated and shuddered, Carmenilla noticed it, and asked her if she were cold.

“No, no,” she answered quickly. “It is quite warm and cosy here.” The light played on her smooth skin to admiration, and the colour changed in her excited face.

At luncheon, served with that stateliness which characterised the whole of the Ambassador’s household, they chatted on, as women will chat, of dress, of books, of plays, and of the latest gossip from Florence and Rome, the two centres of Italian society. They were eating their dessert, when the hall-porter entered bearing a card upon the salver. Carmenilla glanced at it, smiled, and rose to excuse herself.

“A visitor!” Gemma exclaimed. “Who is it?”

Her friend hesitated, blushing ever so faintly.

“An Englishman,” she answered. “I won’t be more than ten minutes. Try and amuse yourself, won’t you, dear? Go back to the boudoir and play. I know you love music.” And she left the room hurriedly.

The card was still lying beside her plate, and Gemma, in curiosity reached forward and took it up. In an instant, however, she cast it from her.

The man who had called was Frank Tristram.

In order not to attract the undue attention of the grave-faced man who stood silent and immovable before the great carved oak buffet, she finished her apple leisurely, sipped the tiny cup of coffee, dipped the tips of her fingers in the silver-rimmed bowl of rose-scented water, and rising, passed out along the corridor back to the warm, cosy little room where they had passed such a pleasant hour.

She had detected Carmenilla’s flushed cheeks, and had suspicion that this caller was no ordinary friend. This man, whose murderous fingers had not long ago clutched themselves around her own throat, was a friend of this smart, slim girl who was so admired in London society. She stood silent in the centre of the little room, her heart beating wildly, wondering whether she might, without arousing suspicion, retrace her steps along that long, thickly carpeted corridor and secure the document which Montelupo required. The voices of servants sounded outside, and she knew that at present to approach and unlock the door unobserved was impossible.

Therefore she advanced to the grate, and spreading out her chilly, nervous hands to the fire, waited, determined to possess herself in patience. Even now she felt inclined to draw back because of the enormous risk she ran. Castellani was not her friend. If he knew, he might give her over to the English police as a common thief. Her face was of deathlike pallor at that moment of indecision. Again she shuddered.

With her hand upon her heaving breast, as if to allay an acute pain that centred there, her white lips moved, but no sound escaped them. She listened. The servants had gone.

Carmenilla was downstairs chatting with Tristram; the house at last seemed silent and deserted, therefore Gemma, losing no time in further indecision, and holding her silken skirts tight around her so that they should not rustle, crept out on tiptoe, holding in her hand the key which Montelupo had given her. At first she proceeded slowly and noiselessly, but, fearing detection, hurried forward as she approached the door of the Ambassador’s room.

At last she gained it, breathless. With scarce a sound she placed the key in the lock, and a moment later was inside, closing the door after her.

Unhesitatingly she went straight to the table, and placed her hand upon the drawer containing the document. It was locked. Next instant her heart beat wildly as her quick eye espied the key still remaining in another drawer, and, taking it, she opened the locked drawer and stood examining the great blue official envelope in her hand.

Yes, the blue pencil mark was upon it in the form of a cross, as the Marquis had described. She had gained what she sought. Triumph was hers.

Quickly she turned to make her exit, but next second fell back with a loud wild cry of alarm.

Count Castellani had entered noiselessly, and was standing erect and motionless between her and the door.

Chapter Twenty Five.

A Woman’s Diplomacy.

Gemma stood immovable; a deathly pallor overspread her cheeks, her eyes fixed themselves in terror upon this tall, well-dressed man, who was her bitterest enemy. With one trembling hand she had clutched the revolving book-stand for support; the other held the envelope containing the secret document. She dared not to breathe; amazement and alarm held her dumb.

“And by what right, pray, do you enter my room?” the Ambassador inquired, after a few seconds of silence, complete and painful. His face was blanched in anger; in his dark eye was a keen glance of suspicion and hatred.

She laughed—that strange hollow laugh which her lover knew so well.

“I came to call on you,” she answered. The door was closed, and they were alone together.

“And you entered my room to pry into my private papers?” he said, his blood rising. “What’s that you have in your hand?”

She set her lips firmly. She was no longer the sweet, almost childlike girl, but a hard-faced, desperate woman.

“A paper I want,” she boldly answered, at the same moment doubling the envelope in half, and crushing it in her palm.

“Then you have at last become so bold that you actually have the audacity to enter one’s house and steal whatever you think proper?” he cried, in a towering passion. “Fortunately, I’ve returned in time to frustrate your latest bit of infernal ingenuity.”

“My action is but fair, now that we are enemies,” she answered with feigned indignation. “If you could, you’d ruin me; therefore I’m entirely at liberty to return the same compliment.”

“I thought you were already ruined,” the Count exclaimed. “Your reputation, at any rate, cannot be rendered blacker than it is.”

“That’s the truth, no doubt.” She laughed with an air of gaiety. “But one who makes secret diplomacy a profession, must care nothing for the good will of the world outside the diplomatic circle.”

“Those who make love their profession, should be constant, if they would achieve success,” he retorted bitterly.

At that moment a recollection flashed across her mind. It had slipped her memory until that instant. This man had on one occasion, in Rome, two years ago, spoken tenderly to her, and she had scorned his attentions. With a woman’s quick perception, she now saw that the fact that she had rejected him still rankled within his mind. Yet she was still young enough to be his daughter, and had always held him in dislike. He was a cold, scheming diplomatist, who would stake his very soul in order to get the better of his adversaries.

“Once you spoke of love to me,” she said, drawing herself up proudly. “Now you ruthlessly cast my past into my face. Even if I have acted as a diplomatic agent, you know well enough that all these scandalous stories about me are foul libels set about by Montelupo and yourself for political purposes.”

“Enough!” he cried, incensed at her words. “We need not discuss that now. I demand to know why I find you prying here, in my room?”

She smiled. “I came to see Carmenilla,” she answered.

“And she invited you to lunch?—you whom I have forbidden her to know!” he exclaimed, exasperated. “A woman of your stamp is no companion for my daughter.”

“Yet you once told me that you loved me, and I might, if I had felt so inclined, have now been the Countess Castellani, and done the honours of this Embassy. Ah, my dear Conte,” she went on, “you are a noted diplomatist, and no doubt as wary and cunning as most of your confrères. But you forget that every woman is by birth a diplomatist, and that in politics I have had a wide and, perhaps, unique experience.”

“You possess the ingenuity and daring of the very devil himself,” he blurted forth. “Show me that paper.”

“No,” she answered firmly. “It is in my possession—and I keep it.”

“You’ve stolen it!” he cried, advancing towards her determinedly. “Give it to me this instant.”

“I shall not.”

From where he stood his eyes wandered to the table, and he noticed that one of the drawers stood open. Within her hand, he saw the envelope was a blue one, secured by seals. In an instant he dashed towards the drawer, rummaged its contents, and finding the document missing, cried—

“Your infernal impertinence is really astounding. You enter my house, commit a theft, and when charged with it refuse to give up the stolen property. If you don’t return it to me at once, I’ll call in the police, and have you arrested.”

“Really?” she exclaimed with a sarcastic laugh which caused his cheeks to become flushed by anger. “I think after so many years of diplomacy, you ought to be aware that such a course is impossible. If you were a young attaché just fresh from Rome, my dear Count, you might be pardoned for not knowing that here, in this Embassy, I am on Italian soil, and, being an Italian subject, the London police are unable to arrest me.”

“But they could outside—in the Square.”

“Certainly. But if I choose to remain here—what then?”

“Remain here! You speak like an imbecile. Come, give me back that envelope.”

“Never!” she replied, still holding it firmly in her small hand, and regarding him in defiance.

Castellani knew well the contents of that envelope, and was aware that Gemma must have been employed by those implicated by the proofs it contained. For months he had held this in his possession as a weapon to use as a last resource, and the manner in which she had entered his room and filched it from the drawer made it plain to him that those to whom he was now opposed were prepared to go any length to gain their own ends. But he likewise knew Gemma well, and was aware that as a secret agent of the Ministry she was without equal—fearless, resourceful, and versed in every art of deception. He had met her often in society in Rome and Florence two years ago, been struck by her marvellous beauty as others had been, and had offered her marriage. In a word, he had made a fool of himself.

The revelations contained in that envelope she held were sufficient to cause the present Government to be hounded from its office and fat emoluments, and possibly force a criminal prosecution against certain ministers for misappropriating the public funds, therefore he was determined to regain it at all hazards and use it for his own advancement. He had, only a month ago, been promised by his party the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the next Government, and this single document would place him in high office in Rome.

“If you defy me,” he said after a pause, his menacing gaze fixed upon that of the pretty, fragile woman, “I must be ungallant enough to wrench it from you.”

“I scarcely think you’ll do that,” she answered. “If you did, we could never come to terms.”

“Come to terms?” he echoed resentfully. “I don’t understand. I’ve no intention of coming to any arrangement with you.”

He was standing before her in the centre of the room, but she watched his every movement narrowly. She saw that he was desperate, and intended to regain possession of the envelope.

“Once again I ask you to give me that paper you have stolen,” he said in a voice that quivered with rage.

“I have already replied, Count Castellani,” she responded, “and I wish you good-afternoon.” Then with her skirts rustling, she bowed and swept past him towards the door.

“No!” he cried, springing forward and arresting her progress in a moment of fury. “You shall not escape like that. Give me the paper, or—or by Heaven, I’ll—”

“Well?” she cried, turning upon him with flashing eyes. “What will you do?”

He drew back abashed.

“I apologise, Contessa,” he said quickly. “But give me back that paper. Remember that you’ve committed a barefaced, unpardonable theft.”

“And you, as Ambassador of Italy, utter barefaced lies every day,” she retorted.

“Diplomacy is the art of lying artistically,” he answered. “It is impossible to achieve success in diplomacy without resorting to realistic perversions of the truth. Every diplomatist must be a born liar—but he need not be a thief.”

“Some are,” she retorted. “You are one.”

His face went purple in anger.

“I—a thief?” he blurted forth. “Have you taken leave of your senses, woman?”

“Not entirely. I believe I have some remaining,” she replied. “I again repeat that you, the Count Castellani, His Majesty’s Ambassador, are a mean, despicable thief, whom the Tribunal at Rome would sentence to seven years’ imprisonment if they became acquainted with the facts.”

“Enough! Not another word, woman!” he cried in a towering passion. Then, grasping her arms, he, after a short desperate struggle, succeeded in wrenching from her the envelope for which she had risked so much. “Now you may go,” he said, as she stood flushed, panting, and breathless before him, her hair a trifle disarranged, the lace upon one of her cuffs torn and hanging. “If you don’t leave at once, I’ll ring and have you turned out.”

“I shall go when you give me back that paper,” she answered, facing him.

“You’ll never have it.”

“Then, listen,” she went on calmly, taking a few hasty steps towards where he was standing astride before the fire. “The worth of that document is to you considerable, I know, but there are others to whom its value is even greater. Just now I charged you with theft, and you feigned to have forgotten. Well, I will recall a fact or two to your memory. A year ago, at Como, there was an inquiry into certain scandals connected with the Bank of Naples.” Then she paused. The Ambassador’s face had instantly blanched. “Ah!” she went on, “I see that event has not quite slipped your memory. Well, as the result of that inquiry, in which certain statesmen were implicated, two well-known public men received sentences of ten years’ imprisonment, and others ranging from two to five years. But, at that inquiry, it was shown that a certain cheque was missing, and it was further proved that this cheque had been drawn for half a million francs. To whom that sum passed remained a mystery.”

“Well?” His Excellency gasped, still pale, glaring at her as if she were some object supernatural. All his self-possession had left him.

“The fact is a mystery no longer.”

“Why?”

“Because the identical cheque has been recovered and bears your endorsement,” she answered, in a slow, distinct voice.

“Who has recovered it?” he demanded quickly. “Who has it?”

She smiled triumphantly. This elegant man who but a moment ago had talked boldly, as became the Ambassador of Italy, was now cringing before her seeking information. His cool demeanour had altogether forsaken him.

“I have that cheque,” she said, her clear, unwavering eyes fixed upon his.

In an instant Castellani perceived that he was in the power of this pretty woman he had denounced and condemned. He knew well, too, that she was not the gay, abandoned woman that La Funaro was popularly supposed to be.

“Reflect for a single moment,” she continued ruthlessly. “What would be the result of the production of that missing draft about which so much has been written in the newspapers?”

The Ambassador bit his lip. Never in the whole course of his long and varied diplomatic career had he been so ingeniously checkmated by a woman. The estimate he had formed of her long ago was entirely correct. She possessed really remarkable talents.

“The result would certainly be rather annoying,” he observed, making a sorry attempt to smile.

“It would throw a very fierce light upon the ways and means of the party of thieves and adventurers who are endeavouring to grab Italy and grow fat upon its Treasury,” she exclaimed. “The situation at Rome has, I understand, changed considerably within the past week or so. The public mind is feeling the influence of unfavourable winds. Well, it is possible before long that this missing cheque will have to be produced.”

“Which will mean my ruin!” he blurted forth. “You know that well. If that cheque ever gets into the hands of the present Government, I shall be recalled and tried in a criminal court as a common thief.”

“That’s exactly what I said not long ago. You then declared that you had never touched a soldo of other persons’ money,” she observed, standing with her hand resting upon the writing-table, a slim, graceful figure in her dark stuff dress.

“No, Gemma, no!” he exclaimed earnestly. “You can’t mean to expose this. I—I don’t believe you have the cheque, after all. How did you learn my secret?”

“It is my duty to become acquainted with the secrets of those in opposition to the Government,” she answered simply. “Remember what you have said of me since we have been together in this room. Of a woman of my evil reputation, what can you expect but exposure?”

“You have resolved upon a vendetta?” he cried in a tone of genuine alarm.

“I have resolved to treat you fairly,” she replied, so calm that not a muscle of her face moved. “In return for that envelope and its contents which you’ve snatched from me, I will give you back your cheque.”

“When?” he cried eagerly.

“Now—at this moment.”

“You have it here?”

“Yes,” she replied. “Give me that envelope at once, and let us end this conversation. It is painful tome to speak like this to one who once offered to make me his wife.”

His Excellency frowned, meditating deeply. He saw that La Funaro had entrapped him so cleverly that there was no loophole for escape. She was remorseless and unrelenting as far as political affairs went, and he knew that if he had decided to hand the draft to the authorities, the result must prove utterly disastrous. Not only would he be ruined, but his party who sought office would be held up to public opprobrium and hopelessly wrecked.

“That paper is a purely private one,” he said. “I cannot allow you to take it, Gemma.”

“You prefer exposure, then?” she inquired, slightly inclining her head. “The Ministry of Justice are exceedingly anxious to recover that cheque, I assure you. Probably they will compel you to disgorge the substantial sum you received from the national funds when you endorsed the draft.”

He paused again, his eyes fixed upon the carpet.

“I’m not anxious for any revelations,” he answered in a sudden tone of confidence. “But your price is too high. The document which you so nearly secured is to me worth double that which you offer.”

“Very well,” she said, shrugging her shoulders impatiently. “If that’s your decision, I am content.” He was silent. His head was bent upon his breast, h’s arms were folded.

“Let me see this cheque of yours,” he exclaimed at last in a dry, dubious tone.

She unbuttoned the breast of her dress, tore away the switches of the lining, and took out a small envelope, from which she drew a large, green-coloured draft. Then, turning it over, she exhibited his own angular signature upon its back. Afterwards, she replaced it in its envelope, and then said—

“Shall we make the exchange? Or are you still prepared to face exposure? It will not be pleasant for poor Carmenilla if her father is sent to prison for embezzlement.”

“Yes, for Carmenilla?” the Ambassador gasped next instant. “For Carmenilla’s sake I will deal with you, and make the exchange. You are a truly wonderful woman, Gemma; the most shrewd, the most cunning, and”—he paused—“and the most beautiful in all the world.”

“Your compliments are best unuttered, my dear Count,” she replied, the muscles of her face unrelaxed. “Remember, like yourself, I’m a diplomatist, and it is scarcely necessary for us to bestow praises upon each other—is it? Give me the envelope.”

Slowly he walked over to the table and took the document from the drawer wherein he had placed it. For a moment he hesitated with it still in his hand. By giving it to her he was throwing down his arms; he was relinquishing the only weapon he held against his enemies in Rome.

But in her white hand he saw the piece of green incriminating paper which was such incontestable proof of his roguery and dishonesty in the past. The sight of it caused him serious misgivings. Once that were destroyed he need not fear any other proof that could be brought against him. He had a reputation for probity, and at all hazards must retain it. This last reflection decided him.

He crossed to where Gemma stood, and handing her the sealed envelope with the blue cross upon it, received the cancelled cheque in exchange.

His brow was heavy, and he sighed as, at the window, he examined it to reassure himself there was no mistake. Then, returning to the fire, he lit it at one corner, and in silence held it between his fingers until the flames had consumed it, leaving only a small piece of curling crackling tinder.

Chapter Twenty Six.

The Palazza Funaro.

Days had lengthened into weeks, and it was already the end of February. In Florence, as in London, February is not the most enjoyable time of the year, and those who travel south to the Winter City expecting the sunshine and warmth of the Riviera are usually sadly disappointed. At the end of March Florence becomes pleasant, and remains so till the end of May; while in autumn, when the mosquitoes cease to trouble, the sun has lost its power, and the Lungarno is cool, it is also a delightful place of residence. But February afternoons beside the Arno are very often as dark, as dreary, and as yellow as beside the Thames; and as Gemma sat after luncheon in her cosy room, the smallest in the great old palazzo in the Borgo d’Albizzi which bore her name, she shuddered and drew a silken shawl about her shoulders. It was one of the show-places of Florence; one of those ponderous, prison-like buildings built of huge blocks of brown stone, time-worn, having weathered the storms of five centuries, and notable as containing a magnificent collection of works of art. Its mediaeval exterior, a relic of ancient Florence, was gloomy and forbidding enough, with its barred windows, over-hanging roof, strange lanterns of wonderfully worked iron, and great iron rings to which men tied their horses in days bygone. Once beyond the great courtyard, however, it was indeed a gorgeous palace. The Funaros had always been wealthy and powerful in the Lily City, and had through ages collected within their palace quantities of antiquities and costly objects. Every room was beautifully decorated, some with wonderful frescoes by Andrea del Sarto, whose work in the outer court of the Annunziata is ever admired by sight-seers of every nationality, while the paintings were by Ciro Ferri, Giovanni da Bologna, Filippo Lippi, Botticelli, and Fra Bartolommeo, together with some frescoes in grisaille with rich ornamentation by Del Sarto’s pupil Franciabigio, and hosts of other priceless works.

It was a magnificent residence. There were half a dozen other palaces in the same thoroughfare, including the Altoviti, the Albizzi, and the Pazzi, but this was the finest of them all. When Gemma had inherited it she had at once furnished half a dozen rooms in modern style. The place was so enormous that she always felt lost in it, and seldom strayed beyond these rooms which overlooked the great paved courtyard with its ancient wall and curious sculptures chipped and weather-worn. The great gloomy silent rooms, with their bare oaken floors, mouldering tapestries, and time-blackened pictures, were to her grim and ghostly, as, indeed, they were to any but an art enthusiast or a lover of the antique. But the Contessa Funaro lived essentially in the present, and always declared herself more in love with cleanliness than antiquarian dirt. She had no taste for the relics of the past, and affected none. If English or American tourists found anything in the collections to admire, they were at liberty to do so on presenting their card to the liveried hall-porter. At the door the man had a box, and the money placed therein was sent regularly each quarter to the Maternity Hospital.

She spent little time in her grim, silent home; for truth to tell, its magnificence irritated her, and its extent always filled her with a sense of loneliness. The housekeeper, an elderly gentlewoman who had been a friend of her dead mother’s, was very deaf, and never amusing; therefore, after a fortnight or so, she was generally ready to exchange the Funaro Palace for the Hotel Cavour at Milan, the Minerva at Rome, or the hospitality of some country villa. Hotels, or even small houses, were not so grim and prison-like as her own great palazzo, the very walls of which seemed to breathe mutely of the past—of those troublous times when the clank of armour echoed in the long stone corridors, and the clink of spurs sounded in the courtyard below where now the only invaders were the pigeons.

The furniture of the small elegant room in which she sat was entirely modern, upholstered in pale-blue silk, with her monogram in gold thread; the carpets were thick, the great high Florentine stove threw forth a welcome warmth, and the grey light which filtered through the curtains was just sufficient to allow her to read. She was lying back in her long chair in a lazy, negligent attitude, her fair hair a trifle disordered by contact with the cushion behind her head; and one of her little slippers having fallen off, her small foot in its neat black silk stocking peeped out beneath her skirt. On the table at her elbow were two or three unopened letters, while in a vase stood a fine bouquet of flowers, a tribute from her deaf housekeeper.

Since the day she had parted from Count Castellani in the hall of the Embassy in Grosvenor Square she had travelled a good deal. She had been down to Rome, had had an interview with the Marquis Montelupo, and a week ago had unexpectedly arrived at the palazzo. As she had anticipated, when she broke her journey at Turin, on her way from London to Rome, and signed her name in the visitors’ book at the hotel, a police official called early on the following morning to inform her that she must consider herself under arrest. But the words scribbled by Montelupo upon his visiting-card had acted like magic, and, having taken the card to the Questura, the detective returned all bows and apologies, and she was allowed to proceed on her journey.

Nearly nine months had elapsed since she last set foot within her great old palazzo, and as she sat that afternoon she allowed her book to fall upon her lap and her eyes to slowly wander around the pretty room. She glanced at the window where the rain was being driven upon the tiny panes by the boisterous wind, and again she shuddered.

With an air of weariness she raised her hand and pushed the mass of fair hair off her brow, as if its weight oppressed her, sighing heavily. The events of the past month had been many and strange. In Rome she had found herself beset by a hundred pitfalls, but she had kept faith with the Marquis, and the terms she had made with him were such as to give her complete satisfaction. A crisis, however, was, she knew, imminent; a crisis in which she would be compelled to play a leading part. But to do so would require all her ingenuity, all her woman’s wit, all her courage, all her skill at deception.

Suddenly, as she was thus reflecting, Margherita, her faithful but ugly woman, who had been with her at Livorno, opened the door, and, drawing aside the heavy portière, said—

“The signore!”

“At last I at last!” she cried, excitedly jumping up instantly. “Show him up at once.” Then, facing the great mirror, she placed both hands to her hair, rearranging it deftly, recovered her lost slipper, cast aside the wrap, and stood ready to receive her visitor.

Again the door opened. The man who entered was Charles Armytage.

For a few moments he held her in fond embrace, kissing her lips tenderly again and again; while she, in that soft, crooning voice that had rung in his ears through all those months of separation, welcomed him, reiterating her declarations of love.

“I received your telegram in Brussels two days ago, and have come to you direct,” he said at last. “I did not go to the Post Office every day, hence the delay.”

“Ah! my poor Nino must be tired,” she cried, suddenly recollecting. “Here, this couch. Sit here; it will rest you. Povero Nino! What a terrible journey—from Brussels to Florence!”

He sank upon the divan she indicated, pale, weary, and travel-worn, while she, taking a seat beside him, narrated how she had left Lyddington for London, and afterwards travelled to Rome. Feeling that the glance of the woman he worshipped was fixed upon him, he raised his head; and then their eyes met for a moment with an expression of infinite gentleness, the mournful gentleness of their heroic love.

“Why did you go to Rome?” he asked. “You always said you hated it.”

“I had business,” she answered. “Urgent business; business which has again aroused hope within me.”

“Still of a secret nature?” the young Englishman hazarded, with a quick glance of suspicion.

“For the present, yes,” she replied in a low, intense voice. “But you still love me, Nino? You can trust me now, can’t you?” and she looked earnestly into his face.

“I have already trusted you,” he replied. “Since that night I left you at Lyddington my life has indeed been a dull, aimless one. You have been ever in my mind, and I have wondered daily, hourly, what was the nature of the grave mysterious peril which you say threatens both of us.”

“That peril still exists,” she answered. “It increases daily, nay hourly.”

“You are still threatened? You, the wealthy owner of this magnificent palazzo!” he exclaimed, gazing around the pretty room bewildered. “Often when I was in Florence, in those days when we first met, I passed this great building. Little, however, did I dream that my Gemma, who used to cycle with me in the Cascine, was its owner.”

She laughed. “I had reasons for not letting you know my real name,” she replied. “It is true that I have money; but wealth has brought me no happiness—only sorrow, alas!—until I met you.”

“And now you are happy?” he asked earnestly.

“Ah! yes, I am happy when you are beside me, Nino,” she responded, grasping his hand in hers. “I never thought that I could learn to love you so. I am still nervous, still in dread, it is true. The reason of my fear is a strange one; I fear the future, and I fear myself.”

“Yourself?” he echoed. “You told me that once before—long ago. You are not very formidable.”

“Ah, no! You don’t understand,” she cried hastily. “I fear that I may not have the strength and courage to carry through a plan I have formed to secure your safety and my own liberty.”

“But I can assist you,” he suggested. “Your interests are mine, now, remember,” he added, kissing her.

“Yes,” she said, looking up into his eyes. “But to render me assistance is not possible. Any action on my part must necessarily imperil both of us. No, I must act alone.”

“When?”

“Very soon. In a few days, or a few weeks. When, I know not. Very soon I must return to England.”

“To England!” he cried. “I thought you preferred your own Italy!”

“I have an object in going back,” she answered ambiguously.

“You’ll let me accompany you?”

She reflected for a moment; then, without responding, rose, rang the bell, and told the man-servant, who entered resplendent in the blue Funaro livery, to bring her visitor some wine.

“You must be half famished after your journey,” she exclaimed. She was standing before him in a white gown, white from head to foot. “I must really apologise for not being more hospitable, Nino.”

“I’m really not hungry,” he replied. Then he added, “You didn’t answer my question.”

“I was reflecting,” she responded slowly. “I don’t know whether it is wise at this juncture for you to return to England, into the very midst of your enemies.”

“You haven’t yet explained who my enemies are, beyond urging me to be wary of Malvano. True, that man has lied to me about you. He told me a silly, romantic, and wholly fictitious story regarding your parentage; but, after all, he may have been mistaken, especially as it was in answer to my inquiry whether he knew any one named Fanetti in Florence.”

“Malvano was well aware that I had used that name more than once,” his well-beloved replied. “He wilfully deceived you for his own purpose. He wished to part us.”

“Why? He is surely not in love with you?”

“Certainly not,” she answered, laughing at such an idea. “His object was not jealousy.”

“Then he is actually my enemy?”

“Yes,” she replied. “Avoid him. If you desire to return to England with me, I will allow you to do so with one stipulation. The moment we set foot in London we must part. If it were known that we were together, all my plans would be frustrated.”

“And I am to leave you to the mercy of these mysterious enemies of yours?” he observed dubiously.

“It is imperative. You must leave London instantly and go away into the country. Malvano must not know that you are in England. Go to your uncle’s in Berkshire, and wait there until I can with safety communicate with you.”

“But all this is extraordinary,” he said mystified, taking from her hand the glass of wine she had poured out for him. “I must confess myself still puzzled at finding you mistress of his magnificent palace, and yet existing in deadly fear of mysterious enemies.” He knew nothing of her connexion with the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and only regarded her as a wealthy woman whose caprice it had been to masquerade, and who had earned a wide reputation for gaiety and recklessness.

“Some day, before long, you shall know the whole truth, Nino,” she assured him in deep earnestness.

“When you do, you will be amazed—astounded, as others will be. I know I act strangely, without any apparent motive. I know you have heard evil of me on every hand, yet you still trust me,” and again she looked into his eyes; “yet you still love me.”

“Yes, piccina,” he answered, calling her once again by that endearing term she had taught him in those summer days beside the sea when he knew so little Italian and experienced such difficulty in speaking to her. “Yes,” he said, placing his arm tenderly round her waist, “I trust you, although evil tongues everywhere try to wound you.”

Only when beside this man she loved was she her real-self, true, honest, loving, and tender-hearted. To the world outside she was compelled to wear the mask as a cold, sneering, crafty, and coquettish woman, the cunning and remorseless adventuress who had won such unenviable notoriety in the political circle at Rome and in Florentine society.

“La Funaro is known by repute in every town throughout Italy,” she said brokenly. “My reputation is that of a vain, coquettish woman without heart, without remorse. But you, Nino, when you know the truth, shall be my judge. Then you will know how I have suffered. The foul lies uttered on every side have cut me to the quick, but under compulsion I have remained silent. Soon, however”—and her brilliant eyes seemed to flash with eagerness at the thought which crossed her mind—“soon I shall release myself, and then you shall know everything—everything.”