Lilian Voinich. The Gadfly

        PART I: CHAPTER I.
     Arthur  sat in the library of the theological seminary at Pisa, looking
through a pile of manuscript sermons. It was a hot evening in June,  and the
windows  stood wide open,  with the shutters half  closed for coolness.  The
Father Director, Canon Montanelli, paused a moment in his writing to  glance
lovingly at the black head bent over the papers.
     "Can't  you find  it, carino? Never mind;  I  must rewrite the passage.
Possibly it has got torn up, and I have kept you all this time for nothing."
     Montanelli's  voice  was  rather  low,  but full  and resonant, with  a
silvery purity of tone that gave to his speech a peculiar charm.  It was the
voice  of a born orator,  rich  in  possible modulations. When he  spoke  to
Arthur its note was always that of a caress.
     "No, Padre, I must  find it;  I'm sure you  put it here. You will never
make it the same by rewriting."
     Montanelli  went on with his work. A sleepy cockchafer hummed  drowsily
outside  the window, and the long, melancholy  call of a  fruitseller echoed
down the street: "Fragola! fragola!"
     "'On the  Healing of  the  Leper'; here it is." Arthur came across  the
room with the velvet tread that always exasperated the good folk at home. He
was a slender little creature, more  like an  Italian in a sixteenth-century
portrait  than a middle-class English lad of the  thirties.  From  the  long
eyebrows and  sensitive mouth to  the small hands and feet, everything about
him was too much chiseled,  overdelicate. Sitting still, he might  have been
taken for a very pretty girl masquerading in male attire; but when he moved,
his lithe agility suggested a tame panther without the claws.
     "Is  that  really it?  What should  I  do without you, Arthur? I should
always be  losing my things. No,  I am not going to write any more now. Come
out into the garden, and I will help you with your work. What is the bit you
couldn't understand?"
     They went out into the  still,  shadowy  cloister garden. The  seminary
occupied the buildings of an old  Dominican monastery, and two hundred years
ago  the  square courtyard  had been stiff and  trim,  and the  rosemary and
lavender had grown in close-cut bushes between the straight box edgings. Now
the white-robed monks who  had tended them were laid away and forgotten; but
the scented herbs flowered still  in the gracious mid-summer evening, though
no man gathered their blossoms for simples any more.  Tufts of wild  parsley
and  columbine filled the cracks between the flagged footways, and  the well
in the middle of the courtyard was  given up to ferns and matted stone-crop.
The  roses had run  wild, and their  straggling  suckers trailed  across the
paths;  in the box borders flared great red  poppies; tall foxgloves drooped
above the  tangled grasses; and the old vine, untrained and barren of fruit,
swayed from the branches  of the neglected medlar-tree, shaking a leafy head
with slow and sad persistence.
     In one  corner stood a huge summer-flowering magnolia, a tower of  dark
foliage,  splashed here and  there with milk-white blossoms. A rough  wooden
bench had been  placed against  the trunk; and on  this Montanelli sat down.
Arthur  was  studying  philosophy  at  the  university;  and,  coming  to  a
difficulty with a book, had applied to "the Padre" for an explanation of the
point. Montanelli  was a universal encyclopaedia to him, though he had never
been a pupil of the seminary.
     "I  had better go  now," he said when the passage had been cleared  up;
"unless you want me for anything."
     "I don't want to work any more, but I should like you to  stay a bit if
you have time."
     "Oh, yes!" He leaned back against the  tree-trunk and looked up through
the dusky branches at the  first faint stars glimmering  in a quiet sky. The
dreamy,  mystical  eyes, deep  blue under black lashes,  were an inheritance
from his Cornish  mother, and Montanelli turned his head away, that he might
not see them.
     "You are looking tired, carino," he said.
     "I can't help it." There was a  weary  sound in Arthur's voice, and the
Padre noticed it at once.
     "You should not have gone  up to  college so soon; you were  tired  out
with sick-nursing  and being up at night.  I ought to have insisted on  your
taking a thorough rest before you left Leghorn."
     "Oh, Padre,  what's the  use of that? I couldn't stop in that miserable
house after mother died. Julia would have driven me mad!"
     Julia was his eldest step-brother's wife, and a thorn in his side.
     "I should not have wished you to stay with your  relatives," Montanelli
answered gently. "I am sure  it would have been the worst possible thing for
you.  But I wish you  could have accepted  the  invitation of  your  English
doctor  friend; if you had spent a  month in his house you  would  have been
more fit to study."
     "No, Padre, I shouldn't indeed! The Warrens are very good and kind, but
they don't understand; and then they are sorry for me,--I can see it in  all
their faces,--and they would try to console me, and talk about mother. Gemma
wouldn't, of  course; she  always knew what not to  say,  even when we  were
babies; but the others would. And it isn't only that----"
     "What is it then, my son?"
     Arthur pulled  off  some blossoms from a  drooping  foxglove  stem  and
crushed them nervously in his hand.
     "I can't  bear  the town," he began after a moment's  pause. "There are
the  shops where she used to  buy me toys when I was a little thing, and the
walk along  the  shore where I  used  to take  her until  she  got too  ill.
Wherever  I go it's the  same thing;  every market-girl comes  up to me with
bunches of flowers--as if I wanted them now!  And there's the church-yard--I
had to get away; it made me sick to see the place----"
     He broke off and sat tearing the  foxglove bells to pieces. The silence
was so  long  and deep  that he looked up, wondering why the  Padre did  not
speak.  It  was  growing  dark  under the  branches  of  the  magnolia,  and
everything seemed dim and indistinct; but there was light enough to show the
ghastly  paleness of  Montanelli's  face.  He was bending his head down, his
right hand tightly  clenched upon the edge of  the bench. Arthur looked away
with  a  sense  of  awe-struck wonder.  It  was  as  though  he  had stepped
unwittingly on to holy ground.
     "My God!" he  thought; "how small  and selfish I am beside  him! If  my
trouble were his own he couldn't feel it more."
     Presently  Montanelli raised his head and looked round. "I won't  press
you to  go back  there;  at  all events, just  now,"  he  said in  his  most
caressing tone; "but you must promise me to take  a thorough rest  when your
vacation begins this summer. I think you had better get a holiday right away
from the neighborhood of Leghorn. I can't have you breaking down in health."
     "Where shall you go when the seminary closes, Padre?"
     "I shall have to take the pupils into the hills, as usual, and see them
settled there. But by the middle of August the subdirector will be back from
his holiday.  I shall try to get up into the Alps for  a little change. Will
you come with  me? I could take you for some long mountain rambles,  and you
would like to  study the Alpine mosses and lichens. But  perhaps it would be
rather dull for you alone with me?"
     "Padre!"   Arthur   clasped   his  hands  in  what   Julia  called  his
"demonstrative foreign way." "I would give anything on earth to go away with
you. Only--I am not sure----" He stopped.
     "You don't think Mr. Burton would allow it?"
     "He  wouldn't like it, of course,  but he could hardly  interfere. I am
eighteen now and can do what I choose. After all, he's only my step-brother;
I don't see that I owe him obedience. He was always unkind to mother."
     "But  if  he seriously objects, I  think you  had better not  defy  his
wishes; you may find your position at home made much harder if----"
     "Not a bit harder!" Arthur broke in passionately. "They always did hate
me and always will--it doesn't matter  what I  do.  Besides,  how can  James
seriously object to my going away with you--with my father confessor?"
     "He  is  a Protestant, remember. However, you had  better write to him,
and we will wait to hear what he thinks. But you must  not  be impatient, my
son; it  matters just as much what you do,  whether  people hate you or love
you."
     The  rebuke was  so gently given that Arthur  hardly coloured under it.
"Yes, I know," he answered, sighing; "but it is so difficult----"
     "I was sorry you could not  come to me  on Tuesday evening," Montanelli
said, abruptly  introducing a  new  subject. "The Bishop of Arezzo was here,
and I should have liked you to meet him."
     "I had promised one of the students to go to a meeting at his lodgings,
and they would have been expecting me."
     "What sort of meeting?"
     Arthur  seemed  embarrassed  by  the  question.  "It--it  was  n-not  a
r-regular meeting,"  he said with  a  nervous little stammer. "A student had
come from Genoa, and he made a speech to us-- a-a sort of--lecture."
     "What did he lecture about?"
     Arthur hesitated. "You won't ask me his name,  Padre, will you? Because
I promised----"
     "I  will ask you no questions  at all, and if you have promised secrecy
of course you must not tell me;  but I think you can almost trust me by this
time."
     "Padre,  of  course  I  can.  He  spoke about--us and  our duty to  the
people--and to--our own selves; and about--what we might do to help----"
     "To help whom?"
     "The contadini--and----"
     "And?"
     "Italy."
     There was a long silence.
     "Tell me, Arthur," said Montanelli, turning  to  him and  speaking very
gravely, "how long have you been thinking about this?"
     "Since--last winter."
     "Before your mother's death? And did she know of it?"
     "N-no. I--I didn't care about it then."
     "And now you--care about it?"
     Arthur pulled another handful of bells off the foxglove.
     "It was  this way, Padre," he began, with his eyes on the ground. "When
I was  preparing for the entrance examination  last autumn, I got to  know a
good many of the students; you remember? Well, some of them began to talk to
me about--all these  things, and lent me books. But I didn't care much about
it;  I  always wanted  to get home quick  to mother. You see, she was  quite
alone among  them all in that dungeon  of a  house; and Julia's  tongue  was
enough  to kill her. Then, in the winter, when she  got so ill, I forgot all
about the students and their books; and then, you know, I left off coming to
Pisa altogether. I should have talked to mother if I had thought of  it; but
it  went right  out  of  my  head. Then I  found out  that she was  going to
die----You know, I was almost  constantly with her towards the end; often  I
would sit up the night, and Gemma Warren would come in the day to let me get
to sleep. Well, it was in those long nights; I got thinking  about the books
and about what the students had  said--and  wondering--  whether  they  were
right and--what-- Our Lord would have said about it all."
     "Did you ask Him?" Montanelli's voice was not quite steady.
     "Often, Padre. Sometimes I have  prayed to Him to tell  me  what I must
do, or to let me die with mother. But I couldn't find any answer."
     "And  you never  said a  word to me.  Arthur,  I  hoped you could  have
trusted me."
     "Padre,  you know I trust you! But there are some things you can't talk
about to anyone.  I--it seemed to me that no one could help me--not even you
or mother; I  must have my own answer straight from God. You see,  it is for
all my life and all my soul."
     Montanelli turned away and stared into the dusky gloom of the  magnolia
branches. The twilight was so dim that his figure had a shadowy look, like a
dark ghost among the darker boughs.
     "And then?" he asked slowly.
     "And then--she died. You know, I had been up the last three nights with
her----"
     He broke off and paused a moment, but Montanelli did not move.
     "All those two days  before they buried her," Arthur went on in a lower
voice, "I couldn't think about anything. Then, after the funeral, I was ill;
you remember, I couldn't come to confession."
     "Yes; I remember."
     "Well, in the night I got up  and went  into mother's room. It was  all
empty;  there was only  the  great  crucifix  in the alcove.  And  I thought
perhaps God would help me. I knelt  down and waited--all  night. And in  the
morning when I came  to my senses--Padre, it isn't any use; I can't explain.
I can't tell you what I saw--I hardly  know  myself. But I know that God has
answered me, and that I dare not disobey Him."
     For a moment they sat  quite silent  in the  darkness.  Then Montanelli
turned and laid his hand on Arthur's shoulder.
     "My son,"  he said, "God forbid that I should  say He has not spoken to
your soul. But remember your  condition when this thing happened, and do not
take the fancies of grief or illness for His solemn call. And if, indeed, it
has been His will to answer you out of the shadow of death, be sure that you
put no false construction on His  word. What  is this thing you  have it  in
your heart to do?"
     Arthur stood up and answered slowly, as though repeating a catechism:
     "To give up my life to  Italy,  to help  in freeing  her from  all this
slavery and wretchedness, and in driving out  the Austrians, that she may be
a free republic, with no king but Christ."
     "Arthur,  think a  moment what  you  are saying!  You  are not  even an
Italian."
     "That makes  no difference; I am myself. I have seen this thing,  and I
belong to it."
     There was silence again.
     "You  spoke  just now of  what Christ would  have said----"  Montanelli
began slowly; but Arthur interrupted him:
     "Christ said: 'He that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.'"
     Montanelli leaned his arm against  a  branch,  and shaded his eyes with
one hand.
     "Sit down a moment, my son," he said at last.
     Arthur sat  down, and the  Padre took both his  hands  in  a strong and
steady clasp.
     "I cannot argue with you to-night,"  he said; "this has come upon me so
suddenly--I had not thought--I must have time to think it over. Later on  we
will talk  more  definitely. But,  for just now, I want you  to remember one
thing.  If you get into trouble  over this, if  you--die, you will break  my
heart."
     "Padre----"
     "No; let me  finish what I have to say.  I told you once that I have no
one  in  the world  but you.  I think you  do not fully understand what that
means. It  is difficult when one is so young;  at your age I should not have
understood. Arthur, you are as my--as my--own son to me. Do you see? You are
the light  of my eyes and the desire of my heart. I  would die  to  keep you
from making a false step and ruining your life. But  there is nothing  I can
do. I  don't ask you to make any promises to me; I only ask you to  remember
this, and to be careful. Think well before you take an irrevocable step, for
my sake, if not for the sake of your mother in heaven."
     "I will think--and--Padre, pray for  me, and for  Italy." He knelt down
in  silence, and in  silence Montanelli  laid his  hand on  the bent head. A
moment later Arthur rose, kissed the  hand, and  went softly away across the
dewy grass. Montanelli sat alone  under the magnolia  tree, looking straight
before him into the blackness.
     "It is the vengeance  of  God that has fallen upon me," he thought, "as
it fell upon  David. I, that  have defiled His sanctuary, and taken the Body
of the Lord into polluted hands,--He has been  very patient with me, and now
it is come. 'For thou didst it secretly, but I will do this thing before all
Israel, and  before the sun; THE CHILD  THAT IS BORN UNTO  THEE SHALL SURELY
DIE.'"
        PART I: CHAPTER II.
     MR. JAMES BURTON did not at all like the idea of his young step-brother
"careering  about Switzerland" with Montanelli. But positively  to  forbid a
harmless botanizing tour with an elderly professor of theology would seem to
Arthur,  who  knew nothing of  the  reason  for  the  prohibition,  absurdly
tyrannical.  He  would  immediately  attribute  it  to religious  or  racial
prejudice; and the Burtons prided themselves on their enlightened tolerance.
The whole  family had been staunch Protestants and  Conservatives ever since
Burton  & Sons, ship-owners, of London and  Leghorn, had first set up in
business, more than a century back. But they  held  that  English  gentlemen
must deal fairly, even with Papists; and when the head of the house, finding
it  dull  to  remain a widower, had married the pretty Catholic governess of
his younger children, the  two  elder sons, James  and Thomas,  much as they
resented  the  presence  of a step-mother hardly older  than themselves, had
submitted with  sulky  resignation  to  the  will of  Providence.  Since the
father's  death the  eldest brother's  marriage  had further  complicated an
already difficult position; but both brothers had honestly tried to  protect
Gladys, as long as she lived, from Julia's merciless tongue, and to do their
duty,  as they understood it, by Arthur. They did  not even pretend  to like
the lad, and their generosity towards him showed itself chiefly in providing
him with lavish supplies of pocket money and allowing him to go his own way.
     In answer to his letter, accordingly, Arthur received a cheque to cover
his  expenses and a cold permission to do  as he pleased about his holidays.
He expended half his spare cash  on botanical  books and pressing-cases, and
started off with the Padre for his first Alpine ramble.
     Montanelli  was in  lighter spirits than Arthur had seen  him in  for a
long while. After the  first  shock of the conversation in the garden he had
gradually  recovered his  mental balance,  and now looked upon the case more
calmly.  Arthur was very young and  inexperienced; his decision could hardly
be, as yet, irrevocable.  Surely  there  was still time to  win him  back by
gentle  persuasion and  reasoning from  the dangerous path upon which he had
barely entered.
     They had  intended to stay a few days at Geneva; but at the first sight
of the glaring white streets and dusty, tourist-crammed promenades, a little
frown  appeared  on  Arthur's  face.  Montanelli  watched   him  with  quiet
amusement.
     "You don't like it, carino?"
     "I hardly know. It's  so  different from what I expected. Yes, the lake
is beautiful,  and I like the  shape of those hills." They were  standing on
Rousseau's Island, and he pointed to the long,  severe outlines of the Savoy
side. "But the town looks so stiff and tidy,  somehow--so Protestant; it has
a self-satisfied air. No, I don't like it; it reminds me of Julia."
     Montanelli laughed. "Poor boy, what a misfortune! Well, we are here for
our own amusement, so there is no reason why we should stop. Suppose we take
a sail on the lake to-day, and go up into the mountains to-morrow morning?"
     "But, Padre, you wanted to stay here?"
     "My dear boy, I have seen all these places a dozen times. My holiday is
to see your pleasure. Where would you like to go?"
     "If it  is really the same  to you, I should like  to follow  the river
back to its source."
     "The Rhone?"
     "No, the Arve; it runs so fast."
     "Then we will go to Chamonix."
     They spent the afternoon drifting about in a  little sailing  boat. The
beautiful lake produced far less impression upon  Arthur  than  the gray and
muddy Arve.  He had grown up beside the Mediterranean, and was accustomed to
blue ripples; but he had a positive  passion for  swiftly  moving water, and
the hurried rushing of the glacier stream delighted him beyond  measure. "It
is so much in earnest," he said.
     Early on the following morning they started for Chamonix. Arthur was in
very high spirits while driving through the fertile valley country; but when
they entered upon the winding road near Cluses, and  the great, jagged hills
closed in around them, he became serious  and silent.  From St.  Martin they
walked slowly  up  the valley, stopping to sleep at wayside chalets or  tiny
mountain villages, and  wandering on again as their  fancy  directed. Arthur
was  peculiarly  sensitive  to the  influence  of  scenery,  and  the  first
waterfall that they passed threw him into an ecstacy which was delightful to
see;  but as  they drew  nearer to the  snow-peaks  he  passed  out  of this
rapturous  mood into  one of dreamy exaltation that Montanelli  had not seen
before.  There seemed to be a kind  of mystical relationship between him and
the mountains.  He  would  lie  for  hours  motionless in the dark,  secret,
echoing pine-forests, looking out between the straight, tall trunks into the
sunlit  outer world of flashing peaks  and barren cliffs. Montanelli watched
him with a kind of sad envy.
     "I wish you could show me what you see, carino," he  said one day as he
looked up from his book,  and saw Arthur stretched beside him on the moss in
the same attitude as an hour before, gazing out with wide, dilated eyes into
the  glittering  expanse of  blue and white. They had turned aside from  the
high-road to sleep at a quiet village near the falls of the Diosaz, and, the
sun  being already  low in a cloudless sky, had mounted a point of pine-clad
rock to wait for the Alpine glow over the dome and needles of the Mont Blanc
chain. Arthur raised his head with eyes full of wonder and mystery.
     "What I see, Padre? I see a great, white being in  a blue void that has
no beginning and no end. I see it waiting, age after age, for the coming  of
the Spirit of God. I see it through a glass darkly."
     Montanelli sighed.
     "I used to see those things once."
     "Do you never see them now?"
     "Never. I shall not see them any more. They are  there, I  know; but  I
have not the eyes to see them. I see quite other things."
     "What do you see?"
     "I, carino? I  see  a blue sky and a snow-mountain --that is all when I
look up into the heights. But down there it is different."
     He pointed to the valley  below them. Arthur  knelt down and bent  over
the sheer edge  of  the  precipice. The  great  pine  trees,  dusky  in  the
gathering  shades of evening, stood  like sentinels  along the narrow  banks
confining the river. Presently the sun, red as a glowing coal, dipped behind
a jagged mountain peak, and  all the life and  light  deserted the  face  of
nature.   Straightway  there   came  upon  the  valley  something  dark  and
threatening --sullen, terrible, full of  spectral weapons. The perpendicular
cliffs of the barren western  mountains  seemed like the  teeth of a monster
lurking to snatch a  victim  and drag him down  into  the  maw of  the  deep
valley,  black  with  its  moaning  forests.  The pine  trees  were rows  of
knife-blades whispering: "Fall upon  us!"  and in the gathering darkness the
torrent roared  and howled, beating against  its rocky prison walls with the
frenzy of an everlasting despair.
     "Padre!" Arthur rose, shuddering, and drew back from the precipice. "It
is like hell."
     "No,  my  son," Montanelli  answered softly,  "it is only like  a human
soul."
     "The souls of them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death?"
     "The souls of them that pass you day by day in the street."
     Arthur shivered, looking  down  into the shadows. A  dim white mist was
hovering among the pine trees, clinging faintly about the desperate agony of
the torrent, like a miserable ghost that had no consolation to give.
     "Look!" Arthur said suddenly. "The people that walked  in darkness have
seen a great light."
     Eastwards  the snow-peaks  burned in the  afterglow. When the red light
had faded from the summits Montanelli turned and roused Arthur with  a touch
on the shoulder.
     "Come in, carino; all the light  is gone. We shall lose our  way in the
dark if we stay any longer."
     "It is like  a corpse," Arthur said as he turned away from the spectral
face of the great snow-peak glimmering through the twilight.
     They  descended  cautiously among the black  trees to  the chalet where
they were to sleep.
     As Montanelli entered the room  where Arthur was waiting for him at the
supper  table,  he  saw that the lad seemed  to  have shaken off the ghostly
fancies of the dark, and to have changed into quite another creature.
     "Oh, Padre, do come and look at this  absurd dog!  It can dance  on its
hind legs."
     He  was as much  absorbed in  the dog and its accomplishments as he had
been   in  the   after-glow.  The   woman  of  the  chalet,  red-faced   and
white-aproned,  with sturdy arms  akimbo, stood by smiling, while he put the
animal through its tricks.  "One can see there's not  much on his mind if he
can carry  on that way,"  she said in patois  to her daughter. "And  what  a
handsome lad!"
     Arthur coloured like a schoolgirl, and  the  woman, seeing  that he had
understood, went  away  laughing at his confusion. At  supper  he  talked of
nothing  but  plans  for   excursions,  mountain  ascents,  and   botanizing
expeditions. Evidently his dreamy fancies had not interfered with either his
spirits or his appetite.
     When Montanelli awoke the  next morning Arthur  had disappeared. He had
started before daybreak  for the higher pastures "to  help Gaspard  drive up
the goats."
     Breakfast had not long been on the table, however, when he came tearing
into the room, hatless, with a tiny peasant  girl of three years old perched
on his shoulder, and a great bunch of wild flowers in his hand.
     Montanelli looked up, smiling. This was a curious contrast to the grave
and silent Arthur of Pisa or Leghorn.
     "Where  have you  been, you  madcap? Scampering all over the  mountains
without any breakfast?"
     "Oh,  Padre, it was so jolly! The mountains look perfectly glorious  at
sunrise; and the dew is so thick! Just look!"
     He lifted for inspection a wet and muddy boot.
     We  took  some  bread and  cheese with us, and got some goat's milk  up
there  on  the pasture; oh, it was nasty! But  I'm hungry again,  now; and I
want something  for this little person, too. Annette,  won't  you have  some
honey?"
     He had sat down with the child  on his knee, and was helping her to put
the flowers in order.
     "No, no!" Montanelli  interposed. "I can't have you catching cold.  Run
and change your wet things. Come to me, Annette. Where did you pick her up?"
     "At  the  top  of  the  village.  She  belongs  to   the   man  we  saw
yesterday--the man that cobbles the commune's boots. Hasn't she lovely eyes?
She's got a tortoise in her pocket, and she calls it 'Caroline.'"
     When  Arthur had  changed his wet socks  and came down  to breakfast he
found the child seated on the Padre's knee, chattering volubly to  him about
her tortoise,  which she  was holding  upside down  in a  chubby hand,  that
"monsieur" might admire the wriggling legs.
     "Look,  monsieur!" she  was  saying  gravely in  her  half-intelligible
patois: "Look at Caroline's boots!"
     Montanelli sat playing with the  child, stroking her hair, admiring her
darling  tortoise,  and telling her  wonderful  stories.  The  woman of  the
chalet,  coming in to clear  the table, stared in amazement at the sight  of
Annette turning out the pockets of the grave gentleman in clerical dress.
     "God teaches the little ones to know a good man," she said. "Annette is
always afraid  of strangers; and see, she is not  shy with  his reverence at
all. The wonderful thing! Kneel  down, Annette, and ask  the good monsieur's
blessing before he goes; it will bring thee luck."
     "I didn't  know you  could play with children that  way, Padre," Arthur
said an hour later,  as they walked  through the sunlit  pasture-land. "That
child never took her eyes off you all the time. Do you know, I think----"
     "Yes?"
     "I was only going to say--it seems to me  almost a pity that the Church
should forbid priests to marry. I cannot  quite understand why. You see, the
training of children is such a serious thing, and it means so much  to  them
to be surrounded from the very beginning with good influences, that I should
have  thought the holier a  man's vocation and the purer his life,  the more
fit  he is to be a father. I am  sure, Padre,  if you  had not  been under a
vow,--if you had married,--your children would have been the very----"
     "Hush!"
     The word  was  uttered  in a hasty  whisper that seemed to  deepen  the
ensuing silence.
     "Padre," Arthur began again, distressed by the other's sombre look, "do
you  think  there is anything wrong  in  what I said?  Of  course  I  may be
mistaken; but I must think as it comes natural to me to think."
     "Perhaps," Montanelli  answered  gently, "you  do not quite realize the
meaning of what  you  just  said. You will see differently in a  few  years.
Meanwhile we had better talk about something else."
     It was the  first break in  the perfect  ease and harmony that  reigned
between them on this ideal holiday.
     From  Chamonix they  went on by the Tete-Noire to Martigny,  where they
stopped to rest, as the weather was stiflingly hot. After dinner they sat on
the terrace of the hotel, which was  sheltered from  the sun and commanded a
good view of the  mountains. Arthur brought out his specimen box and plunged
into an earnest botanical discussion in Italian.
     Two English artists  were sitting  on the terrace;  one sketching,  the
other lazily  chatting.  It  did not  seem to have occurred to  him that the
strangers might understand English.
     "Leave off daubing  at  the landscape, Willie," he said; "and draw that
glorious  Italian boy  going  into ecstasies over those bits  of ferns. Just
look at the line  of his eyebrows! You  only need to put a crucifix for  the
magnifying-glass  and a  Roman  toga for the  jacket and knickerbockers, and
there's your Early Christian complete, expression and all."
     "Early Christian be hanged! I sat beside  that youth at  dinner; he was
just as ecstatic over the roast fowl as over those grubby little weeds. He's
pretty enough;  that olive  colouring  is beautiful; but  he's  not half  so
picturesque as his father."
     "His--who?"
     "His father, sitting there straight in front of you. Do you mean to say
you've passed him over? It's a perfectly magnificent face."
     "Why, you  dunder-headed,  go-to-meeting Methodist!  Don't  you know  a
Catholic priest when you see one?"
     "A priest?  By Jove,  so he is! Yes, I forgot; vow of chastity, and all
that sort of thing. Well then, we'll be charitable and suppose the boy's his
nephew."
     "What idiotic people!" Arthur whispered, looking up with dancing  eyes.
"Still, it is kind  of them to think me like you; I wish  I were really your
nephew----Padre, what is the matter? How white you are!"
     Montanelli was  standing up, pressing one hand to his forehead. "I am a
little giddy," he said in a curiously faint, dull tone. "Perhaps  I  was too
much in the sun this morning.  I will go and lie down, carino;  it's nothing
but the heat."
     . . . . .
     After a fortnight  beside  the  Lake of Lucerne  Arthur and  Montanelli
returned  to Italy  by the  St.  Gothard Pass. They had been fortunate as to
weather and had made  several very pleasant excursions;  but the first charm
was gone out  of their enjoyment. Montanelli  was continually  haunted by an
uneasy thought  of  the "more definite  talk" for which this  holiday was to
have  been the opportunity. In the Arve valley he had purposely put  off all
reference  to  the subject of which they had spoken under the magnolia tree;
it would be cruel, he thought, to spoil the first delights of Alpine scenery
for a nature so artistic as Arthur's by associating them with a conversation
which must  necessarily be painful. Ever since  the day  at Martigny he  had
said  to himself each  morning; "I will speak  to-day," and each evening: "I
will speak to-morrow;" and  now the  holiday was over, and he still repeated
again  and  again:  "To-morrow,  to-morrow."  A  chill, indefinable sense of
something  not quite  the same as it had  been, of an invisible veil falling
between himself  and Arthur, kept him  silent, until, on the last evening of
their holiday, he realized suddenly that he must speak now if he would speak
at all.  They  were stopping for the night at  Lugano, and were to start for
Pisa next  morning. He would at least  find out how far his darling had been
drawn into the fatal quicksand of Italian politics.
     "The rain has stopped, carino," he said after sunset; "and  this is the
only  chance we shall have  to see the lake. Come out; I want to have a talk
with you."
     They walked along the water's edge to a quiet  spot and  sat down on  a
low stone  wall.  Close beside them  grew  a rose-bush, covered with scarlet
hips; one or two belated clusters of creamy blossom still hung from an upper
branch, swaying mournfully and heavy with raindrops. On the green surface of
the lake a  little boat, with  white wings faintly fluttering, rocked in the
dewy breeze.  It  looked as light and  frail as a tuft of  silvery dandelion
seed  flung upon the  water. High up on  Monte Salvatore  the window of some
shepherd's hut opened  a golden eye. The roses hung  their heads and dreamed
under the still  September clouds, and the water plashed and murmured softly
among the pebbles of the shore.
     "This will be my only chance of a quiet talk with you for a long time,"
Montanelli began. "You will go back to your college work and friends; and I,
too, shall be very busy this winter. I want to understand quite clearly what
our position as regards each other is  to be; and so, if you----" He stopped
for a moment and then continued more slowly: "If you feel that you can still
trust me  as you used to do, I want you to tell me more definitely than that
night in the seminary garden, how far you have gone."
     Arthur looked out across the water, listened quietly, and said nothing.
     "I want to know, if you will tell me," Montanelli went on; "whether you
have bound yourself by a vow, or--in any way."
     "There is nothing to tell, dear Padre; I have not bound myself,  but  I
am bound."
     "I don't understand------"
     "What is the use of vows? They are not what binds  people. If you  feel
in a certain way about a thing, that binds you to it; if you don't feel that
way, nothing else can bind you."
     "Do  you  mean,   then,  that  this  thing--this--   feeling  is  quite
irrevocable? Arthur, have you thought what you are saying?"
     Arthur turned round and looked straight into Montanelli's eyes.
     "Padre, you asked me if I could trust you. Can you  not trust  me, too?
Indeed, if there were anything to tell, I would tell it to you; but there is
no use in talking about these things. I have not forgotten what  you said to
me  that night; I shall never forget it. But I must go my way and follow the
light that I see."
     Montanelli picked  a rose from the bush,  pulled off the petals one  by
one, and tossed them into the water.
     "You are right, carino. Yes, we will say no more about these things; it
seems there is indeed no help in many words----Well, well, let us go in."THE
autumn  and winter passed  uneventfully.  Arthur  was reading  hard  and had
little spare  time.  He  contrived  to get  a glimpse of  Montanelli once or
oftener in every week, if only for a few minutes. From time to time he would
come in to ask for help with some difficult book; but on these occasions the
subject of  study was  strictly adhered to. Montanelli, feeling, rather than
observing, the slight, impalpable barrier that had come between them, shrank
from everything which might  seem like  an  attempt to retain the  old close
relationship. Arthur's visits now caused him more distress than pleasure, so
trying was the constant effort to appear at ease and to behave as if nothing
were  altered. Arthur,  for his part, noticed,  hardly understanding it, the
subtle change in the Padre's manner; and, vaguely feeling  that it  had some
connection with the vexed question of the  "new  ideas," avoided all mention
of the subject  with which  his thoughts were  constantly filled. Yet he had
never  loved Montanelli  so  deeply  as  now.  The  dim, persistent sense of
dissatisfaction, of  spiritual  emptiness,  which he  had  tried  so hard to
stifle under a load of theology and ritual, had vanished into nothing at the
touch  of Young  Italy. All  the unhealthy fancies born  of  loneliness  and
sick-room watching had passed away, and the doubts  against which he used to
pray had  gone without the  need of  exorcism. With the  awakening  of a new
enthusiasm, a clearer, fresher  religious ideal  (for  it was more  in  this
light than  in that of  a political development that the  students' movement
had appeared to him), had come a sense of rest and completeness, of peace on
earth and  good will towards men;  and in this  mood  of  solemn and  tender
exaltation all the world seemed to him full of light. He found a new element
of something  lovable  in  the  persons  whom  he  had  most  disliked;  and
Montanelli, who for five years had been  his ideal hero, was now in his eyes
surrounded with an additional halo, as a potential prophet of the new faith.
He listened with passionate eagerness to the Padre's sermons, trying to find
in  them some  trace of inner kinship with the republican ideal;  and  pored
over the  Gospels, rejoicing in the democratic tendencies of Christianity at
its origin.
     One day in January he called at the seminary to return a book which  he
had borrowed.  Hearing  that  the Father Director was  out,  he  went  up to
Montanelli's private study, placed the volume on its shelf, and was about to
leave the room when the title  of a book lying on the table caught his eyes.
It  was  Dante's  "De  Monarchia."  He began  to read it  and soon became so
absorbed that when the door opened and shut he did  not hear. He was aroused
from his preoccupation by Montanelli's voice behind him.
     "I did not expect you to-day," said the Padre, glancing at the title of
the  book. "I was just going to send and  ask if  you could come  to me this
evening."
     "Is it anything important? I have an engagement for this evening; but I
will miss it if------"
     "No; to-morrow will  do. I want to see  you because I am going  away on
Tuesday. I have been sent for to Rome."
     "To Rome? For long?"
     "The  letter says, 'till after Easter.' It is from the Vatican. I would
have let you know at once, but have been very busy settling  up things about
the seminary and making arrangements for the new Director."
     "But, Padre, surely you are not giving up the seminary?"
     "It will  have to  be so; but I shall probably come back to  Pisa,  for
some time at least."
     "But why are you giving it up?"
     "Well,  it is  not  yet  officially  announced;  but  I  am  offered  a
bishopric."
     "Padre! Where?"
     "That is  the point about  which I  have to go to Rome. It is  not  yet
decided whether I am to  take a  see in the Apennines, or to remain  here as
Suffragan."
     "And is the new Director chosen yet?"
     "Father Cardi has been nominated and arrives here to-morrow."
     "Is not that rather sudden?"
     "Yes;  but----The   decisions  of  the   Vatican  are   sometimes   not
communicated till the last moment."
     "Do you know the new Director?"
     "Not personally; but he is very highly  spoken of.  Monsignor  Belloni,
who writes, says that he is a man of great erudition."
     "The seminary will miss you terribly."
     "I don't  know about  the seminary,  but  I am sure you  will miss  me,
carino; perhaps almost as much as I shall miss you."
     "I shall indeed; but I am very glad, for all that."
     "Are  you? I  don't  know  that I  am." He sat down at the table with a
weary  look on his face;  not  the  look of  a  man who  is  expecting  high
promotion.
     "Are you busy this afternoon, Arthur?" he said after a moment. "If not,
I wish you would stay with me for a  while, as you can't come to-night. I am
a little out of sorts, I think; and I want to see as much of you as possible
before leaving."
     "Yes, I can stay a bit. I am due at six."
     "One of your meetings?"
     Arthur nodded; and Montanelli changed the subject hastily.
     "I  want to  speak  to  you about yourself," he said.  "You  will  need
another confessor in my absence."
     "When you come back I may go on confessing to you, may I not?"
     "My dear  boy, how can  you ask? Of course I  am  speaking only  of the
three or four months that I shall be away. Will you go to one of the Fathers
of Santa Caterina?"
     "Very well."
     They talked of other matters for a little while; then Arthur rose.
     "I must go, Padre; the students will be waiting for me."
     The haggard look came back to Montanelli's face.
     "Already? You had almost charmed away my black mood. Well, good-bye."
     "Good-bye. I will be sure to come to-morrow."
     "Try to come early,  so that I  may  have time to see you alone. Father
Cardi will be here. Arthur, my  dear boy, be careful while I  am gone; don't
be led into  doing anything rash, at  least before  I come back.  You cannot
think how anxious I feel about leaving you."
     "There is no  need, Padre; everything is quite quiet. It will be a long
time yet."
     "Good-bye," Montanelli said abruptly, and sat down to his writing.
     The  first person upon whom Arthur's eyes fell, as  he entered the room
where the  students' little gatherings were held,  was his old playmate, Dr.
Warren's daughter. She was sitting in a corner by the window, listening with
an absorbed and  earnest face to what one of the "initiators," a  tall young
Lombard in a  threadbare coat, was saying to her. During the last few months
she  had changed  and  developed greatly,  and now  looked a grown-up  young
woman, though the dense black plaits still hung down her back in school-girl
fashion. She was dressed all in black, and had thrown a black scarf over her
head,  as the  room was  cold and  draughty. At  her  breast was a spray  of
cypress,  the  emblem  of   Young  Italy.  The  initiator  was  passionately
describing  to  her  the  misery  of the  Calabrian  peasantry; and  she sat
listening silently, her chin resting on one hand and her eyes on the ground.
To Arthur  she seemed  a melancholy vision of Liberty mourning  for the lost
Republic. (Julia would  have seen  in her only an  overgrown hoyden, with  a
sallow complexion, an  irregular nose, and an old  stuff frock that was  too
short for her.)
     "You here, Jim!" he said, coming up to  her when the initiator had been
called to the other end of the room. "Jim" was a childish corruption  of her
curious  baptismal  name:  Jennifer.  Her  Italian  schoolmates  called  her
"Gemma."
     She raised her head with a start.
     "Arthur! Oh, I didn't know you--belonged here!"
     "And I had no idea about you. Jim, since when have you----?"
     "You don't understand!"  she interposed quickly. "I am not a member. It
is only that I have done one or  two little things. You see, I met Bini--you
know Carlo Bini?"
     "Yes, of course." Bini was the organizer of the Leghorn branch; and all
Young Italy knew him.
     "Well, he  began  talking  to me about these things; and I asked him to
let  me go  to  a  students' meeting.  The other  day  he  wrote  to  me  to
Florence------Didn't  you  know I  had been to  Florence  for  the Christmas
holidays?"
     "I don't often hear from home now."
     "Ah, yes! Anyhow,  I went  to stay with the Wrights." (The Wrights were
old schoolfellows of hers who  had moved to  Florence.) "Then Bini wrote and
told me to pass through  Pisa to-day  on my  way home,  so that I could come
here. Ah! they're going to begin."
     The lecture was upon the ideal  Republic and the  duty of  the young to
fit  themselves for  it. The  lecturer's  comprehension of his  subject  was
somewhat vague; but Arthur listened with devout admiration. His mind at this
period was curiously uncritical; when he accepted a moral ideal he swallowed
it whole without stopping to think whether it was quite digestible. When the
lecture and the  long discussion which  followed it  were  finished and  the
students began to disperse, he went  up to Gemma, who was still  sitting  in
the corner of the room.
     "Let me walk with you, Jim. Where are you staying?"
     "With Marietta."
     "Your father's old housekeeper?"
     "Yes; she lives a good way from here."
     They walked for some time in silence. Then Arthur said suddenly:
     "You are seventeen, now, aren't you?"
     "I was seventeen in October."
     "I always knew you would not grow up like other girls and begin wanting
to go to balls and  all that sort  of thing.  Jim,  dear,  I have  so  often
wondered whether you would ever come to be one of us."
     "So have I."
     "You  said you had done things  for Bini; I  didn't know  you even knew
him."
     "It wasn't for Bini; it was for the other one"
     "Which other one?"
     "The one that was talking to me to-night-- Bolla."
     "Do you know him  well?" Arthur put in with a little touch of jealousy.
Bolla  was a sore subject with him; there  had  been  a rivalry between them
about some work  which the committee of Young Italy had finally intrusted to
Bolla, declaring Arthur too young and inexperienced.
     "I know him pretty well; and I like  him very much. He has been staying
in Leghorn."
     "I know; he went there in November------"
     "Because  of  the steamers. Arthur, don't you think your house would be
safer than ours  for that work? Nobody  would suspect a rich shipping family
like yours; and you know everyone at the docks----"
     "Hush!  not so loud, dear! So it  was  in  your  house the  books  from
Marseilles were hidden?"
     "Only for one day. Oh! perhaps I oughtn't to have told you."
     "Why not?  You  know  I belong to the  society. Gemma,  dear, there  is
nothing in all the world that would make me so happy as for you to join us--
you and the Padre."
     "Your Padre! Surely he----"
     "No;   he  thinks  differently.  But  I  have  sometimes  fancied--that
is--hoped--I don't know----"
     "But, Arthur! he's a priest."
     "What  of that? There are priests in the society --two of them write in
the paper. And why  not?  It is the mission  of the  priesthood  to lead the
world to higher ideals and aims, and  what else  does the society try to do?
It is, after all, more a religious and moral question than a  political one.
If people are fit to  be free and responsible citizens, no one can keep them
enslaved."
     Gemma knit her brows. "It seems to me, Arthur," she said, "that there's
a muddle somewhere in  your logic.  A priest teaches  religious  doctrine. I
don't see what that has to do with getting rid of the Austrians."
     "A  priest is  a  teacher  of  Christianity,  and  the greatest of  all
revolutionists was Christ."
     "Do you know,  I was talking about priests to father the other day, and
he said----"
     "Gemma, your father is a Protestant."
     After a little pause she looked round at him frankly.
     "Look here, we  had  better leave  this subject  alone.  You are always
intolerant when you talk about Protestants."
     "I didn't mean to be intolerant. But I think Protestants are  generally
intolerant when they talk about priests."
     "I dare say. Anyhow, we have so often quarreled over this subject  that
it is not worth while to begin again. What did you think of the lecture?"
     "I liked it very much--especially the last part. I was glad he spoke so
strongly about the need of living the Republic, not dreaming of it. It is as
Christ said: 'The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.'"
     "It was just that part that  I didn't like. He  talked so much  of  the
wonderful things we ought  to think and  feel and  be, but he never told  us
practically what we ought to do."
     "When the  time of  crisis comes there will be plenty for us to do; but
we must be patient; these great changes are not made in a day."
     "The longer a thing is to take doing, the more reason to begin at once.
You talk about being fit for freedom--did you ever know anyone so fit for it
as  your  mother? Wasn't she the most perfectly angelic woman you ever  saw?
And  what use  was  all her  goodness?  She  was  a slave till  the  day she
died--bullied and worried and insulted by your brother  James and his  wife.
It  would have been much  better  for her if she  had not been so sweet  and
patient; they would  never have  treated her so. That's just  the  way  with
Italy; it's not patience that's wanted--it's  for  somebody to  get  up  and
defend themselves------"
     "Jim, dear, if anger and passion could have saved Italy she  would have
been free long ago; it is not hatred that she needs, it is love."
     As he said the word a sudden flush went up to his forehead and died out
again.  Gemma  did  not  see it;  she  was looking straight  before her with
knitted brows and set mouth.
     "You  think I  am  wrong,  Arthur,"  she said after a pause;  "but I am
right,  and you will grow to see it  some day.  This is the house. Will  you
come in?"
     "No; it's late. Good-night, dear!"
     He was standing on the doorstep, clasping her hand in both of his.
     "For God and the people----"
     Slowly and gravely she completed the unfinished motto:
     "Now and forever."
     Then she pulled away her hand and ran into the house. When the door had
closed behind her  he stooped and picked up  the spray of  cypress which had
fallen from her breast.
     ARTHUR went back to his lodgings feeling as though he had wings. He was
absolutely,  cloudlessly  happy.  At  the meeting  there  had been hints  of
preparations for  armed insurrection; and now Gemma  was a  comrade, and  he
loved her. They  could work  together,  possibly even die together, for  the
Republic that was to be. The blossoming time of their hope was come, and the
Padre would see it and believe.
     The  next  morning, however, he awoke in a soberer mood and  remembered
that Gemma was  going to Leghorn  and  the Padre to Rome. January, February,
March--three  long  months  to  Easter!  And  if  Gemma  should  fall  under
"Protestant"  influences at home (in Arthur's vocabulary "Protestant"  stood
for "Philistine")------ No, Gemma  would never learn to flirt and simper and
captivate tourists  and bald-headed shipowners, like the other English girls
in  Leghorn; she  was  made  of  different  stuff.  But  she might  be  very
miserable; she was so young, so friendless, so utterly alone among all those
wooden people. If only mother had lived----
     In  the  evening he  went  to the seminary, where  he  found Montanelli
entertaining the  new Director and looking  both tired and bored. Instead of
lighting up, as usual, at the sight of Arthur, the Padre's face grew darker.
     "This is the student I spoke to you about," he said, introducing Arthur
stiffly. "I shall be much obliged if  you  will allow him to continue  using
the library."
     Father  Cardi,  a  benevolent-looking  elderly priest,  at  once  began
talking to Arthur  about the Sapienza, with  an ease  and familiarity  which
showed  him to  be well acquainted with college  life. The conversation soon
drifted into a discussion  of university regulations, a burning question  of
that day. To Arthur's great delight, the new Director spoke strongly against
the custom adopted by the university authorities of constantly  worrying the
students by senseless and vexatious restrictions.
     "I  have had a  good deal of experience  in guiding young  people,"  he
said; "and I make  it  a  rule never to prohibit  anything  without  a  good
reason.  There  are  very few young men who will give much trouble if proper
consideration and respect for  their personality are shown  to them. But, of
course, the most docile horse will  kick  if you are always  jerking at  the
rein."
     Arthur opened his  eyes wide; he had not expected to hear the students'
cause  pleaded  by  the  new  Director.  Montanelli  took  no  part  in  the
discussion; its subject, apparently, did not interest him. The expression of
his face was  so  unutterably hopeless and weary that Father Cardi broke off
suddenly.
     "I  am  afraid  I  have overtired  you,  Canon.  You  must  forgive  my
talkativeness; I am hot upon this subject and forget that  others  may  grow
weary of it."
     "On the contrary, I was  much  interested." Montanelli was not given to
stereotyped politeness, and his tone jarred uncomfortably upon Arthur.
     When Father Cardi went to his own room Montanelli turned to Arthur with
the intent and brooding look that his face had worn all the evening.
     "Arthur, my dear boy," he began slowly; "I have something to tell you."
     "He must  have had bad  news,"  flashed  through  Arthur's mind, as  he
looked anxiously at the haggard face. There was a long pause.
     "How do you like the new Director?" Montanelli asked suddenly.
     The question was so unexpected that, for a moment, Arthur was at a loss
how to reply to it.
     "I--I like him very much,  I think--at least--  no, I am not quite sure
that I do. But it is difficult to say, after seeing a person once."
     Montanelli sat beating his hand gently on the arm of his chair; a habit
with him when anxious or perplexed.
     "About this  journey to Rome," he  began again; "if you  think there is
any--well--if you wish it, Arthur, I will write and say I cannot go."
     "Padre! But the Vatican------"
     "The Vatican will find someone else. I can send apologies."
     "But why? I can't understand."
     Montanelli drew one hand across his forehead.
     "I am anxious  about you. Things keep  coming  into my  head--and after
all, there is no need for me to go------"
     "But the bishopric----"
     "Oh, Arthur!  what  shall  it  profit  me  if  I  gain a bishopric  and
lose----"
     He  broke  off.  Arthur  had never seen  him like this before, and  was
greatly troubled.
     "I can't  understand," he said.  "Padre,  if you could  explain  to  me
more--more definitely, what it is you think------"
     "I think nothing; I am haunted with  a horrible fear. Tell me, is there
any special danger?"
     "He has heard something," Arthur thought, remembering the whispers of a
projected  revolt. But the  secret  was not  his  to  tell;  and  he  merely
answered: "What special danger should there be?"
     "Don't question me--answer me!" Montanelli's voice was almost  harsh in
its eagerness.  "Are you in danger? I don't want to know your secrets;  only
tell me that!"
     "We are all  in  God's hands, Padre;  anything may always happen. But I
know  of no reason why  I should not  be  here alive and safe when  you come
back."
     "When I come back----Listen, carino; I will leave it in your hands. You
need give me no  reason; only  say  to me, 'Stay,' and  I will  give up this
journey.  There will be no injury to anyone, and I  shall feel you are safer
if I have you beside me."
     This  kind  of  morbid  fancifulness  was  so foreign  to  Montanelli's
character that Arthur looked at him with grave anxiety.
     "Padre,  I am sure you are not well. Of course you must go to Rome, and
try  to  have  a  thorough  rest and  get  rid  of  your  sleeplessness  and
headaches."
     "Very well," Montanelli  interrupted, as if tired of  the  subject;  "I
will start by the early coach to-morrow morning."
     Arthur looked at him, wondering.
     "You had something to tell me?" he said.
     "No,  no;  nothing  more--nothing of  any  consequence."  There  was  a
startled, almost terrified look in his face.
     A few  days  after  Montanelli's departure Arthur went  to fetch a book
from the seminary library, and met Father Cardi on the stairs.
     "Ah,  Mr. Burton!"  exclaimed the  Director; "the very person I wanted.
Please come in and help me out of a difficulty."
     He opened the study door, and Arthur followed  him into the room with a
foolish, secret sense of  resentment. It seemed hard to see this dear study,
the Padre's own private sanctum, invaded by a stranger.
     "I am a terrible book-worm," said the  Director; "and my first act when
I got here was to examine the library. It seems very interesting,  but I  do
not understand the system by which it is catalogued."
     "The catalogue is  imperfect; many of the best books have been added to
the collection lately."
     "Can you spare half an hour to explain the arrangement to me?"
     They  went  into  the  library,  and  Arthur  carefully  explained  the
catalogue. When he rose to take his hat, the Director interfered, laughing.
     "No, no! I can't have you rushing off in that way. It is  Saturday, and
quite  time for  you to leave off work till  Monday morning.  Stop  and have
supper with me, now I  have kept you so late. I am quite alone, and shall be
glad of company."
     His manner was so bright and pleasant that Arthur felt at ease with him
at once. After some desultory  conversation, the Director  inquired how long
he had known Montanelli.
     "For about seven years. He came back from China when I was twelve years
old."
     "Ah, yes! It  was there that he gained his  reputation as  a missionary
preacher. Have you been his pupil ever since?"
     "He  began teaching me  a  year later, about  the  time  when  I  first
confessed to him.  Since I  have been at  the Sapienza he has  still gone on
helping me  with anything  I wanted to study that  was  not in  the  regular
course. He has been very kind to me--you can hardly imagine how kind."
     "I can well believe it; he is a man whom  no one can  fail to admire--a
most noble and beautiful  nature. I have  met priests who were  out in China
with him; and they had no words high enough to praise his energy and courage
under all hardships, and his unfailing  devotion. You are  fortunate to have
had in your youth the help and guidance of such a man. I understood from him
that you have lost both parents."
     "Yes; my father died when I was a child, and my mother a year ago."
     "Have you brothers and sisters?"
     "No; I have step-brothers; but they were business men when I was in the
nursery."
     "You  must  have  had  a  lonely  childhood;  perhaps you  value  Canon
Montanelli's kindness  the  more for that.  By  the way, have you  chosen  a
confessor for the time of his absence?"
     "I  thought  of going to one of the  fathers of Santa Caterina, if they
have not too many penitents."
     "Will you confess to me?"
     Arthur opened his eyes in wonder.
     "Reverend Father, of course I--should be glad; only----"
     "Only the Director  of a theological seminary  does not usually receive
lay penitents? That is quite true. But I know Canon Montanelli takes a great
interest in you, and I fancy he is a little anxious on your behalf--just  as
I should be if I were leaving a favourite pupil--and  would like to know you
were under the spiritual guidance  of his colleague. And, to  be quite frank
with you,  my son, I like  you,  and should  be glad to give you any help  I
can."
     "If you put  it that way, of course I  shall be very grateful  for your
guidance."
     "Then you will come to me next  month? That's  right. And run in to see
me, my lad, when you have time any evening."
     . . . . .
     Shortly before  Easter Montanelli's appointment  to  the  little see of
Brisighella, in the Etruscan  Apennines,  was officially announced. He wrote
to  Arthur  from  Rome in a  cheerful  and  tranquil  spirit;  evidently his
depression was passing over.  "You must come to  see  me every vacation," he
wrote; "and I shall often be coming to Pisa; so I hope to see a good deal of
you, if  not so  much  as  I should wish." Dr. Warren had  invited Arthur to
spend  the  Easter holidays with him and  his children,  instead of  in  the
dreary, rat-ridden old place  where Julia  now reigned supreme.  Enclosed in
the  letter was  a  short  note,  scrawled  in Gemma's  childish,  irregular
handwriting,  begging  him to  come if possible,  "as I  want to talk to you
about  something." Still more encouraging  was  the  whispered communication
passing around from student to student in the university; everyone was to be
prepared for great things after Easter.
     All this  had put  Arthur  into a  state  of rapturous anticipation, in
which the wildest improbabilities hinted at among the students seemed to him
natural and likely to be realized within the next two months.
     He  arranged to go home  on  Thursday in Passion week, and to spend the
first days of the vacation there, that  the pleasure of visiting the Warrens
and the delight of seeing Gemma might not unfit him for the solemn religious
meditation demanded by the  Church  from all her children at this season. He
wrote  to Gemma, promising to  come  on Easter Monday;  and  went up to  his
bedroom on Wednesday night with a soul at peace.
     He knelt down before the crucifix. Father Cardi had promised to receive
him in  the  morning;  and  for this, his last  confession before the Easter
communion, he must prepare himself by long and earnest prayer. Kneeling with
clasped hands  and bent head, he looked back over the month, and reckoned up
the  miniature sins of  impatience, carelessness, hastiness of temper, which
had left  their faint, small  spots  upon the whiteness of his soul.  Beyond
these  he  could find nothing; in  this month he  had  been too happy to sin
much. He crossed himself, and, rising, began to undress.
     As  he unfastened  his  shirt  a  scrap  of  paper slipped from  it and
fluttered to  the floor.  It was  Gemma's letter, which he had worn all  day
upon his neck.  He picked it up,  unfolded it, and kissed the dear scribble;
then  began folding the paper up again,  with a dim consciousness of  having
done  something very ridiculous,  when he noticed on the back of the sheet a
postscript which  he had not  read  before.  "Be  sure  and  come as soon as
possible," it ran, "for I want you to meet Bolla. He  has been staying here,
and we have read together every day."
     The hot colour went up to Arthur's forehead as he read.
     Always Bolla! What was he doing in Leghorn again? And  why should Gemma
want to read with him? Had he bewitched her with his smuggling? It  had been
quite easy to  see at the meeting in January that he  was in love with  her;
that was  why he had  been  so earnest over his propaganda. And  now he  was
close to her--reading with her every day.
     Arthur suddenly  threw the letter aside and knelt down again before the
crucifix.  And this  was the soul that was preparing for absolution, for the
Easter sacrament--the soul at peace with God and itself and all the world! A
soul capable of sordid jealousies and suspicions; of selfish animosities and
ungenerous hatred--and against  a comrade!  He covered his  face  with  both
hands in bitter  humiliation. Only five minutes ago he had  been dreaming of
martyrdom; and now he had been guilty of a mean and petty thought like this!
     When he entered the seminary chapel on Thursday morning he found Father
Cardi alone.  After repeating  the  Confiteor,  he plunged at  once into the
subject of his last night's backsliding.
     "My father, I accuse  myself of the sins of jealousy and anger,  and of
unworthy thoughts against one who has done me no wrong."
     Farther Cardi  knew quite well  with  what kind of  penitent he  had to
deal. He only said softly:
     "You have not told me all, my son."
     "Father, the man against whom I have thought an  unchristian thought is
one whom I am especially bound to love and honour."
     "One to whom you are bound by ties of blood?"
     "By a still closer tie."
     "By what tie, my son?"
     "By that of comradeship."
     "Comradeship in what?"
     "In a great and holy work."
     A little pause.
     "And your anger against this--comrade, your jealousy of him, was called
forth by his success in that work being greater than yours?"
     "I--yes, partly.  I  envied him his  experience--  his  usefulness. And
then--I thought--I feared-- that he would take from me the heart of the girl
I--love."
     "And this girl that you love, is she a daughter of the Holy Church?"
     "No; she is a Protestant."
     "A heretic?"
     Arthur  clasped  his hands  in  great  distress.  "Yes,  a heretic," he
repeated. "We were brought  up together; our mothers were friends--and I  --
envied him, because I saw that he loves her, too, and because--because----"
     "My son," said Father Cardi, speaking  after a moment's silence, slowly
and gravely, "you have still not told me all; there is  more  than this upon
your soul."
     "Father, I----" He faltered and broke off again.
     The priest waited silently.
     "I  envied him  because  the  society--the Young Italy--that  I  belong
to------"
     "Yes?"  Intrusted him with a work that I had hoped --would be  given to
me, that I had thought myself --specially adapted for."
     "What work?"
     "The  taking in of books--political books--from the steamers that bring
them--and finding a hiding place for them--in the town------"
     "And this work was given by the party to your rival?"
     "To Bolla--and I envied him."
     "And he gave you no cause for this  feeling? You  do  not accuse him of
having neglected the mission intrusted to him?"
     "No, father; he has worked bravely and devotedly;  he is a true patriot
and has deserved nothing but love and respect from me."
     Father Cardi pondered.
     "My son, if there is within you a new light, a dream of some great work
to be  accomplished  for your  fellow-men, a hope  that  shall  lighten  the
burdens of the  weary and oppressed, take  heed how  you  deal with the most
precious  blessing of  God.  All good things are of  His giving; and of  His
giving is  the new birth. If you have found the  way of  sacrifice, the  way
that  leads to  peace;  if you  have joined with loving  comrades  to  bring
deliverance to them that weep and mourn in secret; then see  to it that your
soul be free from envy and passion  and  your  heart as an altar  where  the
sacred fire  burns eternally. Remember  that this is a high and holy  thing,
and  that  the  heart  which  would receive it  must  be purified from every
selfish thought. This vocation is as the vocation of a priest; it is not for
the love of a woman, nor for the moment of a fleeting passion; it is FOR GOD
AND THE PEOPLE; it is NOW AND FOREVER."
     "Ah!" Arthur started and  clasped his hands;  he  had  almost burst out
sobbing  at the motto.  "Father,  you  give  us the sanction of  the Church!
Christ is on our side----"
     "My son," the priest answered solemnly, "Christ drove the moneychangers
out of the Temple, for His House shall be called a House of Prayer, and they
had made it a den of thieves."
     After a long silence, Arthur whispered tremulously:
     "And Italy shall be His Temple when they are driven out----"
     He stopped; and the soft answer came back:
     "'The earth and the fulness thereof are mine, saith the Lord.'"
        PART I: CHAPTER V.
     THAT afternoon Arthur felt the  need of a  long walk.  He intrusted his
luggage to a fellow-student and went to Leghorn on foot.
     The day was damp and cloudy, but not  cold; and the low,  level country
seemed  to  him fairer than he had ever  known  it to look before. He had  a
sense of  delight in the soft elasticity of the wet grass under his feet and
in the shy, wondering eyes of the wild  spring flowers by the roadside. In a
thorn-acacia  bush at the edge of a little strip of wood a bird was building
a nest, and flew up as he passed with a startled cry  and a quick fluttering
of brown wings.
     He  tried to keep his mind fixed upon the devout meditations  proper to
the eve of Good Friday. But thoughts  of Montanelli and Gemma got so much in
the way of this devotional exercise that at last he gave  up the attempt and
allowed  his fancy to  drift away to the wonders and glories  of the  coming
insurrection, and to the part in it that he had allotted to  his  two idols.
The Padre was to be the leader, the apostle, the prophet before whose sacred
wrath  the powers  of  darkness were  to  flee,  and at whose feet the young
defenders of Liberty were to learn afresh the old doctrines,  the old truths
in their new and unimagined significance.
     And Gemma? Oh, Gemma would fight at the barricades. She was made of the
clay from which heroines are moulded; she would be the  perfect comrade, the
maiden undefiled and unafraid, of whom so many poets have dreamed. She would
stand  beside  him,  shoulder   to  shoulder,  rejoicing  under  the  winged
death-storm;  and  they  would  die  together,  perhaps  in  the  moment  of
victory--without doubt there would be a victory. Of  his love  he would tell
her nothing; he  would say no word that might disturb her peace or spoil her
tranquil sense  of  comradeship. She  was to  him a holy  thing, a  spotless
victim to be laid upon the altar as a burnt-offering for the deliverance  of
the people; and who was he that he should  enter into the white sanctuary of
a soul that knew no other love than God and Italy?
     God and Italy----Then came a sudden drop from  the clouds as he entered
the  great,  dreary house  in  the "Street of Palaces,"  and Julia's butler,
immaculate, calm, and politely disapproving as ever, confronted him upon the
stairs.
     "Good-evening, Gibbons; are my brothers in?"
     "Mr. Thomas is in, sir; and Mrs. Burton. They are in the drawing room."
     Arthur went in with a dull sense of oppression. What a  dismal house it
was! The flood of  life seemed  to roll past  and leave it always just above
high-water  mark.  Nothing in  it ever changed-- neither the people, nor the
family portraits,  nor the heavy furniture  and  ugly plate, nor  the vulgar
ostentation  of riches,  nor the lifeless  aspect of  everything.  Even  the
flowers on the brass stands looked like painted metal flowers that had never
known the stirring of young sap within them in the warm spring  days. Julia,
dressed for dinner, and waiting for  visitors in the drawing room which  was
to her  the centre of existence, might have sat  for a fashion-plate just as
she was, with her  wooden smile and flaxen ringlets, and  the lap-dog on her
knee.
     "How  do you do, Arthur?" she said stiffly, giving him the tips of  her
fingers for a  moment,  and  then  transferring them to the  more  congenial
contact of the lap-dog's  silken  coat. "I hope you  are quite well and have
made satisfactory progress at college."
     Arthur murmured  the first commonplace that  he could  think of  at the
moment, and  relapsed into uncomfortable  silence. The  arrival of James, in
his most pompous mood and  accompanied  by a stiff, elderly  shipping-agent,
did not improve  matters; and when Gibbons announced that dinner was served,
Arthur rose with a little sigh of relief.
     "I won't  come  to dinner, Julia.  If you'll excuse me I will  go to my
room."
     "You're overdoing that fasting, my boy," said Thomas; "I am sure you'll
make yourself ill."
     "Oh, no! Good-night."
     In the  corridor Arthur  met the under housemaid and asked her to knock
at his door at six in the morning.
     "The signorino is going to church?"
     "Yes. Good-night, Teresa."
     He went into his room.  It had belonged  to his mother,  and the alcove
opposite the  window  had  been  fitted  up  during her  long illness  as an
oratory. A great  crucifix  on  a black pedestal occupied the middle  of the
altar; and before it hung a little Roman lamp. This  was the  room where she
had  died. Her portrait was on the  wall beside the  bed; and on  the  table
stood a china bowl  which had been hers, filled with  a  great bunch of  her
favourite violets.  It  was  just  a year since  her death; and the  Italian
servants had not forgotten her.
     He took  out of his portmanteau a framed picture, carefully wrapped up.
It was a crayon portrait of Montanelli,  which had come from Rome only a few
days  before. He was  unwrapping this  precious treasure  when  Julia's page
brought in  a  supper-tray  on  which the old Italian  cook,  who had served
Gladys  before  the  harsh,  new  mistress  came,  had  placed  such  little
delicacies  as she considered her dear signorino might permit himself to eat
without infringing the rules of the Church. Arthur refused everything  but a
piece of  bread;  and  the  page,  a nephew of Gibbons,  lately arrived from
England, grinned  significantly  as he carried out the tray. He had  already
joined the Protestant camp in the servants' hall.
     Arthur went into the alcove and knelt down before  the crucifix, trying
to compose his mind to  the proper attitude  for prayer  and meditation. But
this  he  found difficult to  accomplish. He  had,  as  Thomas said,  rather
overdone  the Lenten privations, and  they had gone to his head  like strong
wine. Little quivers of excitement went down his back, and the crucifix swam
in  a misty  cloud before his  eyes.  It  was  only  after  a  long  litany,
mechanically  repeated,  that  he   succeeded  in  recalling  his  wandering
imagination  to  the  mystery  of the  Atonement.  At  last  sheer  physical
weariness conquered the feverish agitation of his nerves, and he lay down to
sleep  in a  calm and  peaceful mood,  free from all  unquiet or  disturbing
thoughts.
     He was fast asleep when a sharp, impatient knock came at his door. "Ah,
Teresa!"  he thought, turning over lazily.  The  knock was  repeated, and he
awoke with a violent start.
     "Signorino! signorino!" cried a man's voice in Italian; "get up for the
love of God!"
     Arthur jumped out of bed.
     "What is the matter? Who is it?"
     "It's I, Gian Battista. Get up, quick, for Our Lady's sake!"
     Arthur  hurriedly  dressed  and  opened  the  door.  As  he  stared  in
perplexity at  the coachman's pale, terrified  face,  the sound of  tramping
feet and  clanking metal came along the  corridor, and  he suddenly realized
the truth.
     "For me?" he asked coolly.
     "For you! Oh, signorino, make  haste! What have you to hide? See, I can
put----"
     "I have nothing to hide. Do my brothers know?"
     The first uniform appeared at the turn of the passage.
     "The signor has  been  called; all  the  house  is  awake. Alas! what a
misfortune--what  a  terrible misfortune! And on  Good  Friday! Holy Saints,
have pity!"
     Gian Battista burst into tears.  Arthur moved a few steps  forward  and
waited for the gendarmes, who came clattering along, followed by a shivering
crowd of  servants in various impromptu costumes. As the soldiers surrounded
Arthur, the master and  mistress of the house  brought up  the rear of  this
strange  procession;  he  in  dressing  gown and  slippers, she  in  a  long
peignoir, with her hair in curlpapers.
     "There is, sure, another flood toward, and these couples  are coming to
the ark! Here comes a pair of very strange beasts!"
     The  quotation  flashed  across  Arthur's  mind  as  he looked  at  the
grotesque  figures.  He  checked  a  laugh  with  a  sense  of  its  jarring
incongruity--this  was a  time for  worthier  thoughts.  "Ave  Maria, Regina
Coeli!" he whispered, and turned his eyes away, that the bobbing of  Julia's
curlpapers might not again tempt him to levity.
     "Kindly  explain to  me," said  Mr.  Burton, approaching the officer of
gendarmerie,  "what is the meaning of this  violent intrusion into a private
house?  I warn  you  that,  unless you  are  prepared to furnish  me  with a
satisfactory explanation, I  shall  feel bound to  complain  to  the English
Ambassador."
     "I presume," replied the officer stiffly, "that you will recognize this
as  a  sufficient  explanation; the English  Ambassador certainly  will." He
pulled out a warrant for the arrest of Arthur Burton, student of philosophy,
and,  handing  it to  James, added  coldly:  "If you  wish  for  any further
explanation, you had better apply in person to the chief of police."
     Julia snatched the paper from her husband, glanced over it, and flew at
Arthur like nothing else in the world but a fashionable lady in a rage.
     "So it's you that have  disgraced  the  family!" she screamed; "setting
all the rabble  in the town gaping and staring as if the thing were a  show?
So  you have  turned jail-bird, now, with all your piety! It's what we might
have expected from that Popish woman's child----"
     "You  must not  speak to a prisoner in a foreign language,  madam," the
officer  interrupted;  but  his remonstrance  was hardly audible  under  the
torrent of Julia's vociferous English.
     "Just  what we  might have expected! Fasting  and  prayer  and  saintly
meditation; and this is what was underneath it  all! I thought that would be
the end of it."
     Dr. Warren had once  compared Julia to a salad into  which the cook had
upset  the vinegar cruet. The  sound of her  thin,  hard voice set  Arthur's
teeth on edge, and the simile suddenly popped up in his memory.
     "There's no use in this kind of talk," he said. "You need not be afraid
of  any  unpleasantness; everyone  will understand  that you  are all  quite
innocent. I suppose, gentlemen, you want to search my things. I have nothing
to  hide." The  gendarmes,  meanwhile, had  finished their  search, and  the
officer in charge requested Arthur to put on his outdoor clothes. He  obeyed
at once and turned to leave the room; then  stopped with  sudden hesitation.
It  seemed  hard  to  take leave of his mother's oratory in the presence  of
these officials.
     "Have  you  any objection  to leaving the room for a moment?" he asked.
"You see that I cannot escape and that there is nothing to conceal."
     "I am sorry, but it is forbidden to leave a prisoner alone."
     "Very well, it doesn't matter."
     He  went  into the alcove, and,  kneeling  down, kissed  the  feet  and
pedestal of  the crucifix, whispering  softly: "Lord,  keep me faithful unto
death."
     When  he  rose,  the  officer  was standing  by  the  table,  examining
Montanelli's portrait. "Is this a relative of yours?" he asked.
     "No; it is my confessor, the new Bishop of Brisighella."
     On  the  staircase  the  Italian  servants  were  waiting, anxious  and
sorrowful.  They  all loved Arthur  for his  own sake and his  mother's, and
crowded round him, kissing his  hands and  dress with passionate grief. Gian
Battista stood by, the tears dripping  down his gray  moustache. None of the
Burtons  came  out  to  take  leave  of him. Their coldness  accentuated the
tenderness and  sympathy of the servants, and Arthur  was  near  to breaking
down as he pressed the hands held out to him.
     "Good-bye,  Gian  Battista.  Kiss  the  little ones  for  me. Good-bye,
Teresa. Pray for me, all of you; and God keep you! Good-bye, good-bye!"
     He  ran  hastily downstairs to  the front door.  A moment later only  a
little group of silent men and sobbing women  stood on the doorstep watching
the carriage as it drove away.PART I: CHAPTER VI.
     ARTHUR was taken to the huge mediaeval fortress at the harbour's mouth.
He found prison life  fairly endurable. His  cell was  unpleasantly damp and
dark; but he had been brought  up in a  palace in the Via Borra, and neither
close air, rats, nor foul smells were novelties to him.  The food, also, was
both bad  and insufficient; but James  soon obtained permission to send  him
all the necessaries of life  from home. He was kept in solitary confinement,
and,  though  the  vigilance of  the  warders was less  strict  than he  had
expected,  he failed  to obtain  any explanation of the cause of his arrest.
Nevertheless,  the  tranquil frame of  mind in  which  he  had  entered  the
fortress  did not change. Not  being allowed books,  he  spent  his time  in
prayer and devout meditation, and waited without impatience  or anxiety  for
the further course of events.
     One day a soldier  unlocked  the door of  his cell and  called  to him:
"This way, please!" After two  or three questions, to which he got no answer
but,  "Talking  is forbidden," Arthur resigned himself to the inevitable and
followed  the  soldier  through a  labyrinth of  courtyards,  corridors, and
stairs, all more or less musty-smelling, into a large, light  room in  which
three persons  in military uniform  sat at a  long  table covered with green
baize and littered with papers, chatting  in a languid, desultory  way. They
put on a  stiff,  business  air  as he  came in, and the  oldest of  them, a
foppish-looking man with gray whiskers and a colonel's uniform, pointed to a
chair   on  the   other  side   of  the  table  and  began  the  preliminary
interrogation.
     Arthur  had  expected to be threatened, abused, and sworn  at, and  had
prepared  himself to answer with dignity and patience; but he was pleasantly
disappointed.  The  colonel  was  stiff,  cold  and  formal,  but  perfectly
courteous. The usual questions as to his name,  age, nationality, and social
position were put and  answered, and the replies written down in  monotonous
succession. He  was beginning to feel bored and impatient, when  the colonel
asked:
     "And now, Mr. Burton, what do you know about Young Italy?"
     "I know that it is a society  which publishes a newspaper in Marseilles
and circulates it in Italy, with the object of inducing people to revolt and
drive the Austrian army out of the country."
     "You have read this paper, I think?"
     "Yes; I am interested in the subject."
     "When  you  read it  you realized that you  were  committing an illegal
action?"
     "Certainly."
     "Where did you get the copies which were found in your room?"
     "That I cannot tell you."
     "Mr. Burton, you must not  say 'I cannot tell' here;  you are  bound to
answer my questions."
     "I will not, then, if you object to 'cannot.'"
     "You will  regret it if you  permit yourself to  use such expressions,"
remarked the colonel. As Arthur made no reply, he went on:
     "I may as well  tell you that evidence has come into our hands  proving
your  connection  with this society to be much more intimate than is implied
by the mere reading of forbidden literature. It will be to your advantage to
confess frankly.  In  any case the truth  will be sure to come out,  and you
will find it useless to screen yourself behind evasion and denials."
     "I have no desire to screen myself. What is it you want to know?"
     "Firstly, how did you, a foreigner, come to be implicated in matters of
this kind?"
     "I  thought about the subject and read everything I could get hold  of,
and formed my own conclusions."
     "Who persuaded you to join this society?"
     "No one; I wished to join it."
     "You  are  shilly-shallying  with me,"  said the colonel, sharply;  his
patience was evidently  beginning to give out. "No one can join a society by
himself. To whom did you communicate your wish to join it?"
     Silence.
     "Will you have the kindness to answer me?"
     "Not when you ask questions of that kind."
     Arthur  spoke  sullenly;  a curious, nervous  irritability  was  taking
possession of him. He knew by this time that many  arrests had  been made in
both Leghorn  and  Pisa;  and,  though still ignorant  of the extent  of the
calamity, he had already heard enough to put him into a fever of anxiety for
the safety  of Gemma and his other  friends. The studied  politeness of  the
officers, the  dull game of fencing and parrying, of insidious questions and
evasive answers, worried and annoyed  him, and  the clumsy tramping backward
and forward of the sentinel outside the door jarred detestably upon his ear.
     "Oh, by  the bye, when  did  you last meet Giovanni  Bolla?" asked  the
colonel, after a little more bandying  of words. "Just before you left Pisa,
was it?"
     "I know no one of that name."
     "What!  Giovanni  Bolla? Surely you know  him --a  tall  young  fellow,
closely shaven. Why, he is one of your fellow-students."
     "There are many students in the university whom I don't know."
     "Oh,  but you must know Bolla, surely!  Look, this is  his handwriting.
You see, he knows you well enough."
     The  colonel  carelessly handed him  a  paper headed:  "Protocol,"  and
signed: "Giovanni Bolla." Glancing down it Arthur came upon his own name. He
looked up in surprise. "Am I to read it?"
     "Yes, you may as well; it concerns you."
     He began to read, while  the officers  sat silently  watching his face.
The document appeared  to consist of depositions  in answer to a long string
of  questions. Evidently Bolla,  too,  must have  been arrested.  The  first
depositions were of the usual stereotyped  character; then followed a  short
account of Bolla's  connection  with  the society, of the  dissemination  of
prohibited literature in  Leghorn, and  of the students' meetings. Next came
"Among  those who  joined us  was  a  young Englishman, Arthur  Burton,  who
belongs to one of the rich shipowning families."
     The blood rushed into Arthur's face. Bolla had betrayed him! Bolla, who
had  taken upon  himself the solemn duties of  an initiator--Bolla,  who had
converted Gemma--who was in love with her! He laid down the paper and stared
at the floor.
     "I  hope that little  document has refreshed your memory?"  hinted  the
colonel politely.
     Arthur shook his head. "I know  no one of that name," he repeated in  a
dull, hard voice. "There must be some mistake."
     "Mistake? Oh,  nonsense!  Come, Mr. Burton, chivalry and  quixotism are
very fine things in their way; but there's no use in overdoing them. It's an
error all you young people  fall into at first. Come, think! What good is it
for you to  compromise yourself and  spoil  your  prospects in life  over  a
simple  formality about a man that  has  betrayed you? You see yourself,  he
wasn't so particular as to what he said about you."
     A faint shade of something  like  mockery  had crept into the colonel's
voice. Arthur looked up with a start; a sudden light flashed upon his mind.
     "It's a lie!" he cried out. "It's a forgery! I can see it in your face,
you cowardly----You've got some prisoner there you want to  compromise, or a
trap  you want to  drag  me  into.  You  are  a  forger,  and a  liar, and a
scoundrel----"
     "Silence!"  shouted  the  colonel,  starting  up  in  a  rage; his  two
colleagues  were  already on  their feet.  "Captain  Tommasi," he  went  on,
turning to one of them, "ring  for the guard, if  you please, and have  this
young gentleman put  in the punishment  cell  for a  few days.  He  wants  a
lesson, I see, to bring him to reason."
     The punishment cell was a dark, damp, filthy hole under ground. Instead
of bringing Arthur "to reason," it thoroughly exasperated him. His luxurious
home had  rendered him daintily  fastidious about personal  cleanliness, and
the first effect  of the slimy, vermin-covered walls, the floor  heaped with
accumulations of filth and garbage,  the fearful stench of fungi  and sewage
and rotting wood, was strong enough to have satisfied  the offended officer.
When he was pushed in and the  door locked behind him he took three cautious
steps  forward  with  outstretched  hands,  shuddering with  disgust  as his
fingers came into  contact with the  slippery wall, and  groped in the dense
blackness for some spot less filthy than the rest in which to sit down.
     The long day passed in unbroken  blackness and silence,  and the  night
brought  no  change.  In  the   utter  void  and  absence  of  all  external
impressions,  he gradually lost the consciousness of time; and  when, on the
following morning, a  key was turned in  the  door  lock, and the frightened
rats scurried past him squeaking, he started up in a sudden panic, his heart
throbbing  furiously and a roaring noise in his  ears, as though he had been
shut away from light and sound for months instead of hours.
     The door opened, letting in a feeble lantern gleam--a flood of blinding
light,  it seemed to him --and the head warder entered, carrying a piece  of
bread and a mug of water. Arthur made a step forward; he was quite convinced
that  the man  had come to let him out.  Before he had  time  to  speak, the
warder put  the bread and  mug  into his hands, turned round  and  went away
without a word, locking the door again.
     Arthur stamped his foot upon the ground. For the first time in his life
he  was savagely angry. But as the hours went  by, the consciousness of time
and place gradually  slipped further  and further away. The blackness seemed
an illimitable  thing, with no beginning  and  no  end,  and life had, as it
were, stopped  for him. On the evening  of the third day,  when the door was
opened  and the  head warder  appeared on the  threshold with a  soldier, he
looked  up, dazed and bewildered,  shading  his eyes from  the  unaccustomed
light,  and  vaguely wondering how many hours or  weeks  he had been in this
grave.
     "This way, please," said the cool business voice of the warder.  Arthur
rose and moved  forward mechanically, with a strange  unsteadiness,  swaying
and stumbling like a drunkard. He resented the warder's  attempt to help him
up the steep,  narrow steps leading to the courtyard;  but as he reached the
highest step  a  sudden  giddiness  came over him, so that  he staggered and
would have fallen backwards had the warder not caught him by the shoulder.
     . . . . .
     "There, he'll be all right now,"  said a cheerful voice; "they most  of
them go off this way coming out into the air."
     Arthur struggled desperately for breath as another handful of water was
dashed into  his  face. The blackness seemed to fall away from him in pieces
with  a rushing noise; then he woke suddenly  into full  consciousness, and,
pushing  aside the warder's arm, walked along the corridor and up the stairs
almost steadily.  They  stopped for a  moment in front of a  door;  then  it
opened,  and before  he realized where  they  were  taking him he was in the
brightly lighted interrogation room, staring in confused wonder at the table
and the papers and the officers sitting in their accustomed places.
     "Ah,  it's Mr. Burton!"  said the colonel. "I hope we shall be  able to
talk  more comfortably now.  Well, and  how do  you like the  dark cell? Not
quite so luxurious as your brother's drawing room, is it? eh?"
     Arthur raised his  eyes to the colonel's smiling face. He was seized by
a frantic desire to spring at the throat of this gray-whiskered fop and tear
it with his teeth. Probably something of this kind  was visible in his face,
for the colonel added immediately, in a quite different tone:
     "Sit down, Mr. Burton, and drink some water; you are excited."
     Arthur  pushed aside  the glass of water  held out to him; and, leaning
his  arms on the table, rested his forehead on one hand and tried to collect
his thoughts. The  colonel sat watching him  keenly, noting with experienced
eyes the unsteady hands and lips, the hair dripping with water, the dim gaze
that told of physical prostration and disordered nerves.
     "Now, Mr. Burton," he  said after a few minutes;  "we will start at the
point  where  we  left off;  and as  there has  been  a  certain  amount  of
unpleasantness  between us, I may as well begin  by saying  that  I,  for my
part,  have no  desire to be  anything  but indulgent  with you. If you will
behave properly  and reasonably,  I assure you  that we shall  not treat you
with any unnecessary harshness."
     "What do you want me to do?"
     Arthur spoke in a hard, sullen voice, quite  different from his natural
tone.
     "I  only  want  you  to  tell  us  frankly, in  a  straightforward  and
honourable manner, what you know of this society and its adherents. First of
all, how long have you known Bolla?"
     "I never met him in my life. I know nothing whatever about him."
     "Really? Well, we will  return to  that subject presently. I  think you
know a young man named Carlo Bini?"
     "I never heard of such a person."
     "That is very extraordinary. What about Francesco Neri?"
     "I never heard the name."
     "But here is a letter in your handwriting, addressed to him. Look!"
     Arthur glanced carelessly at the letter and laid it aside.
     "Do you recognize that letter?"
     "No."
     "You deny that it is in your writing?"
     "I deny nothing. I have no recollection of it."
     "Perhaps you remember this one?"
     A second letter was  handed to him, and he saw that it was one which he
had written in the autumn to a fellow-student.
     "No."
     "Nor the person to whom it is addressed?"
     "Nor the person."
     "Your memory is singularly short."
     "It is a defect from which I have always suffered."
     "Indeed! And I heard the other day from a university professor that you
are considered by no means deficient; rather clever in fact."
     "You  probably   judge  of  cleverness  by  the  police-spy   standard;
university professors use words in a different sense."
     The note of rising irritation was plainly audible in Arthur's voice. He
was physically  exhausted with hunger, foul  air,  and want of sleep;  every
bone  in his body seemed to ache separately; and the colonel's voice  grated
on  his exasperated nerves,  setting his teeth on edge like the squeak  of a
slate pencil.
     "Mr. Burton," said the colonel, leaning back in his  chair and speaking
gravely, "you are  again forgetting  yourself; and I warn you once more that
this  kind of  talk will do you no  good. Surely you  have had enough of the
dark cell not to want any more just for the present. I tell you plainly that
I shall use strong measures with  you  if  you persist  in  repulsing gentle
ones. Mind, I  have proof--positive proof--that some of these young men have
been engaged in smuggling prohibited literature into this port; and that you
have been in communication with them. Now, are you going to tell me, without
compulsion, what you know about this affair?"
     Arthur bent  his head lower. A blind,  senseless,  wild-beast fury  was
beginning  to stir within him  like a live thing. The  possibility of losing
command over himself  was  more  appalling to him than any threats.  For the
first  time he began to realize what  latent  potentialities may  lie hidden
beneath the culture of any gentleman and the piety of any Christian; and the
terror of himself was strong upon him.
     "I am waiting for your answer," said the colonel.
     "I have no answer to give."
     "You positively refuse to answer?"
     "I will tell you nothing at all."
     "Then I must simply  order you back into the punishment  cell, and keep
you there till you change your mind. If there is much more trouble with you,
I shall put you in irons."
     Arthur  looked  up, trembling from head  to foot. "You will do  as  you
please," he said slowly; "and whether the English Ambassador will stand your
playing  tricks  of  that  kind with  a  British  subject who has  not  been
convicted of any crime is for him to decide."
     At  last Arthur  was  conducted  back  to his own cell,  where he flung
himself down upon the bed and slept till the next morning. He was not put in
irons, and  saw no more of the dreaded dark cell; but  the feud  between him
and the colonel grew more inveterate with  every interrogation. It was quite
useless for Arthur  to  pray  in  his  cell for grace  to conquer  his  evil
passions,  or to meditate half the night long upon the patience and meekness
of Christ. No sooner was he brought again  into the long, bare room with its
baize-covered table, and confronted with the colonel's waxed moustache, than
the  unchristian spirit would take possession of  him  once more, suggesting
bitter repartees and contemptuous answers. Before he had been a month in the
prison  the mutual  irritation  had reached such a  height that he  and  the
colonel could not see each other's faces without losing their temper.
     The  continual  strain of this  petty  warfare  was beginning  to  tell
heavily upon his nerves. Knowing how closely he was watched, and remembering
certain  dreadful  rumours  which he had heard of prisoners secretly drugged
with  belladonna  that  notes might be taken of their  ravings, he gradually
became afraid to sleep  or eat; and if a mouse  ran past  him in  the night,
would start up drenched with cold sweat and quivering with terror,  fancying
that someone was hiding in the room to listen if he talked in his sleep. The
gendarmes were evidently trying  to  entrap him into making  some  admission
which might compromise  Bolla; and so great was his fear of slipping, by any
inadvertency, into  a pitfall,  that he  was  really in danger  of  doing so
through sheer nervousness.  Bolla's  name rang in  his  ears  night and day,
interfering even with his devotions, and forcing its  way in among the beads
of the rosary instead of  the  name  of Mary. But the worst thing of all was
that his religion, like the outer world, seemed to be slipping away from him
as the days went by. To this  last foothold he clung with feverish tenacity,
spending  several  hours  of  each  day in prayer  and  meditation;  but his
thoughts wandered more and more often to Bolla, and the prayers were growing
terribly mechanical.
     His greatest  comfort was the  head warder  of the prison. This  was  a
little old man, fat and bald, who at first had tried his  hardest to wear  a
severe  expression.  Gradually the  good  nature which peeped out  of  every
dimple in his  chubby face  conquered his official  scruples, and  he  began
carrying messages for the prisoners from cell to cell.
     One afternoon in  the middle of May this warder came into the cell with
a face so scowling and gloomy that Arthur looked at him in astonishment.
     "Why, Enrico!" he exclaimed; "what on earth is wrong with you to-day?"
     "Nothing,"  said  Enrico  snappishly;  and, going up  to the pallet, he
began pulling off the rug, which was Arthur's property.
     "What do you want with my things? Am I to be moved into another cell?"
     "No; you're to be let out."
     "Let out? What--to-day? For altogether? Enrico!"
     In his excitement  Arthur had caught hold  of the old man's arm. It was
angrily wrenched away.
     "Enrico!  What has come to you? Why don't you answer?  Are we all going
to be let out?"
     A contemptuous grunt was the only reply.
     "Look here!" Arthur again took hold of the warder's  arm, laughing. "It
is no use for you to be cross to me, because I'm not going  to get offended.
I want to know about the others."
     "Which others?" growled Enrico,  suddenly laying down the shirt he  was
folding. "Not Bolla, I suppose?"
     "Bolla  and all the rest, of  course.  Enrico, what is  the matter with
you?"
     "Well, he's  not  likely  to be let  out  in a hurry, poor lad, when  a
comrade has betrayed him. Ugh!" Enrico took up the shirt again in disgust.
     "Betrayed him? A comrade? Oh, how dreadful!" Arthur's eyes dilated with
horror. Enrico turned quickly round.
     "Why, wasn't it you?"
     "I? Are you off your head, man? I?"
     "Well, they  told him so  yesterday at  interrogation, anyhow. I'm very
glad if it wasn't you, for  I always thought you  were rather a decent young
fellow.  This way!" Enrico stepped out into the corridor and Arthur followed
him, a light breaking in upon the confusion of his mind.
     "They told Bolla I'd betrayed  him? Of course they  did! Why, man, they
told  me he had betrayed me. Surely Bolla isn't fool enough to  believe that
sort of stuff?"
     "Then it really isn't  true?" Enrico stopped at  the foot of the stairs
and looked searchingly at Arthur, who merely shrugged his shoulders.
     "Of course it's a lie."
     "Well, I'm glad to hear it, my lad,  and I'll tell him you said so. But
you see what they told him was  that you had denounced him out of--well, out
of jealousy, because of your both being sweet on the same girl."
     "It's a lie!" Arthur repeated the words in a quick, breathless whisper.
A sudden, paralyzing fear had come  over him. "The same girl--jealousy!" How
could they know--how could they know?
     "Wait a minute, my lad." Enrico  stopped in the corridor leading to the
interrogation  room, and spoke softly. "I believe you; but just  tell me one
thing.  I  know  you're  a  Catholic;  did  you  ever  say  anything  in the
confessional------"
     "It's a lie!" This time Arthur's voice had risen to a stifled cry.
     Enrico shrugged  his  shoulders and  moved on again. "You know best, of
course; but you wouldn't be  the only  young  fool that's been taken in that
way. There's a tremendous  ado just now about a priest in Pisa that some  of
your friends have found out. They've printed a leaflet saying he's a spy."
     He  opened  the door of the interrogation room, and, seeing that Arthur
stood motionless, staring blankly  before him, pushed him  gently across the
threshold.
     "Good-afternoon, Mr. Burton," said the colonel, smiling and showing his
teeth  amiably. "I have great pleasure in  congratulating  you. An order for
your release has arrived from Florence. Will you kindly sign this paper?"
     Arthur went up to him.  "I want to know," he said in a dull voice, "who
it was that betrayed me."
     The colonel raised his eyebrows with a smile.
     "Can't you guess? Think a minute."
     Arthur shook his head. The colonel put out both hands with a gesture of
polite surprise.
     "Can't guess? Really?  Why,  you yourself,  Mr. Burton. Who  else could
know your private love affairs?"