"But why? I cannot see the motive, and yet he must have had one!"

"In his own interests, as well as those of the Englishman."

"You mean Macbean?"

"Yes--the betrayer!"

Mary's heart beat quickly. She could not grasp his meaning, yet he refused to tell her plainly the whole of the strange circ.u.mstances, apparently fearing to give her pain because she had declared herself to be a friend of the Englishman. He was, of course, in ignorance of their friendship, just as he was in ignorance of her engagement to Jules Dubard.

She was in a dilemma--a dilemma absolute and complete. What Borselli had declared--namely, that the unfortunate captain was in possession of some facts which he would prove if he regained his liberty--seemed to be the truth. Yet if she secured his liberty by pressing her father to pardon him, she would only be deliberately giving to his political enemies a weapon whereby they might hound him from office. While, further, he refused to make her a direct promise to tell the truth, or make the revelations--even if liberated.

What could she do? How could she act? His allegations held her amazed, speechless. He had declared himself to be the victim of the ingenious conspiracy formed by the Frenchman and by George Macbean--the latter, of all men! The whole affair was an enigma that was inexplicable.

That Macbean had entered into a plot against him was utterly beyond her comprehension. He was essentially a Londoner, and had surely no interest whatsoever in the Alpine defences of Italy! Dubard was certainly his friend. Had he not, indeed, told her so? He had, only a fortnight before, expressed a hope that Dubard would soon return from the Pyrenees.

And yet that broken, desperate man--the man with whom she had had that pleasant flirtation during one Roman season--had fallen their victim!

But if so, why was Borselli now anxious that he should be freed in order to make his revelations against the very man Dubard who was his intimate friend--the man who it was said had furnished the Opposition with facts--most of them false--regarding her father's political shortcomings?

She tried to reason it all out, but became the more and more utterly bewildered.

The reason of the captain's denunciation of George Macbean was a mystery. When he mentioned the Englishman's name she had noticed a flash in his deep-set eyes betokening a deadly, deep-rooted hatred. And yet it was upon this very man that all her thoughts and reflections had of late been centred.

As they were alone in that grim, gloomy room with its barred part.i.tion-- the governor having granted them a private conference--she explained how the Socialists had endeavoured to make capital out of the charges against him with a view to obtaining her father's dismissal from office.

She made no mention of her compact with Dubard or her engagement to him, but merely explained how at the eleventh hour, while Montebruno was on his feet in the Chamber of Deputies, the mysterious note had been placed in his hand which had had the effect of arresting the charges he was about to pour forth.

Solaro listened to her in silence while she gave a description of the scene in the Chamber, and related certain details of the conspiracy which she had learned through her father, the details gathered in secret by Vito Ricci.

"Ah?" he sighed at last, having listened open-mouthed. "It is exactly as I expected. Your father's enemies are mine. Having drawn me safely into their net, they intend to use my condemnation as proof of the insecurity of the frontier and the culpability of the Minister of War."

"But if they attack the Minister they must attack me personally?"

exclaimed the general in surprise; for he had been in ignorance of the widespread intrigue to hold the Ministry of War up to public ridicule and condemnation. "As the frontier is under my command, I am personally responsible for its security?"

"Exactly," Solaro said in a somewhat quieter tone. "If His Excellency had ordered a revision of my trial, I should most certainly have been proved innocent, and that being so, the Socialists would have had no direct charge which they could level against the Ministry. But as it is, I stand here condemned, imprisoned as a traitor, and therefore my general is culpable, and above him the Minister himself."

"My father should have pardoned you long ago. It is infamous!" Mary declared, with rising anger. "By refusing your appeal for a new trial he placed himself in this position of peril!"

"Had I been released I would have given into his hands certain information by which he could have crushed the infamous intrigue against him," said the man behind the bars in a low, desperate tone. "But now it is too late for a revision of my sentence. Our enemies have triumphed. I am to be sent to Gorgona, sent to my death, while the plot against His Excellency still exists, and the _coup_ will be made against him at the very moment when he feels himself the most secure." Then, watching the pale face, he added suddenly, "Forgive me, signorina, for speaking frankly like this; he is, I recollect, your father. But he has done me a grave injustice; he could have saved me--saved himself--if he had cared to do so."

"But you have said that my father fears to give you your liberty?" She remarked. "If that is so, it is fear, and not disinclination, that has prevented him granting you a pardon?"

"It is both," he declared hoa.r.s.ely.

"But is there no one else who could a.s.sist you--who would expose these enemies and their plot?" she asked.

"No one," he answered. "The most elaborate preparations were made to set the trap into which I unfortunately fell. I was watched in Paris, in Bologna, in Turin--in garrison and out of it. My every movement was noted, in order that it might be misconstrued. That Frenchman who struck up an acquaintance with me in Paris, and who afterwards lent me money, was in the pay of my enemies; and from that all the d.a.m.ning evidence against me was constructed with an ingenuity that was fiendish.

I, an innocent man, was condemned without being given any opportunity of proving my defence! Ask Dubard, or the Englishman. Ask them to tell the truth--if they dare!"

"But tell me more of Mr Macbean," she cried eagerly. "What do you allege against him?"

"I make no allegations," he answered in a low, changed voice. "I can suffer in silence. Only when you meet that man tell him that Felice Solaro, from his prison, sends him his warmest remembrances. Then watch his face--that is all. His countenance will tell you the truth."

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX.

IN THE TWILIGHT HOUR.

For Mary Morini the world was full of base intrigue and uncharitableness, of untruth and false friendship. Four years ago she had returned to Italy from that quiet school at Broadstairs to find herself plunged suddenly into a circle of society, torn by all the conflicting failings of the human heart. The world which she had believed to be so full of beauty was only a wild, stormy waste, whereon each traveller was compelled to fight and battle for reputation and for life. Already world-weary before her time, she was nauseated by the hollow shams about her, tired of the glare of those gilded salons, and appalled by the intrigues on every hand--the intrigues which had for their object her father's ruin and the sacrifice of all her love, her youth, and happiness.

Often she asked herself if there could be any element of good remaining in such a world as hers. She tried it by the test of her religious principle and found it selfish, indolent, and vain, attracting and swallowing up all who lived within the sphere of its contaminating influence. She had believed herself adapted to the exercise of her affections, that she might love, and trust, and hope to the utmost of her wishes; but, alas! hers had been a rude awakening, and the stern realities of life were to her a cruel and bitter revelation.

In her Christian meekness she constantly sought Divine guidance, even though compelled to live amid that gay whirl of Rome; for the date of her marriage was rapidly approaching, the day when the man to whom she had bartered herself in exchange for her father's life would come forward and claim her.

The season, as society knew it, was far advanced, and although her mind was filled by those grave suspicions conjured up by Solaro's allegations, she frequently met and talked with George Macbean. His duties as her father's secretary took him to the palace a great deal, and sometimes of an evening they met at various official functions to which the young Englishman had also been bidden.

Out of the very poverty and the feebleness of her life, out of sheer desperation, she became drawn towards him, and the bond of friendship became still more closely cemented, even though those suspicions ever arose within her. He was Dubard's friend--he had admitted that to her-- and as Dubard's friend she mistrusted him.

She had no friend in whom she could confide, or of whom she might ask advice. She exchanged few such confidences with her mother, while she was unable to reveal to her father her secret visit to Solaro's prison for fear of his displeasure. It was at this crisis of her young life that she felt the absolute want of a partic.i.p.ator in her joys, a recipient of her secrets, and a soother of her sorrows, and it was this sense of utter loneliness which rendered the young Englishman's society so welcome to her.

Weeks had pa.s.sed since her painful interview with poor Solaro. The dull burden of acc.u.mulated sorrows hung heavily upon her. She had begun afresh. She had made a fresh dedication of her heart to G.o.d. She had commenced her patient work of unravelling the mystery of the great intrigue by which to save her father, and to escape herself from the fate to which she was consigned--she had commenced the work as though it had never been undertaken before, supported by Christian faith, and ever striving not to prejudge the man whose friendship had now become so necessary to her existence.

What the unfortunate prisoner had told her, however, had opened her eyes to many plain facts, the chief of them being that Borselli had, by his suggestion that she should secure the captain's release, endeavoured to induce her to bring ruin upon her own father. For the Minister to sign a decree of pardon now was impossible. Such an action must inevitably cause his downfall; therefore it was necessary that the captain should remain in prison, although innocent.

In Rome a sudden tranquillity had fallen upon the face of that ever-changing political world around the throne. Mary, who was seen at every ball and at every official dinner, still retained her golden and exuberant youth, her joyous step, her sweet smile, and the world believed her very happy. She was to marry Jules Dubard. But at home, in the hours of loneliness in her own room, there fell upon her the grim tragedy of it all, and she shed tears, bitter tears, because she was still fettered, still unable to discover the truth.

Two years ago she had possessed all the freshness of unwearied nature, the glow of health, that life-spring of all the energies of thought and action--the power to believe as well as to hope--the earnestness of zeal unchilled by disappointment, the first awakening of joy, the clear perception of a mind unbia.s.sed in its search of truth, the fervour of an untroubled soul. But alas! the world had now disappointed her. Like Felice Solaro, like her father, she too had fallen a victim of those unscrupulous persons whose base craft and low cunning were alike mysterious and unfathomable.

George Macbean, watching her as closely as he did, realised the gradual change in her, and was much puzzled. True, she wore the same magnificent Paris-made gowns, was as humorous and irresponsible, and laughed as gaily as she had done in those summer days in England. Yet sometimes, as they sat alone, he detected that burden of grief and sadness that oppressed her mind. Soon she was to marry Dubard, yet her att.i.tude was by no means that of the self-satisfied bride. Ignorant of the bitter reflections within her, he was, of course, much mystified at those gloomy, despairing words that sometimes involuntarily fell from her lips. He did not know, as she so vividly realised, that the day she married Jules Dubard her beloved father would again be at the mercy of those who sought his downfall.

Her Excellency had suggested a visit to Paris for the trousseau, but this she had declined. She had no desire for the gaiety which a visit to the French capital would entail. Therefore all the dresses and _lingerie_ were being made in Florence and Rome; a magnificent trousseau, which a princess of the blood might have envied, for Camillo Morini never spared any expense where his daughter was concerned.

Yet she scarcely looked at the rich and costly things as they arrived in huge boxfuls, but ordered Teresa to put them aside, sighing within herself that the world was so soon to make merry over the great tragedy of her life.

Dubard was still at Bayonne, detained on business connected with his estate. He wrote frequently, and, much against her own inclination, she was compelled to reply to his letters. More than one person in her own set remarked upon the prolonged absence of the popular young Frenchman who had become so well known in the Eternal City, but only one person guessed the true reason--and that person was George Macbean.

Late one afternoon she had been driving on the Pincio, as was her habit each day. She was alone, her mother being too unwell to go out, and just as the _pa.s.seggiata_, or fashionable promenade, was over, she pa.s.sed the young Englishman walking alone. She bowed and drove on, but presently stopped her victoria, alighted, and telling the coachman that she would walk home, dismissed him.

Most of the carriages had already left that beautiful hill-garden from the terraces of which one obtains such wonderful panoramas of the ancient city, and it being nearly six o'clock, the promenaders were now mostly Cookites, the women bloused and tweed-skirted, and the men in various costumes of England, from the inevitable blue serge suit to the breeches and golf-cap of "the seaside,"--people with whom she was unacquainted. In a few moments they met, and he turned happily and walked in her direction.

"I'm cramped," she declared. "I've been in the carriage nearly three mortal hours, first paying calls with father, and then here alone. I saw you, so it was a good opportunity of getting a walk. You go to the Princess Palmieri's to-night, I suppose?"

"Yes, Her Highness has sent me a card," he answered--"thanks to your father, I suppose." As she walked beside him, in a beautiful gown of pale dove grey with a large black hat, he glanced at her admiringly and added, "I saw in to-day's _Tribuna_ that the count is expected back in two or three days. Have you had news of him?"

"I received a letter yesterday--from Biarritz. He is with his aunt, who is very unwell, and is paying a dutiful visit before coming here."

In silence they walked on, pa.s.sing the water-clock and descending the hill until they came to that small piazza with the stone bal.u.s.trade that affords such a magnificent vista of the ancient city. Here they halted to enjoy the view, as the tourists were enjoying it. The wonderful Eternal City with its hundred towers lay below them in the calm golden mist of evening. It was a scene she had looked upon hundreds of times, yet at that moment she was attracted by the crowd of "personally conducted" who stood at the stone bal.u.s.trade and gazed away in the direction of where the huge dome of St Peter's loomed up through the haze. Like many a cosmopolitan, she took a mischievous delight in mingling with a crowd of English tourists and hearing their comments upon things Italian--remarks that were often drily humorous. She stood at her companion's side, chatting with him while the light faded, the glorious afterglow died away, and the tourists, recollecting the hour of their respective _tables d'hote_, descended the hill to the city. And then, when they were alone, he turned to her and, with a touch of bitterness in his voice, said--

"I suppose very soon you will leave Rome and live in Paris. Has the count made any plans?"

"We live this summer at the chateau," was her answer. "The winter he intends to spend on the Riviera."