The old man's face paled and his lips quivered--he made an attempt to draw up his shrunken figure with a sort of dignity as he answered "Eccellenza, my master would never speak to me so--never, never!" Then his countenance fell, and he muttered, softly--"Though it is just--I am a fool--I am mistaken--quite mistaken--there is no resemblance!" After a little pause he added, humbly, "I will take your message, eccellenza." And stooping more than ever, he shambled out of the room.

My heart smote me as he disappeared; I had spoken very harshly to the poor old fellow--but I instinctively felt that it was necessary to do so. His close and ceaseless examination of me--his timidity when he approached me--the strange tremors he experienced when I addressed him, were so many warnings to me to be on my guard with this devoted domestic. Were he, by some unforeseen chance, to recognize me, my plans would all be spoiled. I took my hat and left the house. As I crossed the upper terrace, I saw a small round object lying in the gra.s.s--it was Stella's ball that she used to throw for Wyvis to catch and bring to her. I picked up the poor plaything tenderly and put it in my pocket--and glancing up once more at the darkened nursery windows, I waved a kiss of farewell to my little one lying there in her last sleep. Then fiercely controlling all the weaker and softer emotions that threatened to overwhelm me, I hurried away. On my road to the hotel I stopped at the telegraph-office and dispatched the news of Stella's death to Guido Ferrari in Rome. He would be surprised, I thought, but certainly not grieved--the poor child had always been in his way. Would he come back to Naples to console the now childless widow? Not he!--he would know well that she stood in very small need of consolation--and that she took Stella's death as she had taken mine--as a blessing, and not a bereavement. On reaching my own rooms, I gave orders to Vincenzo that I was not at home to any one who might call--and I pa.s.sed the rest of the day in absolute solitude. I had much to think of. The last frail tie between my wife and myself had been snapped asunder--the child, the one innocent link in the long chain of falsehood and deception, no longer existed. Was I glad or sorry for this? I asked myself the question a hundred times, and I admitted the truth, though I trembled to realize it. I was GLAD--yes--GLAD! Glad that my own child was dead! You call this inhuman perhaps? Why? She was bound to have been miserable; she was now happy!

The tragedy of her parents' lives could be enacted without imbittering and darkening her young days, she was out of it all, and I rejoiced to know it. For I was absolutely relentless; had my little Stella lived, not even for her sake would I have relaxed in one detail of my vengeance--nothing seemed to me so paramount as the necessity for restoring my own self-respect and damaged honor. In England I know these things are managed by the Divorce Court. Lawyers are paid exorbitant fees, and the names of the guilty and innocent are dragged through the revolting slums of the low London press. It may be an excellent method--but it does not tend to elevate a man in his own eyes, and it certainly does not do much to restore his lost dignity. It has one advantage--it enables the criminal parties to have their way without further interference--the wronged husband is set free--left out in the cold--and laughed at by those who wronged him. An admirable arrangement no doubt--but one that would not suit me. Chacun a son gout! It would be curious to know in matters of this kind whether divorced persons are really satisfied when they have got their divorce--whether the amount of red tape and parchment expended in their interest has done them good and really relieved their feelings.

Whether, for instance, the betrayed husband is glad to have got rid of his unfaithful wife by throwing her (with the full authority and permission of the law) into his rival's arms? I almost doubt it! I heard of a strange case in England once. A man, moving in good society, having more than suspicions of his wife's fidelity, divorced her--the law p.r.o.nounced her guilty. Some years afterward, he being free, met her again, fell in love with her for the second time and remarried her. She was (naturally!) delighted at his making such a fool of himself--for henceforth, whatever she chose to do, he could not reasonably complain without running the risk of being laughed at. So now the number and variety of her lovers is notorious in the particular social circle where she moves--while he, poor wretch, is perforce tongue-tied, and dare not consider himself wronged. There is no more pitiable object in the world than such a man--secretly derided and jeered at by his fellows, he occupies an almost worse position than that of a galley slave, while in his own esteem he has sunk so low that he dare not, even in secret, try to fathom the depth to which he has fallen. Some may a.s.sert that to be divorced is a social stigma. It used to be so perhaps, but society has grown very lenient nowadays. Divorced women hold their own in the best and most brilliant circles, and what is strange is that they are very generally petted and pitied.

"Poor thing!" says society, putting up its eyegla.s.s to scan admiringly the beautiful heroine of the latest aristocratic scandal--"she had such a brute of a husband! No wonder she liked that DEAR Lord So-and-So!

Very wrong of her, of course, but she is so young! She was married at sixteen--quite a child!--could not have known her own mind!"

The husband alluded to might have been the best and most chivalrous of men--anything but a "brute"--yet he always figures as such somehow, and gets no sympathy. And, by the way, it is rather a notable fact that all the beautiful, famous, or notorious women were "married at sixteen."

How is this managed? I can account for it in southern climates, where girls are full-grown at sixteen and old at thirty--but I cannot understand its being the case in England, where a "miss" of sixteen is a most objectionable and awkward ingenue, without any of the "charms wherewith to charm," and whose conversation is always vapid and silly to the point of absolute exhaustion on the part of those who are forced to listen to it. These sixteen-year-old marriages are, however, the only explanation frisky English matrons can give for having such alarmingly prolific families of tall sons and daughters, and it is a happy and convenient excuse--one that provides a satisfactory reason for the excessive painting of their faces and dyeing of their hair.

Being young (as they so n.o.bly a.s.sert), they wish to look even younger.

A la bonne heure! If men cannot see through the delicate fiction, they have only themselves to blame. As for me, I believe in the old, old, apparently foolish legend of Adam and Eve's sin and the curse which followed it--the curse on man is inevitably carried out to this day.

G.o.d said:

"BECAUSE" (mark that BECAUSE!) "thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife" (or thy WOMAN, whoever she be), "and hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it" (the tree or fruit being the evil suggested FIRST to man by woman), "cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life!"

True enough! The curse is upon all who trust woman too far--the sorrow upon all who are beguiled by her witching flatteries. Of what avail her poor excuse in the ancient story--"The serpent beguiled me and I did eat!" Had she never listened she could not have been beguiled. The weakness, the treachery, was in herself, and is there still. Through everything the bitterness of it runs. The woman tempts--the man yields--and the gate of Eden--the Eden of a clear conscience and an untrammeled soul, is shut upon them. Forever and ever the Divine denunciation re-echoes like muttering thunder through the clouds of pa.s.sing generations; forever and ever we unconsciously carry it out in our own lives to its full extent till the heart grows sick and the brain weary, and we long for the end of it all, which is death--death, that mysterious silence and darkness at which we sometimes shudder, wondering vaguely--Can it be worse than life?

CHAPTER XIX.

More than ten days had pa.s.sed since Stella's death. Her mother had asked me to see to the arrangements for the child's funeral, declaring herself too ill to attend to anything. I was glad enough to accede to her request, for I was thus able to avoid the Romani vault as a place of interment. I could not bear to think of the little cherished body being laid to molder in that terrific place where I had endured such frantic horrors. Therefore, informing all whom it concerned that I acted under the countess's orders, I chose a pretty spot in the open ground of the cemetery, close to the tree where I had heard the nightingale singing in my hour of supreme misery and suffering. Here my little one was laid tenderly to rest in warm mother-earth, and I had sweet violets and primroses planted thickly all about the place, while on the simple white marble cross that marked the spot I had the words engraved--

"Una Stella svanita," [Footnote: A vanished star]

adding the names of her parents and the date of her birth and death.

Since all this had been done I had visited my wife several times. She was always at home to me, though of course, for decency's sake, in consequence of the child's death, she denied herself to everybody else.

She looked lovelier than ever; the air of delicate languor she a.s.sumed suited her as perfectly as its fragile whiteness suits a hot-house lily. She knew the power of her own beauty most thoroughly, and employed it in arduous efforts to fascinate me. But I had changed my tactics; I paid very little heed to her, and never went to see her unless she asked me very pressingly to do so. All compliments and attentions from me to her had ceased. SHE courted me, and I accepted her courtship in unresponsive silence. I played the part of a taciturn and reserved man, who preferred reading some ancient and abstruse treatise on metaphysics to even the charms of her society--and often, when she urgently desired my company, I would sit in her drawing-room, turning over the leaves of a book and feigning to be absorbed in it, while she, from her velvet fauteuil, would look at me with a pretty pensiveness made up half of respect, half of gentle admiration--a capitally acted facial expression, by the bye, and one that would do credit to Sarah Bernhardt. We had both heard from Guido Ferrari; his letter to my wife I of course did not see; she had, however, told me he was "much shocked and distressed to hear of Stella's death." The epistle he addressed to me had a different tale to tell. In it he wrote--"YOU can understand, my dear conte, that I am not much grieved to hear of the death of Fabio's child. Had she lived, I confess her presence would have been a perpetual reminder to me of things I prefer to forget. She never liked me--she might have been a great source of trouble and inconvenience; so, on the whole, I am glad she is out of the way."

Further on in the letter he informed me:

"My uncle is at death's door, but though that door stands wide open for him, he cannot make up his mind to go in. His hesitation will not be allowed to last, so the doctors tell me--at any rate I fervently hope I shall not be kept waiting too long, otherwise I shall return to Naples and sacrifice my heritage, for I am restless and unhappy away from Nina, though I know she is safely guarded by your protecting care."

I read this particular paragraph to my wife, watching her closely as I slowly enunciated the words contained in it. She listened, and a vivid blush crimsoned her cheeks--a blush of indignation--and her brows contracted in the vexed frown I knew so well. Her lips parted in a half-sweet, half-chilly smile as she said, quietly:

"I owe you my thanks, conte, for showing me to what extent Signor Ferrari's impertinence may reach. I am surprised at his writing to you in such a manner! The fact is, my late husband's attachment for him was so extreme that he now presumes upon a supposed right that he has over me--he fancies I am really his sister, and that he can tyrannize, as brothers sometimes do! I really regret I have been so patient with him--I have allowed him too much liberty."

True enough! I thought and smiled bitterly. I was now in the heat of the game--the moves must be played quickly--there was no more time for hesitation or reflection.

"I think, madam," I said, deliberately, as I folded Guido's letter and replaced it in my pocket-book, "Signor Ferrari ardently aspires to be something more than a brother to you at no very distant date."

Oh, the splendid hypocrisy of women! No wonder they make such excellent puppets on the theatrical stage--acting is their natural existence, sham their breath of life! This creature showed no sign of embarra.s.sment--she raised her eyes frankly to mine in apparent surprise--then she gave a little low laugh of disdain.

"Indeed!" she said. "Then I fear Signor Ferrari is doomed to have his aspirations disappointed! My dear conte," and here she rose and swept softly across the room toward me with that graceful gliding step that somehow always reminded me of the approach of a panther, "do you really mean to tell me that his audacity has reached such a height that--really it is TOO absurd!--that he hopes to marry me?" And sinking into a chair near mine she looked at me in calm inquiry. Lost in amazement at the duplicity of the Vroman, I answered, briefly:

"I believe so! He intimated as much to me." She smiled scornfully.

"I am too much honored! And did you, conte, think for a moment that such an arrangement would meet with my approval?"

I was silent. My brain was confused--I found it difficult to meet with and confront such treachery as this. What! Had she no conscience? Were all the pa.s.sionate embraces, the lingering kisses, the vows of fidelity, and words of caressing endearment as naught? Were they all blotted from her memory as the writing on a slate is wiped out by a sponge! Almost I pitied Guido! His fate, in her hands, was evidently to be the same as mine had been; yet after all, why should I be surprised?

why should I pity? Had I not calculated it all? and was it not part of my vengeance?

"Tell me!" pursued my wife's dulcet voice, breaking in upon my reflections, "did you really imagine Signer Ferrari's suit might meet with favor at my hands?"

I must speak--the comedy had to be played out. So I answered, bluntly:

"Madam, I certainly did think so. It seemed a natural conclusion to draw from the course of events. He is young, undeniably handsome, and on his uncle's death will be fairly wealthy--what more could you desire? besides, he was your husband's friend--"

"And for that reason I would never marry him!" she interrupted me with a decided gesture. "Even if I liked him sufficiently, which I do not"

(oh, miserable traitress), "I would not run the risk of what the world would say of such a marriage."

"How, madam? Pardon me if I fail to comprehend you."

"Do you not see, conte?" she went on in a coaxing voice, as of one that begged to be believed, "if I were to marry one that was known to have been my husband's most intimate friend, society is so wicked--people would be sure to say that there had been something between us before my husband's death--I KNOW they would, and I could not endure such slander!"

"Murder will out" they say! Here was guilt partially declaring itself.

A perfectly innocent woman could not foresee so readily the condemnation of society. Not having the knowledge of evil she would be unable to calculate the consequences. The overprudish woman betrays herself; the fine lady who virtuously shudders at the sight of a nude statue or picture, announces at once to all whom it may concern that there is something far coa.r.s.er in the suggestions of her own mind than the work of art she condemns. Absolute purity has no fear of social slander; it knows its own value, and that it must conquer in the end.

My wife--alas! that I should call her so--was innately vicious and false; yet how particular she was in her efforts to secure the blind world's good opinion! Poor old world! how exquisitely it is fooled, and how good-naturedly it accepts its fooling! But I had to answer the fair liar, whose net of graceful deceptions was now spread to entrap me, therefore I said with an effort of courtesy:

"No one would dare to slander you, contessa, in my presence." She bowed and smiled prettily. "But," I went on, "if it is true that you have no liking for Signer Ferrari--"

"It is true!" she exclaimed with sudden emphasis. "He is rough and ill-mannered; I have seen him the worse for wine, sometimes he is insufferable! I am afraid of him!"

I glanced at her quietly. Her face had paled, and her hands, which were busied with some silken embroidery, trembled a little.

"In that case," I continued, slowly, "though I am sorry for Ferrari, poor fellow! he will be immensely disappointed! I confess I am glad in other respects, because--"

"Because what?" she demanded, eagerly. "Why," I answered, feigning a little embarra.s.sment, "because there will be more chance for other men who may seek to possess the hand of the accomplished and beautiful Contessa Romani."

She shook her fair head slightly. A transient expression of disappointment pa.s.sed over her features.

"The 'other men' you speak of, conte, are not likely to indulge in such an ambition," she said, with a faint sigh; "more especially," and her eyes flashed indignantly, "since Signor Ferrari thinks it his duty to mount guard over me. I suppose he wishes to keep me for himself--a most impertinent and foolish notion! There is only one thing to do--I shall leave Naples before he returns."

"Why?" I asked.

She flushed deeply. "I wish to avoid him," she said, after a little pause; "I tell you frankly, he has lately given me much cause for annoyance. I will not be persecuted by his attentions; and as I before said to you, I am often afraid of him. Under YOUR protection I know I am quite safe, but I cannot always enjoy that--"

The moment had come. I advanced a step or two.

"Why not?" I said. "It rests entirely with yourself."

She started and half rose from her chair--her work dropped from her hands.

"What do you mean, conte?" she faltered, half timidly, yet anxiously; "I do not understand!"

"I mean what I say," I continued in cool hard tones, and stooping, I picked up her work and restored it to her; "but pray do not excite yourself! You say you cannot always enjoy my protection; it seems to me that you can--by becoming my wife."