"Though you have not taken half a franc's worth," he admitted, with an honesty very unusual in a Neapolitan--"but the saints will make it up to you, never fear!"

"I am sure of that!" I said, gayly. "Addio, my friend! Prosperity to you and our Lady's favor!"

This salutation, which I knew to be a common one with Sicilian mariners, the good Pietro responded to with amiable heartiness, wishing me luck on my next voyage. He then betook himself anew to the polishing of his gla.s.ses--and I pa.s.sed the rest of the day in strolling about the least frequented streets of the city, and longing impatiently for the crimson glory of the sunset, which, like a wide flag of triumph, was to be the signal of my safe return to love and happiness.

CHAPTER VIII.

It came at last, the blessed, the longed-for evening. A soft breeze sprung up, cooling the burning air after the heat of the day, and bringing with it the odors of a thousand flowers. A regal glory of shifting colors blazed on the breast of heaven--the bay, motionless as a mirror, reflected all the splendid tints with a sheeny l.u.s.ter that redoubled their magnificence. p.r.i.c.ked in every vein by the stinging of my own desires, I yet restrained myself; I waited till the sun sunk below the gla.s.sy waters--till the pomp and glow attending its departure had paled into those dim, ethereal hues which are like delicate draperies fallen from the flying forms of angels--till the yellow rim of the round full moon rose languidly on the edge of the horizon--and then keeping back my eagerness no longer, I took the well-known road ascending to the Villa Romani, My heart beat high--my limbs trembled with excitement--my steps were impatient and precipitate--never had the way seemed so long. At last I reached the great gate-way--it was locked fast--its sculptured lions looked upon me frowningly. I heard the splash and tinkle of the fountains within, the scents of the roses and myrtle were wafted toward me with every breath I drew. Home at last! I smiled--my whole frame quivered with expectancy and delight. It was not my intention to seek admission by the princ.i.p.al entrance--I contented myself with one long, loving look, and turned to the left, where there was a small private gate leading into an avenue of ilex and pine, interspersed with orange-trees. This was a favorite walk of mine, partly on account of its pleasant shade even in the hottest noon--partly because it was seldom frequented by any member of the household save myself. Guido occasionally took a turn with me there, but I was more often alone, and I was fond of pacing up and down in the shadow of the trees, reading some favorite book, or giving myself up to the dolcefar niente of my own imaginings. The avenue led round to the back of the villa, and as I now entered it, I thought I would approach the house cautiously by this means and get private speech with a.s.sunta, the nurse who had charge of little Stella, and who was moreover an old and tried family servant, in whose arms my mother had breathed her last.

The dark trees rustled solemnly as I stepped quickly yet softly along the familiar moss-grown path. The place was very still--sometimes the nightingales broke into a bubbling torrent of melody, and then were suddenly silent, as though overawed by the shadows of the heavy interlacing boughs, through which the moonlight flickered, casting strange and fantastic patterns on the ground. A cloud of lucciole broke from a thicket of laurel, and sparkled in the air like gems loosened from a queen's crown. Faint odors floated about me, shaken from orange boughs and trailing branches of white jasmine. I hastened on, my spirits rising higher the nearer I approached my destination. I was full of sweet antic.i.p.ation and pa.s.sionate longing--I yearned to clasp my beloved Nina in my arms--to see her lovely l.u.s.trous eyes looking fondly into mine--I was eager to shake Guido by the hand--and as for Stella, I knew the child would be in bed at that hour, but still, I thought, I must have her wakened to see me. I felt that my happiness would not be complete till I had kissed her little cherub face, and caressed those cl.u.s.tering curls of hers that were like spun gold.

Hush--hush! What was that? I stopped in my rapid progress as though suddenly checked by an invisible hand. I listened with strained ears.

That sound--was it not a rippling peal of gay sweet laughter? A shiver shook me from head to foot. It was my wife's laugh--I knew the silvery chime of it well! My heart sunk coldly--I paused irresolute. She could laugh then like that, while she thought me lying dead--dead and out of her reach forever! All at once I perceived the glimmer of a white robe through the trees; obeying my own impulse, I stepped softly aside--I hid behind a dense screen of foliage through which I could see without being seen. The clear laugh rang out once again on the stillness--its brightness pierced my brain like a sharp sword! She was happy--she was even merry--she wandered here in the moonlight joyous-hearted, while I--I had expected to find her close shut within her room, or else kneeling before the Mater Dolorosa in the little chapel, praying for my soul's rest, and mingling her prayers with her tears! Yes--I had expected this--we men are such fools when we love women! Suddenly a terrible thought struck me. Had she gone mad? Had the shock and grief of my so unexpected death turned her delicate brain? Was she roaming about, poor child, like Ophelia, knowing not whither she went, and was her apparent gayety the fantastic mirth of a disordered brain? I shuddered at the idea--and bending slightly apart the boughs behind which I was secreted, I looked out anxiously. Two figures were slowly approaching--my wife and my friend, Guido Ferrari. Well--there was nothing in that--it was as it should be--was not Guido as my brother?

It was almost his duty to console and cheer Nina as much as lay in his power. But stay! stay! did I see aright--was she simply leaning on his arm for support--or--a fierce oath, that was almost a cry of torture, broke from my lips! Oh, would to G.o.d I had died! Would to G.o.d I had never broken open the coffin in which I lay at peace! What was death--what were the horrors of the vault--what was anything I had suffered to the anguish that racked me now? The memory of it to this day burns in my brain like inextinguishable fire, and my hand involuntarily clinches itself in an effort to beat back the furious bitterness of that moment! I know not how I restrained the murderous ferocity that awoke within me--how I forced myself to remain motionless and silent in my hiding-place. But I did. I watched the miserable comedy out to its end. I looked dumbly on at my own betrayal! I saw my honor stabbed to the death by those whom I most trusted, and yet I gave no sign! They--Guido Ferrari and my wife--came so close to my hiding-place that I could note every gesture and hear every word they uttered. They paused within three steps of me--his arm encircled her waist--hers was thrown carelessly around his neck--her head rested on his shoulder. Even so had she walked with me a thousand times! She was dressed in pure white save for one spot of deep color near her heart--a red rose, as red as blood. It was pinned there with a diamond pin that flashed in the moonlight. I thought wildly, that instead of that rose, there should be blood indeed--instead of a diamond pin there should be the good steel of a straight dagger! But I had no weapon--I stared at her, dry-eyed and mute. She looked lovely--exquisitely lovely! No trace of grief marred the fairness of her face--her eyes were as languidly limpid and tender as ever--her lips were parted in the child-like smile that was so sweet--so innocently trustful! She spoke--ah, Heaven! the old bewitching music of her low voice made my heart leap and my brain reel.

"You foolish Guido!" she said, in dreamily amused accents. "What would have happened, I wonder, if Fabio had not died so opportunely."

I waited eagerly for the answer. Guido laughed lightly.

"He would never have discovered anything. You were too clever for him, piccinina! Besides, his conceit saved him--he had so good an opinion of himself that he would not have deemed it possible for you to care for any other man."

My wife--flawless diamond-pearl of pure womanhood!--sighed half restlessly.

"I am glad he is dead!" she murmured; "but, Guido mio, you are imprudent. You cannot visit me now so often--the servants will talk!

Then I must go into mourning for at least six months--and there are many other things to consider."

Guide's hand played with the jeweled necklace she wore--he bent and kissed the place where its central pendant rested. Again--again, good sir, I pray you! Let no faint scruples interfere with your rightful enjoyment! Cover the white flesh with caresses--it is public property!

a dozen kisses more or less will not signify! So I madly thought as I crouched among the trees--the tigerish wrath within me making the blood beat in my head like a hundred hammer-strokes.

"Nay then, my love," he replied to her, "it is almost a pity Fabio is dead! While he lived he played an excellent part as a screen--he was an unconscious, but veritable duenna of propriety for both of us, as no one else could be!"

The boughs that covered me creaked and rustled. My wife started, and looked uneasily round her.

"Hush!" she said, nervously. "He was buried only yesterday--and they say there are ghosts sometimes. This avenue, too--I wish we had not come here--it was his favorite walk. Besides," she added, with a slight accent of regret, "after all he was the father of my child--you must think of that."

"By Heaven!" exclaimed Guido, fiercely, "do I not think of it? Ay--and I curse him for every kiss he stole from your lips!"

I listened half stupefied. Here was a new phase of the marriage law!

Husbands were thieves then--they "stole" kisses; only lovers were honest in their embraces! Oh, my dear friend--my more than brother--how near you were to death at that moment! Had you but seen my face peering pallidly through the dusky leaves--could you have known the force of the fury pent up within me--you would not have valued your life at one baiocco!

"Why did you marry him?" he asked, after a little pause, during which he toyed with the fair curls that floated against his breast.

She looked up with a little mutinous pout, and shrugged her shoulders.

"Why? Because I was tired of the convent, and all the stupid, solemn ways of the nuns; also because he was rich, and I was horribly poor. I cannot bear to be poor! Then he loved me"--here her eyes glimmered with malicious triumph--"yes--he was mad for me--and--"

"You loved him?" demanded Guido, almost fiercely.

"Ma che!" she answered, with an expressive gesture. "I suppose I did--for a week or two. As much as one ever loves a husband! What does one marry for at all? For convenience--money--position--he gave me these things, as you know."

"You will gain nothing by marrying me, then," he said, jealously.

She laughed, and laid her little white hand, glittering with rings, lightly against his lips.

"Of course not! Besides--have I said I will marry you? You are very agreeable as a lover--but otherwise--I am not sure! And I am free now--I can do as I like; I want to enjoy my liberty, and--"

She was not allowed to complete her sentence, for Ferrari s.n.a.t.c.hed her close to his breast and held her there as in a vise. His face was aflame with pa.s.sion.

"Look you, Nina," he said, hoa.r.s.ely, "you shall not fool me, by Heaven!

you shall not! I have endured enough at your hands, G.o.d knows! When I saw you for the first time on the day of your marriage with that poor fool, Fabio--I loved you, madly--ay, wickedly as I then thought, but not for the sin of it did I repent. I knew you were woman, not angel, and I waited my time. It came--I sought you--I told you my story of love ere three months of wedded life had pa.s.sed ever your head. I found you willing--ready--nay, eager to hear me! You led me on; you know you did! You tempted me by touch, word and look; you gave me all I sought!

Why try to excuse it now? You are as much my wife as ever you were Fabio's--nay--you are more so, for you love me--at least you say so--and though you lied to your husband, you dare not lie to me. I tell you, you DARE NOT! I never pitied Fabio, never--he was too easily duped, and a married man has no right to be otherwise than suspicious and ever on his guard; if he relaxes in his vigilance he has only himself to blame when his honor is flung like a ball from hand to hand, as one plays with a child's toy. I repeat to you, Nina, you are mine, and I swear you shall never escape me!"

The impetuous words coursed rapidly from his lips, and his deep musical voice had a defiant ring as it fell on the stillness of the evening air. I smiled bitterly as I heard! She struggled in his arms half angrily.

"Let me go," she said. "You are rough, you hurt me!"

He released her instantly. The violence of his embrace had crushed the rose she wore, and its crimson leaves fluttered slowly down one by one on the ground at her feet. Her eyes flashed resentfully, and an impatient frown contracted her fair level brows. She looked away from him in silence, the silence of a cold disdain. Something in her att.i.tude pained him, for he sprung forward and caught her hand, covering it with kisses.

"Forgive me, carina mia" he cried, repentantly. "I did not mean to reproach you. You cannot help being beautiful--it is the fault of G.o.d or the devil that you are so, and that your beauty maddens me! You are the heart of my heart, the soul of my soul! Oh, Nina mia, let us not waste words in useless anger. Think of it, we are free--free! Free to make life a long dream of delight--delight more perfect than angels can know! The greatest blessing that could have befallen us is the death of Fabio, and now that we are all in all to each other, do not harden yourself against me! Nina, be gentle with me--of all things in the world, surely love is best!"

She smiled, with the pretty superior smile of a young empress pardoning a recreant subject, and suffered him to draw her again, but with more gentleness, into his embrace. She put up her lips to meet his--I looked on like a man in a dream! I saw them cling together--each kiss they exchanged was a fresh stab to my tortured soul.

"You are so foolish, Guido mio" she pouted, pa.s.sing her little jeweled fingers through his cl.u.s.tering hair with a light caress--"so impetuous--so jealous! I have told you over and over again that I love you! Do you not remember that night when Fabio sat out on the balcony reading his Plato, poor fellow!"--here she laughed musically--"and we were trying over some songs in the drawing--room--did I not say then that I loved you best of any one in the world? You know I did! You ought to be satisfied!"

Guido smiled, and stroked her shining golden curls.

"I AM satisfied," he said, without any trace of his former heated impatience--"perfectly satisfied. But do not expect to find love without jealousy. Fabio was never jealous--I know--he trusted you too implicitly--he was nothing of a lover, believe me! He thought more of himself than of you. A man who will go away for days at a time on solitary yachting and rambling excursions, leaving his wife to her own devices--a man who reads Plato in preference to looking after HER, decides his own fate, and deserves to be ranked with those so-called wise but most ignorant philosophers to whom Woman has always remained an unguessed riddle. As for me--I am jealous of the ground you tread upon--of the air that touches you--I was jealous of Fabio while he lived--and--by heaven!"--his eyes darkened with a somber wrath--"if any other man dared now to dispute your love with me I would not rest till his body had served my sword as a sheath!"

Nina raised her head from his breast with an air of petulant weariness.

"Again!" she murmured, reproachfully, "you are going to be angry AGAIN!"

He kissed her.

"Not I, sweet one! I will be as gentle as you wish, so long as you love me and only me. Come--this avenue is damp and chilly for you--shall we go in?"

My wife--nay, I should say OUR wife, as we had both shared her impartial favors--a.s.sented. With arms interlaced and walking slowly, they began to retrace their steps toward the house. Once they paused.

"Do you hear the nightingales?" asked Guido.

Hear them! Who could not hear them? A shower of melody rained from the trees on every side--the pure, sweet, pa.s.sionate tones pierced the ear like the repeated chime of little golden bells--the beautiful, the tender, the G.o.d-inspired birds sung their love-stories simply and with perfect rapture--love-stories untainted by hypocrisy--unsullied by crime--different, ah! so very different from the love-stones of selfish humanity! The exquisite poetic idyl of a bird's life and love--is it not a thing to put us inferior creatures to shame--for are we ever as true to our vows as the lark to his mate?--are we as sincere in our thanksgivings for the sunlight as the merry robin who sings as blithely in the winter snow as in the flower-filled mornings of spring? Nay--not we! Our existence is but one long impotent protest against G.o.d, combined with an insatiate desire to get the better of one another in the struggle for base coin!

Nina listened--and shivered, drawing her light scarf more closely about her shoulders.

"I hate them," she said, pettishly; "their noise is enough to pierce one's ears. And HE used to be so fond of them! he used to sing--what was it?