"I thank you sincerely," said Ghisleri, pressing his hand again. "You
are very generous."

"No, but I try to be just."

They parted, and Ghisleri pursued his way, meditating on the
contradictions of life, and wondering why at the most critical moment of
his existence the one man who had come forward unasked and of his own
free impulse to defend him publicly and to offer his help, should be his
oldest and most implacable enemy. He was profoundly conscious of the
man's generosity. The world, he said to himself, might not be such a bad
place after all. But he did not guess how soon he was to need the
assistance so freely proffered.

He went home at once. Bonifazio closed the door behind him and followed
him respectfully into the sitting-room.

"I beg pardon, signore," he began, standing still as he waited for
Ghisleri to turn and look at him.

"Do you need money?" asked the latter carelessly.

"No, signore. You have perhaps forgotten that you gave me money
yesterday. It is something which I have had upon my conscience a long
time, and now that you are falsely accused, signore, it is my duty to
speak, if you permit me."

"Tell me what it is." Ghisleri sat down at his writing-table, and lit a
cigarette.

"It is a very secret matter, signore. But if I keep it a secret any
longer, I shall be doing wrong, though I also did wrong in coming by the
information I have, though I did not know it. I have also been to a
lawyer who understands these matters, and takes an interest in the case,
and he has told me that unless some saint performs a miracle nothing can
save you at the trial. So that I must give my evidence. But if I do, the
Princess Adele will go to the galleys, and the house of Savelli will be
quite ruined. For the Princess murdered Lord Herbert Arden, and tried to
murder Donna Laura, as we call her. She invited them to dinner and gave
them napkins which she with her own hand had poisoned with infection of
the scarlet fever, her maid Lucia having had it at the time. And Lord
Herbert died within three days, but Donna Laura did not catch it. And I
have read how she did this, and many other wicked things, in a letter
written with her own hand. For it was I who found the confession they
speak of, when I went alone to look at the old prisons at Gerano, while
you and the signori were out driving. And now I do not know what to do,
but I had to speak in order to save you, and you must judge of the rest,
signore, and pardon me if I have done wrong."

Ghisleri knew the truth at last, and his lean, weather-beaten face
expressed well enough the thirst for vengeance that burned him. He
waited a few moments and then spoke calmly enough.

"Have you got the confession here?" he asked. "If it is found in my
house it will ruin me, though it may ruin Donna Adele too."

"I understand, signore. Have no fear. I read it through, because I found
it open and the leaves scattered as it must have fallen, though how it
fell there I do not know. But it is still at Gerano. If you will allow
me, I will explain what I did. When I had read it, I put it into my
pocket, saying to myself that it was a difficult case for the
conscience. And I thought about it for more than an hour while I walked
about the castle. Then I went and got an envelope and I put the leaves
into it thinking that perhaps it would be wrong to burn it. So I wrote
on the outside: 'This was found in the prison of the castle of Gerano by
Bonifazio di Rienzo,' and I also wrote the date in full. Then at the
tobacconist's shop in the village I bought some wax, and took a seal I
have, which is this one, signore. It has 'B.R.' on it. And I sealed the
letter with much wax, so that the tobacconist laughed at me. But I did
not let him see what was written on the envelope. Then I took it to the
parish priest whose name is Don Tebaldo, and who seemed to me to be a
very respectable and good man. I told him in confidence that I had found
something which it was not possible for me to give to the rightful
owner, but which I thought it would be wrong to destroy, because the
rightful owner might some day make inquiry for it and wish to have it.
He asked many questions, but I would not answer them all, and he did not
know what the letter was about nor that it was a confession. So I begged
him to put it into another envelope and to seal it again with his own
seal, and I gave him what was left of the wax I had bought. Then he did
as I asked him, and wrote on the back: 'This was brought to me to be
kept, by one Bonifazio di Rienzo, until the owner claims it. But it is
to be burned when I die.' And there it is to this day, for I have made
inquiries and Don Tebaldo is alive and well, and God bless him! So I
come to tell you all this, in order that you may act as you see fit,
signore. For Don Tebaldo can swear that I gave him the letter on the day
I found it and I can swear that you never knew anything of it."

Ghisleri looked at his faithful old servant, whose round brown eyes met
his so steadily and quietly.

"I can never thank you enough, my dear Bonifazio," he said. "You have
saved me. I will not forget it."

"As for that, signore, I will not accept any present, and I humbly beg
you not to offer me any, for it would be the price of blood, such as
Judas Iscariot received, seeing that the Princess Adele will go to the
galleys."

"You need not be afraid of that, Bonifazio," answered Ghisleri. "Casa
Savelli will easily prove that she was mad, as I believe she is, and she
will end her life in a lunatic asylum. But you must not bring either Don
Tebaldo or the letter here. Go at once to the Marchese di San Giacinto
and tell him exactly what you have told me, and that I sent you. He will
know what to do. Take money with you and execute his orders exactly
without returning here, no matter what they are. I can do without you
for a week if necessary, and I wish to know nothing of the matter until
it is over."

"Yes, signore," answered Bonifazio, and without more words he left the
room and went directly to San Giacinto's house.

The latter received him in his study, and listened to his story with
calm attention. Then, without making any remark, he smoked nearly half a
cigar, while Bonifazio stood motionless, respectfully watching him. Then
he rang the bell, and gave the man who answered it instructions to order
out a sort of mail-cart he used for driving himself, and the strongest
horses in the stable.

"You must come with me," he said to Bonifazio. "We can be back before
midnight." Then he began to write rapidly.

He wrote a note to his cousin, the Prince of Sant' Ilario, another to
Gianforte Campodonico, and then a rather longer one to Savelli. In the
last mentioned, he informed the Prince that he would appear on the
morrow, with Campodonico and Sant' Ilario, and that he desired to be
received by Savelli himself in the presence of Francesco and Adele, as
he had a communication of the highest importance to make. In his usual
hard way he managed to convey the impression that it would be decidedly
the worse for the whole house of Savelli and for Adele in particular if
his request were not complied with to the letter. By the time he had
finished a servant announced that the carriage was waiting. San Giacinto
thrust a handful of black cigars and a box of matches into his outer
pocket.

"Come," he said to Bonifazio, "I am ready. It is a long drive to
Gerano."

It was nearly three o'clock in the afternoon when they started, and the
days were very short and the weather threatening. But the horses were
splendid animals, and there were few roads between Rome and the Abbruzzi
which San Giacinto did not know well. He was acting as he always did,
swiftly, surely, and in person, trusting to no one, and making himself
alone responsible for the result. Before one o'clock in the morning he
was back, bringing with him a mild and timid old priest, muffled in a
horse blanket against the bitter wind. But the sealed packet containing
Adele Savelli's confession was in his own pocket.

On his table he found three notes, which satisfied him that everything
would take place as he had hastily planned it before his departure.
Campodonico expressed his readiness to serve Ghisleri in any way, Sant'
Ilario said that he was ready to support San Giacinto in anything he
undertook, though he had never been intimate with Ghisleri, who was much
younger than he. Savelli answered coldly that he would receive the three
men as requested, adding that he hoped the communication would prove to
be of such importance as to justify putting his daughter-in-law to the
inconvenience which any prolonged interview caused her in her present
state of ill-health. San Giacinto smiled rather grimly. He did not think
that his visit to Casa Savelli need be a very long one. Before he went
to bed, he debated whether he should send word to Gerano to be present
also, but he ultimately decided not to do so. It seemed useless to make
Adele's father witness his daughter's humiliation, though he meant not
to spare either Savelli or his son. Towards Adele he was absolutely
pitiless. It was his nature. If she had been dying, he would have found
means to make her listen to what he had to say. If she had been at the
very last gasp he would have forced his way to her bedside to say it. He
was by no means a man without faults.

Meanwhile Ghisleri was pacing his room in solitude, reflecting on the
sudden change in all the prospects of the future, and wondering how
matters would be managed, but feeling himself perfectly safe in San
Giacinto's hands, and well understanding that he was not to be informed
of what had happened until all was over. That San Giacinto would face
all the assembled Savelli and force them then and there to withdraw all
charges against Ghisleri, the latter was sure, and, on the whole, he was
glad that he was not to witness their discomfiture. But it was not only
of his being in one moment cleared of every accusation that he thought.
The consequences to himself were enormous. He remembered the sickening
horror he had felt that afternoon when he realised how nearly he had
told Laura that he loved her. In four and twenty hours there would be
nothing to hinder him from speaking out what filled his heart. If he
chose to do so, he might even now write to her and tell her what he had
struggled so hard to hide when they had been face to face. But he was
not the man to write when there was a possibility of speaking, nor to
trust to the black and white of ink and paper to say for him what he
could say better for himself.

Then the old doubt came back, and he spent a night of strange
self-questioning and much useless moral torment. Was this the last, the
very last of his loves? He remembered how a little less than three years
earlier he had bid good-bye to Maddalena dell' Armi, saying to himself
that he could never again feel his heart beat at a woman's voice, nor
his face turn pale with passion for a woman's kiss. And now he loved
again, perhaps with little hope of seeing his love returned, but with
the mad desire to stake his fate upon one cast, and win or lose all for
ever. He had never felt that irresistible longing before, not even when
he had first loved Bianca Corleone in his early days. Then, it was true,
he had been very young, and Bianca had not been like Laura. She had been
young herself as he was, and had loved him from the first, almost
without hiding it. There had been little need for words on either side,
for love told his own tale plainly. Yet it seemed to him now that if he
had then thought Bianca as cold as he had reason to believe that Laura
was, he might have resigned himself to his fate at the beginning--he
might not have found the strength he now had to risk such a defeat as
perhaps waited him, to run any danger, now that he was free, rather than
live in suspense another day.

CHAPTER XXIX.

Sant' Ilario and Gianforte Campodonico rang at San Giacinto's door half
an hour before the time the latter had appointed for his descent upon
Casa Savelli. He had not explained the situation in the hurried notes he
had written them on the previous day, and they did not know what was to
take place.

"It is very simple," said San Giacinto, coolly. "The whole story was a
lie from beginning to end, as I always believed. The confession was
found at Gerano and deposited with the parish priest under seal on the
same day. I went to Gerano and brought the priest and the letter back.
Here it is, if you wish to see the outside of it, and the priest is
waiting in the next room. This is the document which Donna Adele will
have signed an hour hence."

He produced a sheet of stamped paper from the drawer of his
writing-table and read aloud what was written upon it, as follows:

    "I, the undersigned, being in full possession of my faculties, and
    free of my will, hereby publicly withdraw each and every one of the
    accusations I have made, publicly or privately, either in my own
    person or through my father, the Prince of Gerano, or my
    father-in-law, Prince Savelli, my husband, Francesco, Prince
    Savelli, or through any other persons purporting to represent me,
    against Pietro Nobile Ghisleri; and I declare upon my oath before
    God that there is not and never was any truth whatsoever in any one
    of the said accusations upon which the said Pietro Nobile Ghisleri
    was unjustly arrested and accused of extortion under Article 409 of
    the Penal Code. And I further declare that the letters of his which
    I hold do and did refer directly to the purchase of the manuscript
    writings of Donna Isabella Montevarchi which were at that time for
    sale, and to no other manuscript or writing whatsoever; and further,
    I declare that no such person as 'Maria B.' was ever known to me,
    but that I wrote the letters received from 'Maria B.' by Lady
    Herbert Arden, and that I withdrew her answers myself from the
    general post-office. And if I have done anything else to strengthen
    the false accusation against the said Pietro Nobile Ghisleri such
    as may hereafter come to light, this present retraction and denial
    shall be held to cover it by anticipation. And hereunto I set my
    hand and seal in the presence of Don Giovanni Saracinesca, Prince of
    Sant' Ilario, of Don Giovanni Saracinesca, Marchese di San Giacinto,
    and of Don Gianforte Campodonico di Norba, who in my presence and in
    the presence of each other are witnesses of this act."

San Giacinto ceased reading, and looked at his two companions.
Campodonico was grave, but Sant' Ilario smiled.

"If you can make her sign that, you are stronger than I supposed,
Giovanni," said the latter.

"So it seems to me," said Gianforte.

"I do not think she will offer much resistance," answered San Giacinto,
quietly pocketing the confession and the document he had just read. "I
suppose what I am going to do is unscrupulous, but I do not think that
Donna Adele has shown any uncommon delicacy of feeling in this little
affair. Let us go and see whether she has any objection to signing her
name."

Don Tebaldo, the priest, and Bonifazio followed the three gentlemen in a
cab to the Palazzo Savelli, and all five went up the grand staircase
together. Neither Don Tebaldo nor the servant had received any
instructions beyond being told that if they were called into the room
when the reading took place, they were to answer truthfully any
questions which might be put to them.

Prince Savelli met them all in an outer drawing-room, the same indeed in
which poor Herbert Arden had talked with Francesco a few days before his
death. He was coldly courteous to San Giacinto, but greeted the others
somewhat more warmly.

"May I ask what the nature of your communication is?" he inquired of the
former.

"I prefer to explain it in the presence of Donna Adele, as it concerns
her directly," answered San Giacinto: "It is useless to tell a story
twice."

The extremely high and mighty head of all the Savelli stared up at the
giant through his big spectacles. He was not at all used to being
treated with so little consideration. But the other was a match for him,
and stood carelessly waiting for the master of the house to lead the
way.

"Considering whom you represent," said the Prince, "your manner is
somewhat imperative."

San Giacinto's heavy brows bent in an ominous frown, and Savelli found
it impossible to meet the gaze of the hard, deep-set eyes for more than
a few seconds.

"I represent an innocent man, whom you and yours are trying to ruin. As
for my manners, they were learned in an inn and not in Casa Savelli. I
shall be obliged if you will lead the way."

Sant' Ilario suppressed a smile. He had seen his strong cousin in more
than one such encounter, but he had never seen any one resist him long.
Savelli did not reply, but turned and went before them and opened the
door. They passed through another drawing-room and through a third, and
then found themselves in Adele's boudoir. She was seated in a deep chair
near the fire, warming her transparent hands at the flame. Her face was
exactly of the colour of the yellow ashes of certain kinds of wood. It
seemed impossible that any human being could be so thin as she seemed,
and live. But there was yet some strength left, and her strong will,
aided by the silent but insane satisfaction she felt in Ghisleri's ruin,
kept her still in a sort of animation which was sometimes almost like
her old activity. She had, of course, been warned of the impending
interview, but she thought that San Giacinto had come to propose some
compromise to the advantage of Ghisleri, and her father-in-law and
husband were inclined to share her opinion; she meant to refuse
everything, and to say that she would abide the judgment of the courts.
She did not rise when the party entered, but held out her hand to each
in succession. Francesco Savelli stood beside her, and also shook hands
with each, but made no remark.

"Sit down," said Prince Savelli, moving forward a chair.

"Thank you," answered San Giacinto, "but it is useless. We shall stay
only long enough for Donna Adele to sign a paper I have brought with me.
We do not wish to disturb you further than necessary. With your
permission I will read the document."

And thereupon, standing before her, he read it slowly and distinctly.
Prince Savelli gradually turned pale, for he knew the man, and guessed
that he possessed some terribly sure means of enforcing his will. But
Adele laughed scornfully and her husband followed her example.

"Is there any reason why I should sign that very singular and untrue
declaration?" she asked, with contempt.

San Giacinto looked at her steadily for a moment, and without reasoning
she began to feel afraid.

"I have a strong argument in my pocket," he said. "For I have your
confession here, and the priest with whom it has been deposited since
the day it was found is waiting in the hall, if you wish to see him."

Adele shook from head to foot, and her hands moved spasmodically. She
made a great effort, however, and succeeded in speaking.

"The fact that it has been in a place where Ghisleri knew how to find it
is the last proof of his guilt we required," she said, mechanically
repeating the words she had heard her father-in-law use more than once.

"Ghisleri never saw it and never knew where it was until yesterday,"
answered San Giacinto. "If you will oblige me by signing this paper, I
will not trouble you any further."

"I will not sign it, nor anything of such a nature," said Adele,
desperately.

"You are perfectly free to do as you please," answered San Giacinto.
"And so am I. Since you positively refuse, there is nothing left for me
to do but to go away. But I forgot to tell you that the humble person
who found it was able to read, and read it, before taking it to the
priest, and that he has informed me most minutely of the contents. I see
you are annoyed at that, and I am not surprised, for in half an hour it
will be in the hands of the attorney-general. Good morning, Princess."

In the dead silence that followed one might have heard a pin fall, or a
feather. San Giacinto waited a few moments and then turned to go.
Instantly Adele uttered a sharp cry and sprang to her feet. With a
quickness of which no one present would have believed her capable, she
was at his side, and holding him back by the arm. He turned again and
looked calmly down at her.

"You do not mean to do what you threaten?" she cried, in abject terror.

"I mean to take this sealed document to the attorney-general without
losing a moment," he answered. "You know very well what will happen if I
do that."

Both Savelli and his son came forward while he was speaking.

"I will not allow you to hint in my house that anything in that
confession could have any consequences to my daughter-in-law," said the
Prince, in a loud voice. "You have no right to make any such
assertions."

"If Donna Adele wishes it, I will break the seal and read her own
account," answered San Giacinto. He put his hand into the breast pocket
of his coat and drew out the packet.

Altogether losing control of herself, Adele tried to snatch it from his
hand, but he held it high in air, and his vast figure towered above the
rest of the group, still more colossal by the gesture of the upstretched
arm.

"You see for yourselves what importance Donna Adele attaches to this
trifle," he said, in deep tones. "You would do well to persuade her to
sign that paper. That is the only exchange I will take for what I hold.
She knows that every word written there is true--as true as every word
she has written here," he added, glancing up at the sealed letter. "I
will wait one minute more by that clock, and then I will go."

The two Savelli gazed at Adele in undisguised astonishment and horror.
It was clear enough from her face and terrified manner that San Giacinto
spoke the truth, and that the confession he held contained some awful
secret of which they were wholly ignorant.

"What is the meaning of all this, Adele?" asked the Prince, sternly.
"What does that confession contain?"

But she did not answer, as she sank into a chair before the table, and
almost mechanically dipped a pen into the ink. San Giacinto laid the
formal denial before her, holding the confession behind him, for he
believed her capable of snatching it from him and tossing it into the
fire at any moment. She signed painfully in large, sloping characters
that decreased rapidly in size at the end of each of her two names. The
pen fell from her hand as she finished, and San Giacinto quietly laid
the sealed letter before her. If she had been on the point of fainting,
the sight recalled her to herself. She seized it eagerly and broke the
seals, one after the other. Then she went to the fire, assured herself
that the sheets were all there, and were genuine, and thrust the whole
into the flames, watching until the last shred was consumed.

Meanwhile San Giacinto silently handed the pen to Sant' Ilario, who
signed and passed it to Gianforte. He in his turn gave it to San
Giacinto, and the transaction was concluded. The two cousins, as though
by common instinct, glanced at the page on which was written twice
"Giovanni Saracinesca," and each thought of all the pain and anxiety the
coincidence had caused in days long gone by. The last time they had
signed a document together had been in the study of the Palazzo
Montevarchi more than twenty years earlier, when they were still young
men.

"You see for yourselves," said San Giacinto, turning to the two Savelli
as he neatly folded the paper, "that Donna Adele desires no further
explanation, and wishes the contents of the letter she has burned to
remain a secret. So far as I am concerned I pledge my word never to
divulge it, nor to hint at it, and I have reason to believe that those
who are acquainted with it will do the same. So far as one man can
answer for another, I will be responsible for them. With regard to the
finding of the letter and to the manner of its being kept so long, I
leave Don Tebaldo, the parish priest of Gerano, to explain that. You can
question him at your leisure. Our mission is accomplished, and Pietro
Ghisleri's innocence is established for ever. That is all I wished. Good
morning."

After burning the confession Adele had let herself fall into the deep
chair in which she had been sitting when the three friends entered the
room. Her head had fallen back, and her jaw dropped in a ghastly
fashion. She looked as though she were dead; but her hands twitched
convulsively, rising suddenly and falling again upon her knees. It was
impossible to say whether she was conscious or not.

The two Savelli, father and son, stood on the other side of the
fireplace and looked at her, still speechless at her conduct, which they
could only half understand, but which could mean nothing but disgrace to
her and dishonour to them. The elder man seemed to suffer the more, and
he leaned heavily against the chimney-piece, supporting his head with
his hand. Neither the one nor the other paid any attention to the three
men as they silently left the room.

San Giacinto begged Don Tebaldo to wait a short time, and then to send a
messenger inquiring whether the Prince wished to see him, and if not, to
return at once to the palace in which San Giacinto lived. Then he took
Bonifazio with him as well as Campodonico and Sant' Ilario, and went at
once to Ghisleri's lodging. They found him breakfasting alone in a
rather sketchy fashion, for Bonifazio had not been allowed by San
Giacinto to return to his master until everything was accomplished. He
showed some surprise when he opened the door himself, and found the
three together on the landing.

"Is anything the matter?" he inquired, as he ushered them into the
sitting-room, where he had been taking his meal.

"On the contrary," said San Giacinto, "we have come to tell you that
nothing is the matter. This paper may amuse you; but it is worth
keeping, as Campodonico and my cousin can testify, for their names
appear in it as witnesses."

Ghisleri read the contents carefully, and they could see how his brow
cleared at every word.

"You have been the best friend to me that any man ever had," he said,
grasping San Giacinto's huge hand.

"You could have done it quite as well yourself, only I knew you would
not do it at all," answered the latter. "I have no scruples in dealing
with such people, nor do I see why any one should have any. But you
would have gone delicately and presented Donna Adele with the
confession, and then when she had burned it before your eyes, you would
have told her that you trusted to her sense of justice to right you in
the opinion of the world."

Ghisleri laughed. He was so happy that he would have laughed at
anything. After giving him a short account of what had taken place, all
three left him, going, as they said, to breakfast at the club, and
inform the world of what had happened. And so they did. And before the
clock struck eight that night, Bonifazio had received a hundred visiting
cards, each with two words, "to congratulate," written upon it in
pencil, and four invitations to dinner addressed to Pietro Ghisleri. For
the world is unconsciously wise in its generation, and on the rare
occasions when it has found out that it has made a mistake, its haste to
do the civil thing is almost indecent. In eight and forty hours the
whole Savelli family and the Prince and Princess of Gerano had left
Rome, and Ghisleri found it hard to keep one evening a week free for
himself.

But in the afternoon of that day on which San Giacinto had so suddenly
turned the tables upon Pietro's adversaries, Pietro went to see Laura
Arden. She, of course, was in ignorance of what had occurred, and was
amazed by the change she saw in his face when he entered.

"Something good has happened, I am sure!" she exclaimed, as she came
half-way across the room to meet him with outstretched hands.

"Yes," he said, "something very unexpected has happened. The confession
has been found, Donna Adele has admitted that the whole story was a
fabrication, and she has signed a formal denial of every accusation,
past, present, and to come. I am altogether cleared."

"Thank God! Thank God!" Laura cried, wringing his two hands, and gazing
into his eyes.

"You are glad," he said. "I suppose I knew you would be, but I could not
realise that it would make so much difference to you."

"In one way it makes no difference," she said more quietly, as she sat
down and pointed to his accustomed place. "I knew the truth from the
beginning. But it is for you. I saw how unhappy you were yesterday. Now
tell me all about it."

He told her all that had taken place since he had left her on the
previous day, as it has been told in these pages, and his heart beat
fast as he saw in her eyes the constant and great interest she felt.

"And so I am quite free of it all at last," he said, when he had
finished.

"And you will be happy now," answered Laura, softly. "You have been
through almost everything, it seems to me. Do you realise how much I
know of all your life? It is strange, is it not? You are not fond of
making confidences, and you never made but one to me, when you could not
help yourself. Yes; it is very strange that I should know so much about
you."

"And still be willing to call me your friend?" added Ghisleri. "I do not
know how you can--and yet--" He stopped. "The reason is," he said
suddenly, "that you have long been a part of my life--that is why you
know me so well. I think that even long ago we were much more intimate
than we knew or dreamed of. There were many reasons for that."

"Yes," Laura answered. "And then, after all, I have known you ever since
I first went out as a young girl. I did not like you at first, I
remember, though I could never tell why. But as for your saying that you
cannot see why I should still be your friend, I do not understand how
you mean it. It seems to me that you have done much to get my friendship
and to strengthen it, and nothing to lose it. Besides, you yourself know
that you are not what you were. You have changed. You were saying so
only yesterday, and you said the change was for the better."

"Yes, I have changed," said Ghisleri. "It is of no use to deny it. I do
not mean in everything, though I do not lead the life I did. Perhaps it
all goes together after all."

"That is not very clear," observed Laura, with a low laugh.

Ghisleri was silent for a moment.

"I do not think of you as I did," he said. "That is the greatest change
of all."

Laura did not answer. She leaned back in her seat, and looked across the
room.

"I never thought it would come," he said. "For years I honourably
believed I could be your friend. I know, now, that I cannot. I love you
far too deeply--with far too little right."

Still Laura did not speak. But she turned her face from him, laying her
cheek against the silken cushion behind her.

"Perhaps I am doing very wrong in telling you this," said Ghisleri,
trying to steady his voice. "But I made up my mind that it was better,
and more honest. I do not believe that you love me, that you ever can
love me in the most distant future of our lives. I am prepared for that.
I will not trouble you with my love. I will never speak of it again--for
I can never hope to win you. But at least you know the truth."

Slowly Laura turned her face again and her eyes met his. There was a
deep, warm light in them. She seemed to hesitate. Then the words came
sharply, in a loud, clear voice, unlike her own, as though the great
secret had burst every barrier and had broken out against her will by
its own strength, sudden, startling, new to herself and to the man who
heard it.

"I love you now!"

Ghisleri turned as deadly pale as when Gianforte's bullet had so nearly
gone through his heart. The words rang out in the quiet room with an
intensity and distinctness of tone not to be described. He had not even
guessed that she might love him. For one moment they looked at one
another, both white with passion, both trembling a little, the black
eyes and the blue both gleaming darkly. Then Ghisleri took the two hands
that were stretched out to meet his own, and each felt that the other's
were very cold. As though by a common instinct they both rose, and stood
a moment face to face. Then his arms went round her. He did not know
until long afterwards that when he kissed her he lifted her from the
ground.

It had all been sudden, strange, and unlike anything in his whole life,
unexpected beyond anything that had ever happened to him. Perhaps it was
so with her, too. They remembered little of what they said in those
first moments, but by and by, as they sat side by side on the sofa,
words came again.

"I knew it when you went away last summer," said Ghisleri. "And then I
thought I should never tell you."

"And I found it out when I left you," answered Laura. "I found that I
could not live without you and be happy. Did you guess nothing when I
made you come to me yesterday? Yesterday--only yesterday! It seems like
last year. Did you think it was mere friendship?"

"Yes, I thought it was that and nothing more--but such friendship as I
had never dreamed of."

"Nor any one else, perhaps," said Laura, with a happy smile. "For I
would have come, you know, in spite of every one. What would you have
done then, I wonder?"

"Then? Do not speak of yesterday. What could I have done? Could I have
told you that I loved you with such an accusation hanging over me? No,
you know that. It was only yesterday that I asked you to let me leave
you rather suddenly--did you not guess the reason?"

"I thought you were ill--no--well, it crossed my mind that you might be
a little, just a little, in love with me." She laughed.

"I felt ill afterwards. I was horrified when I thought how nearly I had
spoken."

"And why should you not have spoken, if it was in your heart?" asked
Laura, taking his hand again. "Why should you have thought, even for a
moment, that I could care what people said. You are you, and I am I,
whether the world is with us or against us. And I think, dear, that we
shall need the world very little now. Perhaps it will change its mind
and pretend it needs us."

"There is no doubt of that. It always happens so. Why should we care?"
He paused a moment, then, as his eyes met hers, the great dominating
passion broke out again: "Ah--darling--heart's heart--beloved! There are
not words to tell you how I love you and bless you, and worship you with
all my soul. What can I say, what can I do, to make you understand?"

"Love me, dear," she said, "and be faithful, as I will be." And their
lips met again.

They loved well and truly. Strange, some may say, that a love of that
good kind should have begun in friendship on the one side, and
indifference if not dislike on the other. But neither had understood
the other at all in the beginning. The world-tired and world-weary man
had not guessed at the real woman who lived so humanly, and could love
so passionately, and whom nature had clothed with such saint-like, holy
beauty as to make her seem a creature above all earthly feeling and all
mortal weakness. Her eyes had seemed fixed on far-distant, heavenly
sights, gazing upon the world only to wonder at its vanity and to loathe
its uncleanness. Her best and her greatest thoughts had been, he
fancied, of things altogether divine and supernatural, of love
celestial, of beatific vision, of the waters of paradise, of goodness
and of God. And something of all this there was in her, but there was
room for more both in heart and soul, and more was there--the deep,
human sympathy, the simple strength to love one man wholly, the
singleness of thought and judgment to see the good in him and love it,
and to understand and forgive the bad--and far down in the strong, quiet
nature was hidden the passion but newly awakened whose irresistible
force would have broken every barrier and despised every convention,
respecting only its own purity in taking what it loved and desired, and
would have at any cost, save the defilement of the soul it moved. Small
wonder that when it awoke at last unresisted and meeting its like, it
burst into sight with a sudden violence that startled the woman herself,
and amazed the man who had not suspected its existence.

But she, on her side, had learned to know him more slowly, not ever
analysing him, nor trying to guess at his motives, but merely seeing
little by little how great and wide was the discrepancy between the
hard, sceptical, cynic thoughts he expressed so readily, and the
constant, unchangingly brave effort of his heart to do in all cases what
was honourable, just, and brave according to his light. She saw him ever
striving, often failing, sometimes succeeding in the doing of good
actions, and she saw the strange love of truth and simplicity which
pervaded and primarily moved the most complicated character she had
ever known. He who at first had seemed to her the most worldly of all
worldly men, was in reality one whose whole life was lived in his own
heart for the one, or two, or three beings who had known how to touch
it. To all else he was absolutely and coldly indifferent. She had,
indeed, as she said, guessed at last that he loved her a little and more
than a little, and she had known for months before he spoke that he was
really a part of her life and of all her thoughts and actions. But she
had not asked herself what she would do or say when the great moment
came, any more than she had accused herself of being unfaithful to the
memory of the man whose dying words had bidden her to be happy, if she
would have him rest in peace. And now that she loved again, so
differently, so passionately, so much more humanly, she realised all the
great unselfishness of him who was gone and who had not been willing to
leave in her heart the least seed of future self-accusation or the least
ground for refusing anything good which life might have in store for
her. She saw that she could take what was offered her, freely, without
one regret, without one prick of conscience, or one passing thought that
Herbert Arden would have suffered an instant's pain could he have known
what was passing in the existence of the woman who had loved him so
well.

Late on that afternoon, Ghisleri went to see Maddalena dell' Armi. There
was a drop of bitterness in his cup yet, and something hard for him to
do, but he would not let the woman who had sacrificed everything for him
in days gone by learn the news from a stranger.

"I have come to tell you that I am going to marry Lady Herbert Arden,"
he said gently, as he took her hand.

She looked up quickly, and for a moment he felt a strange anxiety.

"I knew that you would, long ago," she answered. "I am glad of it. No,
do not think that is a phrase. I do not love you any more. Are you glad
to know it? I wish I did. But I am far too fond of you not to wish you
to be happy if you can. You are my dearest and best friend. It is
strange, is it not? Think of me kindly sometimes, in your new life.
And--and do not speak my name before her, if you can help it. She knows
what we were to each other once, and it might hurt her."

"How changed you are!" exclaimed Ghisleri. But he pressed the hand that
lay near him.

"I am trying to be a good woman," she answered simply.

"If there were more like you, the world would be a better place," he
said.

CHAPTER XXX.

"Just fancy, my dear," exclaimed Donna Maria Boccapaduli to the Marchesa
di San Giacinto on the evening of the following day, "Pietro Ghisleri is
going to marry Laura Arden, after all! That horrid, spiteful, wicked
Adele will die of rage. And they say that the old uncle is dead and has
left Laura one of those enormous English fortunes one reads about, and
they are going to take the first floor of your brother's palace--your
husband says he will buy it some day--I hope he will--and Laura is going
to rebuild Ghisleri's queer little castle in Tuscany. What a delightful
series of surprises! And two days ago every one believed he was on the
point of being sent to prison for ever so many years. But I was always
sure he was innocent, though of course one did not like to have him
about while the thing was going on."

"Giovanni said from the first that it was all an abominable lie,"
answered the Marchesa. "And Giovanni is generally right. What a charming
house it will be! Of course they will give balls."

"They say that in the confession there was a full account of the way in
which she started the story of the evil eye--what nonsense it was! You
have only to look into Laura Arden's eyes--do you think she is as
beautiful as Corona Saracinesca ever could have been?"

"No, no," exclaimed the Marchesa, who had known the Princess of Sant'
Ilario more than twenty years earlier. "No one was ever so beautiful as
Corona. Laura is much shorter, too, and that makes a difference. Laura
reminds one of a saint, and Corona looked an empress--or what empresses
are supposed to be like. But Laura is a beautiful woman. There is no one
to compare with her now but Christina Campodonico, and she is too thin.
What a good looking couple Ghisleri and his wife will make. He has grown
younger during the last two years."

"No wonder--when one thinks of the life he used to lead. Every time he
quarrelled with Maddalena he used to get at least five pounds thinner. I
wonder how she takes it."

"She is far too clever a woman to show what she thinks. But I know she
has not cared for him for a long time. They have not quarrelled for two
years at least, so of course there cannot be any love left on either
side. They still sit in corners occasionally. I suppose they like each
other. It is very odd. But I shall never understand those things."

The last remark was very true, for Flavia Saracinesca loved her giant
husband with all her heart and always had, and she knew also that Maria
Boccapaduli was the best of wives and mothers, if she was also the
greatest of gossips.

What the two ladies said to each other represented very well the world's
opinion, hastily formed, on the spur of the moment, to meet the
exigencies of the altered situation, but immutable now. It shrugged its
shoulders as it referred to its past errors of judgment, and said that
it could not have been expected to know that Adele Savelli was raving
mad when she was allowed to go everywhere just like a sane being,
although her eyes had undeniably had a wild look for some time, and she
might have been taken for a galvanised corpse. For of course it was now
quite certain that she had been out of her mind from the very beginning,
seeing that she had concocted her dreadful plot without the slightest
reason. As for the old story that Laura Arden loved Francesco, that was
downright nonsense! It was another of Adele's scandalous falsehoods--or
insane delusions, if you chose to be so good-natured as to use that
expression. If anything, it was Francesco who loved Laura, and he ought
to be ashamed of himself, considering what a fortune his wife had
brought him. But human nature was very ungrateful, especially when it
bore the name of Savelli. They did not seem at all thankful for that
dear Ghisleri's forbearance. He could have brought an action against
them for any number of things--defamation, false imprisonment--almost
anything. But he had acted with his usual generosity, and told every one
that he had always believed Adele to be insane, and bore no one the
least ill-will, since he had been put to no inconvenience whatever,
thanks to San Giacinto's timely action. And, said the world, when a man
consistently behaved as Pietro Ghisleri had done, he was certain to get
his reward. What could any man desire more than to have that dear,
beautiful, good Laura Arden for his wife, especially since she was so
immensely rich? Doubt the justice of Heaven after that, if you could! As
for the world, it meant to tell them both how sorry it was that it had
misunderstood them. Of course it would be sinful not to hope that Adele
might some day get well, but she had her deserts, and if she ever came
back to society, people would not care to meet her. She might go mad
again at any moment and try to ruin some one else, and might succeed the
next time, too.

That was the way in which most people talked during the season, and the
world acted up to its words as it generally does when there are balls
and dinners to be got by merely being consistent. It was much more
agreeable, too, to live on terms of pleasant intercourse with Laura and
her betrothed, and much easier, because it is always tiresome to keep up
a prejudice against really charming people.

But Adele was not mad as people said, and as the two families gave out.
There had undoubtedly been a strain of insanity through all her conduct,
and that might, some day, develop into real madness. She was sane enough
still, however, to suffer, and no such merciful termination to her
sufferings as the loss of her reason would be seemed at all imminent.
The strong will and acute intelligence had survived, for the poisonous
drug she loved had attacked the body, which was the weaker portion of
her being. Adele was hopelessly paralysed. The last great effort had
been too much for the over-strung nerves. Her hands still moved
convulsively, but she could not direct them at all. Her jaw had dropped,
as it almost always does in advanced cases of morphinism, and her lower
limbs were useless. Day after day she sat or lay before the fire in her
room at Castel Savello, as she might remain for years, tended by paid
nurses, and helpless to do the slightest thing for herself--through the
short days and the long nights of winter, hardly cheered by the sunshine
when spring came at last, longing for the end. It was indeed a dreadful
existence. Nothing to do, nothing to think of but the terrible black
past, nothing to occupy her, save the monotonous tracing back of her
present state to her first misdeeds, step by step, inch by inch, in the
cold light of an inexorable logic. It was hard to believe what her
confessor told her, that she should be grateful for having time and
reason left to repent of what she had done, and to expiate, in a
measure, the evil of her life. As yet, that was the only comfort she got
from any one. She had disgraced the name of Savelli, she was told, and
no suffering could atone for that. She felt that she was hated and
despised, and that although everything which money could do was done to
prolong her wretched being, her death was anticipated as a relief from
her detested presence in the household upon which she had brought such
shame. It would be hard to conceive a more fearful punishment than she
was made to undergo, forcibly kept alive by the constant care and
forethought of the most experienced persons, and allowed only just so
much of the morphia as was positively necessary. She had no longer the
power to grasp the little instrument. If she had been able to do that,
she would have found rest for ever, as she told herself. And they
cruelly diminished the dose, though they would not tell her by how much.
She would live longer, they said, if the quantity could be greatly
reduced. She begged, implored, entreated them not to torture her. But
they could hardly understand what she said, for the paralysis had made
her speech indistinct, and even if they could have distinguished the
meaning of all her words they would have paid no attention to them. The
orders were strict and were rigidly obeyed in every particular. She was
to be made to live as long as possible, and life meant torment,
unceasing, passing words to describe. How long it might last she had no
idea. She could only hope against hope that it might end soon. The news
of Laura's engagement and approaching marriage had been kept from her
for some time, it being feared that it might agitate her, but she was
told at last, and the knowledge of her step-sister's happiness was an
added bitterness in what remained to her of life. Vividly she saw them
before her, Laura in her fresh beauty, Ghisleri in his strength, little
Herbert with his father's eyes--the eyes that haunted Adele Savelli by
night and gazed upon her by day out of the shadowy corners of her room.
The three were ever before her moving, as she fancied, through a garden
of exquisite flowers, in a clear, bright light. That was doubtless the
way in which her diseased brain represented their happiness, for she
had loved flowers in the old days, and had associated everything that
was pleasant with them in her thoughts. But she hated them now, as she
hated everything, even to her own children, whom she refused to see
because they reminded her of better times, and her step-mother, whom she
was obliged to receive because the good lady would take no denial. The
Princess was, indeed, one of her most regular and kindly visitors. A
very constant and good woman, she would not and could not turn upon
Adele as all the rest had done, even to her own father, who in the
bitterness of his heart, had said that he would never see his daughter
again, alive or dead. But Adele hated her none the less, and dreaded her
long homilies and exhortations to be penitent, and the little printed
prayers and books of devotion she generally brought with her. For the
Princess was deeply concerned for the welfare of Adele's soul, and being
very much in earnest in the matter of religion, she did what she could
to save it according to her own views. Possibly her sermons might
hereafter bear fruit, but for the present the wretched woman who was
forced to listen to them found them almost unbearable. And so her
unhappy days dragged on without prospect of relief or termination, no
longer in any real meaning of the word a life at all, but only a
consequence, the result of what she had made herself when she had been
really alive.

The Princess of Gerano was the last person won over to a good opinion of
Ghisleri, but before the wedding day she had formally avowed to Laura
that she had been mistaken in him. She had been most of all impressed by
his dignity during the very great difficulties in which he had been
placed, and by his gentle forbearance when his innocence had been
established and when no one would have blamed him if he had cursed the
whole Savelli and Gerano tribe by every devil in Satan's calendar.
Instead, he had uniformly said that he had believed Donna Adele to be
mad, and that what had happened had therefore not come about by any
one's fault. She told Laura that there must be more good than any one
had dreamt of in a man who could act as Pietro did under the
circumstances, and perhaps she was right. At all events, she was
convinced and having once reached conviction she took him to her heart
and found that he was a man much more to her taste, and much more worthy
of Laura than she had supposed. For the rest, the match was an admirable
one. Ghisleri was certainly very far from rich, but he was by no means a
pauper, and what he possessed had been wisely administered. He was
neither a prince, nor the son of a princely house, but there was many a
prince of Europe, and more than one of the Holy Empire, too, whose
forefathers had been trudging behind the plough long after the Nobili
Ghisleri had built their tower and held their own in it for generations.
Then, too, whatever the Princess might think of his past and of his
reputation, he had rather a singular position in society, and was
respected as many were not, who possessed ten times as many virtues as
he. She admitted quite frankly that she had been wrong, and she made
ample amends for her former cold treatment of him by the liking she now
showed.

"I shall never be able to think of you as a serious married man, my dear
friend," said Gouache one day when Ghisleri was lounging in the studio
with a cigarette, after they had breakfasted together.

"I hope you will," was the laconic answer.

"No, I never shall. I have always had a sort of artistic satisfaction in
your character--for there was much that was really artistic about you,
especially as regards your taste in sin, which was perfect and perhaps
is still. But marriage is not at all artistic, my dear Ghisleri, until
it becomes unhappy, and the husband goes about with a revolver in every
pocket, and the wife with a scent bottle full of morphia in hers, and
they treat each other with distant civility in private, and with
effusive affection when a third person is present, especially the third
person who has contributed the most to producing the artistic effect in
question. Then the matter becomes interesting."

"Like your own marriage," suggested Ghisleri, with a laugh. Gouache and
Donna Faustina had not had an unkind thought for one another in nearly
twenty years of cloudless happiness.

"Ah, my friend, you must not take my case as an instance. There is
something almost comic in being as happy as I am. We should never make a
subject for a play writer, my wife and I, nor for a novelist either. No
man would risk his reputation for truthfulness by describing our life as
it is. But then, is there anything artistic about me? Nothing, except
that I am an artist. If I had any money I should be called an amateur.
To be an artist it is essential to starve--at one time or another. The
public never believe that a man who has not been dangerously hungry can
paint a picture, or play the fiddle, or write a book. If I had money I
would still paint--subjects like Michael Angelo's Last Judgment with the
souls of Donna Tullia, Del Ferice, and Donna Adele Savelli frying
prominently on the left, and portraits of my wife and myself in the
foreground on the right with perfectly new crowns of glory and beatific
smiles from ear to ear. If you go on as you have been living since the
reformation set in, you will have to bore yourself on our side too, with
a little variation in your crown to show what a sinner you have been."

"I am quite willing to be bored in your way," answered Ghisleri,
laughing again.

The marriage took place late in February, to the immense delight of the
world, and with the unanimous applause of all society. The newspapers
gave minute accounts of all the gowns, and of all the people who wore
them, and surprised Ghisleri by informing him that his ancestors had
been Guelphs, whereas he had some reason to believe that they had been
Ghibellines, and by creating him a commander of the order of Saint
Maurice and Saint Lazarus, whereas he was an hereditary Knight of
Malta.

The description of Laura was an extraordinary contribution to the
literature of beauty, and left nothing to be desired except a positive
or two to contrast with the endless string of superlatives.

Ghisleri and Laura left Rome with a little caravan of servants. Neither
the faithful Donald nor the equally faithful Bonifazio could be left
behind, and there was Laura's maid, and little Herbert's nurse, both
indispensable. The boy was overjoyed by the arrangement which gave him
the advantage of Pietro's society "for every day," as he expressed it,
and especially at the prospect of living all the summer in a real
castle. He was three years old and talked fluently, when he talked at
all--a strong, brave-looking little fellow, with clear brown eyes and a
well-shaped head, set on a sturdy frame that promised well for his
coming manhood. Ghisleri delighted in him, though he was not generally
amused by very small children. But they always came to him of their own
accord, which some people say is a sign of a good disposition in a man,
for children and animals are rarely mistaken in their likes and
dislikes.

San Giacinto and Gianforte Campodonico went to the station to see them
off after the wedding, and threw armfuls of roses and lilies of the
valley into the carriage before the door was finally shut by the guard
as the preliminary bell was sounded.

"Without you two, we two should not be here," said Ghisleri, as he shook
hands with them both.

"No," added Laura happily. "But we should have been together, if it had
been in prison. Good-bye, dear friends."

The train moved away, and the two men were left on the platform, waving
their hats to the last.

"That is a good thing well done," said San Giacinto, lighting a cigar.
"They will be happy together."

"Yes," said Gianforte, thoughtfully. "I think they will. Women love that
man, and he knows how to love them."

San Giacinto looked down at him and said nothing. He knew something of
Bianca Corleone's short, sad life, and of what had passed between her
brother and Ghisleri. He liked them both more than almost any of the
younger men he knew, and he honestly admired them for their behaviour
towards each other. He guessed what thoughts were passing through
Campodonico's mind as he looked after the train that was bearing away
Pietro Ghisleri, a married man at last.

For Gianforte was saying to himself that though he could neither wholly
forget nor freely forgive the past, he could have loved him had fate
been different. If ten years ago Ghisleri could have married Bianca, and
if Bianca could have lived, the two would have been happy, for even
Gianforte admitted that both had loved truly and well until the end. But
that was a dream and reality had raised the impassable barrier between
men who might have been firm friends. Their hands might stretch across
it, and grasp one another from time to time, and their eyes might read
good faith and the will to be generous each in the other's soul, but
nearer than that they could never be, for the sake of the beautiful dead
woman who would not be forgotten by either.

One more picture and one word more, and the curtain must fall at last.

In the early summer Laura and her husband were at Torre de' Ghisleri in
the Tuscan hills. The small castle was very habitable as compared with
its former condition, and small as it was by comparison with such
fortresses as Gerano, was by no means the mere ruined tower which many
people supposed it to be. The square grey keep from which it took its
name was flanked by a mass of smaller buildings, irregular and of
different epochs, all more or less covered with ivy or with creepers now
in bloom. The wide castle yard, in the midst of which stood the ancient
well with its wonderfully wrought yoke of iron, its heavy chain, and its
two buckets, had been converted into a garden long ago for the bride of
some Ghisleri of those days, and the plants and trees had run almost
wild for a hundred years, irregularly, as some had survived and others
had perished in the winter storms. Here a cypress, there an oak, further
on again three laurels, of the Laura Regia kind, side by side in a row,
then two cypresses again, growing up straight and slim and dark out of a
plot of close-cut grass. And there were roses everywhere, and stiff
camelia trees and feathery azaleas and all manner of bright, growing
things without order or symmetry, beautiful in their wildness. But in
and out there were narrow paths, in which two might walk together, and
these were now swept and cared for as they had never been in Pietro's
bachelor days. Other things were changed too, but not much, and for the
better. A woman's hand had touched, had waked a sweet new life in the
old place.

The afternoon sun, still above the low surrounding hills, cast the
shadow of the tower across the lawn and upon the flowers beyond. There
were chairs before the arched doorway, and a garden table. Laura sat
watching the swallows as they flew down from the keep to the garden and
upwards again in their short, circling flight. A book she had not even
thought of reading lay beside her. At her elbow sat Ghisleri in a white
jacket, with a straw hat tilted over his eyes which little Herbert was
trying to get at, as he rode on Pietro's knee. The man's face had
changed wonderfully during the last six months. All the hardness was
gone from it, and the contemptuous, discontented look that had once come
so readily was never seen now.

"You never told me it was so beautiful," said Laura, still watching the
swallows and gazing at the flowers. "When we first came, and I looked
out of the window in the morning, I thought I had never seen any place
so lovely. You used to talk of it in such a careless way."

"It is you who make it beautiful for me," answered Ghisleri. "A year ago
it seemed dull and ugly enough, when I used to sit here and think of
you."

"I was not the first woman you had thought of, on this very spot, I
daresay," said Laura, with a happy laugh.

"No, dear, you were not." He smiled as he admitted the fact. "But you
were the last, and unless you turn out to be as bad as you seem to be
good, you will have no successor."

"What's successor mean?" lisped Herbert, desisting from his attempt to
get at the hat and listening.

"Somebody who comes after another," answered Laura. "I will try to be
good, dear," she said to Ghisleri, laughing again.

"So'll I," exclaimed Herbert promptly, doubtless supposing that it was
expected of him.

"Yes," said Ghisleri, thoughtfully. "I have sat here many a time for
hours, dreaming about you, and wishing for you, and trying to see you
just as you are now, in a chair beside me. Yes, I have thought of other
women here, but it is very long since I wished to see one there--if I
ever did. I hardly ever came here when I was very young."

There was a pause. His voice had a little sadness in it as he spoke the
last words--not the sadness of regret, but of reverence. He was thinking
of Bianca Corleone. Then Laura laid her hand upon his arm, and her eyes
met his, for he turned as he felt her touch.

"Dear, you would have been happy with her," she said very gravely. "But
I will be all to you that woman can be to man, if I live to show you how
I love you."

"No woman ever was what you are to me already," he answered. "No woman,
living or dead. You have done everything for me since I first knew you
well, and you did much more than you know before I knew what you really
were. There can be nothing in the world beyond what you have given, and
give me."

"I wish I were quite, quite sure of that," said Laura, still looking
into his face.

"You must be--you shall be!" he said, with sudden energy, and his
glance lightened with passion. "You must. Words are not much, I know,
nor oaths, nor anything of that sort. But I will tell you this--and by
the light and goodness of God, it is true. If I could doubt for one
moment that I love you beyond any love I have ever dreamed of, I would
tear out my heart with my hands!"

"What's love?" asked little Herbert timidly, for he was afraid that it
must be something very dreadful as he watched Ghisleri's pale face and
blazing eyes.

But the lips that might have answered could not; they were sealing the
truth they had spoken, upon others that had uttered a doubt for the last
time.

THE END.

LIST OF WORKS

BY

MR. F. MARION CRAWFORD.

IN THE PRESS. A NEW NOVEL.

PIETRO GHISLERI.

12mo, cloth, $1.00. In the uniform edition of Mr. Crawford's Novels.

THE NOVEL. WHAT IT IS.

  By F. MARION CRAWFORD, author of "Children of the King,"
    "Saracinesca," etc., etc. Uniform with the pocket edition of William
    Winter's Works. With photogravure portrait. 18mo, cloth, 75 cents.

    *.* Also a large-paper limited edition. 12mo, $2.00.

"Mr. Crawford in the course of this readable little essay touches upon
such topics as realism and romanticism, the use of dialect, the abuse of
scientific information, the defects of historical fiction. Mr.
Crawford's discussion of what does and what does not constitute the
novel will be read with eager interest by the large company of his
sincere admirers in this country."--_Beacon._

CHILDREN OF THE KING.

A Tale of Southern Italy. 12mo, cloth, $1.00.

"A sympathetic reader cannot fail to be impressed with the dramatic
power of this story. The simplicity of nature, the uncorrupted truth of
a soul, have been portrayed by a master-hand. The suddenness of the
unforeseen tragedy at the last renders the incident of the story
powerful beyond description. One can only feel such sensations as the
last scene of the story incites. It may be added that if Mr. Crawford
has written some stories unevenly, he has made no mistakes in the
stories of Italian life. A reader of them cannot fail to gain a clearer,
fuller acquaintance with the Italians and the artistic spirit that
pervades the country."--M.L.B. in _Syracuse Journal_.

MACMILLAN & CO. take pleasure in announcing that they have added the
following volumes (with the author's latest revisions) to their uniform
edition of the Works of Mr. F. Marion Crawford, thereby enabling them to
issue a complete edition of all his novels:

A ROMAN SINGER. New Edition, revised and corrected.

TO LEEWARD. PAUL PATOFF.

AN AMERICAN POLITICIAN. New Edition, revised and partly rewritten.

F. MARION CRAWFORD'S NOVELS

NEW UNIFORM AND COMPLETE EDITION.

12mo, cloth. Price $1.00 each.

"Mr. F. Marion Crawford is," as Mr. Andrew Lang says, "the most
'versatile and various' of modern novelists. He has great adaptability
and subtleness of mind, and whether dealing with life in modern Rome or
at the court of Darius at Shushan, in the wilds of India or in the
fashionable quarter of New York, in the Black Forest or in a lonely
parish of rural England, he is equally facile and sure of his ground; a
master of narrative style, he throws a subtle charm over all he
touches."

_TO BE PUBLISHED IN JUNE_:

PIETRO GHISLERI.

  Children of the King.

  Don Orsino,
    A sequel to "Saracinesca" and "Sant' Ilario."

  The Three Fates.

  The Witch of Prague.

  Khaled.

  A Cigarette-maker's Romance.

  Sant' Ilario,
    A sequel to "Saracinesca."

  Greifenstein.

  With the Immortals.

  To Leeward.

  A Roman Singer.

  An American Politician.

  Paul Patoff.

  Marzio's Crucifix.

  Saracinesca.

  A Tale of a Lonely Parish.

  Zoroaster.

  Dr. Claudius.

  Mr. Isaacs.

WORKS BY HENRY JAMES.

A NEW VOLUME OF STORIES.

THE LESSON OF THE MASTER,
AND OTHER STORIES.

12mo, cloth extra, $1.00.

THE PRINCESS CASAMASSIMA.

12mo, $1.25.

We find no fault with Mr. Henry James's "Princess Casamassima." It is a
great novel; it is his greatest, and it is incomparably the greatest
novel of the year in our language.... From first to last we find no
weakness in the book; the drama works simply and naturally; the causes
and effects are logically related; the theme is made literature without
ceasing to be life.--_Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Editor's Study._

THE REVERBERATORS.

12mo, $1.00.

The public will be glad to find Mr. James in his best vein. One is
thankful again that there is so brilliant an American author to give us
entertaining sketches of life.--_Boston Herald._

THE ASPERN PAPERS,
AND OTHER STORIES.

12mo, $1.00.

The stories are told with that mastery of the art of story-telling which
their writer possesses in a conspicuous degree.--_Literary World._

PARTIAL PORTRAITS.

12mo, $1.75.

Henry James has never appeared to better advantage as an author than in
this delightful volume of critical essays.--_Boston Saturday Evening
Gazette._

THE BOSTONIANS.

12mo, $1.25.

Unquestionably "The Bostonians" is not only the most brilliant and
remarkable of Mr. James's novels, but it is one of the most important of
recent contributions to literature.--_Boston Courier._

A LONDON LIFE,
AND OTHER STORIES.

12mo, $1.00.

His short stories, which are always bright and sparkling, are
delightful.... Will bear reading again and again.--_Mail and Express._

FRENCH POETS AND NOVELISTS.

12mo, $1.50.

WORKS BY MRS. HUMPHRY WARD.

Mrs. Humphry Ward's New Novel,

THE HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE.

12mo, cloth, extra, $1.00.

ROBERT ELSMERE.

12mo, cloth, $1.00; Library Edition, 2 vols., $3.00.

The book is a drama in which every page is palpitating with intense and
real life. It is a realistic novel in the highest sense of the
word.--_The Whitehall Review._

MR. GLADSTONE writes of this Novel in the "Nineteenth Century."

The strength of the book seems to lie in an extraordinary wealth of
diction, never separated from thought; in a close and searching faculty
of social observation; in generous appreciation of what is morally good,
impartially exhibited in all directions; above all, in the sense of
omission with which the writer is evidently possessed, and in the
earnestness and persistency of purpose with which through every page and
line it is pursued. The book is eminently an offspring of the time, and
will probably make a deep, or at least a very sensible impression; not,
however, among mere novel-readers, but among those who share, in
whatever sense, the deeper thought of the period.

AMIEL'S JOURNAL.

THE JOURNAL INTIME OF HENRI-FREDERIC AMIEL.

_TRANSLATED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES. WITH A PORTRAIT._

New and Cheaper Edition. 12mo, $1.25.

A wealth of thought and a power of expression which would make the
fortune of a dozen less able works.--_Churchman._

A work of wonderful beauty, depth, and charm.... Will stand beside such
confessions as St. Augustine's and Pascal's.... It is a book to converse
with again and again: fit to stand among the choicest volumes that we
esteem as friends of our souls.--_Christian Register._

MISS BRETHERTON.

12mo, cloth (uniform with "Robert Elsmere"), $1.25.

It shows decided character and very considerable originality.... It is
full of earnest womanly sympathy with the ambitions of a beautiful girl
placed in false and difficult positions by good fortune, which may
possibly turn to misfortune.... We are impressed throughout by the
refinement and the evidence of culture which underlie all the book,
though they are seldom or never obtruded.--_London Times._

MILLY AND OLLY;

OR, A HOLIDAY AMONG THE MOUNTAINS.

16mo, $1.00.

_ILLUSTRATED BY MRS. ALMA-TADEMA._

The present season will scarcely see a more charming addition to
children's literature than this of Mrs. Ward's. Her book has seemed to
us all that a Christmas gift for a child should be.--_Academy._

GOLDEN TREASURY SERIES.

UNIFORMLY PRINTED IN 18MO, WITH VIGNETTE TITLES ENGRAVED ON STEEL.

_New and Cheaper Edition. $1.00 each volume._

  THE GOLDEN TREASURY OF THE BEST SONGS AND LYRICAL POEMS. By F.T.
    PALGRAVE.

  THE CHILDREN'S GARLAND. Selected by COVENTRY PATMORE.

  THE BOOK OF PRAISE. Selected by the EARL OF SELBORNE.

  THE FAIRY BOOK. By the Author of "John Halifax, Gentleman."

  THE BALLAD BOOK. Edited by WILLIAM ALLINGHAM.

  THE JEST BOOK. Selected by MARK LEMON.

  BACON'S ESSAYS. By W. ALDIS WRIGHT, M.A.

  THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. By JOHN BUNYAN.

  THE SUNDAY BOOK OF POETRY. Selected by C.F. ALEXANDER.

  A BOOK OF GOLDEN DEEDS. By the Author of "The Heir of Redclyffe."

  THE ADVENTURES OF ROBINSON CRUSOE. Edited by J.W. CLARK, M.A.

  THE REPUBLIC OF PLATO. Translated by J. LL. DAVIES, M.A., and D.J.
    VAUGHAN.

  THE SONG BOOK. Words and Tunes selected by JOHN HULLAH.

  LA LYRE FRANÇAISE. Selected, with Notes, by G. MASSON.

  TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS. By AN OLD BOY.

  A BOOK OF WORTHIES. Written anew by the Author of "The Heir of
    Redclyffe."

  GUESSES AT TRUTH. By TWO BROTHERS.

  THE CAVALIER AND HIS LADY.

  SCOTTISH SONG. Compiled by MARY CARLYLE AITKEN.

  DEUTSCHE LYRIK. Selected by Dr. BUCHHEIM.

  CHRYSOMELA. A Selection from the Lyrical Poems of Robert Herrick.
    Arranged by F.T. PALGRAVE.

  SELECTED POEMS OF MATTHEW ARNOLD.

  THE STORY OF THE CHRISTIANS AND MOORS IN SPAIN. By CHARLOTTE M. YONGE.

  LAMB'S TALES FROM SHAKESPEARE. Edited by the Rev. A. AINGER.

  SHAKESPEARE'S SONGS AND SONNETS. Edited, with Notes, by F.T. PALGRAVE.

  POEMS OF WORDSWORTH. Chosen and Edited by MATTHEW ARNOLD.

  POEMS OF SHELLEY. Edited by STOPFORD A. BROOKE.

  THE ESSAYS OF JOSEPH ADDISON. Chosen and Edited by JOHN RICHARD GREEN.

  POETRY OF BYRON. Chosen and Arranged by MATTHEW ARNOLD.

  SIR THOMAS BROWNE'S RELIGIO MEDICI, ETC. Edited by W.A. GREENHILL.

  THE SPEECHES AND TABLE-TALK OF THE PROPHET MOHAMMED. Chosen and
    Translated by STANLEY LANE POOLE.

  SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. Edited by SIDNEY
    COLVIN.

  SELECTIONS FROM COWPER'S POEMS. With an Introduction by Mrs. OLIPHANT.

  LETTERS OF WILLIAM COWPER. Edited by Rev. W. BENHAM.

  THE POETICAL WORKS OF JOHN KEATS. Edited by F.T. PALGRAVE.

  THE TRIAL AND DEATH OF SOCRATES. Translated into English by E.J.
    CHURCH, M.A.

  CHILDREN'S TREASURY OF ENGLISH SONG. Edited by F. T. PALGRAVE.

  IN MEMORIAM.

  TENNYSON'S LYRICAL POEMS. Edited by F.T. PALGRAVE.

  PLATO, PHÆDRUS, LYSIS, AND PROTAGORAS. Translated by Rev. J. WRIGHT.

  THEOCRITUS, BION, AND MOSCHUS. In English Prose. By ANDREW LANG, M.A.

  BALLADEN UND ROMANZEN. Edited by C.A. BUCHHEIM, Ph.D.

  LYRIC LOVE. Edited by WILLIAM WATSON.

  HYMNS AND OTHER POEMS. By F.T. PALGRAVE.

  THE ART OF WORLDLY WISDOM. BALTHASAR GRACIAN.

MACMILLAN & CO.,

112 FOURTH AVENUE, NEW YORK.

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:

Obvious typographical and printer errors have been corrected without
comment.

On page 324: There was no opening quote mark to match the closing quote
at the end of the first paragraph on this page. The text does not
clearly define where the opening quote mark should be, and so it has
been added before the phrase: "who had never known...."

On the first page of the Ads section, an asterism is represented in this
plain-text version as *.*

Other than the above, no effort has been made to standardize internal
inconsistencies in spelling, capitalization, punctuation, grammar, etc.
The author's usage is preserved as found in the original publication.

End of Project Gutenberg's Pietro Ghisleri, by F. (Francis) Marion Crawford