'No, I am dependent on my father.'

'Then—pardon my practical way of looking at the affair,' said Tebaldo, accentuating his smile a little, 'but, as a mere formality, I think that there must be some proposal from the head of your house. You see, you and Vittoria will be dependent on an allowance from your father, who, again, is doubtless dependent on your grandfather, Prince Saracinesca. As my poor sister has nothing, there must necessarily be some understanding about such an allowance.'

'It is just,' answered Orsino, but he bit his lip. 'My father has an independent estate,' he added, by way of correction. 'And my mother has all the Astrardente property.'

'There is no lack of fortune on your side, my dear Don Orsino. You are, of course, sure of your father's consent, so that an interview with him will be a mere formality. For myself, I give you my hand heartily and wish you well. I shall be happy to meet the Prince of Sant' Ilario at any time which may be agreeable to him.'

Orsino felt that the man had got the better of him, but he had to take the proffered hand. Mentally he wondered what strange monster this Tebaldo Pagliuca could be within himself, to grasp the hand that had killed his brother less than a week ago, welcoming its owner as his brother-in-law. But he saw that the very simple and natural request for an interview with his father would probably prove a source of almost insurmountable difficulty.

'I had hoped,' he said, 'to have had the pleasure of seeing Donna Vittoria here this evening. I shall be obliged to return to Sicily in a day or two. May I see her at your house before I go?'

Tebaldo hesitated a moment.

'You will find her at home with my mother to-morrow afternoon,' he answered almost immediately. 'I see no reason why you should not call.'

'But your mother—' Orsino stopped short.

'What were you going to say?' enquired Tebaldo, blandly.

'You will be kind enough to tell her that I am coming, will you not?' Orsino saw that he was getting into a terribly difficult situation.

'Oh yes,' Tebaldo answered. 'I shall take great pleasure in announcing you. She is better, I am glad to say, and I have no doubt that this good news will completely restore her.'

Orsino felt a vague danger circling about his heart, as a hawk sails in huge curves that narrow one by one until he strikes his prey. The man was subtle and ready to take advantage of the smallest circumstance with unerring foresight while wholly concealing his real intention.

'Come at three o'clock, if it is convenient,' concluded Tebaldo. 'And now—' he looked at his watch—'you will forgive me if I leave you. I have an engagement which I must keep.'

He shook hands again with great cordiality, and they parted. Tebaldo went out directly, without returning to the inner rooms, but Orsino went back to stay half an hour longer. Out of curiosity he got a friend to introduce him to Miss Lizzie Slayback.

The girl looked up with a bright smile when she heard the great name.

'I have so much wanted to meet you,' she said quickly. 'You are the man who killed the brigand, are you not? Do tell me all about it!'

He was annoyed, for he could not escape, but he resigned himself and told the story in the fewest possible words.

'How interesting!' exclaimed Miss Slayback. 'And we all thought he was the brother of Don Tebaldo. You know Don Tebaldo, of course? I think he is a perfect beauty, and so kind.'

Orsino had never thought of Tebaldo Pagliuca as either kind or beautiful, and he said something that meant nothing in reply.

'Oh, you are jealous of him!' cried the girl, laughing. 'Of course! All the men are.'

Orsino got away as soon as he could. As a necessary formality he was introduced to Mrs. Slayback. He asked her an idle question about how she liked Rome, such as all Romans ask all foreigners about whom they know nothing.

'How late is it safe to stay here?' she asked, with singular directness, by way of an answer.

'Rome becomes unhealthy in August,' said Orsino. 'The first rains bring the fever. Until then it is perfectly safe, and one can return in October without danger. The bad time lasts for six weeks to two months at most.'

'Thank you,' answered Mrs. Slayback with a little laugh. 'We shall not stay till August, I think. It would be too hot. I suppose that it is hot in June.'

'Yes,' said Orsino, absently. 'I suppose that you would find it hot in June.'

He wanted to be alone, and he left her as soon as he could. He walked home in the warm night and reviewed his position, which had suddenly become complicated. It was clear that he must now speak to his father, since he had committed the folly of making his proposal to Tebaldo. It was almost certain that his father would refuse to hear of the marriage on any consideration, and he knew that his mother disapproved of it. It was clear also that he could not avoid going to call upon Vittoria and her mother on the following afternoon, but he could not understand why Tebaldo had pretended to be so sure that he should be received, when he himself was tolerably certain that Maria Carolina would refuse to see him. That, however, was a simple matter. He should ask for her, and on being told that she could not receive, he should leave his card and go away. But that would not help him to see Vittoria, and it was in order to see her alone before he left that he had suddenly determined to make his proposal to Tebaldo.

He had got himself into a rather serious scrape, and he was not gifted with more tact than the rest of his bold but tactless race. He therefore decided upon the only course which is open to such a man, which was to take his difficulties, one by one, in their natural order and deal with each as best he could.

He had nothing more to hope from his mother's intervention. He knew her unchangeable nature and was well aware that she would now hold her position to the last. She would not oppose his wishes, and that was a great deal gained, but she would not help him either.

Early on the following morning he went to Sant' Ilario's own room, feeling that he had a struggle before him in which he was sure to be defeated, but which he could not possibly avoid. His father was reading the paper over his coffee by the open window, a square, iron-grey figure clad in a loose grey jacket. The room smelt of coffee and cigarettes. Sant' Ilario's perfect contentment and happiness in his surroundings made him a particularly difficult person to approach suddenly with a crucial question. His serene felicity made a sort of resisting shell around him, through which it was necessary to break before he himself could be reached.

He looked up and nodded as Orsino entered. Such visits from his sons were of daily occurrence, and he expected nothing unusual. It was of no use to beat about the bush, and Orsino attacked the main question at once.

'I wish to speak to you about a serious matter, father,' he said, sitting down opposite Sant' Ilario.

'I wish Sicily were in China, and San Giacinto in Peru,' was the answer.

'It has nothing to do with San Giacinto,' said Orsino. 'I want to be married.'

Sant' Ilario looked up sharply, in surprise. His eldest son's marriage was certainly a serious matter.

'To whom?' he enquired.

'To Vittoria d'Oriani,' said Orsino, squaring his naturally square jaw, in anticipation of trouble.

Sant' Ilario dropped the paper, took his cigarette from his lips, and crossed one leg over the other angrily.

'I was afraid so,' he said. 'You are a fool. Go back to Sicily and do not talk nonsense.'

The Saracinesca men had never minced matters in telling each other what they thought.

'I expected that you would say something like that,' answered Orsino.

'Then why the devil did you come to me at all?' enquired his father, his grey hair bristling and his eyebrows meeting.

But Orsino was not like him, being colder and slower in every way, and less inclined to anger.

'I came to you because I had no choice but to come,' he answered quietly. 'I love her, she loves me, and we are engaged to be married. It was absolutely necessary that I should speak to you.'

'I do not see the necessity, since you knew very well that I should not consent.'

'You must consent in the end, father—'

'I will not. That ends it. It is the worst blood in Italy, and some of the worst blood in Europe. Corleone was a scoundrel, his father was a traitor—'

'That does not affect Donna Vittoria so far as I can see,' said Orsino, stubbornly.

'It affects the whole family. Besides, if they are decent people, they will not consent either. It is not a week since you killed Ferdinando Pagliuca—Vittoria's brother—'

'They deny it.'

'They lie, I believe.'

'That is their affair,' said Orsino.

'The fact does not beautify their family character, either,' retorted Sant' Ilario. 'With the whole of Europe to choose from, excepting a dozen royalties, you must needs fall in love with the sister of a brigand, the niece of a scoundrel, the grand-daughter of—'

'Yes—you have said all that. But I have promised to marry her, and that is a side of the question of which you cannot get rid so easily.'

'You did not promise her my consent, I suppose. I will not give it. If you choose to marry without it, I cannot hinder you. You can take her and live on her dowry, if she has one.'

'She has nothing.'

'Then you may live by your wits. You shall have nothing more from me.'

'If the wits of the family had ever been worth mentioning, I should ask nothing more,' observed Orsino, coldly. 'Unfortunately they are not a sufficient provision. You are forcing me into the position of breaking my word to a woman.'

'If neither her parents nor yours will consent to your marriage, you are not breaking your engagement. They will not give her to you if you cannot support her. Of course you can wait until I die. Judging from my father, and from my own state of health at present, it will be a long engagement.'

Orsino was silent for a moment. He did not lose his temper even now, but he tried to devise some means of moving Sant' Ilario.

'I spoke to Tebaldo Pagliuca last night,' he said, after a pause. 'In spite of what you seem to expect, he accepted my proposition, so far as he could.'

'Then he is an even greater villain than I had supposed him to be,' returned Sant' Ilario.

'That is no reason why you should force me to humiliate myself to him—'

'Send him to me, if you are afraid to face him. I will explain the situation—I will—'

'You will simply quarrel with him, father. You would insult him in the first three words you spoke.'

'That is very probable,' said Sant' Ilario. 'I should like to. He has been scheming to catch you for his sister ever since the evening they first dined here. But I did not think you were such a childish idiot as to be caught so easily.'

'No one has caught me, as you call it. I love Vittoria d'Oriani, and she loves me. You have no right to keep us apart because you did not approve of her grandfather and uncle.'

'No right? I have no right, you say? Then who has?'

'No one,' answered Orsino, simply.

'I have the power, at all events,' retorted his father. 'I would not have you marry her—would not? I will not. It is materially impossible for you to marry with no money at all, and you shall have none. Talk no more about it, or I shall positively lose my temper.'

It occurred to Orsino that it was positively lost already, but as he kept his own, he did not say so. He rose from his seat and calmly lighted a cigarette.

'Then there is nothing more to be said, I suppose,' he observed.

'Nothing more on that subject,' answered Sant' Ilario. 'Not that I have the least objection to saying over again all I have said,' he added.

'At all events, you do not pretend that you have any objection to Donna Vittoria herself, do you?'

'No—except that she has made a fool of you. Most women make fools of men, sooner or later.'

'Perhaps, but you should be the last person to say so, I think.'

'I married with my father's consent,' replied Sant' Ilario, as though the fact were an unanswerable argument. 'If I had made to him such a proposition as you are making to me, he would have answered in a very different way, my boy, I can tell you!'

'In what way?' asked Orsino.

'In what way? Why, he would have been furiously angry! He would have called me a fool and an idiot, and would have told me to go to the devil.'

Orsino laughed in spite of himself.

'What are you laughing at?' enquired Sant' Ilario, sharply, growing hot again in a moment.

'Those are exactly the words you have been saying to me,' answered Orsino.

'I? Have I? Well—that only proves that I am like my father, then. And a very good thing, too. It is a pity that you are not more like me than you are. We should understand each other better.'

'We may yet understand each other,' said Orsino, lingering in the vain hope of finding some new argument.

'No doubt. But not about this matter.'

Seeing that it was useless to prolong the discussion, Orsino went away to think matters over. He had been quite sure of his father's answer, of course, but that did not improve the situation at all. It had been a necessity of conscience and honour to go to him, after speaking to Tebaldo on the previous evening, because it was not possible to take his answer for granted. But now it became equally a duty of honour and self-respect to communicate to Tebaldo what Sant' Ilario had said, and to do so was a most unpleasant humiliation. He cared nothing for the fact that his father's refusal might almost seem like an insult to Tebaldo Pagliuca, though he could not quite see how he could make the communication without giving offence. The real trouble was that he should be practically obliged to take back what he had said, and to say that after all, in the face of his family's objections, he could not marry Vittoria at present, and saw no prospect of being able to marry her in the future.

At the same time he wondered how much Tebaldo had told his mother. She also, according to Vittoria's statement, would oppose their marriage with all her power. Yet Tebaldo had professed himself quite certain that she would receive Orsino when he called. There was something mysterious about that.

Orsino made up his mind that he would ask for Tebaldo a quarter of an hour before the time named by the latter, and get over the disagreeable interview before making an attempt to have a word with Vittoria alone.

CHAPTER XVI

Orsino reached the Corleone's house before three o'clock on that afternoon. They lived on the second floor of a large new building in the Via Venti Settembre, 'Twentieth of September Street,' as it would be in English, so named to commemorate the taking of Rome on that day in 1870.

A porter in livery asked Orsino whom he wished to see, rang an electric bell, spoke through a speaking-tube, took off his cocked hat in order to listen for the answer, and finally told Orsino that he would be received. There is always something mysterious to the looker-on about any such means of communication at a distance, when he does not hear the voice speaking from the other end.

It would not have surprised Orsino, if he had heard, as the porter did, that the answer came back in Tebaldo Pagliuca's voice; but he would then not have been so much surprised, either, at being admitted so readily. Tebaldo, in fact, had told the porter to send the visitor up, for he had been waiting for the porter's bell; but he then told his servant that a gentleman was coming upstairs to see him, who was to be shown into the drawing-room at once, whither Tebaldo himself would presently come.

Tebaldo had been quite sure that his mother and sister would be at home at that hour, since the former was not yet well enough to go out; he had been equally sure that his mother would refuse to receive Orsino; he had, therefore, so arranged matters that Orsino should be ushered into her presence unexpectedly, and to accomplish this he had lain in wait in the neighbourhood of the speaking-tube, which came up into the hall of his apartment just inside the door opening upon the stairs.

So far the explanation of what happened is quite simple. It would be a different thing to unravel the complicated and passionate workings of Tebaldo's intricate thoughts. In the first place, in spite of his behaviour in public, he hated Orsino with all his heart for having unwittingly killed his brother, and, important as the advantages would be if Vittoria married the heir of the great house, they by no means outweighed his desire for revenge.

Tebaldo was not an inhuman monster, though a specialist might have said that he had a strong tendency to criminality. He was capable of affection in a certain degree, apart from mere passion. He was unscrupulous, treacherous, tortuous in his reasonings; but he was above all tenacious, and he was endowed with much boldness and daring, of the kind which cast a romantic glamour over crimes of violence.

It had been one thing to threaten Ferdinando with the law, if he refused to sign the deed by which Camaldoli was to be sold. It was quite another matter to give his sister to the man who had shot Ferdinando like a wild animal. There the man's humanity had revolted, though Orsino had not guessed it, when they had met and talked together at the party on the previous evening.

On the other hand, his cunning bade him not to put himself in the position of refusing Orsino's request, seeing that he denied his own relationship with his dead brother. It was easy enough for him to bring Orsino and his mother unexpectedly face to face, and to let the young man hear from her lips what she thought of such a union, if indeed the interview should ever get so far as that. Tebaldo could then calmly intrench himself behind his mother's refusal, and yet maintain outward relations with Orsino, while waiting for an opportunity to avenge his brother, which was sure to present itself sooner or later.

Orsino mounted the stairs resolutely, squaring himself to meet Tebaldo and tell him of Sant' Ilario's refusal as briefly and courteously as he could. At the same time he was half painfully and half happily conscious of Vittoria's presence in the house. The pain and the pleasure were intermittent and uncertain.

A servant was waiting and holding the door ajar.

'Don Tebaldo said that he would see me,' said Orsino, mechanically.

The man bowed in silence, shut the door upon the landing, and then led the way through the little hall and the antechamber beyond, opened a door, and stood aside to let Orsino pass.

As the door closed behind him, he heard a short and sharp cry in the room, like the warning note of certain fierce wild animals. It was followed instantly by an exclamation of terror in another voice. At the same instant he was aware that there were two women in the room,—Maria Carolina d'Oriani and her daughter.

The mother had been lying on a couch, and on seeing him had started up, supporting herself on her hand. The room was half darkened by the partly closed blinds.

Maria Carolina was dressed in a loose black gown with wide sleeves that showed her thin, bare arms, for the weather was warm. Her white face was thin and ghastly, and her dark eyes gleamed as they caught a little of the light from the window. Orsino stood still two paces from the door.

'Assassin!'

The one word—a word of the people, hissed from her dry lips with such horror and hatred as Orsino had never heard. There was silence then. Vittoria, as white as her mother, and in an agony of terror, had risen, shrinking and convulsed, grasping with one hand the heavy inner curtain of the window.

Slowly the lean, dark woman left her seat, raising one thin arm, and pointing straight at Orsino's face, her head thrown back, her parched lips parted and showing her teeth.

'Murderer!' she cried. 'You dare to show me your face—you dare to show me the hands that killed my son! You dare to stand there before God and me—to hear God's curse on you and mine—to answer for blood—'

Her lips and throat were dry, so that she could not speak, but choked, and swallowed convulsively, and her eyes grew visibly red. Orsino was riveted to the spot and speechless. For a moment he did not even think of Vittoria, cowering back against the curtain. The woman's worn face was changed in her immense wrath, and he could not take his eyes from her. She found her voice again, painfully, fighting against the fiery dryness that choked her.

'With his innocent blood on your hands, you come here—you come to face his very mother in her sacred grief—to see my tears, to tear out the last shreds of my heart, to revile my mother's soul—to poison the air that breathes sorrow! But you think that I am weak, that I am only a woman. You think, perhaps, that I shall lose my senses and faint. It would be no shame, but I am not of such women.'

Her voice gathered fulness but sank in tone as she went on. Still Orsino said nothing, for it was impossible to interrupt her. She must say her say, and curse her curse out, and he must listen, for he would not turn and go.

'You have come,' she said, speaking quickly and with still rising fury. 'I am here to meet you. I am here to demand blood of you for blood. I am here to curse you, and your name, and your race, your soul and their souls, dead and living, in the name of God, who made my son, of Christ, who died for him, of the Holy Saints, who could not save him from the devil you are—in the name of God, and of man, and of the whole world, I curse you! May your life be a century of cruel deaths, and when you die at last with a hundred years of agony in you, may your immortal soul be damned everlastingly a thousand-fold! May you pray and not be heard, may you repent and not be forgiven, may you receive the Holy Sacraments to your damnation and the last Unction with fire in hell! May every living creature that bears your name come to an evil before your eyes, your father—your mother—the men and women of your house, and your unborn children! Blood—I would have blood! May your blood pay for mine, and your soul for my son's soul, who died unconfessed in his sins! Go, assassin! go, murderer of the innocent! go out into the world with my mother's curse on you, and may every evil thing in earth and hell be everlastingly with you and yours, living and dead! Blood!—blood!—blood!'

Her voice was suddenly and horribly extinguished in the last word, as an instrument that is strained too far cracks in a last discordant note and is silent. She stood one moment more, with outstretched hand and fingers that would still make the sign of one more unspoken curse, and then, without warning, she fell back in a heap towards the couch.

Simultaneously, Vittoria and Orsino sprang forward to catch her, but even before Vittoria could reach her she lay motionless on the floor, her head on the edge of the sofa, her hands stretched out on each side of her, her thin fingers twitching desperately at the carpet. A moment later, they were still too, and she was unconscious, as the two began to lift her up.

For an instant neither looked at the other, but as Orsino laid the fainting woman upon the couch, he raised his eyes to Vittoria's. The girl was still overcome with fear at the whole situation, and trembling with horror at her mother's frightful outbreak of rage and hate. She shook her head in a frightened, hopeless way, as she bent down again and arranged a cushion for Maria Carolina.

'Why did you come—why did you come?' she almost moaned. 'I told you—'

Orsino saw that if there was to be any explanation, he must seize the opportunity at once.

'I felt that I must see you before leaving,' he answered. 'Last night I told your brother Tebaldo that we were engaged to each other. He asked me to come at three o'clock, and said that your mother would receive me—I sent up word to ask—I was told to come up.'

'We knew nothing of your coming. It must have been the servant's fault.' She did not suspect her brother of having purposely brought about the meeting. 'Now go!' she added quickly. 'Go, before she comes to herself. Do not let her see you again. Go—please go!'

'Yes—I had better go,' he answered. 'Can I not see you again? Vittoria—I cannot go away like this—'

As he realised that it might be long before he saw her again, his voice trembled a little, and there was a pleading accent in his words which she had never heard.

'Yes—no—how can I see you?' she faltered. 'There is no way—no place—when must you leave?' Maria Carolina stirred, and seemed about to open her eyes. 'Go—please go!' repeated Vittoria, desperately. 'She will open her eyes and see you, and it will begin again! Oh, for Heaven's sake—'

Orsino kissed her suddenly while she was speaking, once, sharply, with all his heart breaking. Then he swiftly left the room without looking back, almost trying not to think of what he was doing.

He closed the door behind him. As he turned to look for the way out, in his confusion of mind, the door opposite, which was ajar, opened wide, and he was confronted by Tebaldo, who smiled sadly and apologetically. Orsino stared at him.

'I am afraid you have had an unpleasant scene,' said the Sicilian, quickly. 'It was a most unfortunate accident—a mistake of the servant, who took you for the doctor. The fact is, my mother seems to be out of her mind, and she will not be persuaded that Ferdinando is alive and well, till she sees him. She was so violent an hour ago that I sent for a doctor—a specialist for insanity. I am afraid I forgot that you were coming, in my anxiety about her. I hope you will forgive me. Of course, you have seen for yourself how she feels towards you at present, and in any case—at such a time—'

He had spoken so rapidly and plausibly that Orsino had not been able to put in a word. Now he paused as if expecting an answer.

'I regret to have been the cause of further disturbing your mother, who indeed seems to be very ill,' said Orsino, gravely. 'I hope that she will soon recover.'

He moved towards the outer hall, and Tebaldo accompanied him to the door of the apartment.

'You will, of course, understand that at such a time it will be wiser not to broach so serious a matter as my sister's marriage,' said Tebaldo. 'Pray accept again my excuses for having accidentally brought you into so unpleasant a situation.'

He timed his words so that he uttered the last when he was already holding the door open with one hand and stretching out the other to Orsino, who had no choice but to take it, as he said goodbye. Tebaldo closed the door and stood still a moment in thought before he went back. As he turned to go in, Vittoria came quickly towards him.

'How did it happen that Don Orsino was brought into the drawing-room?' she asked, still very pale and excited.

'I suppose the servant took him for the doctor,' said Tebaldo, coolly, for he knew she would not stoop to ask questions of the footman. 'I am very sorry,' he added.

He was going to pass on, but she stopped him.

'Tebaldo—I must speak to you—it will do as well here as anywhere. The nurse is with her,' she said, looking towards the drawing-room. 'She fainted. Don Orsino told me in two words, before he went away, that he had spoken to you last night, and that you had told him to come here to-day.'

'That is perfectly exact, my dear. I have no doubt you have found out that your admirer, our brother's assassin, is a strictly truthful person. He insisted upon seeing you; it was impossible to talk at ease at a party, and I told him to come here, intending to see him myself. I told him to come at three o'clock—I daresay you know that, too?'

'Yes—he said it was to be at three o'clock.'

Tebaldo took out his watch and looked at it.

'It is now only four minutes to three,' he observed, 'and he is already gone. He came a good deal before his time, or I should have been in the antechamber to receive him and take him into my room, out of harm's way, where I could have explained matters to him. As it is, I was obliged to show him out with some apology for the mistake.'

'How false you are!' exclaimed Vittoria, her nostrils quivering.

'Because I refuse to ruin you, and our own future position here? I think I am wise, not false. Yes, I myself assured him last night that he did not kill our brother, but one of the Pagliuca di Bauso. I took the hand that did it, and shook it—to save your position in Roman society. You seem to forget that poor Ferdinando had turned himself into an outlaw—in plain language, he was a brigand.'

'He was worth a score of his brothers,' said Vittoria, who was not afraid of him. 'You talk of saving my position. It is far more in order to save your own chance of marrying the American girl with her fortune.'

'Oh yes,' answered Tebaldo, with perfect calm. 'I include that in the general advantages to be got by what I say. I do not see that it is so very false. On the one hand, Ferdinando was my brother. I shall not forget that. On the other, to speak plainly, he was a criminal. You see I am perfectly logical. No one is obliged to acknowledge that he is related to a criminal—'

'No one is obliged to lie publicly, as you do,' broke in Vittoria, rather irrelevantly. 'As you make me lie—rather than let people know what kind of men my surviving brothers are.'

'You are not obliged to say anything. You do not go out into the world just now, because you have to stay with our mother. I will wager that you have not once told the lie you think so degrading.'

'No—I have not, so far. No one has forced me to.'

'You need only hold your tongue, and leave the rest to me.'

'You make me act a lie—even in not wearing mourning—'

'Of course, if you make morality and honesty depend upon the colour of your clothes,' said Tebaldo, scornfully, 'I have nothing more to say about it. But it is a great pity that you have fallen in love with that black Saracinesca, the assassin. It will be a source of considerable annoyance and even suffering to you, I daresay. It even annoyed me. It would have been hard to refuse so advantageous an offer without accusing him of Ferdinando's death, which is precisely what I will not do, for the sake of all of us. But you shall certainly not marry him, though you are inhuman enough to love him—a murderer—stained with your own blood.'

'He is not a murderer, for it was an accident—and you know it. I am not ashamed of loving him—though I cared for Ferdinando more than any of you. And if you talk in that way—if you come between us—' she stopped.

'What will you do?' he asked contemptuously.

'I will tell the truth about Ferdinando,' she said, fixing her eyes upon him.

'To whom, pray?'

'To Miss Slayback and her aunt,' answered Victoria, her gentle face growing fierce.

'Look here, Vittoria,' said Tebaldo, more suavely. 'Do you know that Orsino Saracinesca is going back to Camaldoli? Yes. And you know that Ferdinando had many friends there, and I have some in the neighbourhood. A letter from me may have a good deal to do with his safety or danger, as the case may be. It would be very thoughtless of you to irritate me by interfering with my plans. It might bring your own to a sudden and rather sad conclusion.'

Vittoria turned pale again, for she believed him. He was playing on her fears for Orsino and on her ignorance of the real state of things at Camaldoli. But for the moment his words had the effect he desired. He instantly followed up his advantage.

'You can never marry him,' he said. 'But if you will not interfere with my own prospects of marriage, nothing shall happen to Saracinesca. Otherwise—' he stopped and waited significantly.

Exaggerating his power, she believed that it extended to giving warrant of death or safety for Orsino, and her imagination left her little choice. At all events, she would not have dared to risk her lover's life by crossing Tebaldo's schemes for himself.

'I am sorry for the American girl,' she said. 'I like her for her own sake, and I would gladly save her from being married to such a man as you. But if you threaten to murder Don Orsino if I tell her the truth, you have me in your power on that side.'

'On all sides,' said Tebaldo, scornfully, as he saw how deep an impression he had made on the girl. 'I hold his life in my hand, so long as he is at Camaldoli, and while he is there you will obey me. After that, we shall see.'

Vittoria met his eyes fiercely for an instant, and then, thinking of Orsino, she bent her head and went away, going back to her mother.

She found her conscious again, but exhausted, lying down on the couch and tended by the nurse, who had been in the house since the news of her son's death had prostrated Maria Carolina. She looked at Vittoria with a vague stare, not exactly recollecting whether the girl had been in the room during her outburst of rage against Orsino or not. Vittoria had been behind her all the time.

'Is he gone?' asked Maria Carolina, in a faint and hollow voice. 'I am sorry—I could have cursed him much more——'

'Mother!' exclaimed Vittoria, softly and imploringly, and she glanced at the nurse. 'You may go now,' she said to the latter, fearing a fresh outburst. 'I will stay with my mother.'

The nurse left the room, and the mother and daughter were alone together. They were almost strangers, as has been explained, Vittoria having been left for years at the convent in Palermo, unvisited by any of her family, until her uncle's death had changed their fortunes. It was impossible that there should be much sympathy between them.

There was, on the other hand, a sort of natural feeling of alliance between the two women of the household as against the two men. Maria Carolina was mentally degraded by many years of a semi-barbarous life at Camaldoli, which had destroyed some of her finer instincts altogether, and had almost effaced the effect of early education. She looked up to Vittoria as to a superior being, brought up by noble ladies, in considerable simplicity of life, but in the most extreme refinement of feeling on all essential points, and in an atmosphere of general cultivation and artistic taste, which had not been dreamed of in her mother's youth, though it might seem old-fashioned in some more modern countries. The girl had received an education which had been good of its kind, and very complete, and she was therefore intellectually her mother's superior by many degrees. She knew it, too, and would have despised her mother if she had been like her brothers. As it was, she pitied her, and suffered keenly when Maria Carolina did or said anything in public which showed more than usual ignorance or provinciality.

They had one chief characteristic in common, and Ferdinando had possessed it also. They were naturally as frank and outspoken as the other two brothers were deceitful and treacherous. As often happens, two of the brothers had inherited more of their character from their father, while the third had been most like his mother. She, poor woman, felt that her daughter was the only one of the family whom she could trust, and looking up to her as she did, she constantly turned to her for help and comfort at home, and for advice as to her conduct in the world.

But since Ferdinando's death her mind, though not affected to the extent described by Tebaldo in speaking with Orsino, had been unbalanced. Nothing which Vittoria could say could make her understand how the catastrophe had happened, and though she had formerly liked Orsino, she was now persuaded that he had lain in wait for her son and had treacherously murdered him. Vittoria had soon found that the only possible means of keeping her quiet was to avoid the subject altogether, and to lead her away from it whenever she approached it. It would be harder than ever to accomplish this since she had seen Orsino.

She lay on her couch, moaning softly to herself, and now and then speaking articulate words.

'My son, my son! My handsome boy!' she cried, in a low voice. 'Who will give him back to me? Who will find me one like him?'

Her lamentations were like the mourning of a woman of the people. Vittoria tried to soothe her. Suddenly she sat up and grasped the girl's arm, staring into her face.

'To think that we once thought he might marry you!' she cried wildly. 'Curse him, Vittoria! Let me hear you curse him, too! Curse him for your soul's sake! That will do me good.'

'Mother! mother!' cried the girl, softly pressing the hand that gripped her arm so roughly.

'What is the matter with you?' asked the half-mad creature fiercely, as her strength came back. 'Why will you not curse him? Go down on your knees and pray that all the saints will curse him as I do!'

'For Heaven's sake, mother! Do not begin again!'

'Begin! Ah, I have not ended—I shall not end when I die, but always while he is alive my soul shall pursue him, day and night, and I will—' she broke off. 'But you, too—you must wish him evil—you, all of us—then the evil will go with him always, if many of us cast it on him!'

She was like a terrible witch, with her pale face and dishevelled hair, and gaunt arms that made violent gestures.

'Speak, child!' she cried again. 'Curse him for your dead brother!'

'No. I will never do that,' said Vittoria.

A new light came into the raving woman's eyes.

'You love him!' she exclaimed, half choking. 'I know you love him—'

With a violent movement she pushed Vittoria away from her, almost throwing her to the ground. Then she fell back on the couch, and slowly turned her face away, covering her eyes with both her hands. Her whole body quivered, and then was still, then shook more violently, and then, all at once, she broke into a terrible sobbing, that went on and on as though it would never stop while she had breath and tears left.

Vittoria came back to her seat and waited patiently, for there was nothing else to be done. And the sound of the woman's weeping was so monotonous and regular that the girl did not always hear it, but looked across at the half-closed blinds of the window and thought of her own life, and wondered at all its tragedy, being herself half stunned and dazed.

It was bad enough, as it appeared to her, but could she have known it all as it was to be, and all that she did not yet know of her brother Tebaldo's evil nature, she might, perhaps, have done like her mother, and covered her eyes with her hands, and sobbed aloud in terror and pain.

That might be said of very many lives, perhaps. And yet men do their best to tear the veil of the future, and to look through it into the darkened theatre which is each to-morrow. And many, if they knew the price and the struggle, would give up the prize beyond; but not knowing, and being in the fight, they go on to the end. And some of them win.

CHAPTER XVII

Tebaldo's own affairs were by no means simple. He had made up his mind to get Miss Lizzie Slayback for his wife, and her fortune for himself; but he could not make up his mind to forget the beautiful Aliandra Basili. The consequence was that he was in constant fear lest either should hear of his devotion to the other, seeing that his brother Francesco was quite as much in love with the singer as he was himself, and but for native cowardice, as ready for any act of treachery which could secure his own ends. By that weakness Tebaldo held him, for the present, in actual bodily fear, which is more often an element even in modern life than is generally supposed. But how long that might be possible Tebaldo could not foresee. At any moment, by a turn of events, Francesco might get out of his power.

Aliandra's season in Rome had been a great success, and her career seemed secured, though she had not succeeded in obtaining an immediate engagement for the London season, which had been the height of her ambition. She had made her appearance too late for that, but the possibility of such a piece of good fortune was quite within her reach for the ensuing year. Being in reality a sensible and conscientious artist, therefore, and having at the same time always before her the rather vague hope of marrying one of the brothers, she had made up her mind to stay in Rome until July to study certain new parts with an excellent master she had found there. She therefore remained where she was, after giving a few performances in the short season after Lent, and she continued to live very quietly with her old aunt in the little apartment they had hired. A certain number of singers and other musicians, with whom she had been brought into more or less close acquaintance in her profession, came to see her constantly, but she absolutely refused to know any of the young men of society who had admired her and sent her flowers during the opera season. With all her beauty and youth and talent, she possessed a very fair share of her father's profound common sense.

Of the two, she very much preferred Francesco, who was gentler, gayer, and altogether a more pleasant companion; but she clearly saw the advantage of marrying the elder brother, who had a very genuine old title, for which she could provide a fortune by her voice. There were two or three instances of such marriages which had turned out admirably, though several others had been failures. She saw no reason why she should not succeed as well as anyone.

Tebaldo, on his part, had never had the smallest intention of marrying her, though he had hinted to her more than once, in moments of passion, that he might do so. Aliandra was as obstinate as he, and, as has been said, possessed the tenacious instinct of self-preservation and the keen appreciation of danger which especially characterise the young girl of the south. She was by no means a piece of perfection in all ways, and was quite capable of setting aside most scruples in the accomplishment of her end. But that desired end was marriage, and there was no probability at all that she should ever lose her head and commit an irrevocable mistake for either of the brothers.

She saw clearly that Tebaldo was in love with her, as he understood love. She could see how his eyes lighted up and how the warm blood mantled under his sallow brown skin when he was with her, and how his hand moved nervously when it held hers. She could not have mistaken those signs, even if her aunt, the excellent Signora Barbuzzi, had not taken a lively interest in the prospects of her niece's marriage, watching Tebaldo's face as an old sailor ashore watches the signs of the weather and names the strength of the wind, from a studding-sail breeze to a gale.

What most disturbed Aliandra's hopes was that Tebaldo was cautious even in his passion, and seemed as well able to keep his head as she herself. His brother often told her that Tebaldo sometimes, though rarely, altogether lost control of himself for a moment, and became like a dangerous wild animal. But she did not believe the younger man, who was always doing his best to influence her against Tebaldo, and whom she rightly guessed to be a far more dangerous person where a woman was concerned.

Francesco had once frightened her, and she was really afraid to be alone with him. There was sometimes an expression which she dreaded in his satyr-like eyes and a smile on his red lips that chilled her. Once, and she could never forget it, he had managed to find her alone in her room at the theatre, and without warning he had seized her rudely and kissed her so cruelly while she struggled in his arms that her lips had been swollen and had hurt her all the next day. Her maid had opened the door suddenly, and he had disappeared at once without another word. She had never told Tebaldo of that.

Since then she had been very careful. Yet in reality she liked him better, for he could be very gentle and sympathetic, and he understood her moods and wishes as Tebaldo never did, for he was a woman's man, while Tebaldo was eminently what is called a man's man.

Aliandra was, as yet, in ignorance of Miss Slayback's existence, but she saw well enough that Tebaldo was concealing something from her. A woman's faculty for finding out that a man has a secret of some sort is generally far beyond her capacity for discovering what that secret is. He appeared to have engagements at unusual times, and there was a slight shade of preoccupation in his face when she least expected it. On the other hand, he seemed even more anxious to please her than formerly, when he was with her, and she even fancied that his manner expressed a sort of relief when he knew that he could spend an hour in her company uninterrupted.

When she questioned him, he said that he was in some anxiety about his affairs, and his engagements, according to his own account, were with men of business. But he never told what he was really doing. He had not even thought it necessary to inform her of the sale of Camaldoli. Though she was a native of the country, he told her precisely what he told everyone in regard to Ferdinando Pagliuca's death.

'Eh—you say so,' she answered. 'But as for me, I do not believe you. There never was but one Ferdinando Pagliuca, he was your brother, and he was a friend of all the brigands in Sicily. You may tell these Romans about the Pagliuca di Bauso, but I know better. Do you take me for a Roman? We of Randazzo know what a brigand is!'

'You should, at all events,' answered Tebaldo, laughing, 'for you are all related. It is one family. If you knew how many brigands have been called Basili, like you!'

'Then you and I are also related!' she laughed, too, though she watched his face. 'But as for your brother, may the Lord have him in peace! He is dead, and Saracinesca killed him.'

Tebaldo shrugged his shoulders, but showed no annoyance.

'As much as you please,' he answered. 'But my brother Ferdinando is alive and well in Palermo.'

'So much the better, my dear friend. You need not wear mourning for him, as so many people are doing at Santa Vittoria.'

'What do you mean?' asked Tebaldo, uneasily.

'Did you ever hear of Concetta, the beautiful daughter of Don Atanasio, the apothecary?' asked Aliandra, quietly smiling.

Tebaldo affected surprise and ignorance.

'It is strange,' continued the singer, 'for you admire beauty, and she is called everywhere the Fata del' Etna—the Fairy of Etna—and she is one of the most beautiful girls in the whole world. My father knows her father a little—of course, he is only an apothecary—' she shrugged her shoulders apologetically—'but in the country one knows everybody. So I have seen her sometimes, as at the fair of Randazzo, when she and her father have had a biscuit and a glass of wine at our house. But we could not ask them to dinner, because the mayor and his wife were coming, and the lieutenant of carabineers—an apothecary! You understand?'

'I understand nothing beyond what you say,' said Tebaldo. 'You did not consider the apothecary of Santa Vittoria good enough to be asked to meet the mayor of Randazzo. How does that affect me?'

'Oh, not at all!' laughed Aliandra. 'But everything is known, sooner or later. Ferdinando, your brother, was at the fair, too—I remember what a beautiful black horse he had, as he rode by our house. But he did not come in, for he did not know us. Now, when Don Atanasio and Concetta went out, he was waiting a little way down the street, standing and holding his horse's bridle. I saw, for I looked through the chinks of the blinds to see which way Concetta and her father would go. And your brother bowed to the ground when they came near him. Fancy! To an apothecary's daughter! Just as I have seen you bow to the Princess of Sant' Ilario in the Villa Borghese. She is Saracinesca's mother, is she not? Very well. I tell you the truth when I tell you that Don Ferdinando took the two to dine with him in the best room at the inn. They say he thought nothing good enough for the apothecary's daughter, though he was of the blood of princes! But now Concetta wears mourning. Perhaps it is not for him? Eh?'

Aliandra had learned Italian very well when a child, and was even taking lessons in French, in order to be able to sing in Paris. But as she talked with Tebaldo she fell back into her natural dialect, which was as familiar to him as to herself. He loved the sound of it, though he took the greatest pains to overcome his own Sicilian accent in order not to seem provincial in Rome. But it was pleasant to hear it now and then in the midst of a life of which the restraints were all disagreeable to him, while many of them were almost intolerably irksome.

'How much better our language is than this stilted Roman!' he exclaimed, by way of suddenly turning the conversation. 'I often wish you could sing your operas in Sicilian.'

'I often sing you Sicilian songs,' she answered. 'But it is strange that Concetta should wear mourning, is it not?'

'Leave Concetta alone, and talk to me about yourself. I have never seen her—'

'Do not say such things!' laughed Aliandra. 'I do not believe much that you say, but you will soon not let me believe anything at all. Everyone has seen Concetta. They sing songs about her even in Palermo—La Fata del' Etna—'

'Oh, I have heard of her, of course, by that name, but I never remember seeing her. At all events, you are ten times more beautiful than she—'

'I wish I were!' exclaimed the artist, simply. 'But if you think so, that is much.'

'It would be just the same if you were ugly,' said Tebaldo, magnanimously. 'I should love you just as I do—to distraction.'

'To distraction?' she laughed again.

'You know it,' he answered, with an air of conviction. 'I love you, and everything that belongs to you—your lovely face, your angelic voice, your words, your silence—too much.'

'Why too much?'

'Because I suffer.'

'There is a remedy for that, my dear Tebaldo.'

'Tell me!'

'Marry me. It is simple enough! Why should you suffer?'

Her laughter was musical and sunny, but there was a little irony in its readiness to follow the words.

'You know that we have often spoken of that,' he answered, being taken unawares. 'There are difficulties.'

'So you always say. But then it would be wiser of you not to love me any more, but to marry where you do not find those difficulties. Surely it should be easy!'

She spoke now with a little scorn, while watching him; and as she saw the vulture-like droop of his eyelids she knew that she had touched him, though she could not quite tell how. She had never spoken so frankly to him before.

'Not so easy as you think,' he replied, with a rather artificial laugh.

'Then you have tried?' she asked. 'I had thought so! And you have failed? My condolences!'

'I? Tried to marry?' he cried, realising how far she was leading him. 'What are you making me say?'

'I am trying to make you tell the truth,' she answered, with a change of tone. 'But it is not easy, for you are clever at deceiving me, and I wonder that you cannot deceive the woman you wish to marry.'

'I do not wish to marry anyone,' he protested.

'No—not even me. Me, least of all, because I am not good enough to marry you, though you are good enough to pursue me with what you call your love. I am only an artist, and you must have a princess, of course. I have only my voice, and you want a solid fortune. I have only my honour, but you want honours through your wife for yourself, and you would tear mine to rags if I yielded a hair's-breadth. You make a mistake, Don Tebaldo Pagliuca. I am a Sicilian girl and I came of honest people. You may suffer as much as you please, but unless you will marry me, you may go on suffering, for you shall not ruin me.'

She spoke strongly, with a strange mixture of theatrical and commonplace expressions; but she was in earnest, and he knew it, and in her momentary anger she was particularly fascinating to him. Yet her speech made no real impression upon his mind. He tried to take her hand, but she drew it away sharply.

'No,' she said. 'I have had enough of this love-making, this hand-taking, and this faith-breaking. You sometimes speak of marrying me, and then you bring up those terrible, unknown difficulties, which you never define. Yes, you are a prince—but there are hundreds of them in our Italy. Yes, I am only an artist, but some people say that I am a great artist—and there are very few in Italy, or anywhere else. If it is beneath your dignity to marry a singer, Signor Principe di Corleone, then go and take a wife of your own class. If you love me, Tebaldo Pagliuca, as an honest man loves an honest woman—and God knows I am that—then marry me, and I, with my voice, will make you a fortune and buy back your estates, besides being a faithful wife to you. But if you will not do that, go. You shall not harm my good name by being perpetually about me, and you shall not touch the tips of my fingers with your lips until you are my lawful husband. There, I have spoken. You shall know that a Sicilian girl is as good as a Roman lady—better, perhaps.'

Tebaldo looked at her in some surprise, and his mind worked rapidly, remembering all she had said during the preceding quarter of an hour. She spoke with a good deal of natural dignity and force, and he was ready to admit that she was altogether in earnest. But his quick senses missed a certain note which should have been in her tones if this had been a perfectly spontaneous outburst. It was clear, as it always had been, that she wished to marry him. It was not at all clear that she loved him in the least. It struck him instantly that she must have heard something of his attention to the foreign heiress, and that she had planned this scene in order to bring matters to a crisis. He was too sensible not to understand that he himself was absurdly in love with her, in his own way, and that she knew it, as women generally do, and could exasperate him, perhaps, into some folly of which he might repent, by simply treating him coldly, as she threatened.

During the silence which followed, she sat with folded arms and half-closed eyes, looking at him defiantly from under her lids.

'You do me a great injustice,' he said.

'I am sorry,' she answered. 'I have no choice. I value my good name as a woman, besides my reputation as an artist. You do not justify yourself in the only way in your power by explaining clearly what the insuperable difficulties are in the way of our marriage.'

The notary's daughter did not lack logic.

'I never said that they were insuperable—'

'Then overcome them, if you want me,' answered Aliandra implacably.

'I said that there were difficulties, and there are great ones. You speak of making a fortune by your voice, my dear Aliandra,' he continued, his tones sweetening. 'But you must understand that a man who is a gentleman does not like to be dependent on his wife's profession for his support.'

'I do not see that it is more dignified to depend on his wife's money because she had not earned it by hard work,' retorted the singer scornfully. 'It is honestly earned.'

'The honour is entirely yours,' said Tebaldo. 'The world would grant me no share in it. Then there are my mother's objections, which are strong ones,' he went on quickly. 'She has, of course, a right to be consulted, and she does not even know you.'

'It is in your power to introduce me to your mother whenever you please.'

'She is too ill to see anyone—'

'She has not always been ill. You have either been afraid to bring an artist to your mother's house, which is not flattering to me, or else you never had the slightest intention of marrying me, in spite of much that you have said. Though I have heard you call your brother Francesco a coward, I think he is braver than you, for he would marry me to-morrow, if I would have him.'

'And live on what you earn,' retorted Tebaldo, with ready scorn.

'He has as much as you have,' observed Aliandra. 'Your uncle left no will, and you all shared the property equally—'

'You are not a notary's daughter for nothing,' laughed Tebaldo. 'That is true. But there was very little to share. Do you know what was left when the debts were paid? A bit of land here in Rome—that was all, besides Camaldoli. Both have been sold advantageously, and we have just enough to live decently all together. We should be paupers if we tried to separate.'

'You are nothing if not plausible. But you will forgive me if I say that this difficulty has the air of being really insuperable. You absolutely refuse to share what I earn, and you are absolutely incapable of earning anything yourself. That being the case, the sooner you go away the better, for you can never marry me, on your own showing, and you are injuring my reputation in the meantime.'

'I am engaged in speculations, in which I hope to make money,' said Tebaldo. 'I often tell you that I have appointments with men of business—'

'Yes, you often tell me so,' interrupted Aliandra, incredulously.

'You are cold, and you are calculating,' retorted Tebaldo, with a sudden change of manner, as though taking offence at last.

'It is fortunate for me that I am not hot-headed and foolish,' replied Aliandra, coolly.

They parted on these terms. She believed that her coldness would bring him to her feet if anything could; but he was persuaded that his brother had betrayed him and had told her about the American heiress.