Produced by David Widger





THE ROMANCE OF GIOVANNI CALVOTTI.

By David Christie Murray

From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories
By David Christie Murray
In Three Volumes Vol. II.

Chatto & Windus, Piccadilly 1882




CHAPTER I.--IN THE ATTIC.

I live in an attic. I am in the immediate neighbourhood of a great
tavern and a famous place of amusement. The thoroughfare on which I can
look whilst I sit at my window is noisy with perpetual traffic. In the
midst of London I am more of a hermit than is that pretentious humbug
who waves his flag at passing steamers from his rock in the Ægean. I
am not a hermit from any choice of mine, or from any dislike of men and
women. I am not a hermit because of any dislike which men and women
may entertain for me. In my time I have been popular, and have had many
friends. If I could find it in my heart at this moment to face some one
of those friends, the necessity for a continued hermitage might pass. If
I could find it in my heart to write to one of them I might close
this lonely vigil to-morrow. Let me confess the truth. I am ashamed of
myself, and I can appeal to nobody for assistance. I have gamed away the
whole of my substance, and I am a broken man. It would be possible to do
something better for myself if I could venture into the streets. But
my sole possessions in the way of outer clothing are one pair of
too-ancient trousers, one pair of tattered slippers, one fez, and one
poor old dressing-gown.

My estimable Uncle round the corner has the rest. Perhaps I am less a
hermit than a prisoner--a prisoner over whom that sternest of janitors,
Poverty, holds the key.

I am a little proud of my English, and I do not think you can have yet
discovered from my style of expression that I am not a native of this
country. Permit me to describe myself.

I am an Italian and a gentleman, and my age is thirty. My main fault is,
that I am able to do much in too many directions. I play admirably upon
several instruments, and my little original compositions are admitted
to show great undeveloped talent. My verses in four languages are also
admitted to show great undeveloped talent. As a painter or a sculptor
I might have made fame certain. I am merry and generous, and slow to
offence, an unmeasured braggart, careless about money matters, without
dignity, but the soul of honour. I am also your obedient servant. Permit
me so to subscribe myself--Your obedient servant, Giovanni Calvotti.

My attic is uncarpeted, and its general aspect is sordid. It contains
a bed, a table, a chair, a chest of drawers, a grand piano, a violin, a
violoncello, my pipes, my tobacco, my writing materials, and--me. Stay!
Hidden for the moment from my glance beneath the grand piano are the
tools by which I live: my easel, my porte-couleur, my palette, canvas,
and brushes. My estimable uncle round the corner is not a judge of art.
It is my weakness that I cannot paint bad pictures. I linger sometimes
for a whole day hungry--sometimes even without tobacco--touching and
again touching the ripened beauties of my canvas child, before I can
dare to leave it. I am a hungry amateur, but that is no reason why I
should be false to the principles of art. Like my playing upon four
instruments, and like my verses in four languages, my painting is
admitted to show great talent--as yet only partially developed. Upon
each of my works my estimable uncle advances me the sum of twelve
shillings and sixpence. I paint one picture per week. In consideration
of the restricted character of my wardrobe, my landlady is so obliging
as to send my works to the only dealer with whom I can at present do
business. I had never known until this morning who it was that acted as
my ambassador. I have told you already that I am of a merry temperament.
I snap my fingers at evil fortune. I despise the goddess Circumstance.
Seeking to do me an evil turn this morning she has benefited me, and I
am contented in spite of her. Good gracious! Is a man to lose everything
because his stomach is empty? The goddess Circumstance shall not keep
my heart empty, let her keep my shelves as bare as she will. My Lady of
Circumstance, Giovanni Calvotti proffers to you a polite but irrevocable
defiance!

This morning my canvas child was a landscape. This afternoon it was an
inglorious smudge. It is now on its way back to the landscape condition,
and will have revived all its glories by to-morrow. It was noon when I
rang my bell.

'Madame,' I said to my landlady, in my cheerful Italian manner, 'will
you again extend to me your courtesy?'

My landlady is not an educated woman, but she is a good creature,
and has a delicate and refined susceptibility. She recognises in me
a gentleman. She reveres in my person a genius to which I make no
pretension. I am not a man of genius. A man of genius does one thing
supremely well. Some men of exceptional talent do many things admirably,
but nothing supremely well. I am a man of exceptional talent. Pardon the
modest candour which is compelled to assume the garb of egotism.

My landlady looked at my canvas child, and then at me, and laughed.

'To Mr. Aaron's, sir?' Asking this, she put her hands upon the edges of
the framework of the canvas.

'Yes, madame,' I answered, for we have always the same formula on
Fridays at noon. 'To my estimable uncle round the corner.'

'Anything more than usual?' my landlady asked me.

'No, madame,' I answered. 'A loaf, a pound of coffee, half a pound of
bird's-eye tobacco, the ticket from my estimable uncle, a receipt for
the week's rent, and the change.'

My landlady laughed again and said, 'Very good, sir.' Then she went
downstairs with the picture, and I felt unhappy when my canvas child was
gone, and was fain (an idiom employed by your best writers) to solace
myself with my violin. So far there was nothing to mark this Friday
morning from any other Friday morning for the last nine weeks. It is now
nine weeks that I have been a hermit. I was very hungry, and was glad to
think of the coffee and the loaf. I should have told you that my habits
are very abstemious, and that I am admirably healthy on a low diet.
My native cheerfulness, my piano, my violin, my violoncello, my canvas
children, and my pipes, all nourish me like meat and wine. I played
upon my violin a little impromptu good-bye to my landscape--a melodious
farewell to a sweet creation. The time seemed long before my landlady
returned, and when I put back my violin in its case, I heard a sound of
crying on the stairs. I opened the door and looked out, and there was
a little English angel, whom I had never before seen, sitting upon the
topmost step, close to my attic door, crying as if her heart had broken.

'What is the matter, my poor little maid?' I asked very tenderly, for I
know that young girls are easily frightened by strangers.

She looked up with eyes like the skies I was born under. The pretty pale
cheeks were all wet, and the pretty red lips were trembling, and those
beautiful blue heavens were raining as no blue skies ought to rain.

'Ah, come, my child,' I said to her; 'how can I help you if you do not
tell me what is the matter?'

'Oh, signor,' she said, with many sobs and tears, 'I have spoiled your
beautiful picture.'

She held it up--my canvas child--all besmeared with mud. I could
not resist one exclamation of sorrow. The news was too sudden for my
self-possession to remain. But when I saw that the little English angel
began to weep afresh at this exclamation, I longed for one moment to
be able to get out of my own body, that I might chastise a poltroon so
un-philosophical. I took her by the hand instead, and led her into this
room and made her sit down, and, whilst I sponged the picture with cold
water, made her tell me how the accident had happened. For I thought,
in my Machiavellian Italian way, 'If she should go away without having
quite familiarised herself with this unhappy incident, she will always
be afraid of me.' Therefore I lured her on.

'Mrs. Hopkins asked me to take the picture to Mr. Aaron's,' she began,
still sobbing. 'I was just passing the corner when a gentleman leaped
out of a cab. The cab was moving at the time, and I did not expect to
see anybody jump from it. The gentleman missed his footing and stumbled
against me. I fell down and the picture fell face downwards on the
pavement, and a man who was passing by trod upon it.'

Now, I invite you to observe that these sentences are in no way
remarkable. Yet I felt compelled to say--

'Most admirably and succinctly put!'

For the little girl was very pleasing, and she looked very pretty and
innocent and distressed. And if you had employed a professional orator
to make the statement, he would have been a thousand miles behind her in
grace and straightforwardness, and in everything that makes human speech
beautiful and admirable. When I had removed the mud from my canvas child
I found that its countenance was badly scratched. So I busied myself in
putting up my easel and in setting my palette.

'Oh, signor,' said the poor child, 'I am so sorry.'

Then she cried again.

'Mademoiselle,' I replied, with charming gaiety, 'it is not your fault
at all. It is the doing of another lady, an old enemy of mine. The other
lady has been trying to spite me, mademoiselle, for several years. She
is powerful; she has hosts of servants. She plunges me into all manner
of terrible scrapes, and for all this I laugh at her and snap my
fingers--So.'

By the time I had said 'So' and snapped my fingers she had done crying,
and being very intelligent she understood my parable, and when I laughed
she smiled. I will tell you exactly what her smile was like. I was
painting: in the Welsh hills three years ago, with plenty of money in
my pocket, and a very great enthusiasm for art in my soul. I strayed
out from the hotel I was staying in one beautiful moonlight night. I had
rambled far, when it began to rain and grew very dark with clouds. I sat
under a rock upon a big stone by the side of a little lake, and lit my
pipe and waited for the rain to cease. And while it was still raining a
little, the clouds divided for one second, and the moonlight swam down
the lake from one end to the other. That was her smile; and when I
saw it I seemed to see the lake again, and to hear the rain and the
rustling of the trees, and smell the scent of the dead leaves. The
moonlight stayed on her face only a second. She grew grave and sad
again, and came timidly to me where I was at work. 'Will it be much
trouble to you to mend it?' she asked. 'Will it take long?'

'Not long, mademoiselle,' I answered; 'I shall finish it to-day.'

I am gifted by nature with a delicate organisation. It is not possible
for a man to be a gentleman without something of the quality I desire
to indicate. I observe intuitively. I saw that my distressed companion
desired to say something, and I saw also that what she desired to say
would be embarrassing to me. It was also plain to my refined observation
that she would be happier if she could only go gracefully. I relieved
her of this trouble--

'We will challenge Madame Fortune again in the morning, mademoiselle.
You and I will beat her this time. We will co-operate again.'

'Oh yes,' she said, 'do let me take it in the morning. I _will_ be
careful.'

'And now,' I said, 'you will think me an ogre, and will fancy that I am
going to imprison you unless I let you go.'

I opened the door, but she lingered, struggling with that embarrassment
which feared to embarrass me. For she is a lady just as certainly as I
am a gentleman, and fine natures understand each other. I could see her
make up her mind, and I resolved therefore not to be embarrassed.

'But, signor,' she said, with more firmness than I had expected, 'the
tobacco and the coffee and the loaf?'

'Mademoiselle,' I said, 'the coffee and the tobacco and the loaf loom
dimly from the future. They will come in good time.'

But, oh, the little girl was brave and tender-hearted and honourable.
She was a little Englishwoman, with beliefs in duty. And yet she would
sooner have faced ten lions than me, with my Italian courtesy and my
uncomplaining good temper.

'Mrs. Hopkins,' she said, 'will lend me a--a shilling, and I----'

From that moment I respected her.

'Mademoiselle,' I answered, 'you are a lady, I am a gentleman. We have
both the misfortune to be poor. We have both the admirable good fortune
to be proud and honourable. You are brave and good, and your instincts
are delicate. You will permit me to ask you not to humiliate yourself.'

'But, signor,' she urged, 'it is very hard for you to go----'

'My good-hearted, dutiful little English lady,' I took the liberty to
say, for I was very much in earnest,' it is not at all hard for me to
go without the coffee and the tobacco and the loaf. Above all, I do not
lose my self-respect or touch my pride when I go without the coffee and
the tobacco and the loaf. And now, mademoiselle, since it is our scheme
to rout my lady enemy in the morning, we will despoil her of her
triumph now by not caring for her or it, and by snapping our fingers at
her--So.'

Whilst we had talked I had closed the door, and now I crossed over to my
picture and began to work again. She still lingered, watching me whilst
I painted.

'Are you fond of pictures?' I asked her, to divert her thoughts.

'I have not seen many, but I am very fond of some of them.'

'Would you like to look at those?' I said, pointing with my brush to a
portfolio on the piano.

She opened the portfolio and looked through my sketches. I saw with
pleasure that she did not race over them, but that she stopped and
looked long at some. I could see from where I stood that they were the
best, and I said, 'The young lady has taste and discernment.'

Suddenly she clapped her two hands together, and said--

'Oh!'

Then she came to me with a sketch in her hands, and her face was
beautiful.

'Did you paint this, signor?'

'Yes, mademoiselle, I painted that. Why do you ask?'

'Poor old place!' she said very softly, without knowing that she said it
at all.

It was a picturesque old house in Surrey. The house stood in a hollow,
and the road wound up past it on to a long rolling wold. (That is
the beautiful word your poet Tennyson uses. The country-people, the
peasantry, use it also.) She had cried so much that her eyes were ready
for tears again at almost anything. When she looked at me they were
brim-full, but they did not run over.

'We lived here with papa,' she said, 'till he died.'

Then two big tears brimmed over and ran down. I committed an
indiscretion: I was sorry for her, and I kissed her. She drew away with
much dignity and said--

'I have stayed too long. Good morning, signor.'

I blushed. She was so much a child, and I feel myself so old, that I
had not thought it any indiscretion. And now I remember that I have been
writing of her as a child. She is quite a grown girl--a young lady. She
is perhaps more than seventeen years of age. I was a brute beast--an
insensate--to frighten her. Before I could say anything she was gone.

I abused myself in my vehement Continental way, and then I began to
work. The picture was but little hurt, and before daylight was over
it was almost repaired. But I had heard the clock strike seven, and my
estimable uncle round the corner retires at that hour into the country,
and will have no business again until nine o'clock in the morning. So,
to prevent myself from thinking too much of the coffee and the tobacco
and the loaf, I sat down to my piano and played. One would have thought
that my sitting down to play was a signal, for I had scarcely begun when
my landlady tapped at my door and brought a note. She looked shyly at
the picture, and hoped it had not suffered much. I told her gaily that
it was all the better for the accident, as in reality it was. Then I
read my note.

     'Miss Grammont presents her compliments to Signor Calvotti,
     and requests that he will oblige her by his company at tea
     this evening. Miss Grammont begs that Signor Calvotti will
     forgive this intrusion, and will forget that no formal
     introduction has taken place between them.'

I read this over twice, and then asked the landlady--

'Who is Miss Grammont?'

'She's the sister of the young lady who had the accident with your
picture, sir,' said the landlady. 'She's a middle-aged lady, sir, and
very badly lame. But she's got an angel temper, and ways that sweet as I
never saw anybody like her. I do hope you'll go, sir. She's on the floor
below.'

'Present my most distinguished compliments, madame, and say that I will
do myself the honour to be there. At what hour?'

'Tea's getting ready now, sir,' said the landlady.

When she had gone, I washed myself and put on a clean shirt, and went
downstairs. At a door at the foot of the stains stood the young lady who
had by misfortune brought about this adventure. She led me into the
room and to a lady who sat upon a sofa. The room was absolutely bare of
ornament, and I knew that they were very poor. But it was not possible
to think for a moment that Miss Grammont was anything but a lady. She
was old-fashioned and precise in her attire, and she is perhaps forty
years of age, but her face is as beautiful as a seraph's. She is calm
and sweet and quiet. She is like a Venetian night--sweet and venerable,
and moving to touches of soft music. I took tea with them both--a simple
meal. We talked of art and of Italy. I brought down my sketches and my
violin at their request. I played to them--all manner of things--and
they did me the honour to be delighted.

I am now in my own room again, and have expended my last candle whilst
I have given myself the charming task to set down this day's adventures.
My candle is so nearly burned out that it will not last another minute.
I foresee that I shall go to bed in the----




CHAPTER II.--ON THE SECOND FLOOR.

I have just found this manuscript among my music, and to charm a lonely
evening I will continue it. I remember that the candle went out so
suddenly that I lost the place of my pen, or I would have completed the
sentence. In the morning I had other things to think of. My landlady
came up for the picture and took it away. In five minutes I heard a step
upon the stairs, and opening my door I saw Cecilia--I have not told you
my little English angel's name until now--with the picture in her hands.
For a moment I thought that my inestimable uncle had refused to accept
it, but I saw by her smiling face that it was no misfortune which had
brought her back.

'There is a gentleman downstairs, signor, who wishes to buy your
picture. He is waiting in the hall. Shall I send him up? It is the
gentleman who jumped from the cab yesterday and caused the accident.'

I besought her not to take so much trouble, and myself ran downstairs.
There was an Englishman, broad-shouldered, ruddy, and iron-grey, with
bushy eyebrows and blue eyes and a square chin.

'Do you wish to see me, sir?' I asked him.

'If you're the painter of the picture I saw just now--yes.'

'It is something of a climb upstairs,' I warned him.

He took the warning as an invitation, and went upstairs, stepping firmly
and solidly in his heavy boots. When he reached my room, he took his hat
off and I saw he was bald. He had a good face, and a high forehead, and
he was evidently of the prosperous middle classes. Mademoiselle had left
the room, and had placed the picture upon the easel. He looked round
the room, and then faced the picture, square and business-like--like an
Englishman.

'Ah!' he said, 'that's the picture, is it? H'm. What do you want for
it?'

I told him I had never yet sold a picture, and did not know what price
to set upon it.

'What have you done with the rest?' he said, looking round the room
again. 'This isn't the first you've painted.'

His bluntness amused me, and I laughed. He saw my circumstances, and
there could be no service in disguise. I told him of my estimable Uncle.

'H'm?' he said, lifting his eyebrows. Then suddenly, 'What do you get on
'em?'

'Twelve and sixpence each.'

'How many has he got?'

'Nine,' I answered.

'Got the tickets?' he said, examining the picture on the easel.

I produced them from a drawer.

'Five pounds fourteen,' he said to himself. 'A pound 'll pay the
interest. Call it six ten, roughly. Got anybody you can send out for
'em?'

I rang the bell, and by-and-by my landlady appeared.

'Look here,' said the stranger, taking out a purse. 'Take this six
pounds ten and that lot of pawn tickets, and send somebody to the
pawnbroker's to bring the pictures out.'

My landlady took the money and went downstairs. In ten minutes she came
back again with a boy behind her, carrying all my canvas children home
again. During this time the stranger said nothing. Now he took the
change in silver and copper from my landlady, said 'Eight,' and nothing
more, and then set the pictures one by one on the easel and looked at
them all in turn. When he had satisfied himself, he turned on me again.

'Now, Signor----'

'Calvotti'--I helped him with my name.

'Now, Signor Calvotti, what do you want for the lot?'

I entered into his business humour as well as I could.

'Permit me to ask what you are prepared to give?'

'Oh,' he said emphatically, 'I can't be buyer _and_ seller. How much for
the lot?'

I thought it over. I knew the pictures were good--that they were better
than many I had seen sold for high prices. I spoke quietly, but with
inward desperation.

'A hundred pounds.'

My landlady clasped her hands.

'What?' said the stranger sharply. 'Say seventy-five.'

My landlady absolutely curtsied, with her hands clasped.

'If you think that is a fair price,' I said.

The stranger looked at me for a minute, then turned to my landlady.

'Pardon me a minute,' he said, waving a backward hand to me. Then to the
landlady; 'What sort of gentleman is this? Dissipated dog, eh?'

'Lord bless you, no, sir,' said the landlady; 'the steadiest gentleman I
ever had in the house.'

'H'm,' said the stranger, facing round on me. 'Want a hundred pounds for
'em, eh? Very well. If I can't get 'em for less. Pen and ink anywhere?
Ah, I see.'

He wrote a cheque standing at the table. Then he produced a card.

'That's my address. Glad to see you, if you'll call. Any Friday evening
after eight. I've got a cab at the door, and I'll take these away at
once.'

I was embarrassed by a terrible suspicion. I had read and heard much of
London fraud.

'You will pardon me, sir. You are too much a man of the world not to
forgive a little caution in a man who is selling all he has.' Then I
stumbled and could not go on.

'Ah!' he said, 'quite right. Stupid of me, to be sure. Wait a minute.'

He seized the cheque and his hat, and went heavily downstairs. When he
was at the bottom of the first flight he shouted, 'Back directly,' and
so went down the other three flights, and out-of-doors.

My landlady opened the window, and looked out.

'He's gone into the bank, sir,' she said; then ran to the head of the
stairs and screamed for somebody to open the door.

'He's coming out of the bank, sir,' said the landlady after an interval
of renewed observation. He came upstairs, solidly, and into the room.

'Count that,' he said, and placed a small bag on the table.

I counted the contents of the bag, but my fingers trembled, and I was
confused. I made out one hundred and six pounds.

'No,' he said, 'make no mistakes at the bank?

He counted the money rapidly.

'One hundred and five.'

'We agreed for one hundred, sir,' I said pushing five pounds across the
table.

'Guineas,' he said brusquely. 'Always guineas in art. Don't know why,
but always is. Oblige me, ma'am, by carrying these downstairs.'

My landlady took the pictures in her arms.

They were defended from each other by strips of thin cork at the
corners, and they made a clumsy bundle. I had not looked at my client's
card until now. Whilst he gave his directions to the landlady I took
it up, and learned that his name was John Gregory; and that he lived
in Westbourne Terrace. When my landlady had gone, he spoke to me, with
another glance round the room.

'Been hard up?' he asked.

'I have been totally without money,' I answered him frankly, for I began
to understand him.

'These things belong to you?' he asked again, waving his hand at the
piano and the violin and the violoncello.

'Yes,' I answered.

'Why didn't you sell 'em? Better than starving.'

'I would sooner starve than part with any of them,' I told him.

He turned sharply upon me.

'Why?'

'My mother played them.' There seemed no reason, for all his brusquerie,
why I should not tell him this.

'Didn't play the fiddle, did she?' 'Divinely,' I told him.

'And the 'cello?' 'Yes.'

'Singular,' he said. 'Oh, ah, foreign lady. Yes, of course. Not at all
remarkable. Good morning. Don't forget the Fridays. Glad to see you.'

As he was going out he caught sight of the portfolio of sketches. He
stopped and turned them over without remark or apology until he came to
one which pleased him. It was a large sketch, sixteen inches by twelve,
in water-colour, and had some little finish. He held it up and took it
to the light.

'I meant to say just now, but I forgot it, he said, turning the picture
upside down and looking at it so--'I meant to tell you that you're
making a mistake in painting so small. A larger canvas would suit your
style. Let me have this, now, in oil. Say eighty by sixty. Give you
fifty pounds for it. What do you say?'

What was I likely to say? I told him I would do my best.

'_I_ know that,' he answered. 'Couldn't help it. Good morning.'

This time he really went away. I was confounded by my good fortune. I
scarcely knew what had happened, until my landlady came upstairs again
and asked me if she should get me something to eat. Then I remembered
that I was ravenous. She brought me eggs and ham and coffee; and when I
had finished breakfast I despatched her for a portmanteau which lay in
the care of my estimable uncle, and for certain parcels of clothing and
boots and jewellery. Twenty-three pounds went in this way. I spread my
clothing about the room to freshen it after its long confinement. Then I
dressed, and was delighted to feel once more like a gentleman. I clapped
my hands, and sang, and rattled gay things on the pianoforte. Then I put
on my hat--newly recovered from my estimable uncle--and went out to buy
canvas and materials for my new picture. I brought these things back in
a cab, and carried them upstairs. When I got them there, I found that
I had no room for so large a canvas. I had managed to get the small
canvases and the little field-easel on which I painted into a good
light, but with this it was impossible. I spoke about it to the
landlady.

'If you'll excuse me, sir,' she said, 'I think I could propose an
arrangement as would suit. The ladies below give warning last week,
because the rooms they've got is too expensive.

Now, this little room would do nicely for 'em, with the next, which
I shall be glad and thankful for a chance of giving Mr. Jinks his
warning,' (Jinks was a drunken tailor, my next-room neighbour.) 'Now,
sir, if the rooms below will suit you----'

I told her I was sure they would, and asked her if she would broach the
question with the ladies. She went down at once, and came back shortly
to ask when it would be convenient for me to remove my things. I said
'at any moment,' There was so little property between us all three, that
it was transferred without much trouble in a few minutes. The landlady
agreed that Mr. Jinks should have other accommodation secured for him
in the house until the end of the next week; and for a single day the
ladies were to make themselves at home in this one old room of mine.
Miss Grammont came up the stairs with difficulty, and asked--

'When shall you wish to remove your piano, signor?'

Now, I had already proposed to myself a great pleasure.

'Permit me, madame,' I answered, 'to leave it here for a little time,
until I can arrange my rooms.'

'Certainly,' the lady answered.

'And if madame or her sister play, it will improve the piano to be
played upon, and I shall be vastly gratified.'

Cecilia thanked me with so much energy that I was assured that she was a
devotee to music.

'Would she play?' I asked; and she consented.

She was shy before me, but so eager to put her fingers on the keys that
she conquered all diffidence and went at once to the piano.

When she had played a Sonata of Haydn's, I turned in my enthusiastic
way to her sister and said how I rejoiced to have been able to gratify
genius.

'Genius is a very large word,' said Miss Grammont. Cecilia was playing
something else, and had not heard me.

'Genius _is_ a large word, madame,' I replied. 'But is not that a large
style? Is it not a noble style?'

Cecilia, she allowed, played very finely.

'Finely, madame? 'I respectfully protested--'she should play among the
seraphs. You shall allow me, madame. I am no mean musician. As a critic
I am exact and exacting. Permit me, madame, that I bring my violin, and
play once with Mademoiselle Cecilia.'

She consented. I brought my violin and we played. Cecilia's musical
memory is prodigious. Mine is also retentive and precise. But she had
too much inventive genius for precision, unless the notes were before
her, and sometimes I corrected her. Next, this delicious interlude over,
I begged that the ladies would do me the honour to dine with me.

'You must not be extravagant in your good fortune, signor,' Miss
Grammont said.

'Trust me, madame,' I answered. 'If the day has dawned, I will hasten no
new night and make no artificial curtains.'

Then I went down to paint, and at seven o'clock they joined me at
dinner. The meal was sent in from the famous tavern hard by, and I think
I may say we all enjoyed it. And then came music, and for an hour we
were happy.




CHAPTER III.--AT POSILIPO.

Ay me, for one hour we were happy, and for many hours thereafter. But
when your heart is glad, when you drink the wine of joy, there is Madame
Circumstance keeping the score, and she brings in the bill at the end of
the banquet, and you pay it in coin of sorrow. She is my old enemy, this
Madame Circumstance, as I have told you. It is not always that I can
defy her. Who is it that is always brave? Not I. But I shall be brave
again in the morning, and the battle will begin again, and I shall
win. Pah! I have won already. I have smoked my pipe, and the incense of
victory curls about my head just now, at this moment. There is no friend
like your pipe. None.

Ten minutes ago I was despondent when; I sat down to write. I broke off
and smoked, and I am my own man again. (Regard once more the beautiful
English idiom, and the smiling soul which so soon after battle can take
delight in verbal felicities.)

Now I will go on with my story. It takes a long time to write. It will
be twelve months to-morrow since I last looked at the pages of this
narrative. I may not touch it again after to-day for a year. Who knows?

I went to Mr. Gregory's house in West-bourne Terrace on Friday, and I
continued to go there on Friday evenings until the close of the season.
Mr. Gregory is no more my patron, only: he is now my friend, and his
friendship is firm and true. I shall be honest in saying that to me
those Friday evenings were very beautiful. It was so great a change from
the hungry and lonely nights in my attic, to find myself back again with
ladies and gentlemen, myself well dressed and at home, and no longer
hungry. There I was admired and _fêted_, and all people made much of me.
I played and sang, and the people talked of my pictures, and everywhere
I was asked out, until I could have spent my every hour in those
calm social dissipations which make up so large a share of life in all
refined societies. For my friend Gregory is a man of refinement--within
himself--and his friends are all artistic and literary.. But why should
I talk about him? Everybody knows him. Gregory the millionaire; Gregory
the connoisseur in wines, in pictures, in old violins, in pottery; the
Connoisseur in humanity at whose gatherings the wisest and the most
charming meet each other. Gregory the ship-builder, iron-master,
coal-owner; architect of himself--a splendid edifice. That such a man
should have bought my pictures was of itself a fortune to me. I am on
my way to get riches, and my balance at-the bank is already respectable.
Why, then, should I be at battle with Madame Circumstance? You shall
see.

One day at the beginning of this year he called to see me. I was hard at
work making the best of the few hours of light. He sat and watched for a
full hour, talking very little. At last he said--

'I can trust you, Calvotti. I want you to do me a service.'

'I am very heartily glad to hear it,' I answered.

'You won't understand what I want you to do unless I tell you the whole
story,' he said, after a pause. Then he remained silent for some time.

'Put down your brushes and listen,' he went on.

I obeyed him. He lit a cigar, poured out a glass of claret, crossed
his legs, and talked easily, though at times I could see that he felt
strongly.

'I have had a good many friendly acquaintances in my life, and one
friend: he died five years ago. I was abroad at the time, in Russia,
laying down a railway. My friend, whom everybody supposed to be fairly
well-to-do, died poor. There was one lump sum of money in my hands,
placed there by him for investment, and that was almost all he had. By
some terrible mischance, the acknowledgment I had given for this lump
sum was lost, and his relatives were in ignorance of it. Six months
after his death I came home, and finding that nothing had been said of
the money he had entrusted to my care, I went to his lawyer and spoke to
him about it. My friend had been a widower for the last dozen years. He
had three children, and no other relatives in the world. After the sale
of his effects, poor fellow, the two girls disappeared utterly. The
son, who was a reckless, good-for-nothing scamp, was my poor friend's
favourite, and whatever the old man died possessed of went by will to
him with a mere injunction to look after his sisters. He had not been
heard of for more than a year, but was believed to be somewhere in
Italy. The scoundrel professed to be a painter, and might have made a
decent sign-writer, if he hadn't been a drunkard. I could not find even
him, and the girls have been advertised for, vainly. Now, the lawyer
has just received a letter from this young ne'er-do-weel, who wants
to borrow money. I will tell you what I want you to do. If this scamp
learns that ten thousand pounds belong to him, he will take every penny,
though he left the girls to starve. But I want things so managed that he
shall share with his sisters--a thing he will be very reluctant to do.
Now, will you go to Naples, find this man out, get to know from him the
whereabouts of his sisters, manoeuvre him, and, if possible, induce him
to accept half? Will you remember that there is absolutely no receipt
in existence for the money which lies in my hand--that I am not legally
bound to pay a penny of it? That is my only power over this fellow. Keep
my name dark. Let him know there is a certain sum of money--never mind
telling him how much--in the hands of a certain person in London, who is
willing, on his written undertaking to divide with his sisters whatever
his father may have left, to pay over to him his moiety. Let him
understand distinctly that the person in whose hands the money lies
will not pay him one farthing without this bond unless he produces
the receipt given to his father. When you have secured his written
undertaking, will you bring him to me? I will be answerable for all your
charges in the matter.'

I had listened attentively to this story, and I said Yes, at once. I
added, that it seemed to me a very easy task and an honourable one.

'I want it done at once,' he said, 'because I know the girls must be in
a very poor position wherever they are. When can you start? There is a
tidal train at eight o'clock this evening, and the man is now in Naples.
I have the papers here all ready: you can study them on the way.'

'I will start to-night,' I answered.

'Thank you, Calvotti, thank you,' he said heartily. 'Do you remember how
I excused myself for overturning that little girl who was carrying the
first picture I ever saw of yours to your estimable uncle round the
corner, as you called him?'

'Yes. There was a man in the street you were anxious to speak to, and
you jumped from a cab to catch him, and lost sight of him through the
accident.'

'That was the man I want you to see--Charles Grammont.'

I had only time to catch at the name and weave Cecilia and her sister
into this romance with one throw of the shuttle, when there came a knock
at the door.

'Come in,' I said. The door opened, and a man entered. Seeing my patron
and myself, he drew back.

'I have made a mistake,' he murmured awkwardly. 'I wish to find Miss
Grammont. I was told she lived here.'

'Talk of the devil!' cried my patron. 'Charles Grammont!'

'That is my name,' said the new-comer, standing awkwardly in the
doorway. 'You have the advantage of me, sir.'

'H'm!' said my patron, returning to the manner he had first worn in my
presence. 'Likely to keep it too. Good-day, Calvotti. You'll remember
that little commission. Things may perhaps be easier than I thought they
would be.' He muttered this to himself so that the new-comer did not
hear him. He pushed uncourteously past the young man and went out.

'You will find Miss Grammont upstairs, sir,' I said. 'If you are Mr.
Charles Grammont, the brother of the ladies upstairs, I shall be glad to
speak to you in an hour's time, on a matter of much advantage to you.'

The young man had a disagreeable swagger and a bloated face. His swagger
was intended to hide the discomfiture in the midst of which that sort of
man's soul lives always.

'If you have any thing to say to me,' he answered, still holding the
handle of the door, 'you can say it now, or save yourself the trouble of
saying it at all.'

'Sir,' I replied with some asperity, 'it is not a matter which concerns
me at all, but you.

Your late father left some money in which you are interested, that is
all.'

He looked bewildered.

'My father left no money,' he stammered.

'Your father left a considerable sum,' I answered, 'and if you will
call upon me in one hour from now I will inform you of the conditions
attached to your receipt of it. Meantime, the stairs are dark, and I
will give you a light.'

'No, thank you,' he said. 'I won't trouble my sisters until I've heard
what you have to say, I'll call again in an hour's time.'

He went away, closing the door behind him. I, sitting there, and
listening to his footsteps, heard him speak to somebody on the stairs,
and heard two sets of footsteps blunder down the ill-lighted staircase
together. I took the papers Mr. Gregory had left behind him and looked
them through. They were short and simple, and I mastered them in five
minutes. Then I went back to my painting and worked until I heard a
knock at the door and admitted my new acquaintance. He had a companion
with him, and, since I must do him justice, I must say that his
companion was sevenfold worse than he. He was a countryman of my own, as
I knew by his face and voice. They had both been drinking.

'You know my name, it seems,' said young Grammont, 'and I shall be glad
to know yours.'

I was decided that nobody but our two selves should be present when I
spoke to him, lest any slip of mine before a witness should blunder the
matter I had in charge.

'My business with you, Mr. Grammont, is of a private nature, and I
cannot discuss it in the presence of a third party.' I was plain and
outspoken, because this kind of man does not comprehend innuendo.

'This is a chum of mine,' he answered. 'He's quite welcome to hear
anything about _me_.'

'Pardon me, sir,' I told him quietly; 'but I can only discuss this
matter in private.'

'All right,' he hiccoughed. 'You'd better slide, Jack. Evado, you
blackguard! Hidi! git! chabouk!'

'You are merry, my friend,' said my unwholesome countryman, who was very
drunk indeed. 'But I am not a Hamal that you speak to me so.'

'There's half-a-crown,' said young Grammont, throwing a coin on the
carpet. 'Wait at the Red Lion. It's all right.'

My unwholesome countryman took himself out of the room with the
half-crown, and went downstairs in a series of dangerous slides and
tumbles.

'Now, then,' said my client, throwing himself insolently upon the sofa
and lighting a pipe. 'You can say what you have; to say, and get it over
as soon as you like.'

One is not angry with this kind of person. 'If you are in a fit
condition to listen, sir, you may know all about the matter in five
minutes. Your father just before his death invested a large sum of
money. The receipt for that sum of money was lost, but the gentleman
with whom he invested it is honourable and is ready to pay it. He will
only pay it on one condition, and that is that it be divided into equal
portions between your two sisters and yourself.'

He sat up with the pipe between his finger and thumb.

'Whatever my father left,' he said, 'belongs to me.'

'Then,' I answered, 'claim it!'

He lay down again as suddenly as if I had shot him.

'You will remember,' I said, 'that the receipt is lost, and that you
have no legal claim upon the gentleman who now holds the money. He
is willing to pay it over at once, provided you divide it with your
sisters.'

'Who is he?'

I made no answer.

'What right has he, whoever he is, to dictate terms to me? What right
has he to suppose that I shouldn't make fair terms with my sisters, and
make them a decent allowance, and all that sort of thing, if I had the
money?'

'I know nothing of the matter, sir,' I answered, 'except that on your
written undertaking to divide whatever property your father may have
left, you can take half of it, and that without such an undertaking you
can get nothing.'

'I'll sign no such undertaking!' he cried angrily. 'Why should I be
juggled out of money which belongs to me? If I choose to make my sisters
a present, why, I'll do it, and if I don't, I won't.'

'Very good, sir,' I said; 'when you have changed your mind, and wish to
draw the money, you can apply to me again.'

'What's the amount?' he asked sulkily, after a time.

'I am requested not to mention the amount,' I answered, 'but it is
considerable.'

'How do _you_ come to be mixed up with my affairs?' he asked. 'I don't
even know your name. You're not a lawyer. How do I know that the whole
thing isn't a stupid joke? How do I know there's not a trap of some sort
in it?'

'All these things are for your own consideration, sir,' I answered, as
coolly as I could. 'I am acting to oblige a friend, and if it were not
for my desire to oblige a friend----'

There I stayed. He glared at me, and rose-to his feet.. 'Well!' he said,
'what then?'.

'I should take no trouble at all in the matter, and should be glad to be
rid of you.'

'Oh!' he said jeeringly, and then sat down again. By-and-by he looked
up and shook a forefinger at me with an air of drunken perspicacity and
resolution which was amusing.

'Don't think,' he said, 'that I can't see through _your_ little game.
You're living in the same house, are you? You've got my sister's
affairs into your own dirty fingers, eh, my boy? She's getting to a
nice manageable age, isn't she? And you've found out that some money is
coming to me after all, and you think me idiot enough to sign away half
of it for you and that young----'

'Stop, sir, if you please. You shall commit what folly you like in
respect to the business in hand, but I have no time or taste for a
drunken brawl. You may call upon me in the morning. You will forgive me
if I suggest that you are not quite fit for business at present. I have
the honour to bid you a good afternoon.'

'Oh!' said he, 'I'm quite fit for business, if there is any business
to be done. Have you any objection to my consulting a lawyer before I
sign?'

I disregarded the sneer, and said that I could have no objection to such
a course.

'Will you come with me?' he asked.

'No,' I told him. There was the case already in his hands. I was
powerless to alter its conditions. He could tell the story to his lawyer
for himself.

'I will give you a reply to-morrow, he said.

I gave him my card, and he went away. I had no doubt of his final
acceptance of the terms offered to him, and when on the morrow he
returned, he proclaimed himself willing to accept one-half of the sum
left in Mr. Gregory's hands. The lawyer he had consulted was the man who
had acted professionally for his father during the latter's lifetime,
and it was he also to whom my directions ordered me. I telegraphed to
Mr. Gregory at his offices in the city, and then drove to Russell Square
with young Grammont. At the lawyer's we were detained for a few minutes,
and before wo could get to business Mr. Gregory arrived. The matter was
then gone into, and everything was over in half-an-hour. Mr. Gregory
gave young Grammont a cheque for five thousand pounds, and took the
receipt for it. Then we bade the lawyer good-day and went out together.
Young Grammont took a cab and went away in high feather, whilst Mr.
Gregory and I went to my rooms, and sent a message to Miss Grammont.
In a few minutes we were admitted, and it was my felicity to make the
announcement of the pleasant change in their fortunes. Miss Grammont
recognised Mr. Gregory at once, and both she and Cecilia accepted this
stroke of good fortune with a calm gladness.

'Why did you hide yourself in this way?' asked Mr. Gregory.

'What could we do?' Miss Grammont answered him. 'We have never been in
actual want, and you know that we were always very foolishly proud--we
Grammonts.'

'Very foolishly proud, the lot of you,' said Mr. Gregory. 'You knew very
well how much I owed to your father's help and advice when I was a young
man. You know that Lizzie would have given you a home, and have thought
herself more than paid by your society and friendship.' (Lizzie was the
late Mrs. Gregory.) 'Forgive me,' he said a minute later. 'Had I been
in your place, I should probably have done as you have done. But now to
business. Fifteen thousand pounds remain in my hands. Of this sum only
ten thousand honestly belongs to you two.'

'How is this?' asked Miss Grammont.

'Mr. Calvotti told me just now that my father had left but ten thousand
pounds in all.'

'For investment, madam--for investment. I am a business man and I have
invested it and doubled it. That graceless brother of yours who has gone
away with his five thousand now will be back in a year's time to borrow.
He will still have five thousand to draw upon, but I hold his discharge
in full, and I shall cheat him for his own good and button him
down tightly to a weekly allowance. Money is cheap just now, Miss
Grammont--dirt cheap--and you can't do better than leave this in my
hands at five per cent, interest. That's five hundred a year. But all
that we'll talk about, in future. Meantime, that's the first half-year's
allowance'--laying a cheque upon the table--'and the first thing to be
done is to leave this place and come straightway to my house until you
can look about you and settle where to live.'

'You are just as generous and just as imperious as you always were,'
said Miss Grammont. 'We will come this day week.'

'Come now,' said Mr. Gregory. 'My sister will make you comfortable. Poor
Jane's an old maid still, and lives with me.'

'Not now,' she said. 'There are many things to be seen to before we can
leave here.'

I saw her glance at her own shabby dress, and he saw that also.

'When you like,' he said cheerfully. 'But this day week is a bargain.
At what time? Say two o'clock. I'll be there to meet you. Good-day,
Calvotti; good-day, Miriam.' Then he turned and kissed Cecilia.
'Good-day, Baby. God bless my soul! it seems only the other day since
you _were_ a baby. And now I suppose you'll be getting married in a week
or two.'

Cecilia blushed and laughed, and Mr. Gregory turned round with a
droll look to me, and then took his hat and went in his own solid and
determined way out of the room. Even in his walk the determination of
his character declared itself. He was strong and square and firm,
but within very gentle. Oh, you English! you English! you are a great
people! Great in your stolidity and solidity, before which I, who
know what lives beneath them, can only bow in a fluttering, butterfly
respect! Great in your passions, which you repress so splendidly that
to the superficial eye they look only like affections! Solid, stolid,
much-enduring people, with corners all over you, accept my profoundest
veneration!

Now it befalls me that I am impelled to tell why, with a reputation
already considerable and fast increasing, and with a balance at the
banker's in the same beautiful conditions, I yet remained in that poor
studio of mine, and in those unfashionable apartments. It was not that
I am penurious, although I have changed my old harum-scarum habits with
regard to money.

It was not--but why should I go on saying what it was not to pave the
way to saying what it was? It was, then, that in that house had lived
that little English angel who is a woman, and Cecilia. I will set it
down in one line. She is all the joy I have and all the sorrow. And
now I will set down one thing more that I may see it in plain black and
white, and study it there until I drive its meaning into my thick head
and my sore heart, and can at last smoke calm pipes over it, and be once
more contented. There is no hope for me--there is no hope for me: none
in the world. For my little Cecilia is in love already, and I would not
for twenty thousand times my own sake have her in one thought untrue.

I was walking upstairs one night a month before the events I have just
related, when I met a man coming down in the dark. I did not at all
know who he was, but I knew that he had been to Miss Grammont's rooms,
because I was already near my own door, and nobody but Miss Grammont
lived above me. The stranger said Good-night as he passed me, and I
returned his salutation. He stopped short.

'Have I the honour to address Mr. Calvotti?' he asked.

'That is my name,' I answered, in some astonishment.

'Ah, then,' he said, turning back again, 'if you can spare me just a
minute, I will deliver a letter I have for you.'

We went upstairs together, and into my studio. I lighted the gas and
took the letter. It came from Miss Grammont, and introduced Mr. Arthur
Clyde, an old friend who had found them out by accident, and who had an
especial desire to know me.

'This is not a good time at night to make a call,' he said, with a frank
and winning smile; 'but I'm an artist myself. I've seen your work, and
I've heard so much about you, that when I found that Miss Grammont knew
you I couldn't deny myself the pleasure of making your acquaintance.'

He was very frank and pleasant in his manner, very fresh and English in
his look, very handsome and self-possessed. Not self-possessed in the
sense that he had assurance, but in the sense that he did not seem
to think about himself at all, which is the most agreeable kind of
self-possession, both for those who have it and for those who meet them.

We talked about indifferent things for a minute or two, and then he lit
a cigar and rose to go.

'I have heard of your kindness to Miss Grammont and little Cecilia,' he
said, turning at the door. 'You'll forgive me for saying a word about
it, but they're such dear old friends of mine, that I can't help
thanking anybody who has been good to them. Good-night, I'll run in
to-morrow, if I may. Good-night.'

He came again next evening, and we dined together. He is a fine young
fellow, and I got to like him greatly. He is fiery and enthusiastic and
impulsive, and all his adjectives are superlatives, after the manner
of earnest youth. But he is good-hearted and honourable to the core. We
took to each other naturally, and he used to run up to my studio every
evening at dusk. Very frequently we used to go upstairs and spend an
evening with the ladies. Then we had music, and sometimes young Clyde
would sing, and we would all laugh at him, for he knew no more of music
than a crow. And yet I could see that it was to him Cecilia played and
sang, and to her he listened as though she had been an angel out of
heaven. When I played he had no great joy in the music, but when she
played---- ah! it was plain enough--then Love gave him ears, and the
music she created had power over him. This was hard for me, but I have
my consolations.

I can stand up and say one or two things which it is well for a man to
say. It is one of them that I do not whine like a baby because I cannot
have my own way. It is another that I have strangled jealous hate
and buried deep the baseness which would have led me to endeavour to
estrange these hearts for my own purpose. I tell myself at times, 'You
have done well, my friend, and some day you will have your reward. And
if the reward should not come, or if it should not be worth having,
why--you have still done well.' For it came to pass one night when I was
quite convinced, that I came downstairs to my own room, and sat down and
pulled a certain dream-house to pieces and beat the sawdust out of the
foolish dolls who had had their abiding place in it. But, oh me, my
friends, it is hard to pull down dream-houses; and Madame Circumstance
exults over the bare rafters and the dismantled walls. And, ah! I loved
her, and I love her still, and I shall love her till the day I die. But
I am going to be an Italian old bachelor, with no wife but my pipe
and no family but my canvas children. Do you triumph, madame? Do you
triumph? Over my subdued heart? No! Over my broken life? No! Over any
cowardly complaint of mine? Over any envy of this good young Englishman?
No! no! no! No! madame, I was not born a cad, and you shall not remould
me. Accept, once more, my defiance!

Young Clyde came on the evening of the day on which the good fortune of
the ladies' had been declared. He received the news very joyfully,
but after a while he sobered down greatly, and when we took our leave
together he was very depressed, and had grown unlike himself, I asked no
questions, but he turned into my room and sat down and lit a cigar and
held silence for a few minutes. Then he said--

'I say, Calvotti, old man, have you noticed that I have never once asked
you to my rooms?'

I had never thought about it, and I told him so.

'Will you come up to-morrow, in the daytime? Don't say No. I do
particularly want you to come. Say twelve o'clock. Will you?'

He seemed strangely eager about this simple matter, and I promised
to go. He went away a minute later, and next morning I walked to the
address he had given me. He met me at the door, and I saw that he was
pale and perturbed. I learned afterwards that he had not been to bed,
but had sat up all night harassing himself with groundless misgivings.
He led me to his studio, a fine spacious room, with a high north light.
He had a chair set in the middle of the room, and on the easel a large
veiled picture.

'Now, Calvotti,' he said, speaking with a nervous haste which was
altogether foreign to him, 'I have asked you here to settle a question
which I cannot settle for myself. Sometimes I'm brimfull of faith and
hope, and sometimes I'm in a perfect abyss of despair. You know I've
been painting all my life, but I've never sold anything. Everything I
paint goes to the governor. Some of the things he hangs about his own
place, you know, and some of them--more than half, I suppose--he has
cut into strips and sent back to me. He's a very singular man, and has
extraordinary ideas about pictures. But I've been working on one subject
now for some months past, and now I've finished it, and---- Look here,
Calvotti, I'll tell you everything. When I got here last night, I found
a letter from my governor telling me that my allowance is stopped after
next quarter-day, and that I must get a living by painting. He always
said he would give me the chance to make a living, and then leave me
to make it. Well, I'm not afraid of that, but I want a candid judgment,
because--because--Well, I'm engaged to be married, old man, and I can't
live on my wife, you know. And I want you to tell me candidly whether
there's any good stuff in me, and whether I can ever do anything, you
know.'

'You are engaged to Cecilia?' I asked him.

'Yes,' he said simply, 'I am engaged to Cecilia, and I want to begin
work in earnest now.'

'Let me look at your picture,' I said, and took my seat in the chair he
had placed ready for me.

He paused a minute as though he would have spoken, but checking himself,
he turned to the picture, drew away the cloth by which it was covered,
and passed behind me. The picture represented a garret room, through the
window of which could be seen the far-reaching roofs of a great city.
Against the window rose the figure of a girl who was seated at an old
grand piano. Her fingers rested on the keys, and her eyes were looking
a great way off. The face and figure were Cecilia's, the garret was that
in which I myself had lived, and the piano was mine. The outer light of
the picture was so subdued and calm that the face was allowed to reveal
itself quite clearly. I looked long and carefully, guarding myself from
a too rapid judgment. Arthur, as by this time I had begun to call him,
stood at the back of my chair. At last he laid a hand upon my shoulder--

'What do think about it?'

'Do you want my candid opinion?' I asked him.

'Yes, your candid opinion.'

'You will not be offended at anything I shall say?'

'No. I want an honest judgment, and I can trust yours.'

I used the common slang of criticism.

'Suppose, then, I were to say that the: composition is bad, the colour
crude, the whole work amateurish, the modelling thin and in places,
false, the----'

'Don't say any more, Calvotti. I've been a fool, and the governor has
been right all the time.'

'If I said these things, you would believe them?'

'_If_ you said them?' he cried, coming from-behind my chair. 'But do you
say them?'

'Stand off!' I said, laughing. A man can rarely endure praise and blame
with equal fortitude. My young friend, you will some day paint great
pictures. In four or five hundred years' time great painters will look
at this and will reverently point out in it the faults of early manner;
but they will read the soul in it--as I do now. You are a creature of
a hundred years--a painter, an artist. This is not paint, but a face--a
face of flesh and blood, with soul behind. And this is not paint, but
a faded brown silk. And this is not paint, but solid mahogany. You have
done more than paint a picture. You have made concrete an inspiration.
Your technique is all masterly, but it does not overpower. It gives only
fitting body to a beautiful idea--its soul!'

He blushed and trembled whilst I spoke. Englishmen do not often talk
poetry--off the stage. He answered--

'No, really, Calvotti, old man, that's rot, you know. But do you like
it?'

I spoke gravely then.

'My dear young friend, so surely as that is your work, so surely will
you be a great artist if you choose.'

'You bet I choose,' this young genius answered. He would sooner have
died, I suppose, than have put his emotions at that moment into words.
This is another characteristic of you English. You will sooner look like
fools than have it appear that you feel. You wear the rags of cynicism
over the pure gold of nature. This is a foolish pride, but it is useless
to crusade against national characteristics.

I was a little chilled, and I said in a business tone--

'Well, we will see about selling this at once.'

'No,' he answered. 'I will not sell this.'

'No?' I asked.

'No,' he said again; 'not this picture,' And for one minute he regarded
it, and then shook his head and once more said 'No.'

'Well,' I answered, not trying to persuade him, 'I will ask Mr. Gregory
to look at it, and he will give you a commission for a work, and then
you will be fairly afloat.'

'Oh, thank you, Calvotti. What a good fellow you are!'

I was unsettled for work. My praise was hysterical and hyperbolical. I
could have wept whilst I uttered it. For though I had given up all hope,
and though I was glad to find that in art he was worthy as in manhood
he was worthy, yet it was still hard to endorse a rival's triumph and
to cut out all envy and stifle all pain. And now I had to go home and to
live beneath the same roof with Cecilia, and to see her sometimes, and
to talk and look like a friend. If you resist the Devil, will he always
fly from you? Is it not sometimes safer to fly from him? And is there
anywhere a baser fiend than that which prompted me to throw myself upon
my knees before her and tell her everything, and so barter honour for
an impulse? Brave or not, I know that I was wise when that afternoon I
packed up everything and went to say good-bye.

'I am ill,' so I excused myself, 'and I am a child of impulse. Impulse
says to me “Go back to Italy--to the air of your childhood--to the
scenes you love best.” And I obey.'

'But you do not leave England in this way?' asked Cecilia.

'No, mademoiselle, I shall return. But, for a time, good-bye.'

They both bade me good-bye sorrowfully, and I went away. And whatever
disturbance my soul made within its own private residence, it was too
well-bred to let the outside people know of it.

And so it came to pass that I continue this narrative at Posilipo, in my
native air, within sight of smoking Vesuvius and the glittering city and
the gleaming bay--old friends, who bear comfort to the soul.




CHAPTER IV.--_NELLE CARCERI MUNICIPALE_

How do I come to be writing in a prison? How do I come to be living in a
prison? How is it that I, who never lifted a hand in anger against even
a dog, lie here under a charge of murder, execrated by the populace of
my native town?

I can remember that I wrote, when I took up my story, that it might, for
anything I knew, be a year before I should go on with it. It is twelve
months to-day since I set those words upon paper. I take it up again,
here and now, in dogged and determined defiance to that Circumstance
which has pursued me through my life, and which shall not subdue me even
with this last stroke--no, nor with any other.

Let me premise, before I go on with my own narrative, that Charles
Grammont, with whose murder I lie charged, developed a remarkable and
unexpected characteristic. A reckless spendthrift whilst penniless, he
became a miser when he found himself possessor of five thousand pounds.
He had returned to Naples, and had for some time engaged himself in
drinking, to the exclusion of all other pursuits. But he drank sullenly
and alone, and had dismissed from his society that disreputable
compatriot of mine, Giovanni Fornajo, who had accompanied him to my room
on the evening of our first meeting. When I reached Naples I had some
trouble with this personage, who, with the peculiar faculty which
belongs to the race of hangers-on and spongers, had somehow found me
out, and came to borrow money. It was enough for his limitless impudence
to remember that he had once been within my walls in London. I knew that
to yield once would be to make myself a tributary to his necessities for
ever. I refused him, therefore, and dismissed him without ceremony. He
retired unabashed, and came to the charge again. I was strolling along
the Chiaja, when I saw him and turned into the Caffè d'Italia to avoid
him. He had seen me and followed. I professed to be absorbed in the
contents of an English journal, but he sat down at the same table, and
entered into conversation, or rather into talk, for I let him have it
all to himself. He talked in English, which he really spoke very well,
though with a marked accent. I paid but little heed to him, and only
just made out that he complained of the conduct of his late associate,
who had, so he said, borrowed money of him when they were poor together,
and had thrown him over now without repaying him.

'It comes to this,' he said, after a long and rambling discursion on his
wrong; 'when I was the only man in Naples who could speak English and
would have to do with him, he used me; and now that he is at home here,
and can speak the language, and has plenty of money, he will have no
more to do.'

'My good friend,' I said, breaking in, 'I will have no more to do, since
you prefer to put it so, I am tired of you. I do not desire to know you.
Oblige me by not knowing me in future.'

'Maledizione!' he said. 'But you are impolite, Signor Calvotti.'

'And you, Signor Fornajo, are only unbearable. I have the pleasure to
wish you goodbye.'

He rose and retreated, but returned.

'Signor Calvotti,' he said, reseating himself, 'I shall ask you to do me
a favour. You know Grammont and you know his friends. He will listen to
you where he will not look at me. Will you do me the favour to speak for
me to ask him to pay me?'

I thought I saw a way to be rid of him.

'How much does he owe you?' I asked him.

'Cento franchi,' he answered.

'Very good. Bring me pen, ink, and paper.'

He called one of the camerieri and ordered these, and I read quietly
until they came.

'Now,' I said, 'write to my dictation.'

He took the pen and wrote--

'I have this day informed Signor Calvotti that Mr. Charles Grammont owes
me the sum of One Hundred Francs, and in consideration of this receipt
Signor Calvotti has discharged Mr. Grammont's debt.'

This he signed, and I gave him a bank-note for the amount.

'Now,' I told him, 'I do not in the least believe that Mr. Grammont owed
you anything, and if you come near me again I will use this document. I
have a great mind to try it now.' 'Ah, signor, sapete cosa vuol dire la
fame?' I own that touched me. I _have_ known what hunger is, and I could
guess what it would do with a creature of this kind. 'Go your way,' I
said, 'and trouble me no more'--he bowed his head and spread out his
hands in assent--'but remember!'

'Signor Calvotti,' he said, 'I thank you, and I will trouble you no
more.'

Young Clyde had written to me saying that he was tired and overworked,
and that he needed a month's holiday, and meant to take it. He had never
been in Italy, and naturally proposed to join me in Naples. During the
whole ten months which had gone between my farewell to England and
my receipt of this letter from Arthur, I had striven, and not
unsuccessfully, to banish from my mind all painful and regretful
thoughts of Cecilia. Love is a great passion, but, like everything else
but fate, it is capable of subjection by a resolute will. That soul,
believe me, is of a barren soil indeed, wherein the flower of love has
once been planted, if the flower wither or can be rooted up. But a man
who gardens his soul with resolute and lofty hopes can train the first
poor weed of passion to a glorious bloom, whose perfume is not pain but
comfort. This is a base thing, that a man shall say he loves a woman too
well to be happy whilst she can be happy with another. For me, my divine
Cecilia looks down upon me in my waking hours and in the dreams of
sleep, a thing so far away that I can but worship without a hope of
ownership, or any longer a desire. I am content, I have loved, and I
have not been unworthy. O mia santissima, mio amore no longer--my saint
for ever, my love no more--so you were happy, I were happy. But there
are clouds about you, though you know them not.

Arthur had come to Naples by one of the boats of the Messagerie
Impériale, and had come to share my little house at Posilipo. He brought
with him kindest remembrances from Cecilia and from her sister. I had
mentioned them both freely in my letters, and had sent little things
through his hand to both of them now and then. My old patron, Mr.
Gregory, had given Arthur two or three commissions, and one of his works
had been hung on the line at Burlirgton House, side by side with mine.
In his old, frank, charming way he said--

'If those old buffers on the committee had laid their heads together to
please me, they couldn't have done it more successfully than by hanging
me next to you, old man. When I went in and saw it there, I was better
pleased at being next to you than I was at being on the line. I'm
painting Gregory's portrait for next' year--a splendid subject, isn't
it?'

I took him to walk that morning to the scene I had painted in the work
he spoke of,' He recognised it with enthusiasm, and we walked back
together full of friendship and enjoyment. He had one or two commissions
for Charles Grammont from his sisters, and asked me to help in finding
him. When I learned that the young Englishman was living in the Basso
Porto I was amazed, and when Clyde saw the place he was amazed also.

'Has he got through all his money already,' Arthur asked me, 'that he
lives in a hole like this?'

'I am told,' I said, 'that he has become a miser, spending money on
nothing but drink, and living in a continuous sullen debauchery.'

Clyde faced round upon me as we stood in the doorway of the house
together.

'I haven't seen the fellow for years,' he exclaimed, 'but can you fancy
such an animal being a brother of Cecilia's?'

'Odd, isn't it?' said an English voice from the darkness of the stairs.
'Infernally odd!'

And Charles Grammont, bearded, bloated, unclean, unwholesome, stepped
into the sunlight and poisoned it.

'Who is this fellow?' asked Arthur quietly.

'Charles Grammont,' I answered.

'Charles Grammont?' he repeated; and then, hastening to obliterate the
memory of his unlucky speech, he plunged into an explanation of his
concerns with Grammont, and I withdrew a little. But in a moment I heard
Grammont's voice raised in high anger.

'And what brings Arthur Clyde acting as my sister's messenger? Could
they find nobody but a ------'

If I should repeat here on paper the epithets the man used, I should
be almost as great a blackguard as he was to use them. They were words
abominable and horrible. I know by my anger at them now--then I had no
time to feel for myself--that if a man had used them to me, and I had
held a weapon in my hand, I should have killed him. Arthur raised
his cane, and, but that I seized his wrist, he would have struck the
insulter across the face. It was an impulse only, and when I felt his
wrist relaxing I released it, and it fell down by his side.

'Come away, Calvotti,' he said, 'or I shall disgrace myself and do this
man a mischief.'

But if I could share at the moment in the feeling of anger which
Grammont's hideous insults had inspired, I could not and I cannot
understand the bitter and passionate resentment with which Arthur
nourished the memory of them. For days after, not a waking hour passed
by without a break of sudden anger from him when he recalled the words
to mind. I did my best to calm him, and in each case succeeded in
persuading him that it was less than useless to retain the memory of
insult so conveyed by such a man. But in a little while he broke out
again, and after a time I allowed him to rage himself out.

'Why did you restrain me?' he cried one day as we walked together. 'The
ruffian deserved a thrashing. I care nothing for what he said of me, but
a man who could speak of his sister in that way is not fit to live. For
God's sake, Calvotti, let us go away somewhere out of reach of this man.
I am not safe. I hardly know myself. If I met him I should kill him then
and there.'

'My dear Arthur,' I said at last, 'this is childish, and unworthy of
you. The man is a ruffian by nature, and was mad with drink. Forget him,
and any mad and drunken thing he may have said.'

'Well,' said Arthur, with a visible effort, 'the blackguard disappears
from my scheme of things. I have done with him. There! It's all over.
What shall we do to-night? Let us go out together and look at Giovanna's
Palace by moonlight. A blow on the bay would do me good, and you might
find an inspiration for a picture. Who knows? Will you go?'

I consented, and we walked back to the town at once to make
arrangements. We secured a boat, and a bottle or two of wine and a
handful of cigars having been laid in as store, we started. On the way
to the boat, by bitter misfortune, we met Grammont. This wretched man's
drunkenness had three phases--the genial, the morose, and the violent.
He was at the first when we were so unhappy as to meet him. He insisted
upon accompanying us, and I could see the passion gathering in Arthur's
face, until I knew that if some check were not put upon him there would
be an outbreak.

I took upon myself to get rid of the intruder.

'Well, Clyde,' I said, 'at the Caffe d' Italia at six. Till then I leave
you to your appointment. Good afternoon. Will you walk with me a minute,
Grammont?'

Arthur took my hint and went away. Grammont lurched after him, but I
took him by the sleeve and said I had something to say to him. He stood
with drunken gravity to listen, and whilst I beat about in my own mind
for some trifle which could be made to assume a moment's importance, he
forgot everything that had passed, and himself began to talk.

'You thought I should be through my five thou, before now, didn't you,
old Stick-in-the-Mud? Well, I've got the best part of it now, my boy.
They can't suck me in Naples, I can tell you. Not much they can't. Look
here! English notes. I don't care who sees 'em. There you are. There's
more than four thousand in that thundering book. Look here.'

He took from his pocket-book a number of English bank-notes for one
hundred pounds, and flourished them about and thumbed them over, and
laughed above them with drunken cunning and triumph. A man lounged by
us this minute, and took such special notice of us both that I was
compelled to notice him. He was a swarthy bearded fellow in a blouse,
like that of a French ouvrier. He did not look so particularly honest
that I had any pleasure in knowing that he saw the great bundle of notes
in Grammont's hands, and I said to Grammont hurriedly--

'It is not wise to exhibit so much money in this public place. Put it
up.'

The man still regarded us, until at last he attracted the attention
of my unwelcome companion, who turned round upon him, and cursed him
volubly in Italian.

The man, speaking with a very un-Italian accent, though fluently enough,
answered that he had as much right there as Grammont, and then moved
away, still turning his eyes curiously upon us at intervals.

'Look here,' said my unwelcome companion, 'I am going to have a sleep on
this bench,' He pointed to a stone seat on the quay, and rolled towards
it.

'You are not so mad as to sleep in the open air with all that money
about you,' I urged. Heaven knows I disliked the man, but one did not
want even him to be robbed.

'Oh,' he answered drunkenly, 'I'm all right,' and so lay down at full
length with his felt hat under his head, and fell asleep.

The man in the blouse still lingered, and I, knowing that he had seen
the notes, felt it impossible to leave Grammont alone in his company.
The Chiaja was very lonely just there.

At last an idea occurred to me, and I called the man. It was growing so
near to six o'clock that I was afraid of missing Clyde. I tore a leaf
from my pocket-book, scrawled a line to Clyde asking him to wait for me,
took a franc from my purse, and asked the man to take a 'message to
the Caffè d' Italia, and there give it to the person to whom it was
addressed. Regarding the man's dress and the foreign accent with which
he had spoken just now, I addressed him in French.

'Pas du tout!' he responded. 'Je ne suis pas un blooming idiot. C'est
impossible. Allez-vous donc.'

'Ah!' I said, 'you are English. I beg your pardon. I suppose you did not
understand. I wish you to be so good as to take this note to the Caffè
d' Italia for Mr. Arthur Clyde. I will give you----'

'I am not anybody's messenger,' the man answered, and walked away again.

There was nobody else within call, and I was compelled, therefore, to
resign myself as best I could. My efforts to awaken Grammont had proved
quite fruitless. I lit a cigar, and walked to and fro. The man in the
blouse also lit a. cigar, and paced to and fro, passing in every journey
the bench on which Grammont lay asleep. Suspecting him as I did, I never
took my eyes from him for a moment when he was near Grammont, and he, in
his catlike watch of me, was equally vigilant. At last, growing tired of
this watchful promenade, I addressed him--

'It is of no use for you to linger here. You will not tire me out. I
shall stay until my friend awakes.'

'Oh!' he said, removing his cigar, and taking a steady look at me.
'You'll stay until your friend awakes, will you? Then--so will I.'

He began his walk again, and I, regarding the man more closely, had
formed a new idea.

This man suspected me of designs upon those bank-notes, I began to
think, and was possibly lingering here to guard a stranger, from some
such motive as my own. Still, it was scarcely safe to trust him alone,
and I was not disposed to do so. The idea of his suspecting me amused me
for a minute and then amazed me, but I continued my promenade as if no
such thought had occurred to me. So we went on until my watch marked
half past seven o'clock, when Grammont awoke. We were not far from the
cabstand, and I led him thither, assisted him to enter the vehicle, gave
the driver his half-franc, and bade him drive to the Basso Porto. The
man in the blouse followed, and watched closely all the time, and my
later belief concerning him was quite confirmed. Dismissing him from my
mind, I entered a biroccio and drove to the Caffè. Arthur had left long
since, with a message for me to the effect that he would be at home at
Posilipo at eleven o'clock. Perhaps he had gone to the Opera, I thought,
and with the intention of discovering him I wandered from the Caffè. The
evening was very beautiful, and I changed my mind. I would roam along by
the bay and enjoy the sunset, and give myself up to the delights of the
country. As I wandered on, my thoughts ran back to Cecilia, and I had
another inward battle with myself. I found myself, in the excitement of
my thoughts, walking faster and faster until I was far from the city,
and alone in a country lane with the moonlight. The moon was up, and
up at the full, before the sun was down; and so soon as the gathering
twilight gave her power, she bathed the landscape in so lovely a light
that even my sore and troubled heart grew tranquil to behold it. I stood
near an abrupt turning in the lane, and watched the tremor in the soft
lustre of the bay, which looked as though innumerable great jewels rose
slowly to its surface and there melted and were lost, whilst all
the time innumerable others took the place of these dissolving gems,
themselves dissolving in their turn, whilst countless others slowly
rose. Here and there was a light upon the water, and here and there the
shadow of a boat. And, far away, like the audible soul of the sea, was
the soft, soft sound of music, where some boating party sang together.

To say that the cry came suddenly would be to say nothing. There came
a shriek of appalling fear close by, which tore the air with terror.
I took one step and listened. For a second I heard the rumbling of
carriage wheels at a distance, and not another sound, but that of the
faint music far away. Then came a foot-step at racing pace nearer and
nearer, then a trip and a long stagger, as though the runner had nearly
fallen, and then the headlong pace again. And then, with the soft broad
moon-light full upon his face, a man came darting round the corner of
the lane. I strove to move aside, but before I could lift a foot he was
upon me like an avalanche. I knew that we fell together, and that the
man arose and resumed his headlong course. I tried to call after him,
but found no voice. I tried to rise, but could not move a limb. Then a
sickly shudder ran through me, and I fainted.

            *    *    *    *    *

Out of a sort of vaporous dream came the slow sound of carriage wheels
bumping along the ruts of the road; then a light which was not of the
moon; then a sudden pause in the noise of wheels and the sound of a
coarse, strong voice speaking in tones of great excitement.

'Body of Bacchus! What a night for adventures! Here is another of them!'

The light came nearer, and another voice burst out in English, 'By the
Lord! That's the man!'

The voices both grew dim, and though they still talked, they sounded
like the noise of running water, wordless and indistinct. Then I felt
myself lifted into a carriage, and until I awoke here I knew nothing. It
was the jar of bolts, and the rattling fall of a chain, and the grating
noise of a key in a lock which awoke me. I turned and recognised the
man who entered--an officer, by name Ratuzzi, to whom I had done some
service in old days. I asked him feebly where I was and how I came
there.

'In the town gaol,' he answered gravely, and the solemnity of his face
and tone chilled me.

'In the town gaol?' I repeated. 'Why was I brought here?'

'I am very sorry, signor,' he said in the same tone. 'In whatsoever I
can serve you, you may command me. Shall I give orders to send for a
doctor?'

'Why was I brought here?' I asked again.

He made no reply, and weak and shaken as I was, I sat up and reiterated
my question.

'You are charged with the murder of Carlo Grammont.'

'Charles Grammont? Murder?' I repeated.

'Would you wish to see a doctor or an avvocato?'

I could only moan in answer.

'Charles Grammont murdered! Oh, my poor Cecilia! My angel and my love!'

For the face of the man in the lane was the face of Arthur Clyde, and
the moonlight had shown to me, oh! too, too clearly, the blood that
smeared his brow.




CHAPTER V.--_LA TEMPESTA VA CRESCENDO_.

I am remanded for trial.

There is a depth below all possibilities of pain and grief, even before
one reaches the grave. I am in that depth already, and I do not believe
that there is anything in the world which could touch me with sympathy
or with sorrow. I am not even annoyed at myself and my own mental
condition, as I surely have a right to be. My bodily health is
tolerable. I sleep well at night, and during the day I eat with fair
appetite. Some of my belongings have been brought from Posilipo here;
amongst them a small mirror. I am so much a stranger to myself in this
new-found calm and indifference, that I am almost surprised to find
myself unaltered outwardly. I am a little paler than common--that is
all. My mind finds natural employment in the most trivial speculations
and fancies, and it is chiefly to save myself from this vanity of
thought that I write now of myself and my own concernings.

I have written at this little story of my own in poverty and in success,
in happiness and in sorrow, and it has come at last to seem that the
plain white paper before me is my only fitting confidant. Will there
ever come a day when I shall be able to read all its record gladly? Past
joys are a grief--griefs gone by are a joy to us. Who knows what may
come?

And so, poor Hope, you would spread your peacock wings even here? Ah,
go your way! You forget. Our companionship is dissolved. We are not on
speaking terms any longer.

I have not been plagued with any official severities, for Ratuzzi is
mindful of old favours. He has told me only this morning that my father
extended some such kindness to his father as that for which he bears
such grateful memory to me. It was a small affair; a mere matter of
money. Against my wish he brought to me a doctor and an advocate. I
submitted myself to the first, but to the advocate I declined to listen.

He is a pale young man of five-and-twenty or thereabouts, this advocate.
He has a cleanshaven face of rare mobility, a mouth of remarkable
decision and sweetness, and eyes of black fire. The most noticeable
thing about him is his voice, which is not easily to be characterised.
You know the sub-acid flavour in a generous Burgundy--so nicely
proportioned that it does but give the wine a grip on the tongue and
palate. That is the nearest thing I can think of to the singular quality
of this man's voice. The voice is rich and full; but there is a tart
flavour in it which emphasises all it says just as the acid emphasises
the riper flavours of wine. It takes the kind of grip upon the ear that
a file takes upon steel. Or, better than all, it takes just that hold
upon the ear which the violin bow takes upon the strings. Ecco. There
is my meaning at last. It is not possible that you should escape from
listening to this young man when he speaks. He is, further, a young man
whom nothing can abash. It is not singular, then, since I am indifferent
to all things now that although I declined to listen to him, he stayed
and talked, and after much trouble brought me to talk with him.

He was right, after all.

'You are innocent, signor, and you decline to do anything to help
yourself? Permit me. No man ever did God's work in the world by refusing
to help himself. You have some reason for your refusal? What possible
reasons exist? Guilt? We will dismiss that at once.

Despair of establishing innocence? No. When the salt mines of Sardinia
are on one side a man and liberty is on the other, he does not yield to
despair. Ha! The impossibility, signor, of defending oneself unless
one criminates another? And that other a friend--a lover? I am right,
signor. No gestures of denial can throw down a conclusion so obviously
firm. And now, suppose that it should not be necessary to criminate
another. Would you then consent to be defended? No? Well, signor, I am
not the accusatore pubblico, and it is no business of mine to hunt down
criminals. But, whether you will or not, I will get to the bottom of
this matter.'

'Are you so eager for a case, signor?' I asked him. 'I will pay you more
to leave me alone than you can ask if you defend me.'

I had meant to sting him into leaving me. But his pale face did not even
flush at the insult.

'I am engaged by my friend Ratuzzi, signor. Ratuzzi tells me it is
beyond dreaming that you should be guilty of murder and theft. He came
to me and besought me to make him grateful for all eternity by taking
up this case and clearing you from the suspicions which rest upon you.
I have promised him that I will do all in my power, and I will. You will
observe, therefore, signor, that whatsoever is done in this matter is
independent of your will, if you choose to have it so. I shall know who
committed this murder in a fortnight from now, and I shall only retire
from your defence if I prove you guilty in my own mind.'

'Signor,' I said in answer, 'I apologise for the insult I offered you
just now. But in this matter I am resolute. If it be the will of God
that I suffer innocently, I suffer. I am not anxious on that score. It
is not at all a matter for my consideration. I do not care whether I am
acquitted or found guilty.'

'Is it your wish that I should consult the other prisoner's interest at
all?'

I looked at him blankly, whilst my heart stood still.

'The other prisoner?' I asked.

'The other prisoner,' he answered calmly. 'Is it he whom you desire to
shield?'

'Who is he?'

The advocate drew forth a bundle of memoranda, and turned them over
carefully and at his leisure. I did not dare to question him further,
and waited in an agony of suspense.

'That is the name,' he said--'an English name.'

He placed his thumb and leisurely turned round the paper to me on the
table which stood before us. I tried to read, but all my pulses seemed
throbbing round my eyes, and I was dazzled and blind. He took the paper
up again, but I reached out my hand for it.

'I did not read the name,' I said. 'Permit me once more.'

He passed the paper again towards me, and I read--

'John Baker. Claims to be an Englishman, and speaks in English only. Is
believed to be by birth an Italian, but a naturalised British subject. A
person of notoriously evil character.'

This at least was not Arthur. I breathed again, and for a moment a wild
hope sprang up in my heart. It died again directly. Ah, if I could have
believed that he was innocent! But the evidence of which I was the sole
repository was beyond all doubt, beyond all hope.

'No,' I said. 'I know nothing of this man. What is the evidence against
him?'

'The evidence against him is the knowledge that he was poor until the
night of the murder, and has since suddenly become rich. Further, that
a pocket-book found in his possession was smeared with blood. The book
contains a large sum of money in English notes, and is believed to have
belonged to the murdered man.'

I had never supposed that Arthur had robbed the body of his dead enemy.

'If this be proved, Signor l'Avvocato,' I said, after some time of
silence, 'what punishment will fall upon this man?'

'The salt mines will not be enough for him,' the advocate answered. 'He
will probably be shot. You see, signor, he has denied his nationality,
and that of itself will embitter the national feeling against him.'

'Then,' I answered, 'these suspicions must not be bolstered by false
proofs. This man has, perhaps, robbed a dead body, but he has not
committed murder.'

'Signor Calvotti,' said the advocate, the black fire burning slowly
in his eyes, and a slow flush creeping to his pale forehead whilst he
spoke, 'what mystery surrounds your share of this matter I can only
faintly guess. But I know that it is not a mystery to you. I have found
out this, at least, since I have been here--that you know the murderer,
and that you determine to shield him, even at your own expense. Now, I
warn you that if you deny me your confidence, I will convict the real
man, whosoever he may be.'

He fixed those slow-burning eyes upon me as he said this, and waited
for an answer. I responded to his words and to the fixity of his gaze by
silence.

'Give me your confidence, and I will serve your turn,' he said again.
'Are you the guilty man?'

'I? No.'

'Signor Calvotti,' he began again, after another pause, during which his
eyes were shadowed by his drooping brows, 'you shall trust me yet.
Any secret suspicion given to me is buried in the grave. Any secret
certainty of knowledge is buried equally. A confession of your own
guilt, the declaration of a friend's, shall be entombed here'--he laid
his hand upon his breast--'and know no resurrection.'

I answered nothing, and he rose to go.

'That which you hide,' he said as a last word,' I will discover for
myself. Given freely, it would be used for your own cause. Wrested from
mystery, it shall be used for mine.'

'Come here again,' I answered, 'three hours later, and I will answer you
in one way or the other.'

'Good,' he responded, and signalled for the door to be opened. Ratuzzi
himself answered the loud knock he gave, and my friendly gaoler asked me
how I fared, and if I stood in need of anything.

'Nothing just now but time to think a little.'

He closed the door, and locked and chained and bolted it, and then I
heard the footsteps of the two grow fainter and fainter until silence
came. Then I lit my pipe and poured out a glass of wine--for in these
respects I am allowed what I choose--and sat down to think. But I found
it hard to give my thoughts to anything. There was a hollow somewhere
in my mind into which all serious thoughts fell jumbled. I felt neither
pained nor confused, but only vacuous. I battled with this feeling until
I subdued it. Then I grasped the situation firmly. What object have I,
here and now, and everywhere and always, next to the rectitude of my own
soul? There is only one answer to that question: Cecilia's happiness!
How to secure that here?--how to save it from the horrible perils which
everywhere surround it? Is it to be done by securing her union for life
with her brother's murderer? If I know one thing of Arthur Clyde--whom
I know well--it is this: that such a crime as that I charge him with,
committed under whatsoever provocation, will weigh him down for ever,
and make life a perpetual hell to him. The hideous injustice of a union
with such a man she must not suffer, whatsoever else she suffer. And
that she, like the rest of us, _must_ suffer, is too clear. But of this
I am assured: To learn that her lover is her brother's murderer, and not
only that, but that by his silence he accuses a friend who is innocent,
would break her heart beyond all the remedy of hope and years. That
shall not be.

It seemed little more than an hour when I heard footsteps again
approaching my door. They paused on reaching it, and the jar of bolt and
chain and lock succeeded. The door opened and closed again. I did not
turn or look round until a hand was laid on me, and a voice, strange to
me for a year, called me by my name. Then I was indeed amazed.

'Mr. Gregory! You here?'

'My poor fellow! I reached Naples last night, and found the town ringing
with the news of an arrest for murder. But what I can't understand is,
that now they've got the real fellow, they don't let you go.'

'Never mind me,' I answered. 'Do they know in England--Miss Grammont and
Cecilia?'

'They are with me here,' he answered quickly. 'They know that you are
arrested for murder, and scout the idea, of course. But they don't know
of their brother's death yet. I want to run them both away and let them
learn the news more tenderly than they will do here, but I must see
you through this miserable business. How did the fools come to suspect
_you_, of all men in the world?'

'Suspicion was natural,' I answered. 'I was found near the spot directly
after the discovery of the body.'

'What brought you there?'

'I was on my way home to Posilipo. The night was fine, and I was in a
mood for walking.'

'But you were found insensible, or something of the sort, weren't you?'

'I was standing still in the road, looking at the moonlight on the bay,
when I heard a terrible cry. Before I could move, a man came racing down
the road as if he were flying for his life. He ran against me, and we
fell together. I fainted, and never fully recovered consciousness until
I found myself here.'

'Who do you suppose the man to be? No clue to him, I suppose, in your
own mind? What do the authorities say to this?'

'I have offered no defence, and made no statement.'

'God bless my soul, what folly! When you might have been out of custody
the next day! How very absurd!'

'I was stunned, remember. There were good reasons for silence. The trial
takes place in a fortnight.'

'A fortnight! But you can't stop here a fortnight!'

'I must!' I answered, smiling even then at his impetuosity. 'I am
remanded for trial.'

'You bear it well, Calvotti,' he said, taking me by both shoulders, and
looking kindly at me.

'I do not feel my own share much,' I told him truly. 'I am most
aggrieved for the others. It is a terrible business.'

'Give me young Clyde's address. I must bring him to comfort Cecilia when
she learns the truth. She was fond of that poor scapegrace, with all his
faults and follies. He paid bitterly for em'--poor ne'er-do-weel!--very
bitterly.'

'Bitterly, indeed,' I answered absently, looking for a way to escape
from a renewed mention of Clyde's name, and finding none.

'I shall come to see you as often as they'll let me, and stay as long as
I can. But now I must go for the present. Let me see--Clyde's living at
your place, isn't he?'

'Yes,' I answered, 'he was living at the address from which I always
dated.' 'Has he been here to-day?' Oh! It was all too bitter, and I
could endure no longer. I turned my face away. My old patron laid a
gentle hand upon my shoulder, and strove to turn me round. I cast myself
upon the bed, and broke into tears. Gran Dio! I am not ashamed. But that
outbreak cost me bodily agony, and I wept and sobbed whilst I cursed
myself for weeping. Sacred Heaven! how I wrestled with this devil of
weakness, which held me so strongly. When I had fought him down, he
leapt upon me afresh, and subdued me by sheer torture until I let nature
take her way, and cried like a woman! Then, when it was all over, I
stood up and spoke with a new resolve.

'Sir, you are a just man and a wise man, and you shall know the whole
truth. But first you shall swear to me that what I tell you is for ever
buried in your own heart!'

He looked at me with stern inquiry.

'I am not an informer,' he said, 'and you may speak safely.'

I stepped towards him, but he waved me back, and himself took a backward
step.

'There is a reason for my silence, but with you that reason dies. I
have your promise, and I trust it. The man who overthrew me in the lane,
whose hands and face were red with Grammont's blood, was----'

'Go on,' he said, standing there still in rough-hewn dignity, though his
lips trembled and his face was pale.

'That man,' I said, 'was Arthur Clyde.'

'Ah!' The sound escaped him without his knowing it. A minute later he
asked, 'What was the ground of quarrel?'

I told him then the story of Clyde's meeting with Grammont, and of
Arthur's passion afterwards, and of our next encounter with Grammont at
the end of the Chiaja on the day of the murder.

'And you are sacrificing yourself that Clyde may escape, trusting to
chances to clear yourself?'

I answered nothing.

'What is your motive in all this?' he asked me.

What right had I to withhold it, then? what right to be ashamed of the
truth? Yet I paused.

'It is not friendship for Clyde. What _is_ the motive?'

'I was silent because I waited here for events to decide what I could
not decide for myself.'

'And what was that?'

'How to give Cecilia least pain.'

'Are you in love with Cecilia?' he asked me.

'No,' I answered honestly, 'I am not in love with Cecilia, but she is
dearer to me than anybody in the world. I could not love my sister or my
mother more tenderly.'

'H'm!' he said in his old way, when thinking. 'And what have events led
you to?'

'They lead me nowhere,' I cried; 'I am helpless.'

'And so Clyde has never been here, of course. Has he escaped?'

'I cannot say.'

'It is a terrible business, Calvotti, but it is better so. You have done
right. You have done well. You have done nobly. There is no evidence
against you which is not so flimsy that a fly could break through it.
Clyde will disappear. If he should come back again, I will warn him
off--trust me. Time will console Cecilia, and you will have averted a
tragedy. Here is somebody at the door.'

Chain and lock creaked and jangled. The door swung inwards, and Ratuzzi
appeared with the advocate.

'Signor l'Avvocato,' I said, 'this gentleman will tell you everything it
concerns you to know. Or--stay. Do you speak English?'

'I speak no language but my own,' said the young advocate.

'My dear Calvotti,' said my old patron, in Italian smoother and more
choicely worded than his English, one language is pretty much the
same to me as another, so long as it _is_ a language, and is spoken
in Europe. I have been a mercantile adventurer in Europe for more than
thirty years, and have found a knowledge of languages a necessity.'

'Then, sir,' I said in English, 'deal with this gentleman according to
your discretion. If you think it wise, let him know all.'

'Trust to me,' he answered, and bade me a cheery adieu.

In another hour the advocate was back, again.

'Signor Calvotti,' he exclaimed, holding out his hand for mine, 'I did
not know that I had a hero to defend. But I know it now. You are in no
danger. It is weary waiting, but two weeks do not make up eternity; and
we shall march out of the court with the drums beating.'

I could not share his joy. The weight which is upon me now oppressed me
then; and when the door closed upon the advocate, I could only sit upon
my bed and think, with a heart that ached and burned, of the terror
which waited on Cecilia.




CHAPTER VI.--THE END.

Whilst I lay waiting for the day of trial, I learned from my counsel
that my fellow-prisoner was identified as one Giovanni Fornajo, an old
companion of Charles Grammont. This man was known to have rifled his
dead friend's clothing, and the popular impression appeared to be that I
had either committed the murder from some other motive than cupidity, or
had been disturbed, and that this poor scoundrel had striven to profit
by my crime. Against us both the popular feeling was intense. It was
noted by the crowd that both Fornajo and myself were naturalised British
subjects, and that fact alone might have created considerable prejudice
against us, because to the ignorant mind it bespoke the repudiation of
our native land--a thing from which I am utterly afar in my own mind.
I am proud of Italy, and I am proud of Naples, and I have no idea
of pretending to be other than a Neapolitan. One can be cosmopolitan
without losing one's patriotism, I venture respectfully to hope. But I
would not have cared then to set myself right with the populace of my
native city, either on that or any other point, though I could have done
it with a word. It was natural and illogical to scorn the people for
believing in my guilt, whilst I allowed them to believe it. Yet I felt
against them a sort of lofty anger, and felt myself affronted to think
that anybody could regard me as being even likely to commit a murder.
Ratuzzi was kind throughout, even when he believed me guilty; and Mr.
Gregory after his first visit never failed me. I asked him news of
Clyde, but he had no news to bring me until two days before my trial,
when he came into my cell with a grave but not uncheerful countenance.

'Calvotti,' he said, 'can you tell me with any precision the hour at
which you saw Arthur on that fatal night?'

'I can only guess the time,' I answered. 'But why do you ask?' I
questioned in my turn.

'Because,' he replied, 'I believe it possible that you may have mistaken
somebody else for Arthur, and because I have evidence that he could not
be near the place at the time at which we know that the murder must have
been committed.'

For one moment hope beamed within my heart, but in a second, like
a scene beheld by the light of heaven's fire, the sight of that
horror-stricken, blood-stained face was with me. I could read again
every line and tint of it, and I knew it too well to be mistaken.

'My friend,' I said sorrowfully--'my best friend--do not comfort
yourself with any false hope on that matter. I saw him, and there is no
hope of a doubt in all my mind.'

'Arthur,' he replied, 'is lying ill of fever at this moment in your
house at Posilipo. Your housekeeper tells me that she saw him enter his
room. He made her understand that he was unwell, and that he wished to
lie down. She gave him a cup of coffee, and he retired to his room. Next
morning she found him there raving with fever and lying on the floor.
Only one point in her narrative accords with your belief, and that is,
when she raised him she found him badly cut across the forehead, and
found that his arms were bruised as if by a fall. The doctor who attends
him tells me that the crisis is over, but sternly forbids that any
questions should be asked him at present. The patient must see nobody
for a week to come, but I have hopes that we shall yet clear up a
terrible mystery, and shall find that Arthur is as innocent as I believe
you to be.'

I told him I would give all in my world to share his hopes. How could I
doubt my own eyes? A vision, moreover, does not dash against a man and
knock him down and stun him for hours. In all that Mr. Gregory could
tell me I found no hope, but only vague suspicions of a plan to divert
suspicion. Yet I found some comfort in one belief which would intrude
itself upon me. He was yet guilty though this story of the fever were
all true, but if it were true he was less base than I had feared, and
had not willingly left one who loved him to suffer for his crime. Mr.
Gregory went away sensibly subdued by my fixed refusal to accept the
hope he offered.

'There is a mystery in all this, Calvotti,' he said at parting, 'and it
must be cleared.'

'There is no mystery to my eyes,' I answered, 'and you will find before
long that I am right, though I would give the world to know that I am
wrong.'

Then came the day. I had little fear of being found guilty, and I had,
indeed, but very little care to be acquitted. When I thought of
myself, it was as though I reflected on the affairs of some troublesome
stranger, of whose interest I was weary. I am not learned in law forms,
and I cannot tell you the precise forms of the several indictments
against me. These things are managed in Italy pretty much as they are in
England, except that here you have no accusatore pubblico. The place of
that functionary would, in an English Court, be filled by a temporarily
appointed counsel for the Crown. When I was placed in the dock, I looked
about with an interest no more vivid than that of any spectator there.
Mr. Gregory sat beside my counsel, and nodded to me gravely. There was
no one else whom I knew, although the place was crowded. There was a
murmur on my entrance, and I heard many words of hatred and loathing
muttered here and there. For a moment no one spoke or moved, and the
Court seemed to await something. I saw what that something was when
Giovanni Fornajo was placed in the dock by my side, and we were jointly
and severally arraigned. The accustore pubblico arose, and, gathering
his gown about him, spoke.

Had I been one of the crowd who listened, I should have believed myself
guilty. The evidence against me, as he set it forth, seemed a web
closely woven enough to hold anything. I had been seen by two or more
people engaged in a quarrel with the deceased in the Basso Porto. I had
been seen on the Chiaja with him at a time when he was the worse for
drink, and when my conduct and appearance were so suspicious that a
perfect stranger was impelled to watch me for two hours lest I should do
the man a mischief in his drunken sleep. Two or three hours later, this
perfect stranger to us both had found the dead body of Charles Grammont
in the road with all the pockets of his garments turned inside out,
and had put the body into a cart he was then driving from Posilipo to
Naples. A hundred yards nearer the city he found me lying bruised as if
in a struggle, and with the marks of a hand wet with blood upon my white
shirt-front. The marks of the hand had been found to correspond in size
with the hand of the deceased. My companion in the dock was probably, so
the accusatore said, an accessory before the fact, and it was probable
that, whilst I had committed the crime to gratify my own evil passion
for revenge, I had engaged this desperate and notorious character to
pillage the body in order to give the murder the appearance of having
been committed from a purely sordid motive. He set forth all his facts
and all his theories about them with great calmness, but when he came to
the close of his indictment he burst into an impassioned protest against
certain articles which had appeared in a French journal on the question
of Italian Brigandage, citing this case as an argument to show that
crimes of violence were committed by born Neapolitans within the city
radius, and expressing a sarcastic wonder that the authorities should
have troubled themselves to arrest the criminals though the proofs
against them both were overwhelming.

'Thus it is,' said the accusatore, speaking with a stern passion of
emphasis, 'that these traitors to their country first cast off their
natal ties in order to lead lives of unrestricted profligacy abroad,
and having, in other lands, done all within them to disgrace the land
of their birth, return to it to inflict a wound still deeper upon the
national reputation; and thus it is that these villains, though they
once did their country the honour to repudiate it, return to lay a final
disgrace upon it.'

He pressed with a passionate insistence for the extremest rigour of
the law against us both, and it was plain from the angry murmurs of
the court that this appeal to the national sentiment had told heavily
against me. Then he called his witnesses. The first three were from the
Basso Porto--fit inhabitants of the place. They told substantially the
same story, and all swore that I was engaged in an angry broil with
Grammont and another Englishman whom they did not know. They admitted
that the conversation was carried on in English, but my advocate's
half-contemptuous cross-examination could not set aside the fact that
a quarrel, in which I had taken some part, had taken place. After these
three, Matthew Hollis was called, and the man whom I had watched upon
the quay presented himself. He told, in fair though foreign-sounding
Italian, a plain story. He had been an engine-fitter, and had worked in
France and Italy. He was settled down in business on his own account
in Naples, and on the day to which his story related had work to do
at Posilipo. On his way thither he observed Grammont and myself, and
suspected me of evil designs and watched me. He told how I tried to get
rid of him by sending him upon a message to the Caffe d' Italia, and how
he declined to leave the place. He related how, having seen us part, he
had gone his way to Posilipo, and how, returning thence in the evening
with a workman of his own, he had found the dead body of Grammont on the
road, and had found me lying insensible at a little distance from it.
A close cross-examination only served to prove the absolute solidity of
this man's story. Then an officer produced a bundle, and, untying it,
displayed the shirt I had worn, with the rust-coloured mark of a hand
distinct upon the front. 'Did that mark correspond with the size of
the hand of the murdered man?' So asked the accusatore pubblico. 'Yes,'
answered the official, 'accurately.' 'Did it correspond with the hand
of the prisoner Giovanni Câlvotti?' 'No,' he responded, and stated truly
that I was a man of much larger build than Grammont, and my hand at
least an inch longer. So far as I was-concerned the case closed with his
evidence, and the case against Fornajo was then gone into. There is no
need to go over that ground: again. All that was proved against him was;
the possession of Grammont's money. He failed totally to establish
an alibi, and so far as participation in the crime went the evidence;
seemed clear enough against him.

Then arose my advocate, with pale face and coal-black eyes.

'This world,' he said, 'is full of strange and curious contrasts, but I
do not think that any contrast so strange as this has been seen by any
man who now hears my voice. Side by side, companions in your thoughts
of them, stand two men so utterly unlike each other in; appearance
and character, that to see them thus commonly arraigned is in itself an
amazement. The one a gentleman and descended from gentlemen, the other a
person of the lowest class--the one famous in the annals of contemporary
art, the other known for nothing but his love for vulgar dissipation. As
they stand there before you they present a spectacle tragic and unique.
As I know them--and as you will see them when I have called the one
witness I have to call--they present a spectacle yet more amazing. One
man stands there a monument of honour, a glory to his country, and a
lesson to mankind. The other stands there a murderer in fact already,
and in his heart a murderer again; since, knowing the innocence of the
man beside him, he seeks at the expense of innocence to shield his own
guilt from the sword of justice. It is my pride and my delight to-day
to heal one broken and heroic heart, and it is my duty to bring one
miserable criminal to justice.'

Whilst the young advocate spoke thus, I stood in amazed agony. Was he
about to denounce Clyde in order to free me? It would be a professional
tour de force, and the melodramatic power of the situation would have
made him notorious for life. He looked round upon me slowly when he
had ceased to speak, and I saw that his dark eyes were burning with
triumphant fire. He sat down, and for a moment there was a dead hush
in the crowded place, and then a buzz of excited speech, and then a
clamour. In the midst of it an officer placed a chair before the judge,
immediately between the judicial seat and the railed space in which I
stood. If I had been amazed at the speech of the young advocate, you may
guess how I felt when Arthur Clyde came forward and took the seat. His
eyes met mine once, and I saw that they were brimmed with tears, and
there was such a smile upon his face as I never saw before. Was I mad,
or lost in some fantastic dream? This man voluntarily here, of all
men--and smiling upon _me!_ It was at once incredible and true. I
waited, dizzy and breathless, to hear and see the end.

The customary oath administered, my advocate arose, and, in the midst of
a deathlike silence, questioned Arthur Clyde. He first drew from him the
story of the Basso Porto, and at its close begged to recall the three
witnesses who had deposed to my participation in the quarrel. They came,
and each identified Arthur as the third party in the fracas. Arthur
gave his evidence in English, through the sworn interpreter of the
court, and Mr. Gregory once or twice gave hints to the advocate when
question or answer missed precise translation. He told of our second
meeting with Grammont, and of his own departure. Then came a story which
amazed me, and riveted the ears of every creature there. That story I
reproduce from the columns of the 'Giorno.'

Advocate: Where did you go next?

Witness: To the Caffe d' Italia to await my friend.

Advocate: How long did you stay?

Witness: Only half-an-hour. I felt suddenly unwell, and walked again on
the Chiaja.

Advocate: Did you see your friend again?

Witness: Yes. He was still engaged in talk with Mr. Grammont; and since
I had no wish to meet him then, I walked along the road to Posilipo.

Advocate: Did anything happen upon the road?

Witness: I was violently sick, and, feeling very faint afterwards, lay
down upon a slope at the side of the road under the shade of a tree, and
rested there.

Advocate: What happened next?

Witness: I heard voices in the lane below me.

Advocate: Relate now what happened.

Witness: I saw two men--Mr. Grammont and another--talking together. They
spoke in English. The man asked for money, and said he knew perfectly
well that Mr. Grammont had more than four thousand pounds in English
notes about him at that moment.

The Judge: What was Grammont's condition at this time?

Witness: He was partially sobered, as I should judge, but not
altogether.

Advocate: Pray proceed with your story.

Witness: There was a good deal of angry talk between the two and
Grammont's companion threatened that, if he were not allowed a part of
the money, he would try to take all.

Advocate: Did Grammont take any notice of that threat?

Witness: He laughed, and the two walked on together.

Advocate: Did you see them again?

Witness: I passed them on my way to Posilipo, when they were laughing
and chatting together quite amicably.

Advocate: Did you then see Mr. Grammont's companion clearly?

Witness: I did.

Advocate: Can you point him out?

Witness: That is the man (rising and pointing to the prisoner Fornajo).

Advocate: Continue your narrative.

Witness: I went on to Posilipo, and there took a cup of coffee and
retired to my bedroom. Feeling then a little better, and thinking that
my friend Calvotti would wonder at my absence, I walked back towards the
city, hoping to meet him. It was then broad moonlight. Where I had last
seen Grammont and the prisoner Fornajo I saw them both again. Grammont
was lying motionless upon the ground, and Fornajo was bending above him.
I suspected foul play, and ran forward. Fornajo arose and turned upon
me. I don't know who first attacked the other. We struggled together,
and he broke away. I then turned to Grammont.

The Witness here gave signs of deep emotion.

Advocate: Had any suspicion of murder up to this time occurred to you?

Witness: None.

Advocate: I must trouble you by reviving a painful memory. You had a
brother who died in your childhood?

Witness (speaking with a great effort): I had.

Advocate: How did he die?

Witness: By his own hand.

Advocate: I must ask the indulgence of the court for this gentleman, who
is recovering now from the effects of recent fever, and who acts
against the advice of his doctor by coming to do his duty here. (To the
Witness): Who first discovered the body of your brother?

Witness: I did.

Advocate: I will try you as little as I can. Compose yourself. That
discovery naturally shocked you terribly?

Witness: Terribly.

Advocate: And left upon your mind an indelible impression?

Witness: An indelible impression.

Advocate: When you first turned to Mr. Grammont, what did you do?

Witness: I stooped down and took his head in my hands.

Advocate: And what did you see?

Witness: That his head was nearly severed from his body.

Advocate: And what effect had this spectacle upon you?

The Witness returned no answer to the interpreter, and on the question
being repeated: fainted, and was removed from court.

The Judge: Is it necessary to prolong this painful scene?

Advocate: With all submission to the Court--for one moment only. (After
a pause, the Witness returned.) Are you strong enough to go on, Mr.
Clyde?

Witness: I think so.

Advocate: We are then to understand that at this terrible sight the
shock given you in your childhood by the discovery of your brother was
revived?

Witness: Yes.

Advocate: What did you do?

Witness: I am not quite clear, but I remember running from the place.

Advocate: Did you see any living man near there?

Witness: Yes. I ran against a man close by. We fell together.

Advocate: In what condition were your hands?

Witness: They were covered with blood.

The Advocate here asked for the shirt of the prisoner Giovanni Calvotti.
It was produced.

Advocate: You observe upon the breast of that shirt the mark of a hand?

Witness: Yes.

Advocate: Lay your hand upon it, and see if it corresponds in size?

Witness: Exactly.

Advocate: One question more. Was Mr. Grammont dead when you saw him?

Witness: I believe that he was not quite dead. I believe that I saw his
hand move upon his breast.

Advocate: One word more. Could you identify the man against whom you
ran?

Witness: I was too agitated at the time to recognise him.

In this wise the story came out. Ah me! how I accused myself in my heart
for my suspicions. The tears of joy were in my eyes so thickly that I
could scarcely see. I had my friend back again, and my love was saved
this overwhelming horror which had seemed to threaten her.

The Public Accuser rose and cross-examined Arthur Clyde, for form's
sake, I suppose. But the jury professed themselves satisfied with the
evidence before them, and before I quite knew what had happened I was in
a chariot in the street--a chariot with no horses at all, but a thousand
men, to draw it. The story was abroad. The city rang with it. I had
risked my life to save a friend from suspicion, and those who cursed me
in the morning cheered me in the afternoon, until they were too hoarse
to cheer me longer. Happily, Cecilia's name was kept out of this noisy
chorus of applause which roared so in my ears. I was glad and excited,
and had no objection to be made a hero. As soon as I could be rescued,
Mr. Gregory bore me away to Posilipo, where I found Arthur quite
worn out with the fatigue and excitement of the day. Those influences
retarded his recovery for a week or two, but before the autumn came
he was well and strong again. I begged hard of Mr. Gregory and the
Advocate, and at last they came to agree with me, and to this day Arthur
does not know of my suspicions of him. He regards my reception by the
populace as a curious illustration of the excitability of an Italian
mob--as no doubt it was.

Giovanni Fornajo, otherwise John Baker, went to the Sardinian salt mines
for the term of his natural life, and is serving there now.

I am godfather to Cecilia's boy, and I am an Italian old bachelor.
I shall never marry, but I am contented. My last news is that my old
patron, at the age of fifty-five, has proposed to Miss Grammont, and
that she has not refused him.

If you will look into the little churchyard at Posilipo you will find
a flat marble slab with a name on it, and no more. The name it bears is
that of Alberto Lezzi, who but for his early death would have been one
of the great legal orators of Europe. The case which first brought him
into note was mine. I have not told you his name before, but my advocate
was the great Alberto Lezzi. It was his hand which averted the tragedy
of my life, and it is to his memory that I dedicate this story.