Chapter XXXVII: At Palazzo Forti

"Love is enough: ho, ye who seek saving
Go no further; come hither; there have been who have found it,
And these know the House of Fulfilment of Craving;
These know the cup with the roses around it;
These know the World's Wound and the balm that hath bound it;
Cry out, the World heedeth not, 'Love, lead us home!'

"He leadeth, he hearkeneth, he cometh to youward;
Set your faces as steel to the fears that assemble
Round his goad for the faint, and his scourge for the forward;
Lo his lips, how with tales of last kisses they tremble!
Lo his eyes of all sorrow that may not dissemble!
Cry out, for he heedeth, 'O Love lead us home!'"
WILLIAM MORRIS.

On that Monday evening, after Carlo had started for Casa Bella, Nita dined alone, Gigi hovering round, and always ready to accept promiscuous mouthfuls off her plate like a pet dog. When the child had gone to bed, she sat down to the piano, her fingers roaming over the keys and playing a sort of subdued accompaniment to her reverie.

"I'm going to turn over a new leaf," she thought to herself; "it is after all rather pleasant to be good, and not so hard as I thought. I have enjoyed these days on the yacht with the Brittons; it was not half so dull as I expected. There was something so peaceful and quiet about it. I think I'm tired of being naughty. Now I'll be like Carlo; that will be a novelty."

She was interrupted by the entrance of the servant with a visitor's card. Holding out her hand for it carelessly, she glanced down at the name and saw that it was Comerio's. A terrible fear seized on her.

"Say I do not receive to-night. I am engaged--not well!" she exclaimed breathlessly.

The servant retired, but in another minute came back still bearing the card, on which Comerio had pencilled a few words.

"You must see me on a matter of life and death!"

Nita's color came and went, but to refuse now seemed to her impossible, and the next minute she was alone with her lover. Yet, after all, did she love him or hate him? Of one thing only she was conscious--that with all her heart she feared him, and that over her he had some strange, deadly influence.

"How can you dare to come here!" she cried, passionately. "Did I not tell you I would never speak to you again?"

Comerio smiled.

"I come because I love you," he replied; "because I knew you would not keep to your threat; because, happen what may, I will never give you up. I have waited for you all these years, Nita, but now you will be mine."

"Never!" she cried, vehemently; and, with a growing sense of terror, she tried to pass him and reach the door.

"Do not speak too hastily," he said, intercepting her; "you are altogether in my power. Your brother has thwarted me for long; now it is my turn. If you wish him to die, to be murdered for your sake, you will refuse to come with me. If you wish to save him you will leave Naples with me to-night; we will fly to Australia and begin our new life there!"

"Oh! it isn't true," sobbed Nita; "it can't be true! Carlo could never be in your power!"

"Not true?" said Comerio, with a mocking laugh. "It is as true as the Gospel. Do you think the Pozzuoli road is so much frequented that I couldn't have him waylaid? I tell you his fate rests in your hands. Now choose!"

"You must be a fiend!" sobbed Nita. "Only a fiend could make such a plan!"

"A fiend or a lover," said Comerio. "All is fair in love and war, Nita, and I love you--I love you,--and I will have you. You shall not deny me!"

Again the old subtle influence crept over poor Nita's tempest-tossed heart; it needed only half an hour of Comerio's impassioned pleading to break down all her resolutions. After all, her life was hard and weary, and her husband rough and overbearing, and goodness was dull, and this scheme was exciting; besides, it would save Carlo--Carlo, whom she really loved. Yes, she would save him at all costs; she, too, would be self-sacrificing--she would give up everything to save him from death.

It was all over very quickly--the dispute, the struggle, the promise,--then once more she was alone with but a few hours in which to make all arrangements for her flight, for Comerio had promised that a carriage should be in waiting for her at twelve o'clock, and had hastened off to see that all his plans were in working order. He had absolute confidence in his own power over her, which was indeed great; but there was another Power which he had forgotten to take into account--a Power which could no more be laid hold of and shut up with Carlo in the brigands' retreat, than the wind.

"He shall not die for my sake!" sobbed Nita to herself; "I will save him by yielding. And yet--yet it is what he would say was wrong; he would call it doing evil that good might come. Oh! What am I to do? Why did I ever see Comerio?"

She was like a poor terrified bird in a cage, flying now to this side, now to that, but meeting always with hard, inpassable bars. The temptation to escape from her distasteful life, into a life that was new and untried, was terrible. And yet, as in sick recoil she looked at her past, there shone out in it always one bright light. A hundred little details of Carlo's care for her flashed back into her mind; scenes rose up before her in the green-room, at rehearsals, in desolate lodgings, on tedious journeys; and always he was there as her helper, the one perfectly reliable man in her world. He had given up all to save her from sin. Should she now yield to the temptation? Dared she delude herself into thinking that she sinned to save him from death? Had not his whole life proved to her that he would rather die than that she should so fall? Sobbing and trembling she threw herself on her knees, crushed beneath that awful realization of a decisive choice which must be made, maddened by the consciousness that time was passing, tossed to and fro in the storm of deadly temptation. It was not the breaking of a conventional law which she was contemplating; it was not a mere offence against society with which she had been dallying all these years; it was a sin. And the full meaning of that word broke on her as she knelt there. Sin was not a vague "something" to be comfortably confessed and disposed of; it was a contradiction of good, which must work its deadly course, inevitably bringing grief, and pain, and hardship on the innocent and loving. To save her from this sin Carlo had sacrificed his whole life; could she let that sacrifice be in vain?

And, after all, was it love which Comerio offered her? Could she name it in the same breath with the love which had shielded and guarded her through those three years? No: it was a hateful, vile counterfeit of love, a ghastly parody of the truth, a veiled selfishness, which could only drag her down to hell on earth. Carlo would die a thousand deaths rather than let her sink to this! And was it even now too late to save him?

In wild excitement she sprang to her feet, Comerio, in the heat of the moment, had let something fall about the Pozzuoli road! Why should she not rush to Casa Bella and prevent her brother's return, and save him from the attack that had been planned? What gave her strength for this desperate resolution she hardly knew, but the thought itself seemed to lend her wings. She rushed to her bedroom, snatched up a cloak and bonnet, drew a veil over her face, and, without even pausing to close the door of the house behind her, crept down the long stone staircase. The concierge was reading _La Campana_ as she glided past his little office; he was so much absorbed that he never even saw her.

And now she was actually in the street, and, for the first time since her resolution had been made, a feeling of fear and perplexity overwhelmed her, her brain seemed to reel. "Holy Virgin, protect me!" she sobbed, and walked on blindly too much terrified to form any clear plan of action. All at once she caught sight of a disengaged carriage, and signed to the driver to stop. He looked at her suspiciously, but she was far too miserable to resent that.

"Drive to Pozzuoli," she said; "to Casa Bella."

The man, however, grumbled. It was late, a long drive, his horse was tired. Nita thrust two gold coins into his hand.

"Go! go!" she cried. "Another if you will drive fast!"

Then she leant back in the carriage and covered her face with her hands, trembling in every limb, expecting each minute that Comerio would find out all and pursue her. The drive seemed endless, but at last Casa Bella was reached; she sprang out and asked eagerly for Signor Donati.

"He is not here, signora," said old Dino, looking at her curiously. "He has not been here at all."

Nita gave a cry that brought all the household flocking into the hall. They took her into the Rose-room, and there gradually drew from her the whole piteous story. Francesca, as she listened, turned pale as death, but to endure a moment's discussion or delay was to her impossible. Before the Captain or Mr. Britton could even recover enough from the shock to frame a clear idea, she had left the room, had run bareheaded out into the summer night, and was flying to the telegraph-office. Panting, breathless, with a weight of torturing fear at her heart, she yet ran like the wind. Carlo was in terrible danger, but she might yet save him. The office was still open; she wrote without a moment's delay the following words to the Chief of the Police: "Signor Carlo Donati was waylaid on the road to Pozzuoli this afternoon and has not been heard of since. The plot was arranged by the singer Giovanni Comerio. Arrest him immediately."

In the meantime, Comerio, little thinking of the turn affairs had taken, was making his arrangements with the utmost calmness and deliberation. First of all he went to Brancaleone's agent, who lived in one of the worst quarters of Naples. Here he deposited the white handkerchief, which had been the token decided on, and the little packet of notes for the payment of the brigand chief. Then he gave his final orders about the carriage which was to take them out of Naples; and afterwards, finding that he had yet time to spare on his hands, he went into a _caffè_, where, to fortify himself for the excitement of the evening, he called for a bottle of champagne. As he sat there at his little marble table, he thought, with a smile, of the great success of his plans, and a funny recollection came back to him of the old days when he had lived at his father's country farm. He remembered how he had once looked out on a moonlight night, and had become so absorbed in watching the tactics of a fox that he had not given the alarm to the household. The animal had set his heart on a fine hen which had gone to roost in an olive-tree, and which, roused from her slumbers, was watching the fox in deadly terror. He could not reach her, but with deep cunning walked slowly round and round the tree, the hen following him with her eyes in a sort of deadly fascination, till at last, from sheer giddiness, she dropped, and was carried off in triumph. The idea of punishing Donati and altogether outwitting him was delightful, even more delightful than the idea of winning Anita. But, after all, he reflected, it was always so in this world. Right could make a sort of feeble resistance but in the end Might always triumphed. And really luck had been with him of late. His London engagement had been extremely successful, while, to crown all, he had won enormously at Monaco, and could well afford to gratify both his love and his hate.

Sauntering out of the _caffè_, and still musing over his good fortune, he was a little startled when a passer-by thrust a note into his hand, and walked rapidly on. He paused to read it under a street lamp. It ran as follows:--

"Signor Comerio, be warned by a friend, and fly from Naples at once. You are in danger of being arrested."

Though capable, in order to gratify himself, of a certain amount of rash daring, Comerio was at heart a coward. He had a friend connected with the police force, and did not doubt for a moment that the warning came from him. He knew that he had not a moment to lose. Still the mere hatred of being baffled in his plans induced him to risk a call at Palazzo Forti. There was yet a chance that they might be able to fly together, and now that all was known he risked little more by making this final attempt. Breathlessly he made his way through the dusky courtyard and up the long stone staircase. To his surprise, the door at the top was open. He stole in and opened the door of the ante-room, calling Anita in a low voice. He went into the _sala_, but that, too, was empty and deserted. He knocked at the door of the bedroom; that, also, was tenantless. Then, with a faint suspicion dawning in his mind that Nita had played him false, he ground his teeth together, and flung open the two remaining doors in the suite. Possibly she was with the child. Snatching up a lamp from a table in the passage, he went into the room to make quite sure that she was not there,--looked with a sort of dumb rage at Donati's various possessions which were strewn about,--then walked up to the bed where Gigi lay sleeping with both arms flung up on the pillow above his head, and his ruddy-brown little face the picture of sturdy peacefulness. Comerio shook him by the shoulder.

"Where is your mother, child?" he said, in a voice that terrified Gigi. "Can't you speak?" he reiterated. "Where is your mother?"

"I don't know!" sobbed the child.

"_Accidente!_ she has played me false!" cried Comerio.

Then, suddenly holding his breath, he paused to listen. Undoubtedly men's voices and footsteps were approaching. Darting to the door, he drew the bolt, then rushed across to the window, flung it open, leapt out on to the balcony, and disappeared in the darkness.

Gigi's first impulse was to draw the bedclothes over his head and sob for very terror, but some recollection of Carlo checked him, and summoning up all his courage, he scrambled out of bed, unbolted the door, and ran out into the passage, calling now for Carlo, now for his mother.

Strange men whom he had never seen before were marching in and out of the rooms; whether to run to them or from them he hardly knew.

"Here is a child!" exclaimed one of the detectives, picking him up in his arms. "Tell us, little one, who is in the house?"

"Signor Comerio," sobbed Gigi.

"_Santo diavolo!_ where?" exclaimed the man.

Gigi pointed in the direction of his room.

"Through the window," he said, with a rush of tears.

For all answer, the man tossed him on to the bed as though he had been an india-rubber ball, and leapt out on to the balcony, while the rest rushed downstairs to cut off the retreat below.

But their efforts were useless; Comerio had got the start of them, and with darkness to favor him, found little difficulty in making his escape from Naples.

While the Neapolitan police were still searching high and low for him, he was steaming down the Mediterranean, knowing that never again could he dare to set foot in Italy, and baffled both in his love and in his revenge.

"If only I had had time to go again to Brancaleone's agent, and change the white token for the red, I could bear all else!" he reflected.

But the white handkerchief remained just as he had left it with the sealed packet of notes, and the true love had triumphed over the false.

At Casa Bella all was confusion, and, afterwards, those fearful hours seemed to Francesca like a long, hideous nightmare. She had vague recollections of returning from the telegraph-office, and seeing Clare and Kate bending over Nita's prostrate figure; of a discussion with her father and Uncle George as to whether she should drive in to Naples with them or not; of reaching Palazzo Forti in the dead of night, and finding poor little Gigi sobbing and shivering; of driving home with him on her knee, and feeling a sort of comfort in folding her arms round him, and letting him talk on in his happy ignorance;--then, of two fearful nights and days, while all Naples was searched, and not the slightest clue as to Carlo's whereabouts could be discovered. In the meantime, Nita lay in the guest-chamber, and many times each day both priest and doctor passed in and out.

"Why do those men come so dreffly often?" asked Gigi, one day, turning to his friend and playfellow, Sibyl, and forgetting for a minute the sham-fight which was going on between his two boxes of tin soldiers.

"Why, Dino says your mother is dying," said Sibyl, her eyes dilating. "But, oh! Gigi, perhaps I oughtn't to have said anything! Don't tell the others I told you!"

"But she _can't_," said Gigi, emphatically,--"not until Uncle Carlo comes back!"

And so, while the elders of the household lived through their terrible agony of suspense, the two children, who were much thrown together and left to their own devices in those days, kept their own counsel as children do, and waited gravely for Carlo's return.