Chapter XVI: Part IV: Storm (5)

"Kitty--I bid you come home. I should have started for Venice an hour ago, after reading Miss French's letter, but that honor and public duty keep me here. But mother is going, and I implore and command you, as your husband, to return with her. Oh, Kitty, have I ever failed you?--have I ever been hard with you?--that you should betray our love like this? Was I hard when we parted--a month ago? If I was, forgive me, I was sore pressed. Come home, you poor child, and you shall hear no reproaches from me. I think I have nearly succeeded in undoing your rash work. But what good will that be to me if you are to use my absence for that purpose to bring us both to ruin? Kitty, the grass is not yet green on our child's grave. I was at Haggart last Sunday, and I went over in the dusk to put some flowers upon it. I thought of you without a moment's bitterness, and prayed for us both, if such as I may pray. Then next morning came Miss French's letter. Kitty, have you no heart--and no conscience? Will you bring disgrace on that little grave? Will you dig between us the gulf which is irreparable, across which your hand and mine can never touch each other any more? I cannot and I will not believe it. Come back to me--come back!"

* * * * *

She reread it with a melting heart--with deep, shaking sobs. When she first glanced through it the word "command" had burned into her proud sense; the rest passed almost unnoticed. Now the very strangeness in it as coming from William--the strangeness of its grave and deep emotion--held and grappled with her.

Suddenly--some tension of the whole being seemed to give way. Her head sank back on the chair, she felt herself weak and trembling, yet happy as a soul new-born into a world of light. Waking dreams passed through her brain in a feverish succession, reversing the dream of the night--images of peace and goodness and reunion.

Minutes--hours--passed. With the first light she got up feebly, found ink and paper, and began to write.

* * * * *

_From Lady Tranmore to William Ashe_:

"Oh! my dearest William--at last a gleam of hope.

"No letter this morning. I was in despair. Margaret reported that Kitty refused to see any one--had locked her door, and was writing. Yet no letter came. I made an attempt to see Geoffrey Cliffe, who is staying at the 'Germania,' but he refused. He wrote me the most audacious letter to say that an interview could only be very painful, that he and Kitty must decide for themselves, that he was waiting every hour for a final word from Kitty. It rested with her, and with her only. Coercion in these matters was no longer possible, and he did not suppose that either you or I would attempt it.

"And now comes this blessed note--a respite at least! '_I am going to Verona to-night with Blanche. Please let no one attempt to follow me. I wish to have two days alone--absolutely alone. Wait here. I will write. K_.'

"... Margaret French, too, has just been here. She was almost hysterical with relief and joy--and you know what a calm, self-controlled person she is. But her dear, round face has grown white, and her eyes behind her spectacles look as though she had not slept for nights. She says that Kitty will not see her. She sent her a note by Blanche to ask her to settle all the accounts, and told her that she should not say good-bye--it would be too agitating for them both. In two days she should hear. Meanwhile the maid Blanche is certainly going with Kitty; and the gondola is ordered for the Milan train this evening.

"Two P.M. There is one thing that troubles me, and I must confess it. I did not see that across Kitty's letter in the corner was written 'Tell _nobody_ about this letter.' And Polly Lyster happened to be with me when it came. She has been _au courant_ of the whole affair for the last fortnight--that is, as an on-looker. She and Kitty have only met once or twice since Mary reached Venice; but in one way or another she has been extraordinarily well informed. And, as I told you, she came to see me directly I arrived and told me all she knew. You know her old friendship for us, William? She has many weaknesses, and of late I have thought her much changed, grown very hard and bitter. But she is always _very_ loyal to you and me--and I could not help betraying my feeling when Kitty's note reached me. Mary came and put her arms round me, and I said to her, 'Oh, Mary, thank God!--she's broken with him! She's going to Verona to-night on the way home!' And she kissed me and seemed so glad. And I was very grateful to her for her sympathy, for I am beginning to feel my age, and this has been rather a strain. But I oughtn't to have told her!--or anybody! I see, of course, what Kitty meant. It is incredible that Mary should breathe a word--or if she did that it should reach that man. But I have just sent her a note to Danieli's to warn her in the strongest way.

"Beloved son--if, indeed, we save her--we will be very good to her, you and I. We will remember her bringing up and her inheritance. I will be more loving--more like Christ. I hope He will forgive me for my harshness in the past.... My William!--I love you so! God be merciful to you and to your poor Kitty!"

* * * * *

"Will the signora have her dinner outside or in the _salle-à-manger?"_

The question was addressed to Kitty by a little Italian waiter belonging to the Albergo San Zeno at Verona, who stood bent before her, his white napkin under his arm.

"Out here, please--and for my maid also."

The speaker moved wearily towards the low wall which bounded the foaming Adige, and looked across the river. Far away the Alps that look down on Garda glistened under the stars; the citadel on its hill, the houses across the river were alive with lights; to the left the great mediæval bridge rose, a dark, ponderous mass, above the torrents of the Adige. Overhead, the little outside restaurant was roofed with twining vine-stems from which the leaves had fallen; colored lights twinkled among them and on the white tables underneath. The night was mild and still, and a veiled moon was just rising over the town of Juliet.

"Blanche!"

"Yes, my lady?"

"Bring a chair, Blanchie, and come and sit by me."

The little maid did as she was told, and Kitty slipped her hand into hers with a long sigh.

"Are you very tired, my lady?"

"Yes--but don't talk!"

The two sat silent, clinging to each other.

A step on the cobble-stones disturbed them. Blanche looked up, and saw a gentleman issuing from a lane which connected the narrow quay whereon stood the old Albergo San Zeno with one of the main streets of Verona.

There was a cry from Kitty. The stranger paused--looked--advanced. The little maid rose, half fierce, half frightened.

"Go, Blanche, go!" said Kitty, panting; "go back into the hotel."

"Not unless your ladyship wishes me to leave you," said the girl, firmly.

"Go at once!" Kitty repeated, with a peremptory gesture. She herself rose from her seat, and with one hand resting on the table awaited the new-comer. Blanche looked at her--hesitated--and went.

Geoffrey Cliffe came to Kitty's side. As he approached her his eyes fastened on the loveliness of her attitude, her fair head. In his own expression there was a visionary, fantastic joy; it was the look of the dreamer who, for once, finds in circumstance and the real, poetry adequate and overflowing.

"Kitty!--why did you do this?" he said to her, passionately, as he caught her hand.

Kitty snatched it away, trembling under his look. She began the answer she had devised while he was crossing the flagged quay towards her. But Cliffe paid no heed. He laid a hand on her shoulder, and she sank back powerless into her chair as he bent over her.

"Cruel--cruel child, to play with me so! Did you mean to put me to a last test?--or did your hard little heart misgive you at the last moment? I cross-examined your landlady--I bribed the servants--the gondoliers. Not a word! They were loyal--or you had paid them better. I went back to my hotel in black despair. Oh, you artist!--you plotter! Kitty--you shall pay me this some day! And there--there on my table--all the time--lay your little crumpled note!"

"What note?" she gasped--"what note?"

"Actress!" he said, with an amused laugh.

And cautiously, playfully, lest she should snatch it from him, he unfolded it before her.

Without signature and without date, the soiled half-sheet contained this message, written in Italian and in a disguised handwriting:

* * * * *

"Too many spectators. Come to Verona to-night.
"K."

Kitty looked at it, and then at the face beside her--infused with a triumphant power and passion. She seemed to shrink upon herself, and her head fell back against one of the supports of the _pergola_. One of the blue lights from above fell with ghastly effect upon the delicate tilted face and closed eyes. Cliffe bent over her in a sharp alarm, and saw that she had fainted away.