"He  was  a  comrade," she  went on; "and  I believed a slander against
him,--a common glaring lie that the police had invented. I struck him in the
face for a  traitor;  and he  went away and drowned himself. Then, two  days
later, I found out that he had been quite innocent. Perhaps that is  a worse
memory than any of yours. I would cut off my right hand to undo what it  has
done."
     Something  swift  and  dangerous--something  that   she  had  not  seen
before,--flashed into his eyes. He bent his head down with a furtive, sudden
gesture and kissed the hand.
     She drew back with a startled face. "Don't!" she  cried out  piteously.
"Please don't ever do that again! You hurt me!"
     "Do you think you didn't hurt the man you killed?"
     "The man  I--killed----  Ah, there is Cesare at the gate  at last! I--I
must go!"
     . . . . .
     When Martini came into the room  he found the  Gadfly lying  alone with
the untouched coffee  beside him,  swearing softly to  himself in a languid,
spiritless way, as though he got no satisfaction out of it
        PART II: CHAPTER IX.
     A FEW days  later, the Gadfly, still rather  pale and limping more than
usual, entered the reading room of the public library and asked for Cardinal
Montanelli's sermons. Riccardo,  who was reading at a table near him, looked
up. He liked  the Gadfly very  much, but could not digest this one  trait in
him--this curious personal maliciousness.
     "Are you preparing another volley  against that unlucky  Cardinal?"  he
asked half irritably.
     "My  dear  fellow, why  do you a-a-always attribute evil m-m-motives to
people? It's m-most  unchristian.  I am  preparing an  essay on contemporary
theology for the n-n-new paper."
     "What new paper?"  Riccardo frowned. It was perhaps an open secret that
a new press-law  was  expected  and  that  the  Opposition  was preparing to
astonish  the town with a radical  newspaper; but still it  was, formally, a
secret.
     "The Swindlers' Gazette, of course, or the Church Calendar."
     "Sh-sh! Rivarez, we are disturbing the other readers."
     "Well  then,  stick  to your  surgery,  if  that's  your  subject,  and
l-l-leave me to th-theology--  that's mine. I  d-d-don't interfere with your
treatment of broken bones, though I know  a p-p-precious lot more about them
than you do."
     He sat down to his volume of  sermons with  an intent  and  preoccupied
face. One of the librarians came up to him.
     "Signor Rivarez! I think you were  in the Duprez  expedition, exploring
the  tributaries  of  the  Amazon? Perhaps  you  will kindly  help us  in  a
difficulty. A lady has been inquiring for the records of the expedition, and
they are at the binder's."
     "What does she want to know?"
     "Only  in what  year the expedition started  and when it passed through
Ecuador."
     "It started from Paris in  the autumn of 1837, and passed through Quito
in April, 1838. We were three years in Brazil; then went down to Rio and got
back to Paris in the summer  of 1841. Does  the  lady want the  dates of the
separate discoveries?"
     "No, thank you; only these.  I have written them down. Beppo, take this
paper to Signora Bolla, please. Many thanks, Signor  Rivarez.  I am sorry to
have troubled you."
     The  Gadfly leaned back in  his chair with a perplexed frown.  What did
she want the dates for? When they passed through Ecuador----
     Gemma went  home with the slip of paper in her  hand.  April, 1838--and
Arthur had died in May, 1833. Five years--
     She began pacing up and down her room. She had slept badly the last few
nights, and there were dark shadows under her eyes.
     Five  years;--and an "overluxurious home"-- and "someone he had trusted
had deceived him" --had deceived him--and he had found it out----
     She  stopped  and put  up both hands to her head. Oh, this was  utterly
mad--it was not possible--it was absurd----
     And yet, how they had dragged that harbour!
     Five  years--and he  was "not twenty-one" when the Lascar----  Then  he
must have been nineteen when he ran away from home. Had he not said: "A year
and a half----"  Where  did  he  get those blue eyes from, and  that nervous
restlessness of the fingers? And why was  he so  bitter  against Montanelli?
Five years--five years------
     If she could but know that  he was drowned--if she  could but have seen
the  body; some day, surely, the  old wound would  have left off aching, the
old  memory would have lost its terrors. Perhaps in another twenty years she
would have learned to look back without shrinking.
     All her youth had been poisoned by the  thought  of what she had  done.
Resolutely, day after day and year after  year, she  had fought  against the
demon of remorse. Always she had remembered that her work lay in the future;
always had shut her eyes  and ears to the haunting  spectre of the past. And
day after  day, year after year, the image  of the drowned body drifting out
to sea had never left her, and the bitter cry that she could not silence had
risen in her heart: "I have killed Arthur! Arthur is dead!" Sometimes it had
seemed to her that her burden was too heavy to be borne.
     Now she would have given  half her life to have that burden back again.
If she  had killed him--  that was a familiar grief; she  had endured it too
long to sink under it now. But if she had driven him, not into the water but
into------ She sat down, covering her eyes with both hands. And her life had
been darkened for his sake, because he was dead! If she had brought upon him
nothing worse than death----
     Steadily, pitilessly she went back,  step by step, through the hell  of
his  past  life. It was  as vivid to her as though she had  seen and felt it
all; the helpless shivering of the naked soul, the mockery that was bitterer
than death, the horror of loneliness, the  slow, grinding, relentless agony.
It was as vivid as if she had sat beside him in the filthy Indian hut; as if
she  had suffered  with him  in  the  silver-mines, the coffee  fields,  the
horrible variety show--
     The variety show---- No, she must shut out that image, at least; it was
enough to drive one mad to sit and think of it.
     She opened  a little drawer  in her writing-desk. It  contained the few
personal relics which  she  could not bring herself  to destroy. She was not
given to the  hoarding up  of  sentimental trifles; and the preservation  of
these keepsakes was a concession to that weaker side of her nature which she
kept under with so steady a hand. She very seldom allowed herself to look at
them.
     Now she  took them out, one after another:  Giovanni's first letter  to
her, and the  flowers that had lain in  his dead hand; a lock of her  baby's
hair and a withered leaf from her father's grave. At  the back of the drawer
was  a miniature  portrait of  Arthur  at ten  years old--the only  existing
likeness of him.
     She sat down with it in her hands and looked at the beautiful  childish
head,  till the face of the real Arthur rose up afresh before her. How clear
it was in every detail! The  sensitive lines of the mouth, the wide, earnest
eyes,  the  seraphic  purity  of expression--they were  graven in  upon  her
memory, as though he had died yesterday. Slowly the blinding tears welled up
and hid the portrait.
     Oh, how could she have thought such a thing! It was like sacrilege even
to dream of  this  bright,  far-off spirit,  bound to the sordid miseries of
life. Surely the  gods had loved him a  little,  and had  let him die young!
Better a thousand times that he should pass into utter nothingness than that
he should live  and be the Gadfly--the  Gadfly, with his  faultless neckties
and his doubtful witticisms, his bitter tongue and his ballet girl!  No, no!
It was all  a horrible,  senseless fancy; and she  had vexed her  heart with
vain imaginings. Arthur was dead.
     "May I come in?" asked a soft voice at the door.
     She  started so that the portrait fell from her  hand,  and the Gadfly,
limping across the room, picked it up and handed it to her.
     "How you startled me!" she said.
     "I am s-so sorry. Perhaps I am disturbing you?"
     "No. I was only turning over some old things."
     She hesitated for a moment; then handed him back the miniature.
     "What do you think of that head?"
     While he  looked at it she watched his face as though her life depended
upon its expression; but it was merely negative and critical.
     "You have  set me  a difficult task," he said. "The portrait  is faded,
and a  child's face is always  hard to read.  But I should  think that child
would grow into an unlucky man, and the wisest thing he could do would be to
abstain from growing into a man at all."
     "Why?"
     "Look at the line of  the under-lip. Th-th-that  is the  sort of nature
that feels  pain as pain and wrong  as wrong;  and the world has no r-r-room
for such people; it needs people who feel nothing but their work."
     "Is it at all like anyone you know?"
     He looked at the portrait more closely.
     "Yes. What a curious thing! Of course it is; very like."
     "Like whom?"
     "C-c-cardinal   Montan-nelli.  I  wonder  whether  his   irreproachable
Eminence has any nephews, by the way? Who is it, if I may ask?"
     "It is a portrait, taken in childhood, of the friend  I  told you about
the other day----"
     "Whom you killed?"
     She winced in spite  of herself. How lightly, how  cruelly he used that
dreadful word!
     "Yes, whom I killed--if he is really dead."
     "If?"
     She kept her eyes on his face.
     "I have sometimes doubted," she said. "The body was never found. He may
have run away from home, like you, and gone to South America."
     "Let us hope not. That would be a bad memory to carry about with you. I
have d-d-done some hard fighting in my t-time, and have sent m-more than one
man to Hades, perhaps; but  if I had it on my conscience that I had sent any
l-living thing to South America, I should sleep badly----"
     "Then  do you  believe," she  interrupted, coming  nearer  to him  with
clasped hands, "that if he  were not drowned,--if he had  been  through your
experience instead,--he would never come back  and let the past  go? Do  you
believe  he would  NEVER forget?  Remember, it has  cost me  something, too.
Look!"
     She pushed back the heavy waves of hair from her forehead.  Through the
black locks ran a broad white streak.
     There was a long silence.
     "I  think,"  the  Gadfly said slowly, "that the  dead are  better dead.
Forgetting  some things is a difficult matter. And if I were in the place of
your dead friend, I would s-s-stay dead. The REVENANT is an ugly spectre."
     She put the portrait back into its drawer and locked the desk.
     "That  is hard doctrine,"  she  said.  "And  now  we  will  talk  about
something else."
     "I  came to  have a little business talk with  you, if I may--a private
one, about a plan that I have in my head."
     She drew  a chair to the table and sat down. "What do  you think of the
projected press-law?" he began, without a trace of his usual stammer.
     "What  I think of it? I think it will not be  of much value, but half a
loaf is better than no bread."
     "Undoubtedly. Then do you intend to work on one of the new papers these
good folk here are preparing to start?"
     "I thought of doing so.  There is always a great deal of practical work
to  be  done  in starting  any  paper--printing and circulation arrangements
and----"
     "How long are you going to waste your mental gifts in that fashion?"
     "Why 'waste'?"
     "Because it is  waste.  You know quite well  that you have a far better
head  than most of  the  men  you are working with,  and you let them make a
regular drudge  and Johannes factotum of you. Intellectually you are as  far
ahead  of Grassini  and  Galli  as  if  they  were  schoolboys;  yet you sit
correcting their proofs like a printer's devil."
     "In the first  place,  I  don't spend all my time in correcting proofs;
and moreover it seems to me that you  exaggerate my  mental capacities. They
are by no means so brilliant as you think."
     "I  don't think them brilliant at all," he answered quietly;  "but I do
think them  sound  and solid,  which is  of  much more  importance. At those
dreary committee meetings it is always you  who put your finger on the  weak
spot in everybody's logic."
     "You are not fair  to  the  others. Martini, for  instance, has  a very
logical  head, and there is  no doubt about the  capacities  of Fabrizi  and
Lega. Then Grassini has a  sounder knowledge of  Italian economic statistics
than any official in the country, perhaps."
     "Well, that's not saying much; but let us lay them and their capacities
aside. The fact remains that you, with  such gifts as you possess, might  do
more important work and fill a more responsible post than at present."
     "I am  quite  satisfied with my position. The work I am doing is not of
very much value, perhaps, but we all do what we can."
     "Signora Bolla, you and I have gone too far to play at compliments  and
modest denials now. Tell me honestly, do you recognize that you are using up
your brain on work which persons inferior to you could do as well?"
     "Since you press me for an answer--yes, to some extent."
     "Then why do you let that go on?"
     No answer.
     "Why do you let it go on?"
     "Because--I can't help it."
     "Why?"
     She looked up reproachfully. "That is  unkind --it's not  fair to press
me so."
     "But all the same you are going to tell me why."
     "If  you  must have it, then--because  my life  has  been smashed  into
pieces, and I  have not the energy to start anything  REAL, now. I am  about
fit to be a  revolutionary cab-horse,  and  do the  party's  drudge-work. At
least I do it conscientiously, and it must be done by somebody."
     "Certainly  it  must  be done by  somebody; but not  always by the same
person."
     "It's about all I'm fit for."
     He looked at her with half-shut eyes, inscrutably. Presently she raised
her head.
     "We  are returning  to  the old  subject; and this was to be a business
talk. It  is quite useless, I assure you, to  tell me I might have done  all
sorts of things. I shall never do them now. But I may be able to help you in
thinking out your plan. What is it?"
     "You begin by telling me that it is useless for me to suggest anything,
and then ask  what I want to suggest. My plan requires  your help in action,
not only in thinking out."
     "Let me hear it and then we will discuss."
     "Tell  me  first whether you have heard anything  about schemes  for  a
rising in Venetia."
     "I have heard  of  nothing but schemes for  risings and Sanfedist plots
ever since the amnesty, and I fear I am as sceptical about the one as  about
the other."
     "So  am I,  in  most  cases;  but  I  am  speaking  of  really  serious
preparations for  a rising  of the whole  province  against the Austrians. A
good many  young  fellows  in  the  Papal  States--particularly in the  Four
Legations--are   secretly  preparing   to  get  across  there  and  join  as
volunteers. And I hear from my friends in the Romagna----"
     "Tell me," she interrupted, "are  you quite sure that these friends  of
yours can be trusted?"
     "Quite sure. I know them personally, and have worked with them."
     "That  is, they are members of  the 'sect' to which you belong? Forgive
my  scepticism, but I  am always a little  doubtful  as  to the accuracy  of
information  received  from  secret societies.  It  seems  to  me  that  the
habit----"
     "Who told you I belonged to a 'sect'?" he interrupted sharply.
     "No one; I guessed it."
     "Ah!" He leaned back in his chair and looked  at her, frowning. "Do you
always guess people's private affairs?" he said after a moment.
     "Very often. I am rather observant, and have a  habit of putting things
together. I  tell you that so that you may be careful when you don't want me
to know a thing."
     "I don't mind your knowing anything  so  long as  it goes no further. I
suppose this has not----"
     She lifted  her  head with a gesture of half-offended surprise. "Surely
that is an unnecessary question!" she said.
     "Of course I know you  would not  speak of anything to outsiders; but I
thought that perhaps, to the members of your party----"
     "The  party's business is with facts, not with my personal  conjectures
and fancies. Of course I have never mentioned the subject to anyone."
     "Thank you. Do you happen to have guessed which sect I belong to?"
     "I  hope--you  must not take  offence  at my frankness;  it was you who
started this talk, you know---- I do hope it is not the 'Knifers.'"
     "Why do you hope that?"
     "Because you are fit for better things."
     "We are  all fit  for better  things than we ever do. There is your own
answer back again. However,  it  is not the 'Knifers' that I  belong to, but
the  'Red  Girdles.' They  are  a  steadier  lot, and take  their work  more
seriously."
     "Do you mean the work of knifing?"
     "That, among other  things. Knives are  very useful in  their way;  but
only when you have a  good, organized propaganda behind them. That is what I
dislike  in the  other sect. They think  a knife can settle  all the world's
difficulties; and that's a mistake. It can settle a good many, but not all."
     "Do you honestly believe that it settles any?"
     He looked at her in surprise.
     "Of course," she went on, "it eliminates, for the moment, the practical
difficulty caused by the presence of a clever spy or objectionable official;
but whether  it  does not  create  worse  difficulties  in place of  the one
removed  is another  question. It seems  to me like the parable of the swept
and garnished house and the seven devils. Every assassination only makes the
police  more  vicious  and  the  people  more  accustomed  to  violence  and
brutality, and the last state of the community may be worse than the first."
     "What do  you  think will  happen when  the  revolution  comes? Do  you
suppose the  people won't have  to get  accustomed to violence then?  War is
war."
     "Yes, but  open  revolution is another matter. It is one moment in  the
people's  life, and it is the price we have to pay for all  our progress. No
doubt  fearful things will happen; they  must in  every revolution. But they
will be isolated  facts--exceptional features  of an exceptional moment. The
horrible thing about this promiscuous knifing is  that  it  becomes a habit.
The people get  to look upon it  as an every-day occurrence, and their sense
of the sacredness  of human life gets blunted. I have  not been much  in the
Romagna, but what  little  I  have  seen  of  the people has  given  me  the
impression that they have  got,  or are getting, into a mechanical  habit of
violence."
     "Surely even that is  better  than a mechanical habit of  obedience and
submission."
     "I don't think  so. All mechanical habits are bad and slavish, and this
one is  ferocious  as well.  Of  course,  if you  look upon  the work of the
revolutionist as the mere wresting of  certain definite concessions from the
government,  then the secret sect and  the  knife must  seem to you the best
weapons, for there is nothing  else which  all  governments so dread. But if
you think, as I  do, that to  force the government's hand is not  an  end in
itself, but only a means to an end,  and that what we really  need to reform
is the relation between man and man, then you  must  go differently to work.
Accustoming ignorant people to the sight  of  blood  is not the way to raise
the value they put on human life."
     "And the value they put on religion?"
     "I don't understand."
     He smiled.
     "I think we differ as to where the root of the mischief lies. You place
it in a lack of appreciation of the value of human life."
     "Rather of the sacredness of human personality."
     "Put it  as you like. To me the great cause of our muddles and mistakes
seems to lie in the mental disease called religion."
     "Do you mean any religion in particular?"
     "Oh,  no!  That  is a mere question of  external symptoms. The  disease
itself  is what is  called a  religious attitude of  mind. It  is the morbid
desire to set up a fetich and adore it, to fall down and worship  something.
It makes little  difference whether the something  be Jesus  or  Buddha or a
tum-tum tree. You  don't agree with me, of  course.  You may be  atheist  or
agnostic or anything you like, but I could feel the religious temperament in
you  at five yards. However, it is of no use for us to discuss that. But you
are  quite mistaken in thinking that I, for  one, look upon the  knifing  as
merely  a means of removing  objectionable officials--it  is, above  all,  a
means, and I think the best means, of undermining the prestige of the Church
and  of accustoming  people to look upon clerical agents  as upon  any other
vermin."
     "And when you have  accomplished that;  when you  have roused  the wild
beast that sleeps in the people and set it on the Church; then----"
     "Then I shall have done the work that makes it worth my while to live."
     "Is THAT the work you spoke of the other day?"
     "Yes, just that."
     She shivered and turned away.
     "You are disappointed in me?" he said, looking up with a smile.
     "No;  not  exactly that. I  am--I think--a little afraid  of  you." She
turned round after a moment and said in her ordinary business voice:
     "This is an unprofitable discussion. Our standpoints are too different.
For my part, I believe in propaganda, propaganda, and propaganda;  and  when
you can get it, open insurrection."
     "Then let  us come back to the question of my plan; it has something to
do with propaganda and more with insurrection."
     "Yes?"
     "As I tell you,  a good  many volunteers  are going from the Romagna to
join the Venetians. We do  not know yet how soon the insurrection will break
out. It  may  not be  till the autumn  or winter;  but the volunteers in the
Apennines must be armed and ready, so that they may be able to start for the
plains directly they are sent for. I have undertaken to smuggle the firearms
and ammunition on to Papal territory for them----"
     "Wait a  minute. How do you come  to  be  working  with  that  set? The
revolutionists  in Lombardy and Venetia  are all in favour of the new  Pope.
They are  going  in  for liberal reforms, hand in hand with the  progressive
movement in the Church. How can a 'no-compromise' anti-clerical like you get
on with them?"
     He  shrugged  his  shoulders.  "What is it to me if they like  to amuse
themselves with a  rag-doll, so long as they  do their work?  Of course they
will  take  the  Pope for a figurehead. What have I to do with that, if only
the  insurrection gets under way somehow? Any  stick will do  to  beat a dog
with, I suppose, and any cry to set the people on the Austrians."
     "What is it you want me to do?"
     "Chiefly to help me get the firearms across."
     "But how could I do that?"
     "You are just  the person who could  do  it best. I think of buying the
arms in England, and there is  a good deal of difficulty about bringing them
over. It's impossible  to get  them through any of the Pontifical sea-ports;
they must come by Tuscany, and go across the Apennines."
     "That makes two frontiers to cross instead of one."
     "Yes; but the other way is  hopeless; you can't smuggle a big transport
in at a harbour  where there is no trade, and you know the whole shipping of
Civita Vecchia amounts to  about  three row-boats and a fishing smack. If we
once get the things across Tuscany, I can manage the Papal frontier;  my men
know every path  in the mountains, and we have plenty of hiding-places.  The
transport must come by sea to Leghorn, and that is my great difficulty; I am
not in with the smugglers there, and I believe you are."
     "Give me five minutes to think."
     She leaned forward, resting one elbow on  her knee, and  supporting the
chin on the raised hand. After a few moments' silence she looked up.
     "It is possible that I might be of  some use in that part of the work,"
she said; "but before we go any  further, I want to ask you a question.  Can
you give  me your word that this business is not connected with any stabbing
or secret violence of any kind?"
     "Certainly. It goes without saying that I should not  have asked you to
join in a thing of which I know you disapprove."
     "When do you want a definite answer from me?"
     "There is not  much time to lose; but I  can  give  you a  few days  to
decide in."
     "Are you free next Saturday evening?"
     "Let me see--to-day is Thursday; yes."
     "Then  come  here. I  will think the matter over and  give you  a final
answer."
     . . . . .
     On  the  following  Sunday  Gemma  sent  in  to  the  committee of  the
Florentine branch of the  Mazzinian  party  a statement that  she wished  to
undertake a special work of a political nature, which would for a few months
prevent her from performing the functions for which she had up till now been
responsible to the party.
     Some surprise was felt at this announcement,  but the committee  raised
no objection; she had been known in the party for several years  as a person
whose judgment  might be  trusted;  and  the members  agreed that if Signora
Bolla took an unexpected step, she probably had good reasons for it.
     To Martini she  said frankly that she had undertaken to help the Gadfly
with some  "frontier work." She had stipulated for the right to tell her old
friend this  much,  in order that  there  might  be no  misunderstanding  or
painful  sense of doubt  and mystery between them. It seemed to her that she
owed him this proof of confidence. He made no comment when she told him; but
she saw, without knowing why, that the news had wounded him deeply.
     They were  sitting on the terrace of her lodging, looking  out over the
red  roofs to Fiesole. After a long silence, Martini rose and began tramping
up and down with his hands in his pockets, whistling to himself--a sure sign
with him of mental agitation. She sat looking at him for a little while.
     "Cesare, you are worried about  this affair,"  she said at  last. "I am
very sorry you feel so despondent over it; but I could decide only as seemed
right to me."
     "It  is  not the affair," he answered, sullenly; "I know nothing  about
it, and  it probably is all right,  once you  have consented to go into  it.
It's the MAN I distrust."
     "I think you misunderstand him; I did till I got to know him better. He
is far from perfect, but there is much more good in him than you think."
     "Very  likely." For a  moment he tramped  to  and fro  in silence, then
suddenly stopped beside her.
     "Gemma, give it up! Give it up  before  it is  too late! Don't let that
man drag you into things you will repent afterwards."
     "Cesare," she said gently, "you are  not  thinking what you are saying.
No one is dragging  me  into anything. I  have made this decision  of my own
will, after thinking the matter well over alone. You have a personal dislike
to Rivarez, I know; but we are talking of politics now, not of persons."
     "Madonna! Give it up! That  man is dangerous; he is secret, and  cruel,
and unscrupulous-- and he is in love with you!"
     She drew back.
     "Cesare, how can you get such fancies into your head?"
     "He  is  in love  with  you,"  Martini  repeated.  "Keep  clear of him,
Madonna!"
     "Dear  Cesare,  I can't keep clear of him;  and I can't explain  to you
why. We are tied together-- not by any wish or doing of our own."
     "If  you are tied,  there  is nothing  more to  say," Martini  answered
wearily.
     He went away, saying  that  he  was busy, and tramped for hours  up and
down the muddy streets. The world looked very black to him that evening. One
poor ewe-lamb--and this slippery creature had stepped in and stolen it away.
        PART II: CHAPTER X.
     TOWARDS the middle of  February  the Gadfly  went to Leghorn. Gemma had
introduced him to a  young  Englishman  there, a shipping-agent  of  liberal
views,  whom  she and  her  husband  had known in England. He had on several
occasions  performed little services for the Florentine  radicals:  had lent
money to meet an unforeseen emergency, had  allowed his business  address to
be  used  for  the  party's   letters,  etc.;  but  always  through  Gemma's
mediumship, and as a private friend  of hers. She  was, therefore, according
to party etiquette, free to make use of the connexion in  any way that might
seem good to her. Whether any  use could  be got out of it was quite another
question. To ask a friendly sympathizer to lend his address for letters from
Sicily or to keep a few documents in a corner of his counting-house safe was
one  thing;  to  ask  him to  smuggle over a  transport  of firearms  for an
insurrection was another; and she had very little hope of his consenting.
     "You  can but try," she had  said  to the Gadfly;  "but I  don't  think
anything  will come of it. If you were to go to him with that recommendation
and  ask  for five hundred  scudi,  I  dare say he'd  give  them  to you  at
once--he's exceedingly generous, --and perhaps at  a pinch he would lend you
his passport or  hide a fugitive in his cellar;  but if  you  mention such a
thing as rifles he will stare at you and think we're both demented."
     "Perhaps  he may  give me a  few hints, though, or  introduce  me to  a
friendly sailor  or two," the Gadfly had answered. "Anyway, it's worth while
to try."
     One day at the end  of the month he came into her  study less carefully
dressed than usual, and she saw  at once from his face that he had good news
to tell.
     "Ah,  at last! I was beginning to think something must have happened to
you!"
     "I thought it safer not to write, and I couldn't get back sooner."
     "You have just arrived?"
     "Yes; I am straight  from the diligence; I looked  in to  tell you that
the affair is all settled."
     "Do you mean that Bailey has really consented to help?"
     "More  than  to help; he  has  undertaken  the  whole  thing,--packing,
transports,--everything. The rifles will  be  hidden in bales of merchandise
and will come straight through from England. His partner, Williams, who is a
great  friend  of  his,  has  consented  to  see   the  transport  off  from
Southampton, and Bailey will slip  it through the custom  house at  Leghorn.
That  is why I have been such a  long time; Williams  was  just starting for
Southampton, and I went with him as far as Genoa."
     "To talk over details on the way?"
     "Yes, as long as I wasn't too sea-sick to talk about anything."
     "Are you a bad sailor?" she asked quickly,  remembering  how Arthur had
suffered from sea-sickness one day when her father had taken them both for a
pleasure-trip.
     "About as  bad as is possible, in spite of  having been at sea so much.
But we had  a talk  while  they were loading at Genoa.  You know Williams, I
think?  He's a  thoroughly good fellow,  trustworthy  and  sensible;  so  is
Bailey, for that matter; and they both know how to hold their tongues."
     "It seems to me, though, that Bailey is running a serious risk in doing
a thing like this."
     "So I told him, and  he only looked sulky and said: 'What  business  is
that of yours?' Just the sort of thing one would expect him to say. If I met
Bailey  in  Timbuctoo, I  should  go  up  to  him  and  say:  'Good-morning,
Englishman.'"
     "But  I can't conceive how you managed to get  their consent; Williams,
too; the last man I should have thought of."
     "Yes, he objected  strongly  at first;  not  on  the  ground of danger,
though, but because  the thing is 'so unbusiness-like.' But I managed to win
him over after a bit. And now we will go into details."
     . . . . .
     When  the  Gadfly  reached  his  lodgings the  sun  had  set,  and  the
blossoming pyrus japonica that hung over the garden  wall looked dark in the
fading light.  He gathered a few sprays and carried them  into the house. As
he opened the study door, Zita started up from a chair in the corner and ran
towards him.
     "Oh, Felice; I thought you were never coming!"
     His first impulse was to ask  her sharply what business  she had in his
study; but,  remembering that he had not seen  her for three weeks,  he held
out his hand and said, rather frigidly:
     "Good-evening, Zita; how are you?"
     She put  up her face to be kissed, but  he  moved past as though he had
not seen the  gesture,  and took up a  vase  to put the pyrus  in. The  next
instant the door was flung wide open, and the collie, rushing into the room,
performed an ecstatic dance  round him, barking and whining with delight. He
put down the flowers and stooped to pat the dog.
     "Well, Shaitan, how are  you, old man? Yes, it's really I. Shake hands,
like a good dog!"
     The hard, sullen look came into Zita's face.
     "Shall we go to dinner?" she asked coldly. "I ordered it for  you at my
place, as you wrote that you were coming this evening."
     He turned round quickly.
     "I am v-v-very sorry; you sh-should not have waited for me! I will just
get a  bit tidy and come round at once. P-perhaps you would not mind putting
these into water."
     When he came into  Zita's dining room she was standing before a mirror,
fastening one of the  sprays into her dress. She had apparently  made up her
mind  to  be  good-humoured, and came  up  to him  with a  little cluster of
crimson buds tied together.
     "Here is a buttonhole for you; let me put it in your coat."
     All through dinner-time he did  his best to be amiable,  and kept up  a
flow of small-talk, to  which she responded with radiant smiles. Her evident
joy  at  his return somewhat embarrassed  him; he had grown so accustomed to
the  idea that she  led her  own life apart from his, among such friends and
companions as were congenial to her, that it  had never occurred to  him  to
imagine her as missing  him. And  yet she must have felt dull to be so  much
excited now.
     "Let us have coffee up  on the terrace," she said;  "it  is  quite warm
this evening."
     "Very well. Shall I take your guitar? Perhaps you will sing."
     She flushed with delight; he was critical about music and did not often
ask her to sing.
     On the terrace was  a broad wooden bench running  round the walls.  The
Gadfly  chose  a corner with a good  view of the  hills,  and  Zita, seating
herself on the low wall  with  her  feet on the bench, leaned back against a
pillar of the roof. She did not care much for scenery; she preferred to look
at the Gadfly.
     "Give me a cigarette,"  she said. "I don't believe I have  smoked  once
since you went away."
     "Happy thought! It's just s-s-smoke I want to complete my bliss."
     She leaned forward and looked at him earnestly.
     "Are you really happy?"
     The Gadfly's mobile brows went up.
     "Yes; why not? I  have had a  good dinner; I am looking at  one of  the
m-most beautiful views in Europe; and now I'm going to have  coffee and hear
a Hungarian folk-song. There is nothing the matter with either my conscience
or my digestion; what more can man desire?"
     "I know another thing you desire."
     "What?"
     "That!" She tossed a little cardboard box into his hand.
     "B-burnt almonds! Why d-didn't you tell me before I  began to s-smoke?"
he cried reproachfully.
     "Why, you baby! you  can  eat them when you have  done  smoking.  There
comes the coffee."
     The Gadfly sipped his  coffee and ate his burnt almonds with  the grave
and concentrated enjoyment of a cat drinking cream.
     "How nice it is to  come back to d-decent  coffee,  after the s-s-stuff
one gets at Leghorn!" he said in his purring drawl.
     "A very good reason for stopping at home now you are here."
     "Not much stopping for me; I'm off again to-morrow."
     The smile died on her face.
     "To-morrow! What for? Where are you going to?"
     "Oh! two or three p-p-places, on business."
     It  had  been  decided between him and Gemma that he  must go in person
into  the Apennines to make arrangements with the smugglers  of the frontier
region about  the  transporting of the firearms. To cross the Papal frontier
was  for  him a matter of serious danger;  but it had to be done if the work
was to succeed.
     "Always business!" Zita sighed under her breath; and then asked aloud:
     "Shall you be gone long?"
     "No; only a fortnight or three weeks, p-p-probably."
     "I suppose it's some of THAT business?" she asked abruptly.
     "'That' business?"
     "The business  you're always trying to  get  your neck broken over--the
everlasting politics."
     "It has something to do with p-p-politics."
     Zita threw away her cigarette.
     "You  are fooling me,"  she said. "You  are  going into  some danger or
other."
     "I'm  going  s-s-straight  into the  inf-fernal regions,"  he  answered
languidly. "D-do you happen to have any friends there you  want to send that
ivy to? You n-needn't pull it all down, though."
     She had fiercely torn off a handful of the climber from the pillar, and
now flung it down with vehement anger.
     "You are going into danger," she repeated;  "and  you won't even say so
honestly! Do you think I am fit for nothing but to be fooled and joked with?
You will get  yourself hanged  one of these days, and never so much  as  say
good-bye. It's always politics and politics--I'm sick of politics!"
     "S-so am I," said the Gadfly, yawning lazily; "and therefore we'll talk
about something else-- unless you will sing."
     "Well, give me the guitar, then. What shall I sing?"
     "The ballad of the lost horse; it suits your voice so well."
     She began to sing  the old Hungarian ballad of the man  who loses first
his horse, then his home, and then his sweetheart, and consoles himself with
the reflection that "more was lost at Mohacz field." The song was one of the
Gadfly's especial favourites; its  fierce and tragic melody  and  the bitter
stoicism of the refrain appealed to him as no softer music ever did.
     Zita was in excellent voice;  the notes  came from her lips  strong and
clear, full of the vehement desire of life.  She would  have sung Italian or
Slavonic  music  badly, and German  still  worse;  but she sang  the  Magyar
folk-songs splendidly.
     The  Gadfly listened with wide-open eyes and parted lips; he had  never
heard  her sing  like this before. As  she  came to the last line, her voice
began suddenly to shake.
     "Ah, no matter! More was lost----"
     She broke down with a sob and hid her face among the ivy leaves.
     "Zita!"  The Gadfly  rose and took the guitar from  her hand.  "What is
it?"
     She only sobbed convulsively, hiding her face in both hands. He touched
her on the arm.
     "Tell me what is the matter," he said caressingly.
     "Let me alone!" she sobbed, shrinking away. "Let me alone!"
     He went quietly back to his seat  and  waited till the sobs  died away.
Suddenly he  felt  her arms  about  his neck; she  was kneeling on the floor
beside him.
     "Felice--don't go! Don't go away!"
     "We will  talk  about  that afterwards," he  said,  gently  extricating
himself from the clinging arms.  "Tell  me first what has  upset you so. Has
anything been frightening you?"
     She silently shook her head.
     "Have I done anything to hurt you?"
     "No." She put a hand up against his throat.
     "What, then?"
     "You will get killed," she whispered at last. "I heard one of those men
that come here say the other day that you will get into  trouble--and when I
ask you about it you laugh at me!"
     "My dear child," the Gadfly said, after a little pause of astonishment,
"you have got  some exaggerated notion  into your head. Very likely  I shall
get  killed  some  day--that  is  the  natural   consequence  of   being   a
revolutionist.  But there is no reason to  suppose  I  am  g-g-going  to get
killed just now. I am running no more risk than other people."
     "Other people--what  are  other  people  to  me?  If  you loved  me you
wouldn't go off  this  way and  leave  me to lie awake  at night,  wondering
whether you're arrested, or dream you are  dead whenever I  go to sleep. You
don't care as much for me as for that dog there!"
     The Gadfly rose and walked slowly  to the  other end of the terrace. He
was quite unprepared for such a scene  as this  and at  a loss how to answer
her. Yes, Gemma  was right; he had got his life  into a tangle that he would
have hard work to undo.
     "Sit down and let us talk about it quietly," he said, coming back after
a moment. "I think we  have misunderstood each other; of course I should not
have laughed if I  had thought you were serious. Try to tell me plainly what
is troubling you; and then, if there is any misunderstanding, we may be able
to clear it up."
     "There's nothing to clear up. I can see you don't care a brass farthing
for me."
     "My dear  child, we  had better be quite frank with each other.  I have
always  tried to be honest about our relationship, and I think I  have never
deceived you as to----"
     "Oh, no! you have been honest enough; you have never  even pretended to
think  of  me  as  anything  else  but  a  prostitute,--a  trumpery  bit  of
second-hand finery that plenty of other men have had before you--"
     "Hush, Zita! I have never thought that way about any living thing."
     "You have never loved me," she insisted sullenly.
     "No, I have never loved  you. Listen to me, and try to  think as little
harm of me as you can."
     "Who said I thought any harm of you? I----"
     "Wait a minute. This is what I want to say:  I have no  belief whatever
in  conventional  moral codes, and no respect for them. To me the  relations
between   men  and  women  are  simply  questions  of   personal  likes  and
dislikes------"
     "And of money," she interrupted with  a  harsh  little laugh. He winced
and hesitated a moment.
     "That, of course, is the ugly part of the matter. But  believe me, if I
had  thought  that  you disliked  me, or felt  any repulsion to the thing, I
would  never  have  suggested it,  or  taken advantage of  your position  to
persuade you to  it. I have never done that to  any woman in my  life, and I
have  never  told a woman a lie about my feeling for  her. You  may trust me
that I am speaking the truth----"
     He paused a moment, but she did not answer.
     "I thought," he went on; "that if a man is alone in the world and feels
the need of--of a woman's presence about him, and if he can find a woman who
is attractive to him  and  to whom he is not repulsive,  he has  a  right to
accept, in a  grateful and friendly spirit, such pleasure  as  that woman is
willing to give him, without entering into any closer bond. I saw no harm in
the  thing, provided only there  is no  unfairness  or insult or  deceit  on
either  side. As for your having been in that relation with other men before
I met you,  I did not think about  that. I merely thought that the connexion
would be a pleasant and  harmless  one for  both of us, and  that either was
free  to break it as soon  as  it became irksome. If I was mistaken --if you
have grown to look upon it differently-- then----"
     He paused again.
     "Then?" she whispered, without looking up.
     "Then I have done you a  wrong, and I am very sorry. But I did not mean
to do it."
     "You 'did not mean' and you  'thought'---- Felice, are you made of cast
iron? Have you never been in  love with  a woman in your life that you can't
see I love you?"
     A sudden  thrill went through him; it was so long since anyone had said
to him: "I love you." Instantly she started up and flung her arms round him.
     "Felice, come  away with me! Come  away from this dreadful  country and
all these people and their politics! What have we got to  do with them? Come
away, and we  will be happy together. Let us go to South  America, where you
used to live."
     The physical horror of association startled him back into self-control;
he unclasped her hands from his neck and held them in a steady grasp.
     "Zita! Try to understand what  I am saying to you.  I do not love  you;
and if I did I would not come away with you. I have my work in Italy, and my
comrades----"
     "And  someone else  that you  love  better  than  me!"  she  cried  out
fiercely. "Oh, I could kill you! It is not your comrades you care about;
     it's---- I know who it is!"
     "Hush!" he said quietly. "You are excited and imagining things that are
not true."
     "You suppose I  am thinking  of Signora Bolla? I'm not so easily duped!
You  only talk politics  with  her; you care no more for her than you do for
me. It's that Cardinal!"
     The Gadfly started as if he had been shot.
     "Cardinal?" he repeated mechanically.
     "Cardinal Montanelli, that came  here  preaching in the  autumn. Do you
think I didn't see your face when  his carriage passed? You were as white as
my pocket-handkerchief!  Why,  you're  shaking like  a  leaf now  because  I
mentioned his name!"
     He stood up.
     "You don't know  what you are talking  about," he said very  slowly and
softly. "I--hate the Cardinal. He is the worst enemy I have."
     "Enemy  or no,  you love him  better than  you  love anyone else in the
world. Look me in the face and say that is not true, if you can!"
     He  turned  away,  and  looked  out  into the  garden. She watched  him
furtively, half-scared at what  she had done; there was something terrifying
in his  silence.  At last she stole up to  him, like a frightened child, and
timidly pulled his sleeve. He turned round.
     "It                   is                    true,"                   he
said.http://www.booksbtc.com/cgi/fhw.exe?BTCWeb&Title=Gadfly,+The&Section=PART+II&Chapter=PART+II:+CHAPTER+XI.

        PART II: CHAPTER XI.
     "BUT c-c-can't I  meet him  somewhere  in the  hills?  Brisighella is a
risky place for me."
     "Every inch of ground in the Romagna is risky for you; but just at this
moment Brisighella is safer for you than any other place."
     "Why?"
     "I'll tell you in a minute. Don't let that man with the blue jacket see
your face; he's dangerous. Yes; it was a terrible storm; I don't remember to
have seen the vines so bad for a long time."
     The  Gadfly spread  his arms on the table, and laid his face upon them,
like a man overcome with fatigue or wine; and the dangerous new-comer in the
blue jacket, glancing  swiftly round, saw only  two farmers discussing their
crops over a flask of  wine and  a sleepy mountaineer with  his head  on the
table. It was the usual sort of thing to see in little places  like Marradi;
and the owner of  the  blue  jacket apparently made up his mind that nothing
could be gained by listening; for he drank his  wine at a gulp and sauntered
into  the  outer room. There he stood leaning on  the counter and  gossiping
lazily with the landlord, glancing every now and then out of the  corner  of
one  eye through the open  door, beyond which sat the three figures  at  the
table. The two farmers went on sipping their wine and discussing the weather
in the local  dialect,  and the Gadfly snored like a man whose conscience is
sound.
     At last the  spy seemed to  make up his mind that  there was nothing in
the  wine-shop worth further waste of his  time. He paid his reckoning, and,
lounging  out  of  the house,  sauntered away  down  the narrow street.  The
Gadfly, yawning and stretching,  lifted himself up and sleepily  rubbed  the
sleeve of his linen blouse across his eyes.
     "Pretty sharp practice that," he said, pulling a clasp-knife out of his
pocket  and cutting off a  chunk from the rye-loaf on the table.  "Have they
been worrying you much lately, Michele?"
     "They've been worse  than  mosquitos in  August.  There's no getting  a
minute's peace; wherever one goes, there's always  a spy hanging about. Even
right up in the hills,  where  they used to be  so shy about venturing, they
have taken to coming  in  bands of three or four--haven't they, Gino? That's
why we arranged for you to meet Domenichino in the town."
     "Yes; but why Brisighella? A frontier town is always full of spies."
     "Brisighella just now is a capital place. It's  swarming with  pilgrims
from all parts of the country."
     "But it's not on the way to anywhere."
     "It's not far out  of  the way to Rome, and many of the Easter Pilgrims
are going round to hear Mass there."
     "I d-d-didn't know there was anything special in Brisighella."
     "There's the  Cardinal. Don't you  remember his going  to  Florence  to
preach last December? It's that same Cardinal Montanelli. They say he made a
great sensation."
     "I dare say; I don't go to hear sermons."
     "Well, he has the reputation of being a saint, you see."
     "How does he manage that?"
     "I don't know. I suppose it's because he gives away all his income, and
lives like a parish priest with four or five hundred scudi a year."
     "Ah!"  interposed  the man  called Gino;  "but it's more than that.  He
doesn't only give away money;  he spends his whole life in looking after the
poor, and seeing the sick are properly treated,  and hearing complaints  and
grievances from morning till night. I'm  no fonder of priests than  you are,
Michele, but Monsignor Montanelli is not like other Cardinals."
     "Oh, I dare say he's more  fool than knave!" said Michele. "Anyhow, the
people are mad  after  him, and the last new freak is for the pilgrims to go
round  that  way to ask  his  blessing. Domenichino  thought  of going  as a
pedlar, with a basket of cheap crosses and rosaries. The  people like to buy
those things and ask the Cardinal to  touch them; then  they put  them round
their babies' necks to keep off the evil eye."
     "Wait a minute. How  am I to  go--as a  pilgrim? This make-up  suits me
p-pretty  well,  I think;  but  it w-won't  do  for me  to  show  myself  in
Brisighella in the same character  that I had here; it would be ev-v-vidence
against you if I get taken."
     "You  won't  get  taken;  we have  a splendid disguise for you,  with a
passport and all complete."
     "What is it?"
     "An old Spanish pilgrim--a repentant brigand  from the Sierras. He fell
ill  in Ancona last  year,  and  one of  our  friends  took him  on board  a
trading-vessel out of charity, and  set him down  in  Venice,  where  he had
friends, and he left his  papers with  us  to show his gratitude.  They will
just do for you."
     "A repentant b-b-brigand? But w-what about the police?"
     "Oh, that's all right!  He finished  his term of the galleys some years
ago, and has been going  about to Jerusalem  and all  sorts of places saving
his  soul ever since.  He killed his son by  mistake for somebody else,  and
gave himself up to the police in a fit of remorse."
     "Was he quite old?"
     "Yes;  but  a  white  beard  and  wig  will  set  that  right, and  the
description suits you to perfection in  every  other  respect. He was an old
soldier,  with a  lame foot and a sabre-cut across the face  like yours; and
then his being a Spaniard, too-- you see, if you meet  any Spanish pilgrims,
you can talk to them all right."
     "Where am I to meet Domenichino?"
     "You join the pilgrims  at the  cross-road that we will show you on the
map,  saying you  had lost  your way in the hills. Then,  when you reach the
town, you  go with the  rest of them into  the marketplace,  in front of the
Cardinal's palace."
     "Oh,  he manages  to  live in a p-palace, then,  in s-spite of being  a
saint?"
     "He lives in one  wing of it, and has turned  the rest into a hospital.
Well, you all wait there for him to come out and  give his benediction,  and
Domenichino  will come up  with  his basket  and say:  "Are  you one of  the
pilgrims, father?" and you  answer:  'I am a miserable sinner.' Then he puts
down  his basket and wipes his face  with his  sleeve, and you offer him six
soldi for a rosary."
     "Then, of course, he arranges where we can talk?"
     "Yes;  he will  have  plenty  of time  to give you  the  address of the
meeting-place while the people  are gaping at Montanelli. That was our plan;
but if you don't like it, we can let Domenichino know  and arrange something
else."
     "No; it will do; only see that the beard and wig look natural."
     . . . . .
     "Are you one of the pilgrims, father?"
     The Gadfly,  sitting  on  the  steps of the episcopal palace, looked up
from under  his  ragged  white  locks, and gave  the password  in  a  husky,
trembling  voice,  with  a  strong foreign accent.  Domenichino  slipped the
leather strap from his shoulder, and set down his basket of pious gewgaws on
the  step.  The crowd of  peasants and  pilgrims sitting  on the  steps  and
lounging  about the  market-place was taking  no  notice of  them,  but  for
precaution's  sake  they  kept  up  a  desultory  conversation,  Domenichino
speaking  in the local dialect and the Gadfly  in broken Italian, intermixed
with Spanish words.
     "His Eminence! His Eminence is  coming out!"  shouted the people by the
door. "Stand aside! His Eminence is coming!"
     They both stood up.
     "Here, father," said  Domenichino, putting  into  the  Gadfly's  hand a
little image wrapped in paper; "take this, too, and pray for me when you get
to Rome."
     The Gadfly thrust it into  his breast, and turned to look at the figure
in  the  violet Lenten robe and scarlet cap that  was standing  on the upper
step and blessing the people with outstretched arms.
     Montanelli came slowly down the steps, the people crowding about him to
kiss his hands. Many knelt down and put the hem of his cassock to their lips
as he passed.
     "Peace be with you, my children!"
     At the sound of  the clear, silvery voice, the Gadfly bent his head, so
that the  white  hair  fell across  his  face;  and Domenichino, seeing  the
quivering  of  the  pilgrim's  staff  in  his  hand,  said  to  himself with
admiration: "What an actor!"
     A  woman standing near to  them  stooped down and lifted her child from
the  step. "Come, Cecco," she said. "His Eminence will bless you as the dear
Lord blessed the children."
     The Gadfly moved a step forward and stopped. Oh, it was hard! All these
outsiders--these pilgrims and mountaineers--could go  up  and  speak to him,
and  he  would lay his  hand on their children's hair. Perhaps he would  say
"Carino" to that peasant boy, as he used to say----
     The Gadfly sank  down again on the step, turning away that he might not
see. If only he could shrink  into some corner and stop his ears to shut out
the sound! Indeed, it was more than  any  man should have to bear--to  be so
close, so  close that  he could have put out his  arm  and touched the  dear
hand.
     "Will you not  come under shelter, my friend?" the  soft voice said. "I
am afraid you are chilled."
     The  Gadfly's  heart stood still.  For a  moment he  was  conscious  of
nothing  but the sickening pressure of the blood that seemed as if it  would
tear his breast asunder; then  it rushed back, tingling and  burning through
all his body, and he looked up. The grave, deep eyes above him grew suddenly
tender with divine compassion at the sight of his face.
     "Stand  bark a little, friends," Montanelli said, turning to the crowd;
"I want to speak to him."
     The people fell slowly back,  whispering to each other, and the Gadfly,
sitting motionless,  with teeth clenched  and eyes on the ground,  felt  the
gentle touch of Montanelli's hand upon his shoulder.
     "You have had some great trouble. Can I do anything to help you?"
     The Gadfly shook his head in silence.
     "Are you a pilgrim?"
     "I am a miserable sinner."
     The accidental similarity of Montanelli's question to the password came
like  a  chance  straw,  that  the  Gadfly, in  his  desperation, caught at,
answering automatically. He had begun to tremble under  the soft pressure of
the hand that seemed to burn upon his shoulder.
     The Cardinal bent down closer to him.
     "Perhaps you would care  to speak to  me alone? If I can be any help to
you----" For the  first time the  Gadfly looked  straight and steadily  into
Montanelli's eyes; he was already recovering his self-command.
     "It would be no use," he said; "the thing is hopeless."
     A police official stepped forward out of the crowd.
     "Forgive my intruding, Your  Eminence. I think the old man is not quite
sound in his mind. He is perfectly harmless, and his papers are in order, so
we don't  interfere with him.  He  has been  in penal servitude  for a great
crime, and is now doing penance."
     "A great crime," the Gadfly repeated, shaking his head slowly.
     "Thank you, captain;  stand aside a little, please. My friend,  nothing
is  hopeless if a  man has sincerely repented. Will you not come  to me this
evening?"
     "Would  Your  Eminence receive a man who  is guilty of the death of his
own son?"
     The question had  almost the tone of a challenge, and Montanelli shrank
and shivered under it as under a cold wind.
     "God forbid that I should condemn you, whatever you have done!" he said
solemnly. "In His sight we are all guilty alike, and our righteousness is as
filthy rags. If you will come to me I will receive you as I pray that He may
one day receive me."
     The Gadfly stretched out his hands with a sudden gesture of passion.
     "Listen!" he  said; "and listen all  of you, Christians! If a  man  has
killed his only son--his son who loved and trusted him, who was flesh of his
flesh and bone of his bone;  if  he has led his son into  a death-trap  with
lies  and deceit--is there  hope for that man in  earth  or heaven?  I  have
confessed my sin before God and man, and I have suffered the punishment that
men have laid on  me, and they have let me go; but when will God say, 'It is
enough'?  What benediction will take  away  His  curse  from  my  soul? What
absolution will undo this thing that I have done?"
     In the dead silence that followed the people looked at  Montanelli, and
saw the heaving of the cross upon his breast.
     He raised his eyes at last, and gave  the  benediction with a hand that
was not quite steady.
     "God is merciful," he said. "Lay  your burden before His throne; for it
is written: 'A broken and contrite heart shalt thou not despise.'"
     He turned away and walked through the market-place, stopping everywhere
to speak to the people, and to take their children in his arms.
     In  the  evening  the Gadfly, following the directions written  on  the
wrapping of  the image, made his way  to the appointed meeting-place. It was
the house of a local doctor, who was an active member of the "sect." Most of
the  conspirators were already assembled, and their delight at  the Gadfly's
arrival gave him a new proof, if  he had needed  one, of his popularity as a
leader.
     "We're glad enough to see you again," said the doctor; "but we shall be
gladder still to see you go. It's  a  fearfully risky  business, and  I, for
one, was against  the plan. Are  you  quite sure none of  those  police rats
noticed you in the market-place this morning?"
     "Oh,  they  n-noticed  me  enough,  but  they  d-didn't  recognize  me.
Domenichino  m-managed the thing capitally. But where  is he?  I  don't  see
him."
     "He has not come yet. So you got on all smoothly? Did the Cardinal give
you his blessing?"
     "His blessing?  Oh, that's nothing," said Domenichino, coming in at the
door. "Rivarez,  you're as full of surprises  as a Christmas cake.  How many
more talents are you going to astonish us with?"
     "What is it now?" asked the Gadfly languidly. He was leaning  back on a
sofa,  smoking  a  cigar.  He still wore his pilgrim's dress,  but the white
beard and wig lay beside him.
     "I had  no idea  you were such  an  actor. I never saw a thing done  so
magnificently in my life. You nearly moved His Eminence to tears."
     "How was that? Let us hear, Rivarez."
     The Gadfly shrugged  his shoulders. He  was in a  taciturn and  laconic
mood, and the others, seeing that nothing was to be got out of him, appealed
to  Domenichino to explain.  When the  scene in  the  market-place had  been
related, one young workman, who had not joined in the laughter of the  rest,
remarked abruptly:
     "It  was very clever,  of course;  but I don't see  what  good all this
play-acting business has done to anybody."
     "Just this much," the Gadfly put in; "that I can go where I like and do
what I like anywhere in this district, and not a single man, woman, or child
will ever  think of suspecting me.  The story will be all over the place  by
to-morrow, and when I meet a spy he will only think: 'It's  mad Diego,  that
confessed  his sins in  the  market-place.'  That is  an  advantage  gained,
surely."
     "Yes, I see.  Still,  I  wish  the  thing  could have been done without
fooling  the  Cardinal. He's too good to have that sort of  trick played  on
him."
     "I thought myself he seemed fairly decent," the Gadfly lazily assented.
     "Nonsense, Sandro!  We don't  want Cardinals  here!"  said Domenichino.
"And if Monsignor Montanelli had taken  that  post in  Rome when he  had the
chance of  getting it, Rivarez couldn't have fooled him." "He wouldn't  take
it because he didn't want to leave his work here."
     "More  likely   because  he  didn't  want  to  get  poisoned   off   by
Lambruschini's agents. They've got  something against him,  you  may  depend
upon it. When a Cardinal, especially  such a  popular one, 'prefers to stay'
in a God-forsaken little hole  like this, we all know what that means--don't
we, Rivarez?"
     The  Gadfly  was making  smoke-rings.  "Perhaps  it is a  c-c-case of a
'b-b-broken  and  contrite heart,'"  he remarked,  leaning his head back  to
watch them float away. "And now, men, let us get to business."
     They began to discuss in detail the various plans which had been formed
for the smuggling and concealment of weapons. The Gadfly  listened with keen
attention,  interrupting  every  now  and  then   to  correct  sharply  some
inaccurate  statement or  imprudent  proposal.  When everyone  had  finished
speaking, he made  a few practical  suggestions, most of  which were adopted
without discussion. The meeting then broke up. It had been resolved that, at
least until he  was safely back in Tuscany, very late meetings, which  might
attract  the  notice of the police, should be avoided. By a little after ten
o'clock all had dispersed except  the  doctor, the  Gadfly, and Domenichino,
who remained as a sub-committee for the discussion of  special points. After
a long and hot dispute, Domenichino looked up at the clock.
     "Half-past eleven; we mustn't stop any longer or the night-watchman may
see us."
     "When does he pass?" asked the Gadfly.
     "About  twelve  o'clock;  and  I  want  to  be home  before  he  comes.
Good-night, Giordani. Rivarez, shall we walk together?"
     "No; I think we are safer apart. Then I shall see you again?"
     "Yes;  at Castel  Bolognese. I don't  know yet what disguise I shall be
in, but you have the passWord. You leave here to-morrow, I think?"
     The  Gadfly was  carefully putting  on  his  beard  and  wig before the
looking-glass.
     "To-morrow  morning, with the pilgrims. On the next day I fall  ill and
stop behind in a shepherd's hut, and then take a short cut across the hills.
I shall be down there before you will. Good-night!"
     Twelve o'clock was striking from the Cathedral bell-tower as the Gadfly
looked in at the door  of the great empty barn which had been thrown open as
a lodging for the pilgrims. The  floor was covered with clumsy figures, most
of which were snoring lustily, and the air was  insufferably close and foul.
He drew  back  with a little shudder  of repugnance; it would  be useless to
attempt to sleep in there; he would take a  walk, and then find some shed or
haystack which would, at least, be clean and quiet.
     It  was  a glorious night, with a great full moon gleaming in  a purple
sky.  He began  to wander  through the  streets in  an aimless way, brooding
miserably over  the  scene  of  the morning, and wishing  that  he had never
consented to Domenichino's plan of holding the meeting in Brisighella. If at
the beginning he had declared the project too  dangerous,  some  other place
would have been  chosen; and both he and Montanelli would  have been  spared
this ghastly, ridiculous farce.
     How changed the Padre was! And yet his voice was not changed at all; it
was just the same as in the old days, when he used to say: "Carino."
     The  lantern  of the night-watchman appeared  at the  other  end of the
street, and  the Gadfly turned down a narrow, crooked alley. After walking a
few  yards he found  himself in the Cathedral Square, close to the left wing
of the episcopal  palace. The square was  flooded with moonlight, and  there
was no one in sight; but  he noticed that a side door  of the Cathedral  was
ajar. The sacristan must have forgotten  to shut it. Surely nothing could be
going on there so late at night. He might as well go in and sleep on one  of
the  benches  instead  of in the stifling barn; he  could  slip  out  in the
morning before the  sacristan came;  and  even if  anyone  did find him, the
natural supposition would be that mad Diego  had been saying his  prayers in
some corner, and had got shut in.
     He listened  a moment at the  door, and then entered with the noiseless
step that  he  had  retained  notwithstanding  his  lameness.  The moonlight
streamed through the windows, and lay in broad bands on the marble floor. In
the chancel, especially, everything was as clearly visible  as  by daylight.
At the foot of the altar steps Cardinal Montanelli knelt alone, bare-headed,
with clasped hands.
     The  Gadfly drew  back into the  shadow.  Should  he  slip away  before
Montanelli saw him? That, no doubt, would be the wisest thing to do--perhaps
the  most merciful. And  yet,  what harm could  it do for him  to go  just a
little nearer--to look at the Padre's face once more, now that the crowd was
gone,  and  there was no need to keep up the hideous comedy  of the morning?
Perhaps it  would  be  his last chance--and the  Padre need not see  him; he
would steal up  softly and look-- just this once.  Then he would go  back to
his work.
     Keeping in the shadow of the pillars, he crept softly up to the chancel
rails, and  paused at the  side  entrance, close to the altar. The shadow of
the episcopal throne was broad enough to cover him,  and he crouched down in
the darkness, holding his breath.
     "My poor boy! Oh, God; my poor boy!"
     The  broken  whisper was full of such endless despair that  the  Gadfly
shuddered  in spite of himself. Then came deep, heavy, tearless sobs; and he
saw Montanelli wring his hands together like a man in bodily pain.
     He had not thought it would be so bad as this. How often had he said to
himself with bitter assurance:  "I need not trouble about it; that wound was
healed long  ago."  Now, after all these years, it was laid bare before him,
and he saw it bleeding  still.  And how easy it would  be to heal it now  at
last! He need only  lift his  hand--only step forward and say: "Padre, it is
I." There was Gemma,  too, with that white streak across her hair. Oh, if he
could but forgive! If he could but cut out from his memory the past that was
burned  into  it  so  deep--the Lascar, and the  sugar-plantation,  and  the
variety show! Surely there was no other misery  like this--to be willing  to
forgive, to long to forgive; and to know that it was hopeless--that he could
not, dared not forgive.
     Montanelli rose at last, made the sign of  the cross,  and  turned away
from the altar. The Gadfly shrank  further  back  into the shadow, trembling
with fear lest he should be seen, lest the very beating of  his heart should
betray him; then he drew a long breath of relief. Montanelli had passed him,
so close that the violet robe had brushed against his cheek,--had passed and
had not seen him.
     Had  not seen him----  Oh, what  had he done? This  had  been  his last
chance--this one precious moment--and he had let it slip away. He started up
and stepped into the light.
     "Padre!"
     The sound of his own voice, ringing up and dying away along the  arches
of the roof, filled him with fantastic terror. He shrank back again into the
shadow.  Montanelli stood  beside  the  pillar,  motionless,  listening with
wide-open eyes, full of the horror of death. How long the silence lasted the
Gadfly could  not tell;  it might have been  an instant, or an eternity.  He
came to his senses with a sudden shock. Montanelli was beginning to  sway as
though he would fall, and his lips moved, at first silently.
     "Arthur!" the low whisper came at last; "yes, the water is deep----"
     The Gadfly came forward.
     "Forgive me, Your Eminence! I thought it was one of the priests."
     "Ah,  it  is  the  pilgrim?"  Montanelli  had  at  once  recovered  his
self-control,  though the Gadfly could see, from the restless glitter of the
sapphire on  his  hand, that he was  still  trembling. "Are you in  need  of
anything, my friend? It is late, and the Cathedral is closed at night."
     "I  beg pardon, Your  Eminence, if I  have  done wrong. I saw  the door
open,  and  came in  to  pray, and when  I  saw a priest, as  I thought,  in
meditation, I waited to ask a blessing on this."
     He held up the little  tin  cross that he had bought from  Domenichino.
Montanelli took it from his hand, and, re-entering the chancel, laid it  for
a moment on the altar.
     "Take it, my son," he said, "and be at rest, for the Lord is tender and
pitiful.  Go to Rome, and ask the blessing of His minister, the Holy Father.
Peace be with you!"
     The Gadfly bent his head  to receive the benediction, and turned slowly
away.
     "Stop!" said Montanelli.
     He was standing with one hand on the chancel rail.
     "When you receive the Holy Eucharist in Rome,"  he said,  "pray for one
in deep affliction-- for one on whose soul the hand of the Lord is heavy."
     There  were  almost  tears  in his voice, and  the  Gadfly's resolution
wavered.  Another instant and  he  would  have  betrayed himself.  Then  the
thought of the variety-show  came  up  again, and he remembered, like Jonah,
that he did well to be angry.
     "Who am I, that He should hear my prayers? A leper and an outcast! If I
could bring to His throne,  as  Your  Eminence can,  the  offering of a holy
life--of a soul without spot or secret shame------"
     Montanelli turned abruptly away.
     "I have only one offering to give," he said; "a broken heart."
     . . . . .
     A few  days later the Gadfly returned to Florence in the diligence from
Pistoja. He  went straight to Gemma's lodgings,  but she was  out. Leaving a
message  that he would return  in the morning he went home, sincerely hoping
that he  should  not  again find  his  study  invaded by Zita.  Her  jealous
reproaches  would  act  on  his nerves, if  he  were to  hear  much  of them
to-night, like the rasping of a dentist's file.
     "Good-evening, Bianca,"  he said when the maid-servant opened the door.
"Has Mme. Reni been here to-day?"
     She stared at him blankly
     "Mme. Reni? Has she come back, then, sir?"
     "What do you mean?" he asked with a frown, stopping short on the mat.
     "She went away  quite suddenly, just after  you  did, and left  all her
things behind her. She never so much as said she was going."
     "Just after I did? What, a f-fortnight ago?"
     "Yes,   sir,  the   same  day;   and   her   things   are  lying  about
higgledy-piggledy. All the neighbours are talking about it."
     He  turned  away from the door-step  without speaking, and went hastily
down the lane to the house where Zita had been lodging. In her rooms nothing
had been touched; all the presents that he had given her were in their usual
places; there was no letter or scrap of writing anywhere.
     "If you please,  sir,"  said  Bianca,  putting her head in at the door,
"there's an old woman----"
     He turned round fiercely.
     "What do you want here--following me about?"
     "An old woman wishes to see you."
     "What does she want? Tell her I c-can't see her; I'm busy."
     "She has been coming nearly  every evening since you  went  away,  sir,
always asking when you would come back."
     "Ask her w-what her  business is. No; never  mind; I  suppose I must go
myself."
     The  old woman  was waiting  at  his  hall  door. She was  very  poorly
dressed,  with   a  face  as   brown  and  wrinkled  as  a  medlar,   and  a
bright-coloured scarf  twisted round her  head. As he came  in she  rose and
looked at him with keen black eyes.
     "You are the lame gentleman," she said, inspecting him critically  from
head to foot. "I have brought you a message from Zita Reni."
     He opened the study door, and held it for her to pass in; then followed
her and shut the door, that Bianca might not hear.
     "Sit down, please. N-now, tell me who you are."
     "It's no business of yours who  I am. I have come to tell you that Zita
Reni has gone away with my son."
     "With--your--son?"
     "Yes,  sir; if you don't know how to keep your mistress when you've got
her, you can't complain  if  other  men  take her.  My son has blood in  his
veins, not milk and water; he comes of the Romany folk."
     "Ah, you are a gipsy! Zita has gone back to her own people, then?"
     She looked at him  in amazed contempt. Apparently, these Christians had
not even manhood enough to be angry when they were insulted.
     "What sort of stuff are you made of, that she should stay with you? Our
women may  lend themselves to  you a bit for a girl's  fancy, or if you  pay
them well; but the Romany blood comes back to the Romany folk."
     The Gadfly's face remained as cold and steady as before.
     "Has she gone away with a gipsy camp, or merely to live with your son?"
     The woman burst out laughing.
     "Do  you  think  of following  her and trying to win her back? It's too
late, sir; you should have thought of that before!"
     "No; I only want to know the truth, if you will tell it to me."
     She shrugged her shoulders; it was hardly worth while to abuse a person
who took it so meekly.
     "The truth, then, is that she met my son  in the  road the day you left
her, and spoke to  him in the Romany tongue; and when he saw  she was one of
our folk, in spite of her fine clothes, he fell in love with her bonny face,
as OUR men fall  in love, and  took  her  to our  camp. She told  us all her
trouble, and sat crying and sobbing,  poor lassie, till our hearts were sore
for her. We  comforted her as best we could; and  at  last she took off  her
fine clothes and put on the things our lasses wear, and gave  herself to  my
son, to be his woman and  to have him  for her  man. He won't say to her: 'I
don't love you,' and: 'I've other things to do.' When  a woman is young, she
wants a man; and what sort of  man  are  you,  that you  can't even  kiss  a
handsome girl when she puts her arms round your neck?"
     "You  said,"  he  interrupted,  "that you had brought me a message from
her."
     "Yes; I  stopped behind when the camp went on, so  as  to give it.  She
told me to say that she has had enough of your folk and their hair-splitting
and their sluggish  blood; and that  she wants to get back to her own people
and be free. 'Tell him,' she said, 'that I am a woman, and that I loved him;
and that is why  I would not be his harlot any longer.' The lassie was right
to come  away. There's no harm in a  girl getting a bit  of money out of her
good looks if she can--that's what good looks are for; but a Romany lass has
nothing to do with LOVING a man of your race."
     The Gadfly stood up.
     "Is  that all the message?" he said. "Then  tell  her,  please, that  I
think she has done right, and that I  hope she will be happy.  That is all I
have to say. Good-night!"
     He stood  perfectly still until the garden gate closed behind her; then
he sat down and covered his face with both hands.
     Another blow on the cheek! Was no rag of pride to be left him--no shred
of self-respect? Surely he had suffered everything that  man can endure; his
very heart had been dragged in  the mud and trampled under the feet  of  the
passers-by; there was no spot in  his soul where someone's contempt  was not
branded  in,  where someone's  mockery had not left its  iron trace. And now
this gipsy girl, whom  he  had picked up by the  wayside-- even she  had the
whip in her hand.
     Shaitan whined at the door, and the Gadfly rose to let him in.  The dog
rushed  up to his master with  his  usual frantic manifestations of delight,
but soon, understanding that something was wrong, lay down on the rug beside
him, and thrust a cold nose into the listless hand.
     An hour later  Gemma came  up  to  the front door. No  one appeared  in
answer to  her  knock;  Bianca, finding that  the  Gadfly  did not  want any
dinner, had  slipped out to visit a neighbour's  cook. She had left the door
open, and  a light burning  in the hall. Gemma, after waiting for some time,
decided to  enter  and try if she could  find the Gadfly, as  she wished  to
speak to  him about an important  message which had  come  from Bailey.  She
knocked at the study door, and the Gadfly's voice answered from within: "You
can go away, Bianca. I don't want anything."
     She softly opened the door. The  room was  quite dark,  but the passage
lamp threw a long  stream of light across it as she entered, and she saw the
Gadfly sitting alone, his head sunk on his breast, and the dog asleep at his
feet.
     "It is I," she said.
     He started up. "Gemma,---- Gemma! Oh, I have wanted you so!"
     Before she could speak he was  kneeling  on  the floor at her  feet and
hiding his face in the folds of her dress. His whole body was shaken with  a
convulsive tremor that was worse to see than tears.
     She stood still. There was nothing  she could do to  help him--nothing.
This was the bitterest thing of all. She must stand by and look on passively
--  she who would have died to  spare him pain. Could she but dare  to stoop
and clasp her arms about him, to hold him close against her heart and shield
him, were it with her own  body, from all further harm or wrong; surely then
he would  be Arthur to her  again;  surely then the day would  break and the
shadows flee away.
     Ah, no, no! How could he  ever forget? Was it not she  who had cast him
into hell--she, with her own right hand?
     She had let  the  moment slip by. He rose  hastily and sat down by  the
table, covering his  eyes with one hand and biting his  lip as if  he  would
bite it through.
     Presently he looked up and said quietly:
     "I am afraid I startled you."
     She  held  out  both her hands to  him. "Dear,"  she said, "are we  not
friends enough by now for you to trust me a little bit? What is it?"
     "Only a  private  trouble  of my own.  I  don't see  why you  should be
worried over it."
     "Listen  a  moment," she  went on,  taking his hand in  both of hers to
steady its convulsive trembling. "I have  not tried  to lay hands on a thing
that is not mine to touch.  But now that you have given me, of your own free
will, so much of your confidence, will you not give me a little more--as you
would  do if I were  your sister. Keep the mask on your  face,  if it is any
consolation to you, but don't wear a mask on your soul, for your own sake."
     He bent his  head lower. "You must be patient with me," he  said. "I am
an unsatisfactory sort  of  brother  to  have,  I'm afraid;  but if you only
knew----  I  have been nearly mad this  last  week.  It has been like  South
America again. And somehow the devil gets into me and----" He broke off.
     "May I not have my share in your trouble?" she whispered at last.
     His head sank down on her arm. "The hand of the Lord is heavy."



        PART III: CHAPTER I.
     THE next five  weeks  were spent by Gemma and the Gadfly in a whirl  of
excitement and overwork  which  left them little time or energy for thinking
about their personal affairs. When  the  arms had been safely  smuggled into
Papal territory  there remained  a still  more difficult and dangerous task:
that of  conveying  them unobserved  from the secret  stores in the mountain
caverns and ravines to  the various local centres and thence to the separate
villages.  The whole district was  swarming with  spies; and Domenichino, to
whom the Gadfly had intrusted the ammunition, sent into Florence a messenger
with an urgent appeal for either help or extra time. The Gadfly had insisted
that the work should be finished by  the middle  of  June; and what with the
difficulty  of conveying heavy  transports over bad  roads,  and the endless
hindrances  and  delays  caused  by  the  necessity  of continually  evading
observation, Domenichino  was  growing  desperate. "I am between Scylla  and
Charybdis," he wrote. "I dare not work quickly, for fear of detection, and I
must not work slowly if we are to be ready in time. Either send me efficient
help at once, or let the Venetians know that  we shall not be ready till the
first week in July."
     The Gadfly  carried the  letter to Gemma  and,  while  she read it, sat
frowning at the floor and stroking the cat's fur the wrong way.
     "This is bad," she said. "We can  hardly keep the Venetians waiting for
three weeks."
     "Of  course   we  can't;  the  thing  is  absurd.  Domenichino  m-might
unders-s-stand  that. We must follow the  lead of the  Venetians,  not  they
ours."
     "I  don't see  that Domenichino is  to blame; he has evidently done his
best, and he can't do impossibilities."
     "It's not  in Domenichino that the fault lies; it's in the fact of  his
being one person instead of  two. We ought  to have at least one responsible
man  to guard the store  and another to see the transports off. He is  quite
right; he must have efficient help."
     "But what help are we going to give him? We  have no one in Florence to
send."
     "Then I m-must go myself."
     She leaned back in her chair and looked at him with a little frown.
     "No, that won't do; it's too risky."
     "It will  have to  do if we can't f-f-find  any other way  out  of  the
difficulty."
     "Then we  must find  another way, that's all. It's  out of the question
for you to go again just now."
     An obstinate line appeared at the corners of his under lip.
     "I d-don't see that it's out of the question."
     "You will see if you think about  the thing calmly for a minute. It  is
only  five weeks since you got back; the police are on  the scent about that
pilgrim business, and scouring the country to  find a  clue. Yes, I know you
are clever at disguises; but remember what a lot of people saw you, both  as
Diego and  as the countryman;  and you  can't  disguise your lameness or the
scar on your face."
     "There are p-plenty of lame people in the world."
     "Yes, but there are not  plenty of  people  in the Romagna with  a lame
foot and a sabre-cut across the cheek and a left arm injured like yours, and
the combination of blue eyes with such dark colouring."
     "The eyes don't matter; I can alter them with belladonna."
     "You can't alter the other things. No, it won't do. For you to go there
just now, with all your identification-marks, would be to walk into  a  trap
with your eyes open. You would certainly be taken."
     "But s-s-someone must help Domenichino."
     "It will be no help to him to have you caught at a critical moment like
this. Your arrest would mean the failure of the whole thing."
     But the  Gadfly was difficult to  convince, and the  discussion went on
and  on without coming nearer to any  settlement.  Gemma  was  beginning  to
realize  how nearly inexhaustible was  the  fund of quiet obstinacy  in  his
character;  and, had the matter  not been one about which she felt strongly,
she would probably  have yielded for the sake of peace. This, however, was a
case  in  which  she  could  not  conscientiously give  way;  the  practical
advantage  to  be  gained  from  the proposed  journey  seemed  to  her  not
sufficiently  important to  be  worth  the  risk,  and  she could  not  help
suspecting that his desire to go was prompted less by a conviction of  grave
political necessity than by a  morbid  craving for the excitement of danger.
He had got into the habit of risking his neck, and his tendency  to run into
unnecessary peril seemed to  her  a  form of intemperance  which  should  be
quietly but steadily resisted. Finding all her arguments unavailing  against
his dogged resolve to go his own way, she fired her last shot.
     "Let us  be honest about it, anyway,"  she  said;  "and call things  by
their  true  names. It  is not  Domenichino's  difficulty that makes  you so
determined to go. It is your own personal passion for----"
     "It's  not true!" he interrupted vehemently. "He  is nothing  to me;  I
don't care if I never see him again." He broke off, seeing in her  face that
he  had betrayed himself. Their eyes met  for an instant, and  dropped;  and
neither of them uttered the name that was in both their minds.
     "It--it is not Domenichino  I want to save," he stammered at last, with
his face  half  buried in  the  cat's  fur; "it is that  I--I understand the
danger of the work failing if he has no help."
     She passed over the feeble little subterfuge,  and went  on as if there
had been no interruption:
     "It is your passion for running  into danger which makes you want to go
there. You  have  the  same craving for danger when you are worried that you
had for opium when you were ill."
     "It was not I that asked for the opium," he said defiantly; "it was the
others who insisted on giving it to me."
     "I dare say. You plume yourself  a little on your stoicism, and to  ask
for physical  relief would have hurt your pride;  but it is rather flattered
than otherwise when you risk  your  life to relieve the irritation  of  your
nerves. And yet, after all, the distinction is a merely conventional one."
     He drew the cat's head back and looked down into the round, green eyes.
"Is it  true, Pasht?" he  said. "Are all these unkind things true  that your
mistress is  s-saying  about me?  Is it a case of  mea  culpa; mea  m-maxima
culpa? You wise beast, you never  ask for opium, do you? Your ancestors were
gods  in Egypt, and  no man t-trod on  their  tails. I wonder,  though, what
would become of your calm superiority to earthly ills if I were to take this
paw of yours and hold it in the c-candle. Would  you ask  me for opium then?
Would you? Or perhaps--for death? No, pussy, we have no right to die for our
personal  convenience. We may spit and s-swear a bit, if it consoles us; but
we mustn't pull the paw away."
     "Hush!"  She took the cat off his knee and put it down on  a footstool.
"You and I will have time for thinking about those  things later on. What we
have  to think of now is how to  get Domenichino out of his difficulty. What
is it, Katie; a visitor? I am busy."
     "Miss Wright has sent you this, ma'am, by hand."
     The packet, which was carefully  sealed, contained  a letter, addressed
to Miss  Wright,  but  unopened and  with  a Papal stamp. Gemma's old school
friends still lived in Florence, and her more important  letters  were often
received, for safety, at their address.
     "It is  Michele's mark,"  she  said, glancing quickly  over the letter,
which  seemed to  be about  the summer-terms  at  a  boarding  house in  the
Apennines, and pointing to two  little blots on a corner of the page. "It is
in chemical ink; the reagent is  in  the  third drawer of the writing-table.
Yes; that is it."
     He laid the letter open on the desk and passed a little  brush over its
pages. When  the  real message stood out on the  paper in  a  brilliant blue
line, he leaned back in his chair and burst out laughing.
     "What is it?" she asked hurriedly. He handed her the paper.
     "DOMENICHINO HAS BEEN ARRESTED. COME AT ONCE."
     She sat down with the paper in her hand  and stared hopelessly  at  the
Gadfly.
     "W-well?"  he  said  at last, with  his soft, ironical drawl;  "are you
satisfied now that I must go?"
     "Yes, I suppose you must," she answered, sighing. "And I too."
     He looked up with a little start. "You too? But----"
     "Of course. It will be very awkward, I know, to be left without  anyone
here  in  Florence;  but  everything  must go to  the wall  now  except  the
providing of an extra pair of hands."
     "There are plenty of hands to be got there."
     "They don't belong to people whom you can trust thoroughly, though. You
said yourself just now that there must be two responsible persons in charge;
and if Domenichino couldn't manage alone it is evidently  impossible for you
to do so.  A person as desperately  compromised  as  you  are  is  very much
handicapped, remember, in work of that kind, and more dependent on help than
anyone else would be. Instead of you and Domenichino, it must be you and I."
     He considered for a moment, frowning.
     "Yes, you are quite right," he said; "and  the sooner we go the better.
But we must not start together. If I go off to-night, you can take, say, the
afternoon coach to-morrow."
     "Where to?"
     "That  we  must discuss.  I think I had  b-b-better  go straight  in to
Faenza. If I start late to-night and ride to  Borgo San Lorenzo I can get my
disguise arranged there and go straight on."
     "I don't see what else we can  do,"  she said,  with an  anxious little
frown; "but it is very risky, your going off in such a hurry and trusting to
the smugglers finding you a  disguise at Borgo. You ought to have  at  least
three clear days to double on your trace before you cross the frontier."
     "You needn't be afraid," he answered, smiling; "I may get taken further
on, but not at the frontier. Once in the hills I am as safe as here; there's
not a smuggler in the Apennines  that would betray  me. What I am  not quite
sure about is how you are to get across."
     "Oh, that is very simple! I shall take Louisa Wright's passport  and go
for a holiday. No one knows me in the Romagna, but every spy knows you."
     "F-fortunately, so does every smuggler."
     She took out her watch.
     "Half-past two. We have the afternoon and evening, then,  if you are to
start to-night."
     "Then the best thing  will be for me  to go  home and settle everything
now, and arrange about a good horse. I shall ride in to San Lorenzo; it will
be safer."
     "But it won't be safe at all to hire a horse. The owner will-----"
     "I shan't hire one. I know  a man that will  lend me a horse, and  that
can be trusted. He has done things for me  before. One of the shepherds will
bring it back  in a fortnight. I shall  be here again by  five or half-past,
then; and while I am gone, I w-want you to go and find Martini and exp-plain
everything to him."
     "Martini!" She turned round and looked at him in astonishment.
     "Yes; we must take him into confidence--unless you  can think of anyone
else."
     "I don't quite understand what you mean."
     "We must have someone here whom we  can  trust, in case of  any special
difficulty; and of  all the set here Martini is the man in  whom I have most
confidence. Riccardo would  do anything he  could  for us, of  course; but I
think Martini  has a steadier head. Still, you know him better than I do; it
is as you think."
     "I have  not  the slightest doubt  as to Martini's  trustworthiness and
efficiency in every respect; and I think he  would probably consent  to give
us any help he could. But----"
     He understood at once.
     "Gemma, what would you  feel if you found out that  a comrade in bitter
need had not asked you for help you might have given, for fear of hurting or
distressing you? Would you say there was any true kindness in that?"
     "Very well," she said, after a little  pause; "I will send  Katie round
at once  and ask him to come; and while she is gone I will  go to Louisa for
her passport; she promised to lend it whenever I want one. What about money?
Shall I draw some out of the bank?"
     "No; don't waste  time on that;  I  can draw enough from  my account to
last us for a bit. We will  fall back on  yours later  on if my balance runs
short.  Till half-past  five, then; I  shall  be sure to  find  you here, of
course?"
     "Oh, yes! I shall be back long before then."
     Half  an hour after the appointed time he returned, and found Gemma and
Martini  sitting  on  the  terrace  together.  He  saw  at  once  that their
conversation  had been  a  distressing  one; the traces  of  agitation  were
visible in both of them, and Martini was unusually silent and glum.
     "Have you arranged everything?" she asked, looking up.
     "Yes; and I have brought you some money for the journey. The horse will
be ready for me at the Ponte Rosso barrier at one in the night."
     "Is not that  rather late? You ought to get into San Lorenzo before the
people are up in the morning."
     "So I shall; it's a very fast horse; and I don't  want  to  leave  here
when  there's  a chance of  anyone  noticing me. I shan't go  home any more;
there's a spy watching at the door, and he thinks me in."
     "How did you get out without his seeing you?"
     "Out  of  the  kitchen  window  into  the  back  garden  and  over  the
neighbour's orchard wall; that's what makes me so  late; I had to dodge him.
I left the owner of the horse to  sit in the study  all the evening with the
lamp lighted. When the spy sees the light in the window and a  shadow on the
blind he will be quite satisfied that I am writing at home this evening."
     "Then you will stay here till it is time to go to the barrier?"
     "Yes; I don't want to be seen in the street  any  more to-night. Have a
cigar, Martini? I know Signora Bolla doesn't mind smoke."
     "I shan't be here to mind; I must go downstairs and help Katie with the
dinner."
     When she had  gone Martini got up and began to pace to and fro with his
hands behind  his back. The Gadfly sat smoking and looking  silently out  at
the drizzling rain.
     "Rivarez!" Martini began,  stopping in front of  him,  but  keeping his
eyes on the ground; "what sort of thing are you going to drag her into?"
     The Gadfly took the cigar from  his mouth and blew away a long trail of
smoke.
     "She has chosen for herself," he said, "without compulsion  on anyone's
part."
     "Yes, yes--I know. But tell me----"
     He stopped.
     "I will tell you anything I can."
     "Well, then--I  don't know much about the  details of these  affairs in
the hills,--are you going to take her into any very serious danger?"
     "Do you want the truth?"
     "Yes."
     "Then--yes."
     Martini  turned away  and went  on  pacing up  and down.  Presently  he
stopped again.
     "I want to  ask you another question. If you don't choose to answer it,
you needn't, of course; but if you do answer, then answer  honestly. Are you
in love with her?"
     The Gadfly  deliberately knocked the  ash from  his  cigar and  went on
smoking in silence.
     "That means--that you don't choose to answer?"
     "No; only that I think I have a right to know why you ask me that."
     "Why? Good God, man, can't you see why?"
     "Ah!" He laid down  his cigar and looked steadily at Martini. "Yes," he
said at last,  slowly and softly. "I  am in  love with  her. But you needn't
think I am going to  make love to her, or  worry about it. I am  only  going
to----"
     His  voice died  away in a strange, faint whisper. Martini  came a step
nearer.
     "Only going--to----"
     "To die."
     He  was staring straight before  him  with a cold, fixed look, as if he
were  dead already. When he spoke again his voice was curiously lifeless and
even.
     "You needn't worry her about it beforehand,"  he said; "but there's not
the ghost of a chance for me. It's dangerous for everyone; that she knows as
well as I do;  but the smugglers will  do their best to prevent  her getting
taken. They are good  fellows,  though they are a bit  rough. As for me, the
rope is round my neck, and when I cross the frontier I pull the noose."
     "Rivarez, what do you mean? Of course it's dangerous,  and particularly
so for  you;  I understand that; but you  have  often  crossed the  frontier
before and always been successful."
     "Yes, and this time I shall fail."
     "But why? How can you know?"
     The Gadfly smiled drearily.
     "Do you remember the German legend of the man that died when he met his
own  Double? No? It appeared to him at night in a lonely place, wringing its
hands in despair. Well, I met mine  the  last time I was in  the hills;  and
when I cross the frontier again I shan't come back."
     Martini came up to him and put a hand on the back of his chair.
     "Listen,  Rivarez;  I don't understand a word  of all this metaphysical
stuff, but I do understand one thing: If you feel about it that way, you are
not  in  a fit state to  go. The  surest  way to get taken is to  go with  a
conviction that you will be taken. You must be ill, or out of sorts somehow,
to get maggots of that kind into your head. Suppose I go instead of  you?  I
can do any practical work there is to be done, and you can send a message to
your men, explaining------"
     "And let you get killed instead? That would be very clever."
     "Oh, I'm not likely to  get killed! They  don't know me as they do you.
And, besides, even if I did------"
     He stopped,  and  the Gadfly looked  up with  a  slow,  inquiring gaze.
Martini's hand dropped by his side.
     "She very likely wouldn't miss me as much as she would you," he said in
his most matter-of-fact voice. "And then, besides,  Rivarez, this  is public
business, and we have to look at it from the  point of view of  utility--the
greatest good of the  greatest number. Your 'final value'---isn't  that what
the economists call it?--is higher  than mine; I have  brains  enough to see
that, though I haven't any  cause  to be particularly fond of you. You are a
bigger man than I am; I'm  not sure that you are a better  one, but  there's
more of you, and your death would be a greater loss than mine."
     From the way he spoke he might have been discussing the value of shares
on the Exchange. The Gadfly looked up, shivering as if with cold.
     "Would you have me wait till my grave opens of itself to swallow me up?
     "If I must die, I will encounter darkness as a bride----
     Look here, Martini, you and I are talking nonsense."
     "You are, certainly," said Martini gruffly.
     "Yes, and so are you. For Heaven's sake, don't let's go in for romantic
self-sacrifice, like Don Carlos  and  Marquis Posa.  This is the  nineteenth
century; and if it's my business to die, I have got to do it."
     "And if it's my business to live,  I have  got  to  do that, I suppose.
You're the lucky one, Rivarez."
     "Yes," the Gadfly assented laconically; "I was always lucky."
     They  smoked  in silence for  a few  minutes, and then began to talk of
business details. When Gemma came up to call them to dinner, neither of them
betrayed  in  face or manner that  their conversation had been  in  any  way
unusual.  After  dinner  they  sat  discussing plans  and  making  necessary
arrangements till eleven o'clock, when Martini rose and took his hat.
     "I will go home and fetch that riding-cloak  of mine, Rivarez.  I think
you will  be  less recognizable in  it  than in your  light suit. I  want to
reconnoitre a bit, too, and  make sure  there are  no spies  about before we
start."
     "Are you coming with me to the barrier?"
     "Yes; it's safer to have four eyes than two in case of anyone following
you.  I'll be back by  twelve. Be sure  you don't start without  me.  I  had
better take the key, Gemma, so as not to wake anyone by ringing."
     She  raised her eyes to  his  face as he  took the keys. She understood
that he had invented a pretext in order to leave her alone with the Gadfly.
     "You and I will talk to-morrow," she  said.  "We shall have time in the
morning, when my packing is finished."  "Oh, yes! Plenty of time. There  are
two or three little things I want to ask you about, Rivarez; but we can talk
them over on our way  to  the  barrier.  You had  better send Katie  to bed,
Gemma; and be as quiet as you can, both of you. Good-bye till twelve, then."
     He went away with a little nod and smile, banging the door after him to
let the neighbours hear that Signora Bolla's visitor was gone.
     Gemma went out into  the kitchen to say good-night to  Katie,  and came
back with black coffee on a tray.
     "Would you like to lie down a bit?" she said. "You won't have any sleep
the rest of the night."
     "Oh, dear no! I shall sleep at San Lorenzo while the men are getting my
disguise ready."
     "Then  have  some coffee.  Wait  a  minute;  I  will  get  you out  the
biscuits."
     As  she  knelt down at  the  side-board he  suddenly  stooped  over her
shoulder.
     "Whatever have you got there? Chocolate creams and English toffee! Why,
this is l-luxury for a king!"
     She looked up, smiling faintly at his enthusiastic tone.
     "Are you fond of sweets? I always keep them for Cesare; he is a perfect
baby over any kind of lollipops."
     "R-r-really? Well, you must get him s-some more  to-morrow and  give me
these to take with me. No, let me p-p-put the  toffee in my pocket; it  will
console me for all the lost joys of life.  I d-do hope they'll give me a