urton, what do you know about Young Italy?"
     "I know that it is a society  which publishes a newspaper in Marseilles
and circulates it in Italy, with the object of inducing people to revolt and
drive the Austrian army out of the country."
     "You have read this paper, I think?"
     "Yes; I am interested in the subject."
     "When  you  read it  you realized that you  were  committing an illegal
action?"
     "Certainly."
     "Where did you get the copies which were found in your room?"
     "That I cannot tell you."
     "Mr. Burton, you must not  say 'I cannot tell' here;  you are  bound to
answer my questions."
     "I will not, then, if you object to 'cannot.'"
     "You will  regret it if you  permit yourself to  use such expressions,"
remarked the colonel. As Arthur made no reply, he went on:
     "I may as well  tell you that evidence has come into our hands  proving
your  connection  with this society to be much more intimate than is implied
by the mere reading of forbidden literature. It will be to your advantage to
confess frankly.  In  any case the truth  will be sure to come out,  and you
will find it useless to screen yourself behind evasion and denials."
     "I have no desire to screen myself. What is it you want to know?"
     "Firstly, how did you, a foreigner, come to be implicated in matters of
this kind?"
     "I  thought about the subject and read everything I could get hold  of,
and formed my own conclusions."
     "Who persuaded you to join this society?"
     "No one; I wished to join it."
     "You  are  shilly-shallying  with me,"  said the colonel, sharply;  his
patience was evidently  beginning to give out. "No one can join a society by
himself. To whom did you communicate your wish to join it?"
     Silence.
     "Will you have the kindness to answer me?"
     "Not when you ask questions of that kind."
     Arthur  spoke  sullenly;  a curious, nervous  irritability  was  taking
possession of him. He knew by this time that many  arrests had  been made in
both Leghorn  and  Pisa;  and,  though still ignorant  of the extent  of the
calamity, he had already heard enough to put him into a fever of anxiety for
the safety  of Gemma and his other  friends. The studied  politeness of  the
officers, the  dull game of fencing and parrying, of insidious questions and
evasive answers, worried and annoyed  him, and  the clumsy tramping backward
and forward of the sentinel outside the door jarred detestably upon his ear.
     "Oh, by  the bye, when  did  you last meet Giovanni  Bolla?" asked  the
colonel, after a little more bandying  of words. "Just before you left Pisa,
was it?"
     "I know no one of that name."
     "What!  Giovanni  Bolla? Surely you know  him --a  tall  young  fellow,
closely shaven. Why, he is one of your fellow-students."
     "There are many students in the university whom I don't know."
     "Oh,  but you must know Bolla, surely!  Look, this is  his handwriting.
You see, he knows you well enough."
     The  colonel  carelessly handed him  a  paper headed:  "Protocol,"  and
signed: "Giovanni Bolla." Glancing down it Arthur came upon his own name. He
looked up in surprise. "Am I to read it?"
     "Yes, you may as well; it concerns you."
     He began to read, while  the officers  sat silently  watching his face.
The document appeared  to consist of depositions  in answer to a long string
of  questions. Evidently Bolla,  too,  must have  been arrested.  The  first
depositions were of the usual stereotyped  character; then followed a  short
account of Bolla's  connection  with  the society, of the  dissemination  of
prohibited literature in  Leghorn, and  of the students' meetings. Next came
"Among  those who  joined us  was  a  young Englishman, Arthur  Burton,  who
belongs to one of the rich shipowning families."
     The blood rushed into Arthur's face. Bolla had betrayed him! Bolla, who
had  taken upon  himself the solemn duties of  an initiator--Bolla,  who had
converted Gemma--who was in love with her! He laid down the paper and stared
at the floor.
     "I  hope that little  document has refreshed your memory?"  hinted  the
colonel politely.
     Arthur shook his head. "I know  no one of that name," he repeated in  a
dull, hard voice. "There must be some mistake."
     "Mistake? Oh,  nonsense!  Come, Mr. Burton, chivalry and  quixotism are
very fine things in their way; but there's no use in overdoing them. It's an
error all you young people  fall into at first. Come, think! What good is it
for you to  compromise yourself and  spoil  your  prospects in life  over  a
simple  formality about a man that  has  betrayed you? You see yourself,  he
wasn't so particular as to what he said about you."
     A faint shade of something  like  mockery  had crept into the colonel's
voice. Arthur looked up with a start; a sudden light flashed upon his mind.
     "It's a lie!" he cried out. "It's a forgery! I can see it in your face,
you cowardly----You've got some prisoner there you want to  compromise, or a
trap  you want to  drag  me  into.  You  are  a  forger,  and a  liar, and a
scoundrel----"
     "Silence!"  shouted  the  colonel,  starting  up  in  a  rage; his  two
colleagues  were  already on  their feet.  "Captain  Tommasi," he  went  on,
turning to one of them, "ring  for the guard, if  you please, and have  this
young gentleman put  in the punishment  cell  for a  few days.  He  wants  a
lesson, I see, to bring him to reason."
     The punishment cell was a dark, damp, filthy hole under ground. Instead
of bringing Arthur "to reason," it thoroughly exasperated him. His luxurious
home had  rendered him daintily  fastidious about personal  cleanliness, and
the first effect  of the slimy, vermin-covered walls, the floor  heaped with
accumulations of filth and garbage,  the fearful stench of fungi  and sewage
and rotting wood, was strong enough to have satisfied  the offended officer.
When he was pushed in and the  door locked behind him he took three cautious
steps  forward  with  outstretched  hands,  shuddering with  disgust  as his
fingers came into  contact with the  slippery wall, and  groped in the dense
blackness for some spot less filthy than the rest in which to sit down.
     The long day passed in unbroken  blackness and silence,  and the  night
brought  no  change.  In  the   utter  void  and  absence  of  all  external
impressions,  he gradually lost the consciousness of time; and  when, on the
following morning, a  key was turned in  the  door  lock, and the frightened
rats scurried past him squeaking, he started up in a sudden panic, his heart
throbbing  furiously and a roaring noise in his  ears, as though he had been
shut away from light and sound for months instead of hours.
     The door opened, letting in a feeble lantern gleam--a flood of blinding
light,  it seemed to him --and the head warder entered, carrying a piece  of
bread and a mug of water. Arthur made a step forward; he was quite convinced
that  the man  had come to let him out.  Before he had  time  to  speak, the
warder put  the bread and  mug  into his hands, turned round  and  went away
without a word, locking the door again.
     Arthur stamped his foot upon the ground. For the first time in his life
he  was savagely angry. But as the hours went  by, the consciousness of time
and place gradually  slipped further  and further away. The blackness seemed
an illimitable  thing, with no beginning  and  no  end,  and life had, as it
were, stopped  for him. On the evening  of the third day,  when the door was
opened  and the  head warder  appeared on the  threshold with a  soldier, he
looked  up, dazed and bewildered,  shading  his eyes from  the  unaccustomed
light,  and  vaguely wondering how many hours or  weeks  he had been in this
grave.
     "This way, please," said the cool business voice of the warder.  Arthur
rose and moved  forward mechanically, with a strange  unsteadiness,  swaying
and stumbling like a drunkard. He resented the warder's  attempt to help him
up the steep,  narrow steps leading to the courtyard;  but as he reached the
highest step  a  sudden  giddiness  came over him, so that  he staggered and
would have fallen backwards had the warder not caught him by the shoulder.
     . . . . .
     "There, he'll be all right now,"  said a cheerful voice; "they most  of
them go off this way coming out into the air."
     Arthur struggled desperately for breath as another handful of water was
dashed into  his  face. The blackness seemed to fall away from him in pieces
with  a rushing noise; then he woke suddenly  into full  consciousness, and,
pushing  aside the warder's arm, walked along the corridor and up the stairs
almost steadily.  They  stopped for a  moment in front of a  door;  then  it
opened,  and before  he realized where  they  were  taking him he was in the
brightly lighted interrogation room, staring in confused wonder at the table
and the papers and the officers sitting in their accustomed places.
     "Ah,  it's Mr. Burton!"  said the colonel. "I hope we shall be  able to
talk  more comfortably now.  Well, and  how do  you like the  dark cell? Not
quite so luxurious as your brother's drawing room, is it? eh?"
     Arthur raised his  eyes to the colonel's smiling face. He was seized by
a frantic desire to spring at the throat of this gray-whiskered fop and tear
it with his teeth. Probably something of this kind  was visible in his face,
for the colonel added immediately, in a quite different tone:
     "Sit down, Mr. Burton, and drink some water; you are excited."
     Arthur  pushed aside  the glass of water  held out to him; and, leaning
his  arms on the table, rested his forehead on one hand and tried to collect
his thoughts. The  colonel sat watching him  keenly, noting with experienced
eyes the unsteady hands and lips, the hair dripping with water, the dim gaze
that told of physical prostration and disordered nerves.
     "Now, Mr. Burton," he  said after a few minutes;  "we will start at the
point  where  we  left off;  and as  there has  been  a  certain  amount  of
unpleasantness  between us, I may as well begin  by saying  that  I,  for my
part,  have no  desire to be  anything  but indulgent  with you. If you will
behave properly  and reasonably,  I assure you  that we shall  not treat you
with any unnecessary harshness."
     "What do you want me to do?"
     Arthur spoke in a hard, sullen voice, quite  different from his natural
tone.
     "I  only  want  you  to  tell  us  frankly, in  a  straightforward  and
honourable manner, what you know of this society and its adherents. First of
all, how long have you known Bolla?"
     "I never met him in my life. I know nothing whatever about him."
     "Really? Well, we will  return to  that subject presently. I  think you
know a young man named Carlo Bini?"
     "I never heard of such a person."
     "That is very extraordinary. What about Francesco Neri?"
     "I never heard the name."
     "But here is a letter in your handwriting, addressed to him. Look!"
     Arthur glanced carelessly at the letter and laid it aside.
     "Do you recognize that letter?"
     "No."
     "You deny that it is in your writing?"
     "I deny nothing. I have no recollection of it."
     "Perhaps you remember this one?"
     A second letter was  handed to him, and he saw that it was one which he
had written in the autumn to a fellow-student.
     "No."
     "Nor the person to whom it is addressed?"
     "Nor the person."
     "Your memory is singularly short."
     "It is a defect from which I have always suffered."
     "Indeed! And I heard the other day from a university professor that you
are considered by no means deficient; rather clever in fact."
     "You  probably   judge  of  cleverness  by  the  police-spy   standard;
university professors use words in a different sense."
     The note of rising irritation was plainly audible in Arthur's voice. He
was physically  exhausted with hunger, foul  air,  and want of sleep;  every
bone  in his body seemed to ache separately; and the colonel's voice  grated
on  his exasperated nerves,  setting his teeth on edge like the squeak  of a
slate pencil.
     "Mr. Burton," said the colonel, leaning back in his  chair and speaking
gravely, "you are  again forgetting  yourself; and I warn you once more that
this  kind of  talk will do you no  good. Surely you  have had enough of the
dark cell not to want any more just for the present. I tell you plainly that
I shall use strong measures with  you  if  you persist  in  repulsing gentle
ones. Mind, I  have proof--positive proof--that some of these young men have
been engaged in smuggling prohibited literature into this port; and that you
have been in communication with them. Now, are you going to tell me, without
compulsion, what you know about this affair?"
     Arthur bent  his head lower. A blind,  senseless,  wild-beast fury  was
beginning  to stir within him  like a live thing. The  possibility of losing
command over himself  was  more  appalling to him than any threats.  For the
first  time he began to realize what  latent  potentialities may  lie hidden
beneath the culture of any gentleman and the piety of any Christian; and the
terror of himself was strong upon him.
     "I am waiting for your answer," said the colonel.
     "I have no answer to give."
     "You positively refuse to answer?"
     "I will tell you nothing at all."
     "Then I must simply  order you back into the punishment  cell, and keep
you there till you change your mind. If there is much more trouble with you,
I shall put you in irons."
     Arthur  looked  up, trembling from head  to foot. "You will do  as  you
please," he said slowly; "and whether the English Ambassador will stand your
playing  tricks  of  that  kind with  a  British  subject who has  not  been
convicted of any crime is for him to decide."
     At  last Arthur  was  conducted  back  to his own cell,  where he flung
himself down upon the bed and slept till the next morning. He was not put in
irons, and  saw no more of the dreaded dark cell; but  the feud  between him
and the colonel grew more inveterate with  every interrogation. It was quite
useless for Arthur  to  pray  in  his  cell for grace  to conquer  his  evil
passions,  or to meditate half the night long upon the patience and meekness
of Christ. No sooner was he brought again  into the long, bare room with its
baize-covered table, and confronted with the colonel's waxed moustache, than
the  unchristian spirit would take possession of  him  once more, suggesting
bitter repartees and contemptuous answers. Before he had been a month in the
prison  the mutual  irritation  had reached such a  height that he  and  the
colonel could not see each other's faces without losing their temper.
     The  continual  strain of this  petty  warfare  was beginning  to  tell
heavily upon his nerves. Knowing how closely he was watched, and remembering
certain  dreadful  rumours  which he had heard of prisoners secretly drugged
with  belladonna  that  notes might be taken of their  ravings, he gradually
became afraid to sleep  or eat; and if a mouse  ran past  him in  the night,
would start up drenched with cold sweat and quivering with terror,  fancying
that someone was hiding in the room to listen if he talked in his sleep. The
gendarmes were evidently trying  to  entrap him into making  some  admission
which might compromise  Bolla; and so great was his fear of slipping, by any
inadvertency, into  a pitfall,  that he  was  really in danger  of  doing so
through sheer nervousness.  Bolla's  name rang in  his  ears  night and day,
interfering even with his devotions, and forcing its  way in among the beads
of the rosary instead of  the  name  of Mary. But the worst thing of all was
that his religion, like the outer world, seemed to be slipping away from him
as the days went by. To this  last foothold he clung with feverish tenacity,
spending  several  hours  of  each  day in prayer  and  meditation;  but his
thoughts wandered more and more often to Bolla, and the prayers were growing
terribly mechanical.
     His greatest  comfort was the  head warder  of the prison. This  was  a
little old man, fat and bald, who at first had tried his  hardest to wear  a
severe  expression.  Gradually the  good  nature which peeped out  of  every
dimple in his  chubby face  conquered his official  scruples, and  he  began
carrying messages for the prisoners from cell to cell.
     One afternoon in  the middle of May this warder came into the cell with
a face so scowling and gloomy that Arthur looked at him in astonishment.
     "Why, Enrico!" he exclaimed; "what on earth is wrong with you to-day?"
     "Nothing,"  said  Enrico  snappishly;  and, going up  to the pallet, he
began pulling off the rug, which was Arthur's property.
     "What do you want with my things? Am I to be moved into another cell?"
     "No; you're to be let out."
     "Let out? What--to-day? For altogether? Enrico!"
     In his excitement  Arthur had caught hold  of the old man's arm. It was
angrily wrenched away.
     "Enrico!  What has come to you? Why don't you answer?  Are we all going
to be let out?"
     A contemptuous grunt was the only reply.
     "Look here!" Arthur again took hold of the warder's  arm, laughing. "It
is no use for you to be cross to me, because I'm not going  to get offended.
I want to know about the others."
     "Which others?" growled Enrico,  suddenly laying down the shirt he  was
folding. "Not Bolla, I suppose?"
     "Bolla  and all the rest, of  course.  Enrico, what is  the matter with
you?"
     "Well, he's  not  likely  to be let  out  in a hurry, poor lad, when  a
comrade has betrayed him. Ugh!" Enrico took up the shirt again in disgust.
     "Betrayed him? A comrade? Oh, how dreadful!" Arthur's eyes dilated with
horror. Enrico turned quickly round.
     "Why, wasn't it you?"
     "I? Are you off your head, man? I?"
     "Well, they  told him so  yesterday at  interrogation, anyhow. I'm very
glad if it wasn't you, for  I always thought you  were rather a decent young
fellow.  This way!" Enrico stepped out into the corridor and Arthur followed
him, a light breaking in upon the confusion of his mind.
     "They told Bolla I'd betrayed  him? Of course they  did! Why, man, they
told  me he had betrayed me. Surely Bolla isn't fool enough to  believe that
sort of stuff?"
     "Then it really isn't  true?" Enrico stopped at  the foot of the stairs
and looked searchingly at Arthur, who merely shrugged his shoulders.
     "Of course it's a lie."
     "Well, I'm glad to hear it, my lad,  and I'll tell him you said so. But
you see what they told him was  that you had denounced him out of--well, out
of jealousy, because of your both being sweet on the same girl."
     "It's a lie!" Arthur repeated the words in a quick, breathless whisper.
A sudden, paralyzing fear had come  over him. "The same girl--jealousy!" How
could they know--how could they know?
     "Wait a minute, my lad." Enrico  stopped in the corridor leading to the
interrogation  room, and spoke softly. "I believe you; but just  tell me one
thing.  I  know  you're  a  Catholic;  did  you  ever  say  anything  in the
confessional------"
     "It's a lie!" This time Arthur's voice had risen to a stifled cry.
     Enrico shrugged  his  shoulders and  moved on again. "You know best, of
course; but you wouldn't be  the only  young  fool that's been taken in that
way. There's a tremendous  ado just now about a priest in Pisa that some  of
your friends have found out. They've printed a leaflet saying he's a spy."
     He  opened  the door of the interrogation room, and, seeing that Arthur
stood motionless, staring blankly  before him, pushed him  gently across the
threshold.
     "Good-afternoon, Mr. Burton," said the colonel, smiling and showing his
teeth  amiably. "I have great pleasure in  congratulating  you. An order for
your release has arrived from Florence. Will you kindly sign this paper?"
     Arthur went up to him.  "I want to know," he said in a dull voice, "who
it was that betrayed me."
     The colonel raised his eyebrows with a smile.
     "Can't you guess? Think a minute."
     Arthur shook his head. The colonel put out both hands with a gesture of
polite surprise.
     "Can't guess? Really?  Why,  you yourself,  Mr. Burton. Who  else could
know your private love affairs?"
     Arthur  turned  away  in  silence. On  the  wall  hung  a large  wooden
crucifix; and his eyes  wandered slowly to its  face; but  with no appeal in
them,  only  a  dim wonder  at  this  supine  and patient God  that  had  no
thunderbolt for a priest who betrayed the confessional.
     "Will you kindly sign  this  receipt for your papers?" said the colonel
blandly;  "and then I need not keep you any longer. I am sure you must be in
a hurry to get home; and my time  is  very much taken up just  now with  the
affairs  of  that  foolish  young  man,  Bolla,  who  tried  your  Christian
forbearance so  hard. I am  afraid  he will  get  a  rather heavy  sentence.
Good-afternoon!"
     Arthur signed  the  receipt, took  his papers,  and  went out  in  dead
silence.  He followed  Enrico  to the massive gate; and,  without  a word of
farewell,  descended to the  water's  edge, where  a ferryman was waiting to
take him  across  the moat. As he  mounted  the stone  steps  leading to the
street,  a girl  in  a  cotton  dress  and  straw  hat  ran  up to him  with
outstretched hands.
     "Arthur! Oh, I'm so glad--I'm so glad!"
     He drew his hands away, shivering.
     "Jim!" he said at last, in a voice that did not seem  to belong to him.
"Jim!"
     "I've been waiting here for half an hour.  They said you would come out
at four. Arthur, why do you look at me  like that?  Something has  happened!
Arthur, what has come to you? Stop!"
     He  had turned away, and was walking slowly  down the street,  as if he
had forgotten  her  presence. Thoroughly frightened  at his manner,  she ran
after him and caught him by the arm.
     "Arthur!"
     He  stopped and  looked up with  bewildered eyes. She slipped  her  arm
through his, and they walked on again for a moment in silence.
     "Listen, dear," she began softly;  "you  mustn't get so upset over this
wretched business.  I  know  it's  dreadfully  hard on  you,  but  everybody
understands."
     "What business?" he asked in the same dull voice.
     "I mean, about Bolla's letter."
     Arthur's face contracted painfully at the name.
     "I  thought  you wouldn't  have  heard  of it,"  Gemma went on; "but  I
suppose they've told you. Bolla must be perfectly mad to  have imagined such
a thing."
     "Such a thing----?"
     "You don't  know  about  it,  then?  He has  written a horrible letter,
saying  that  you have  told about the steamers, and got him  arrested. It's
perfectly absurd, of course; everyone  that  knows you sees that;  it's only
the  people who  don't know  you that have been upset by it. Really,  that's
what I came here  for--to tell you that no one  in our group believes a word
of it."
     "Gemma! But it's--it's true!"
     She  shrank slowly  away from him, and stood quite still, her eyes wide
and dark with horror, her face as white as the kerchief at her neck. A great
icy wave of silence seemed to have swept round them both, shutting them out,
in a world apart, from the life and movement of the street.
     "Yes,"  he whispered  at last; "the  steamers-- I spoke of that; and  I
said his name--oh, my God! my God! What shall I do?"
     He came  to  himself  suddenly,  realizing her presence and  the mortal
terror in her face. Yes, of course, she must think------
     "Gemma,  you don't  understand!"  he burst out, moving nearer;  but she
recoiled with a sharp cry:
     "Don't touch me!"
     Arthur seized her right hand with sudden violence.
     "Listen, for God's sake! It was not my fault; I----"
     "Let go; let my hand go! Let go!"
     The next instant she wrenched her fingers away from his, and struck him
across the cheek with her open hand.
     A kind of mist came over his eyes.  For a little while he was conscious
of nothing but  Gemma's white  and desperate  face, and the right hand which
she had fiercely rubbed on the skirt of her  cotton dress. Then the daylight
crept back again, and he looked round and saw that he was alone.
        PART I: CHAPTER VII.
     IT  had  long been dark when Arthur rang at the front door of the great
house in the Via  Borra. He remembered that he  had been wandering about the
streets; but  where, or  why,  or for how long, he had no idea. Julia's page
opened the door,  yawning, and grinned  significantly at the haggard,  stony
face. It seemed to him a  prodigious joke to have the young master come home
from jail like a "drunk and disorderly" beggar. Arthur went upstairs. On the
first  floor  he met  Gibbons  coming  down with an air of  lofty and solemn
disapproval. He  tried to  pass with  a muttered "Good evening"; but Gibbons
was no easy person to get past against his will.
     "The gentlemen  are out, sir,"  he said, looking critically at Arthur's
rather  neglected  dress and hair.  "They have gone with  the mistress to an
evening party, and will not be back till nearly twelve."
     Arthur looked at his watch; it was nine o'clock. Oh, yes! he would have
time--plenty of time------
     "My mistress desired me to ask whether you would like any  supper, sir;
and to say that  she hopes you will sit  up  for  her, as  she  particularly
wishes to speak to you this evening."
     "I don't want anything, thank you; you can tell her  I have not gone to
bed."
     He went  up  to  his room. Nothing  in it  had  been changed  since his
arrest; Montanelli's portrait was  on the table  where he had placed it, and
the crucifix stood  in  the  alcove  as before.  He  paused a moment  on the
threshold, listening;  but the house was  quite still; evidently no one  was
coming to disturb him. He stepped softly into the room and locked the door.
     And so he  had come to the end. There was  nothing to think or  trouble
about; an importunate and useless  consciousness to get rid of--and  nothing
more. It seemed a stupid, aimless kind of thing, somehow.
     He  had  not formed any resolve to  commit suicide, nor  indeed  had he
thought much about it;  the thing was quite obvious  and inevitable.  He had
even  no definite idea  as  to  what  manner of  death to  choose;  all that
mattered was to be done with  it quickly--to have it over and forget. He had
no  weapon  in  the  room,  not  even a  pocketknife;  but  that  was of  no
consequence--a towel would do, or a sheet torn into strips.
     There was a large nail just over the window. That would do; but it must
be firm to bear his weight. He got up on a chair  to feel the nail;  it  was
not quite firm,  and he stepped down again and took a hammer from  a drawer.
He  knocked in the nail, and was about to pull  a sheet off his bed, when he
suddenly  remembered that he had not said his prayers. Of course,  one  must
pray before dying; every Christian does that. There are even special prayers
for a departing soul.
     He went into the  alcove and  knelt down before the crucifix. "Almighty
and merciful God----"  he began aloud; and with  that  broke off and said no
more. Indeed, the world was  grown  so dull that  there was nothing  left to
pray for--or against. And then, what did Christ know about a trouble of this
kind--Christ,  who had  never suffered  it? He had only  been betrayed, like
Bolla; He had never been tricked into betraying.
     Arthur rose, crossing himself from old habit. Approaching the table, he
saw lying upon it a letter addressed to him, in Montanelli's handwriting. It
was in pencil:
     "My Dear Boy: It  is a great disappointment to me that I cannot see you
on the day of your release; but I have been sent for to visit a dying man. I
shall not get back till late at night.  Come to me early to-morrow  morning.
In great haste,
     "L. M."
     He put down the letter with a sigh; it did seem hard on the Padre.
     How  the  people  had laughed and  gossiped in the streets! Nothing was
altered since the days  when he had  been alive. Not the least little one of
all the daily trifles round him  was changed  because a human soul, a living
human soul, had been  struck down dead. It was all just the same  as before.
The water had plashed in the fountains; the sparrows had twittered under the
eaves; just as they had done yesterday, just as they would do to-morrow. And
as for him, he was dead--quite dead.
     He  sat  down  on  the  edge  of  the  bed, crossed  his arms along the
foot-rail, and rested his forehead upon them. There was  plenty of time; and
his head ached so--the very middle  of the brain seemed  to ache; it was all
so dull and stupid--so utterly meaningless----
     . . . . .
     The front-door bell  rang  sharply, and he started  up  in a breathless
agony of terror, with both  hands at his throat. They had come  back--he had
sat there dreaming, and let the precious time slip away--and now he must see
their  faces and hear their  cruel tongues--their  sneers and  comments-- If
only he had a knife------
     He looked desperately round the room. His mother's work-basket stood in
a little cupboard; surely there would be scissors; he might sever an artery.
No; the sheet and nail were safer, if he had timeHe dragged  the counterpane
from his bed, and with frantic haste began tearing off a strip. The sound of
footsteps came up the  stairs. No; the strip was too  wide; it would not tie
firmly; and  there must  be a noose. He worked  faster as the footsteps drew
nearer;  and the  blood  throbbed in  his  temples and  roared  in his ears.
Quicker-- quicker! Oh, God! five minutes more!
     There was a knock at the door. The strip of torn stuff dropped from his
hands, and he sat  quite still, holding his breath to listen.  The handle of
the door was tried; then Julia's voice called:
     "Arthur!"
     He stood up, panting.
     "Arthur, open the door, please; we are waiting."
     He  gathered up the  torn  counterpane, threw  it  into  a  drawer, and
hastily smoothed down the bed.
     "Arthur!" This time it  was James who  called, and the  door-handle was
shaken impatiently. "Are you asleep?"
     Arthur  looked  round  the  room, saw  that everything was  hidden, and
unlocked the door.
     "I should think you might at least have obeyed  my express request that
you should sit up for us, Arthur," said  Julia, sweeping into the  room in a
towering passion. "You appear to think  it the proper  thing for us to dance
attendance for half an hour at your door----"
     "Four minutes, my dear," James mildly corrected, stepping into the room
at the end of his wife's pink satin  train. "I certainly think, Arthur, that
it would have been more--becoming if----"
     "What do you want?" Arthur  interrupted. He was standing with  his hand
upon  the door,  glancing  furtively from one  to  the other like  a trapped
animal. But James was too obtuse and Julia too angry to notice the look.
     Mr.  Burton placed a chair for his wife and sat down, carefully pulling
up his new trousers at the knees. "Julia and  I,"  he began, "feel it to  be
our duty to speak to you seriously about----"
     "I  can't  listen to-night; I--I'm  not well. My  head aches--you  must
wait."
     Arthur spoke  in  a strange,  indistinct  voice,  with  a confused  and
rambling manner. James looked round in surprise.
     "Is there anything the  matter with you?" he asked anxiously,  suddenly
remembering that  Arthur  had  come from a very hotbed of infection. "I hope
you're not sickening for anything. You look quite feverish."
     "Nonsense!"   Julia   interrupted  sharply.   "It's   only   the  usual
theatricals,  because he's  ashamed  to  face us.  Come  here and  sit down,
Arthur." Arthur slowly crossed the room  and sat down on the bed.  "Yes?" he
said wearily.
     Mr. Burton coughed, cleared his throat, smoothed his already immaculate
beard, and began the carefully prepared speech over again:
     "I feel it to be my  duty--my painful duty--to speak very  seriously to
you  about your  extraordinary behaviour  in  connecting  yourself with--a--
law-breakers  and incendiaries and--a--persons of disreputable character.  I
believe you to have been, perhaps, more foolish than depraved--a----"
     He paused.
     "Yes?" Arthur said again.
     "Now,  I do not wish to  be hard  on  you," James went  on, softening a
little in spite of himself before the weary hopelessness of Arthur's manner.
"I  am quite  willing  to  believe  that  you  have  been  led  away  by bad
companions, and  to  take into  account  your  youth  and  inexperience  and
the--a--  a--imprudent  and--a--impulsive character which you have, I  fear,
inherited from your mother."
     Arthur's eyes wandered  slowly to his mother's portrait and back again,
but he did not speak.
     "But you  will, I feel sure, understand," James  continued, "that it is
quite  impossible  for me to keep any longer in my  house a person  who  has
brought public disgrace upon a name so highly respected as ours."
     "Yes?" Arthur repeated once more.
     "Well?" said Julia sharply, closing  her fan with  a snap and laying it
across her knee.  "Are  you going  to have the goodness to  say anything but
'Yes,' Arthur?"
     "You will do as you think best, of course," he answered slowly, without
moving. "It doesn't matter much either way."
     "Doesn't--matter?"  James repeated,  aghast;  and his wife rose  with a
laugh.
     "Oh, it doesn't matter,  doesn't it? Well, James, I hope you understand
now how much gratitude you may expect in that quarter. I told you what would
come of showing charity to Papist adventuresses and their----"
     "Hush, hush! Never mind that, my dear!"
     "It's  all  nonsense,  James;  we've  had  more  than  enough  of  this
sentimentality!  A  love-child  setting  himself  up  as  a  member  of  the
family--it's quite time  he did know what his mother was! Why  should  we be
saddled with the child of a Popish priest's amourettes? There, then-- look!"
     She pulled  a crumpled sheet of paper out  of her  pocket and tossed it
across  the  table to Arthur. He opened it;  the writing was in his mother's
hand, and was dated four months  before  his birth.  It  was  a  confession,
addressed to her husband, and with two signatures.
     Arthur's eyes travelled slowly down the page, past the unsteady letters
in which her name was written, to the  strong, familiar  signature: "Lorenzo
Montanelli."  For a moment he  stared at  the writing; then, without a word,
refolded  the paper and  laid it down. James rose and  took his  wife by the
arm.
     "There, Julia, that will do. Just go downstairs  now; it's late,  and I
want to talk a little business with Arthur. It won't interest you."
     She glanced up at her husband; then  back at Arthur, who  was  silently
staring at the floor.
     "He seems half stupid," she whispered.
     When she had gathered up her train and left the room,  James  carefully
shut  the door and went back to his  chair beside the  table.  Arthur sat as
before, perfectly motionless and silent.
     "Arthur,"  James  began in a  milder  tone, now Julia was not there  to
hear, "I am very sorry that  this  has come out. You might just as well  not
have known  it. However,  all that's over;  and I am pleased to see that you
can behave with  such self-control.  Julia is a--a  little  excited;  ladies
often--anyhow, I don't want to be too hard on you."
     He stopped to see what effect the kindly words had produced; but Arthur
was quite motionless.
     "Of  course,  my dear boy,"  James went on  after a  moment, "this is a
distressing story altogether, and the best thing we can do is  to  hold  our
tongues about it. My father was generous  enough not to  divorce your mother
when she confessed  her fall to him; he only demanded  that the man who  had
led her astray should leave the country at once;  and, as you  know, he went
to China as a missionary. For  my part, I was very  much against your having
anything to do with him when he came back; but my  father, just at the last,
consented to let him teach you,  on condition that he never attempted to see
your  mother.  I must,  in justice,  acknowledge  that I  believe they  both
observed  that condition  faithfully to  the end.  It is a  very  deplorable
business; but----"
     Arthur looked up. All the life and expression had gone out of his face;
it was like a waxen mask.
     "D-don't  you  think,"  he  said  softly,  with  a  curious  stammering
hesitation on the words, "th-that--all this--is--v-very--funny?"
     "FUNNY?" James pushed his chair away from the table, and sat staring at
him, too much petrified for anger. "Funny! Arthur, are you mad?"
     Arthur suddenly threw  back his head, and burst  into a frantic  fit of
laughing.
     "Arthur!" exclaimed the shipowner, rising with dignity, "I am amazed at
your levity!"
     There was  no answer but  peal  after peal  of  laughter,  so  loud and
boisterous  that even James  began to doubt whether there was not  something
more the matter here than levity.
     "Just  like   a  hysterical  woman,"  he  muttered,  turning,  with   a
contemptuous  shrug of his  shoulders, to tramp  impatiently up and down the
room.  "Really, Arthur, you're  worse than  Julia;  there, stop laughing!  I
can't wait about here all night."
     He  might  as  well  have  asked the  crucifix to  come down  from  its
pedestal.  Arthur was past caring for remonstrances or exhortations; he only
laughed, and laughed, and laughed without end.
     "This is absurd!" said James, stopping at last in  his irritated pacing
to and fro. "You are evidently too much excited to be reasonable to-night. I
can't  talk business  with you  if you're  going  on that  way.  Come  to me
to-morrow  morning after  breakfast.  And  now you  had  better  go to  bed.
Good-night."
     He  went out, slamming the door. "Now for the hysterics downstairs," he
muttered as he tramped noisily away. "I suppose it'll be tears there!"
     . . . . .
     The frenzied  laughter died on Arthur's lips. He snatched up the hammer
from the table and flung himself upon the crucifix.
     With the crash  that followed he came suddenly to his senses,  standing
before the  empty pedestal, the hammer still in his  hand, and the fragments
of the broken image scattered on the floor about his feet.
     He threw down the  hammer. "So easy!"  he said, and  turned away.  "And
what an idiot I am!"
     He sat  down by the  table, panting heavily for breath,  and rested his
forehead on  both hands. Presently he  rose, and, going  to  the wash-stand,
poured a jugful  of  cold water over his  head and face. He  came back quite
composed, and sat down to think.
     And  it  was for such things  as these--for  these  false  and  slavish
people,  these  dumb  and  soulless gods--that  he  had  suffered  all these
tortures of shame and  passion and despair; had made a rope to hang himself,
forsooth, because one priest  was a  liar.  As if they  were not  all liars!
Well, all that was done with; he was wiser now. He need only shake off these
vermin and begin life afresh.
     There were  plenty  of goods vessels in the docks; it would be an  easy
matter to  stow himself away in one  of them,  and  get  across  to  Canada,
Australia, Cape Colony--anywhere. It was no  matter for the country, if only
it was far enough; and, as  for the life out  there, he could see, and if it
did not suit him he could try some other place.
     He  took out his  purse. Only thirty-three paoli; but  his watch  was a
good one. That would  help him along a  bit; and  in  any  case it was of no
consequence--he should pull through somehow. But they  would search for him,
all these people; they would be  sure to make inquiries at the docks. No; he
must put them on a false scent--make  them believe him dead; then  he should
be  quite  free-- quite free. He laughed softly to himself at the thought of
the Burtons searching for his corpse. What a farce the whole thing was!
     Taking a sheet of paper, he wrote the first words that occurred to him:
     "I believed in you as I believed in God. God is  a  thing made of clay,
that I can smash with a hammer; and you have fooled me with a lie."
     He folded up  the paper, directed it to Montanelli, and, taking another
sheet, wrote across it: "Look for  my body in  Darsena." Then he  put on his
hat and went out  of  the room. Passing his mother's portrait,  he looked up
with a laugh and a shrug of his shoulders. She, too, had lied to him.
     He crept softly along the corridor, and, slipping  back the door-bolts,
went out on to the