Chapter XXX: Bitter-Sweet

"Thou Who hast Thyself
Endured this fleshhood--knowing how, as a soaked
And sucking vesture, it can drag us down
And choke us in the melancholy Deep--
Sustain me, that with Thee I walk these waves
Resisting! Breathe me upward, Thou in me
Aspiring, Who art the Way, the Truth, the Life!--
That no truth henceforth seem indifferent,
No way to truth laborious, and no life--
Not even this life I live--intolerable!"
"_Aurora Leigh._"

In the grounds at Merlebank there stood a pretty little log-hut, fantastically built, and divided within into two rooms. It had been the work of one of Mr. Britton's summer holidays many years ago, and had been specially built for the children. At first they had played in it incessantly, had learnt a fair amount of cookery with the help of the little stove in the outer room, and had found the place invaluable in all adventuring games wherein desert islands figured. But now they had rather outgrown this sort of thing, and "Mavis Hut," as it was called, served only for refreshments at garden-parties, for a convenient place to keep the lawn-tennis box, and occasionally for church decorations.

On the afternoon after the discussion with Carlo, Kate happened to be arranging the church vases in the inner room of Mavis Hut. She had been round the garden gathering the wet flowers, had taken all she wanted from the greenhouses, and now sat comfortably down to her work at the rough, wooden table, with the brass vases and the lovely red and white flowers all ready to hand.

She felt still a little sore at the implied rebuke in Carlo's words that morning, but she was too good and well-meaning to blind herself to the truth. He had given her, whether consciously or unconsciously, a home-thrust; and Kate, though she disliked him in consequence, fully admitted the justice of the remarks as applied to herself. She sighed a little as she arranged her vases, then finding her own failings no very pleasant study, she turned her thoughts back to Carlo himself. He puzzled her more and more, but though she would have liked to think him conceited, or priggish, or hypocritical, she could not do so; the worst she could say of him was that he was living a worthless life, and that he was an inconsistent sort of man. His absence of self-consciousness appealed to her strongly, however, because it was incomprehensible to her; and, though persuading herself that she despised and disliked him, she knew all the time in her secret heart that this was largely owing to her own perversity.

The sun had been shining brightly a few minutes before, but as Kate arranged her flowers she noticed that the summer-house grew dark, and was not surprised to hear before long a steady downpour of rain.

"I daresay it will be over before I have finished," she thought to herself, and was going on with her work when, to her surprise, the door of the hut was opened, and Carlo walked into the outer room, evidently seeking shelter from the rain.

"What a bother!" thought Kate. "But, after all, though I can see him through this crack in the woodwork, he can't see me. I don't think I shall let him know I am here; he would interrupt me, and perhaps talk again as he did this morning--and, besides, I dislike him!"

Hardly had she taken her resolution, when once more the outer door opened, and Francesca hurried in, wet and flushed.

"You here!" she exclaimed, in a voice so startled that Kate's attention was instantly arrested.

Carlo had been standing at one of the little lattice windows, watching the torrents of rain. She had not perceived him till she had closed the door behind her. He turned instantly. There was no time for thought. It was impossible that any recollection of Captain Britton or Anita should cloud that perfect moment. He was only conscious of two things--that Francesca was present, and that there was no longer the dreary necessity of behaving as though their love was non-existent.

"_Carina! Carina mia!_" he cried, crossing the hut at lightning speed; and the next moment Francesca was clasped in his arms.

All had passed so quickly that there had been no chance for poor Kate to make her presence known, and she sat now in the inner room petrified with astonishment. Her first thought was one of indignation, but when she saw that Francesca clung to her lover, sobbing pitifully, her heart was touched; and though she told herself that she "distinctly disapproved of this sort of nonsense," she began to see that there must be something in the past of her cousin and Signor Donati of which she was unaware,--probably an undeclared love-story, well known to her father. What so likely as that he should have interested himself in the young Italian on this account, and himself have hastened Francesca's visit in the hope that the barrier between them--whatever it might be--would be removed?

All this flashed through Kate's mind as she watched the two who stood but a few paces from her, and heard with unwilling ears the mingled love and grief so little intended for any outsider. Yet what could she do? To leave the summer-house she must pass through the room in which they were talking--must not only put an end to the interview, but embarrass them past bearing.

Again, if she even moved a muscle, Carlo with his preternaturally sharp hearing, would certainly notice it: she did not dare even to raise her hands to stop her ears, lest he should overhear the movement; and so in sore vexation she remained an unwilling spectator of all that passed. True, when they spoke low and fast in Italian, she could not always follow them, but very often they would suddenly relapse into English, and then every syllable could be heard through the thin wooden partition.

"Tell me," said Carlo, when, after a time, they sat down on the rustic seat at the other end of the hut, Francesca's head drawn close down on his shoulder,--"tell me, darling, this one thing. Why did your father wish you to leave home? Mr. Britton showed me your letter to him, and you said----"

"Well, I didn't mean to have told you," said Francesca, breaking in quickly; "but it was this, Carlino. Count Carossa--the man who took Villa Bruno, you know--made father an offer of marriage for me, and that, of course, had to be declined, though father was vexed, and really wanted me to accept him. Then I had to speak, for I was afraid we should be constantly having such troubles; so I told him that though, of course, I would always obey him, and would consider my betrothal with you at an end, yet there was an inner sense in which it could never end for me, and I said all I dared to him about the future, yet could not move him. He doesn't see what a false position it puts me in--how hard it is to go out into the world, and keep people at a distance without being rude or prudish. Even Enrico Ritter at first was angry with me, because he thought I ought to have been able to freeze away the stupid men who will crowd round one at parties. Enrico is very good to me now, though; he is the one man worth speaking to in Naples, because he tells me when he has heard from you, and if you are well."

"He writes to tell me when he has seen you," said Carlo.

"It is only such a pity," continued Francesca, "that he is not Italian instead of German; then perhaps he would be a better talker and tell me more about you. He somehow gets in so little and stumbles so, and it is just as if I were starving and he were doling me out crumbs instead of bits of bread."

"It is a shame to abuse the dear old fellow," said Carlo, smiling; "yet that is just what I have felt all these months with his letters. Perhaps, after weeks of waiting, I get one very long, very clever, very philosophical, and then in the postscript he will remark, 'Miss Britton is all right; I saw her in the English Church on Sunday.' Not another word! If only Enrico could know what it means to be in love! And yet such crumbs are better than nothing. And he is the best and truest of friends."

"Yes; there is something so staunch and faithful about him. Oh! he has been so good to me, especially once at a ball when we overheard some wretches talking about you, and saying such horrid things of you."

"What sort of things?"

"Oh, I can't tell you--hateful things about your reasons for going on the stage. You see people can't understand the real reason, and so I suppose they try to invent one. I can't think, Carlo _mio_, how you bear it so patiently; how you could let Kate lecture you this morning about your useless life, and never get even a little bit angry. You wouldn't have done it a year ago."

"I am growing old, you see," he answered, smiling, "and that was nothing--nothing at all. I am a little sorry that I shock her, but you see it is inevitable."

"And your sister, what of her? Are you happier about her? Have you learnt to understand each other better?"

He sighed.

"It is uphill work. Did you know that Comerio followed us to England?"

"No, Enrico never told me that; I suppose he thought I should not know anything about such a bad character."

"He came to London when we were there in the winter. That has been the hardest part of it all; for I was beginning to knock up then, and all the time there was the horrible feeling that he was hovering over me like a vulture, only waiting for me to fall that he might pounce down."

"That was what made you struggle on through that last opera," said Francesca, wiping away her tears; "Harry told me all about it the other day. But what happened? Did he take your place?"

Carlo sighed an assent.

"He is there now."

"How hard it must have been for you to be helpless! What torture to have to lie there ill and think about it all!"

"Yes; it was hard till one remembered that of course it must be all right, and then it was a great comfort to be able to try to get well. Besides, I have a great hope that Nita's little boy will prove a safeguard to her; she begins really to care for him. My one fear is that Comerio may manage to get round Merlino and induce him not to renew his contract with me in the summer. I know he will move heaven and earth to go to America with the troupe and to get me turned off."

"And Signor Merlino? What is he like? Do you dislike him so much as when you first saw him?"

"Do you know I have really grown fond of him. He is tyrannical, and has a bad temper, but I believe he honestly lives up to his lights. Now and then one gets out of heart with the whole concern, and then Merlino seems intolerable, but that has never been more than a passing mood with me."

"And you don't think stage life so black as it is painted by my father, for instance?"

"No, I do not," said Carlo; "it is less morally trying than I fancied, but more physically tiring. However, I shall be well set up after this long rest. I have written to propose going back at the end of next week, or, if it fits in with their arrangements, on the following Monday."

"So soon," said Francesca, with a little sob. "Oh, Carlino, I don't think you are strong enough; and it seems such a miserable, wandering life for you."

"All life without you, _carina_, must be hard," he said, stroking the crisp, brown hair from her forehead tenderly; "my only comfort is in hoping and fighting for Nita's safety. You must not think of the mere discomforts of the life--they are nothing--less than nothing. Indeed, I frankly tell you that never have I suffered so terribly as in this idle time, with everything so comfortable and luxurious all round. It seemed impossible to be willing to live without you, to endure this separation any longer. But, then, no impossible order is ever given except by bad generals--there is comfort in that. It is not impossible, _carina_, and it must be done."

"But I--I only have to stay at home; I can't even watch you fighting," sobbed Francesca. "That was always the fate of women. I have the wretched, easy life, and can only wonder and wonder what is happening to you. Oh, it is so hard! so hard!"

"Yes," he said; "it is the hardest lot. Yet, my own, you told me to go out; and even if you asked me, which I know you never would do, I could not now turn back."

"Of course not," she said, eagerly; "you will go on, and in the end right must win. Perhaps they will no longer care for each other, or perhaps,--indeed, I try not to wish it exactly--Comerio might die, or----"

"Don't let us try to look on," said Carlo, with a shudder. "God helping me, I'll be faithful to death, but I can't manage more than a day at a time. And see, my own, the sun is shining again and the rain over. It is hard to say it, but I don't think we have any business to stay here longer. Your father might justly complain, and we will not give him cause to do that."

She clung to him, while her tears rained down. Kate could not see her face, but the sunlight fell full upon his, revealing plainly the terrible struggle he was passing through. It was all she could do to keep from sobbing when this man, whom she had disliked, and half despised,--this man, whose life she had compared to the barren fig-tree, began to speak. "See, _carina_," he said, falling back to his native language, and speaking with the direct simplicity which is as rare as it is attractive; "God is so just--so fair--don't you think He must be nearest those who suffer? We have to be separated, darling, but yet there is compensation for us both. We can surely trust Him with our lives--yes, and delight in that!"

"But I can't help being afraid for you," she sobbed; "you are so far away, and how can I tell what may be happening when that bad man hates you so, and wants to get rid of you?"

"Yet it is often when we fear most that we learn not to fear," he said. "Oh, I remember so well the first time that came to me! I was about Gigi's age; it was at the time of one of the earthquake panics, and I remember waking in an awful fright and trembling at the darkness and loneliness, then finding that there was One nearer than my mother, and that the house might fall or be swallowed up, yet He would be with us."

What followed was inaudible to Kate, but presently through her tears she saw that after a long embrace they parted, that he held the door open for Francesca, and let her pass out into the sunshine alone, then shut himself in once more, and began to pace to and fro in agitation which alarmed her.

She saw how strong a restraint he must have put on himself while Francesca was present, but now the limits of endurance seemed to be passed; he could but let his wild grief drive him as it would. Kate held her breath for awe while he paced to and fro, pausing for a while with a groan, and resting his head on his upraised hands as they clutched for support at the rough, wooden wall, then once more pacing the little room faster and yet faster, till with a stifled cry he threw himself down on the ground, and broke into passionate sobbing and tears.

The waiting seemed terribly long to her; she tried not to look at him, and fixed her eyes on the red and white flowers in the altar-vases, but still each stifled sob fell on her ear; and she, who had ever deemed herself a model of self-control, found her tears streaming down merely for sympathy. She had never seen a man cry before; indeed, she had cherished the idea, common to most girls, that men never do cry. The sight frightened her; it moved her strangely, and the relief was indescribable when at last he grew calmer.

Presently, with intervals between, came broken snatches of prayer, spoken always in Italian.

"My God! it must be that since Thou hast shown me Thy will Thou wilt give me strength to do it."

* * * * * *

"I know that Thou art stronger than these fiends that tear me."

* * * * * *

"If I could but feel Thee near all would be light, but I am in darkness and torment--past feeling--past thinking."

* * * * * *

"Yet the darkness is no darkness to Thee. Suffer me not to be false and selfish--a coward--a recreant!"

Again, after a long pause, the stillness of the hut was broken, but there was the dawning now of hope and triumph in his tone.

"My Lord, I thank Thee that Thou wert no passionless angel here, but a man--a man tempted as I am tempted. By Thy victory, by Thy faith, by Thy perfect love, oh, Christ, save me now!"

Kate waited in cramped, painful stillness, half fearing, half hoping to hear more; but he did not say another word, and after a time rose to his feet, and crossed the hut to look at the weather. The sun was shining brightly; he stood by the window for some minutes, apparently in deep thought; then, with a sigh, glanced lingeringly round the little room, arranged his manifold wraps in the Italian fashion against which Kate had been wont to inveigh, and left the summer-house.

When his footsteps had died away in the distance Kate snatched up her vases and fled. School hours were not yet ended, and it was almost an unheard-of thing for her to go to the schoolroom during the younger girls' lessons; but she felt that for this Clare would forgive a breach of rules, and went boldly in with her request.

"Clare," she said, breathlessly, "will you spare me ten minutes for something that will not wait?"

Miss Claremont looked up in surprise, but one glance at Kate's face was enough for her; she rose directly, gave two or three brief directions to Molly and Flo, and followed Kate to her bedroom. As a girl, Kate had worshipped Miss Claremont; but she was now just at the time when the stage of worshipping one's elders and betters is ended, and the stage of friendship with them has hardly begun: there had been something not exactly amounting to a coolness between them for the last two years; but Clare, though she was human enough to be a little grieved, had understood it all perfectly and knew that in time Kate would need her again, and would fall back into the old loving confidence, with the friendship of a woman substituted for the extravagant worship of a girl.

"You are in trouble, dear?" she asked, sitting down on the sofa, with that air of being perfectly at leisure and not in the least hurried which was peculiar to her.

Not without many tears Kate told her story.

"And, oh, what can I do?" she sobbed. "I have been an eavesdropper against my will; but what ought I to do?"

"The whole story is such a complete surprise to me," said Clare, slowly. "You must leave me a minute or two to think. Poor children! poor children! It was natural enough! I wonder the thought never crossed my mind; but somehow I had always fancied quite a different love-story for Francesca, and I suppose that blinded me."

"I know what you are thinking of," said Kate. "I, too, thought that she and Harry cared for each other; and I used to be so jealous because he liked to be with her better than with me. Don't you remember that summer long ago, when you first came to live here?"

"Yes, I remember well," said Clare. "I suppose on his side it was a mere passing fancy, and on hers genuine cousinly liking, for she is exactly the same with him now. You understood that she had actually been betrothed to Carlo?"

"She said so, distinctly. I think it must have been at the time he went on the stage, and that must clearly have been to save his sister from this Comerio. Oh, Clare! the horrible part to me is that I've misjudged him so cruelly! I can never forgive myself."

"I suspected from the first that it was in order to be with his sister that he took to the stage," said Clare. "But I little thought what he had had to give up."

"Oh, if you could have seen him!" said poor Kate, crying anew at the recollection of the scene she had witnessed. "It was so terrible I can never forget it--I can never be the same again! I used to think it grand to be above that sort of thing, but I never knew till now what love meant."

Clare was not sorry that Kate's theories as to the depravity of man were annihilated. She let her talk on, putting in a sympathetic word now and then.

"I can't think how he can have helped hating me when I lectured him on things I knew nothing about, and told him he was like Nero, and talked just as if my life were perfection and his life useless."

"There is no pain so sharp as to find that we have misjudged another," said Clare; "and have blamed them when rather they should have been honored and revered. But a sharp lesson like this stamps 'Judge not' on one's heart as nothing else can: it is a lesson we most of us have had to learn, dear."

"You don't think we ought to tell them that I was in the hut?"

"No; that could only make you all three very uncomfortable. I think you acted for the best in a very difficult position, and Carlo and Francesca may just as well keep all the comfort they can from that one interview; but I think it may be well to let your father know that we know."

"There can be no doubt that he must have learnt the story at Naples," said Kate. "I should like him to know about this afternoon, it will make me feel less of a hypocrite; but I wish you would tell him, Clare."

"I will, if you like, dear," she answered.

"And do come down quickly to afternoon tea, for I don't know how I shall meet them as if nothing had happened," said Kate.

"We will be quite punctual," replied Clare. "But I would not dread it too much; such things pass off more easily than you would fancy possible just now. Don't think of your own part in the matter at all, just put yourself in their place."

Left to herself once more, Kate sat still musing. The strange and almost unprecedented insight she had gained that afternoon into the heart and life of another had altered her whole world. Through that revelation she saw everything in a new light, and the change bewildered her; she wanted time to think, for all her preconceived theories were overthrown; and though the actual sight of that struggle and victory had taught her more than thousands of sermons, or libraries of "good books," it had also sent her away with a crushing sense of her own shortcomings. Very honestly she sat and looked at her life. Her greatest wish had always been not to work among the respectable and humdrum poor, but to rescue the bad from lives of shame. She was constantly hankering after this particular work, and bitterly resented the assurance that she was too young to handle such subjects. Unluckily she was very intimate with some of those workers whose zeal outruns their discretion, and who spoil their brave efforts by making untimely allusions to them--by dragging them into conversations at table or in the drawing-room, till the hearers can only wonder what has become of English reserve. A doctor discussing horrible diseases and their cure in his family would be loudly and universally condemned; but those whose work it is to wage war on vice seem too often, in their eagerness, to think themselves justified in talking "shop" in and out of season. Kate had moreover acquired the terrible failing which seems to be becoming more and more of a danger among the really good and earnest--she was so eager in wishing to fight the evil that she began to take a sort of indignant delight in tracing evil back to its source, particularly when any well-known character was involved. She took her excitement, not in reading the malicious gossip of society papers, but in discussing the latest scandal with the religious world. Yet nothing can be more certain than that social purity is never advanced by scandalmongering, albeit the scandal may have filtered through district-visitors and enthusiastic suppressors of vice.

This afternoon, in the light of the new revelation, Kate remembered with burning shame how angry she had been when two or three times she had tried to make inquiries as to the state of morals in theatrical life, and Carlo had courteously but firmly turned the conversation. She had accused him in her own mind of shuffling and evading the topic, had imagined everything bad of him; and now she found that this very man who would not discuss the matter, and who had none of the surface enthusiasm of her friends, had quietly devoted his life to the work of saving one woman.

"What is it that keeps him silent?" she thought to herself. "And what is it that makes me love to talk? Is the silent work 'golden'? Is the talk unwholesome? Yet 'out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.' There can be no harm in it then. No, that won't hold, though! because our hearts ought to be full of what we want to save them to, not what we want to save them from. And yet we can't very well talk of that side, or people would think it was all cant. That is an odd thing about Carlo Donati; he never seems afraid that people may think he is talking cant; I do believe he goes right on without thinking what people think of him at all. I fancy it is that he has no conceit, and that I have a great deal; he does things quietly, and I with a fuss and a flourish. Who would have dreamt that with his quiet, easy way of going on, and all the time he was singing, and reading, and talking to us, he was living through such a fierce struggle! Oh, what a goose--what a goose I have been! How hateful and contemptible to be afraid he was in love with me, when it was merely thinking of Francesca that made him look like that! And I have been snubbing him, and looking down on him, and talking such nonsense about him to Francesca herself! How they must despise me!"

With relief she turned, as Clare had advised her, from the thought of herself to the thought of her cousin and of Carlo. Hitherto she had considered Francesca to be very charming, very innocent, very reprehensibly idle; one of those girls who did not take up "parish work," and who were deserving of mingled pity and blame. Now she asked herself honestly whether she could, in Francesca's position, have given up all so bravely. And Madame Merlino, from all she had gathered about her from various sources, was no "interesting case, but a very ordinary, commonplace, ill-tempered person, who as yet apparently was far from grateful for the sacrifice which had cost the lovers so much.

"For some charming, delightful person who cared for me I might have done it," thought Kate; "but for one of those women like Madame Merlino, who just get into danger because they are weak and foolish, who are dull, and uninteresting, and heartless,--no, I could never have done it! Never!"

Again she went back to her recollections of that scene in the hut. What was it that had given Carlo power to choose this hard, distasteful life? Why had he been able to leave Francesca, and bear shame and loss, and grief? It was not that his love for her was less keen than the love of other men; on the contrary, the passionate fervor of his love had terrified Kate, had transcended all her dreams of what love in the best of men might mean.

It must be because he was trying with all his might, trying continuously, to live the Christ-life, which most of us do spasmodically, and not with the whole force of our nature; because his faith was perfect trust in One who was stronger than the darkness, the danger, the misery which overwhelmed, him; One whom he knew and loved; One whom he desired above all things to serve with the free devotion of a man, not the grudging submission of a slave. It was clearly a faith which was independent of his feelings, independent of his intellect, independent of his surroundings; he had owned himself past feeling and past thinking; he had been overwhelmed with the temptation of that valley of the shadow of death, yet all the time had held unshaken to the one fact, which he knew as he knew his own identity--"Thou art with me!"

The clock striking five recalled her to the necessity of going downstairs, and of getting through as best she might the dreaded meeting.

"It serves me right," she thought to herself sadly. "I have been conceited and patronizing, have looked on everything and spoken of everybody as from a superior height, and now I learn that I have been taking false, distorted views, and have to begin life all over again."

The loss of her old self-confidence was no pleasant sensation, however salutary it might be; she entered the drawing-room apprehensively, and hardly knew whether to feel relieved or disappointed when she found Carlo bending over his copy of Verdi's Ernani, and looking exactly as usual. Perhaps she had not expected to see him bearing a long face, or an expression of conventionally pious resignation, but yet it astonished her to find that after passing through so much a man could in two hours' time so completely have regained control over look, and voice, and manner.

"I shall quite miss this delightful English institution of kettledrum," he remarked, pushing aside his book, and as usual coming forward to help her. "I'm afraid nothing would make it fit in, though, with the hours we have to keep."

A great lump rose in Kate's throat as she remembered how foolish and disagreeable she had been to him on the day when Francesca's letter had arrived, and had made him so absent-minded.

"And tea, I suppose, is not good before singing," she replied, putting forth the first platitude that came into her head.

"No," he said, with a smile which was wholly pleasant and had no suspicion of sarcasm. "There are a few things which must be renounced even by the Neros who fiddle while Rome is burning!"

The genuinely humorous look in the eyes which but a little while ago she had seen full of tears, touched Kate, she felt half choked, and her usually ready words faltered.

"I want to beg your pardon for saying that," she began, hesitatingly; "I don't really know anything about stage life,--I--I--" (the admission was hard to make) "have never even been inside a theatre; only somehow one gets into the way of picking up other people's notions and echoing them without really finding out the truth. I had no right to say such a thing, I hope you will forgive me."

His warm-hearted, Italian reception of the apology a little overwhelmed her, and she was glad that the entrance of Clare and the girls made the talk more general.

"The English seem to have a rooted idea that an actor must be a dangerous sort of fellow, and they generally look askance at a foreigner," said Carlo. "I don't think there are many Merlebanks ready to befriend fog-stricken singers, and I assure you I have become well accustomed to being regarded as a sort of dynamite, to be kept at a safe distance."

"The effect of Puritan traditions," said Clare. "But there is certainly something in the argument that now the stage is so greatly improved the attitude towards it ought to be changed. I am not sure, Carlo, that in the end you may not convert me."

"It is not I who ought to convert you, but the many English actors and actresses now living, who by their noble efforts to raise the drama, and by their own pure and upright lives, give the lie to the whole view which the Puritans were no doubt quite warranted in holding. Or, if you will not be converted by the living, at least study the lives of the dead; think of such a man as Phelps, such a woman as your Mrs. Siddons!"

The talk was interrupted by an abrupt question from Molly,--

"What can have become of Francesca? I never knew her late for tea before."

Kate felt herself coloring, but was relieved when Carlo quietly turned off the remark.

"Don't you think she may be finishing her sketch in the church?" he said.

"Oh, yes," said Molly, quite satisfied, "and perhaps she will stay on and hear them practise the anthem for to-morrow. It is our yearly festival to-morrow, you know. By-the-bye, Kate, have you done the vases?"

"Yes," said Kate, snatching up a biscuit, and crossing the room to feed Bevis, that her burning cheeks might not attract notice.

Francesca did not appear till dinner-time. Kate glanced at her then apprehensively, and saw that she had not been nearly so successful as Carlo in getting rid of all traces of her emotion. It must have been patent to any one with eyes in his head that she had been crying; and Harry, with the inconvenient candor which cousins and brothers often exhibit, commented across the table on her appearance.

"Why, Francesca, you look dreadfully tired. Has Kate been showing you all the harrowing sights in her district, or telling you of the horrors of the Ashborough slums?"

She blushed and faltered; Kate longed helplessly to come to her rescue, but before she could think of a single thing to say, Carlo had dashed recklessly into the conversation, not at all troubling himself about his matter or his manner, but only desirous to turn the subject somehow, and save Francesca from embarrassment.

"To slum!" he exclaimed, quickly, catching at the last word; "that is your new English verb, just invented, is it not? I was told in London that slumming had become a fashion. Is it so at Ashborough, too?"

"Not quite so much; the old houses in Ashborough are notorious for being infested with a particular kind of vermin, to which the fashionable have a mortal antipathy. I don't think it is likely to become very popular here to slum."

By this time Kate had recovered her presence of mind, and bravely kept the ball going, Clare helping her adroitly, and the lovers feeling relieved that all had been so well tided over. Kate was conscious all through the evening that Carlo was shielding Francesca from observation, talking more than usual to cover her silence, carrying Harry off to sing when he was making his way to the shady corner of the drawing-room where she had ensconced herself, and skilfully contriving to lead the conversation round to cards by volunteering to show them some Italian tricks, from which they somehow glided naturally into a rubber.

"He is managing us all," thought Kate to herself, admitting that the sensation was novel; "but it is for Francesca's sake; he does not seem to think about himself. How will he dispose of me, I wonder?"

She was not left long in doubt, for at that minute he turned to her.

"You have no class this evening?" he inquired. "Then I wish you would play us once more those _Kinderscenen_ of Schumann's which you played the other night."

"Yes, Kate, do play," urged Harry; "I always get on better at whist with music going."

Whereupon, Carlo began to tell them a story which he had once heard of a gambler's wife, whose miserable lot it was every evening to sit at the piano, where, in a mirror, she could see the hands of her husband's dupes, and reveal to him by her playing what cards they held.

While he talked he had been finding her music for her, then, with one swift glance towards the quiet corner where Francesca sat with her needlework, he went back to the card-table.

Kate could see him from where she sat, and as she played on dreamily, musing over that strange afternoon, and watching Carlo's untroubled face, she said to herself again and again, "I have been a fool! a fool! He is the bravest man I ever met, and the best!"

Miss Claremont told all to Mr. Britton that evening, and it was agreed that when she could find a good opportunity she should allow Carlo to see that she knew about his betrothal and its abrupt ending. A few words spoken by Mr. Kavanagh, the doctor, after his final visit to Carlo the next morning, made her doubly desirous to talk the whole matter over with him, and she was not sorry that the festival evening proved too cold and damp for him to risk going to church, so that he was left quite alone, and gladly accepted her invitation to come and chat comfortably over the schoolroom fire.

"This sort of life is very spoiling," he said, throwing himself back in an arm-chair with the easy grace which characterized all his movements, and glancing round the delightfully snug, homelike room. "I can't think what it is that you English people do to your houses; there is a charm about them one does not seem to get elsewhere."

"I wish you could have seen a little more of English home-life," said Clare. "If only you had been strong enough there are several people about here whom I should have liked you to meet."

"It is better not, perhaps," he replied; "I should only grow discontented with the life I shall have to go back to, and feel the contrast all the more between houses like this and the dingy lodging-houses and third-rate hotels which we have to frequent."

"It must be a wretched life, wandering from place to place," she said.

He sighed a little.

"There are a few discomforts, but, after all, they are but trifles. No; what I shall feel most is the going away from this home where all is congenial; away from all of you who can talk well on every subject under the sun; you who have so many interests, and who read and think. Some people do not seem to feel the atmosphere they live in, but to me it makes all the difference; it is stimulating to live in a household like this, and to be with a man like Mr. Britton; and it is depressing to live perpetually with people who take little interest in anything outside their own profession, and to hear nothing but gossip and stage talk."

"Then they are not very highly educated, I suppose, the members of Signor Merlino's Company?"

"No, except as regards music. Of course, you know, I am not a bit intellectual myself, and am nothing of a reader; but, all the same, I breathe better in this sort of atmosphere, perhaps merely because it is what I was accustomed to at home. If it were not for Sardoni, who is witty and clever, I don't know how I should bear the monotony of it. Sometimes I would give anything to be older and cleverer; many men would be able to alter the atmosphere,--Enrico Ritter, for instance, with his brains and his power as a talker, might work a revolution in the green-room."

Clare could have smiled at the notion of Enrico's gaining more real influence by his ready tongue than Carlo by his fascinating character and unselfish life, but: she would not for the world have said anything which, even for a moment, could have broken the unconscious simplicity that was one of his great charms.

"I suppose Signor Sardoni is your only friend?" she said.

"Oh! he is a sort of brother to me, but many of them are my friends. That is one thing which makes up for many other shortcomings in stage life--the wonderful good-nature. I can't tell you how good-natured most of them have been to me, though I came among them as a novice, and am by far the youngest in the Company."

"I had always heard that there is so much jealousy in professional life."

"Well, that is true, too. There are jealousies and quarrels, but then so there are in private life; and nowhere in private life, setting aside Merlebank, have I met with such real, genuine kindness as from men like Sardoni, and Caffieri, and Marioni,--indeed from almost all of them."

"Do you know I was talking this morning to Mr. Kavanagh?" said Clare. "I am such an old friend that I hope you will forgive me for meddling."

"My best nurse has certainly the first right to interview the doctor," said Carlo, smiling. "I like Mr. Kavanagh. though he seems rather inclined to think that everything must give way to the supreme duty of minding your own health. He reminds me of Marioni, who is so wrapped up in his profession that if the world were turned topsy-turvy he would only wonder what the effect would be on Italian opera."

"Mr. Kavanagh tells me he is a little afraid you do not quite understand his English."

"That is either a libel on his pronunciation or on my intellect. I understand him perfectly."

"He said," continued Clare, "that he did not think you could have grasped his meaning to-day after he had been sounding you, because you seemed hardly to bestow a thought on the matter, though he told you that this continuous public singing would either kill you or cure you. Did you gather that from what he said?"

"Yes, I did. He told me there was no disease of the lungs, but a slight delicacy, and that using my voice in this way would be a case of kill or cure. Of course I hope for the cure, but if the other thing comes why there is no more to be said. A singer may as fitly die in harness as any other man."

"But do you really mean to run so grave a risk? Life is surely a gift not to be treated lightly! Are you wise to try the sharp American winter, the long journeys, the singing, which you are told is a doubtful experiment?"

"It must seem stupid and headstrong to you, I am afraid, and I can't altogether explain it; but if what you believed to be your duty called you one way, and the care of your health called you another, I think you would agree that health must go to the wall."

"I want to tell you," began Clare, a little nervously, "that I have just learnt the true facts of the case. Mr. Britton, as you know, knew much and guessed the rest; and I hope, Carlo, you will not be vexed that I, too, should know about it. It was very blind of me never to have seen how matters were with you and Francesca."

"You really know about that?" he exclaimed, with relief. "Then we can talk quite plainly. I am glad that you know, more glad than I can tell you. I have longed to talk to you about it all these weeks. And then, too, you will be such a comfort to Francesca. You will take care of her next week--when I am gone."

His voice shook, and Clare felt the tears starting to her eyes for sympathy.

"You told me that you promised your mother to be with Madame Merlino," she said; "but if she had known all that the promise would cost you do you think she would have wished you to keep it?"

"Perhaps not; but I don't see that one can get any sort of guidance out of that. It is not because I made the promise that I must go on with the life, but because I know it to be right--know that I am called to do it."

"I suppose it would not have been possible to induce your sister to leave the stage?"

"No. Her husband would never have consented to it for one thing; and then, even if she had done so, there would have been nothing to prevent Comerio from ending his engagement with Merlino, and following her wherever she chose to settle down. There was no way but this--there is no way."

"Such a case is surely a heavy indictment against theatrical life," said Clare.

"Do you think so? That seems to be hardly just. A scandal connected with the stage is in every one's mouth, but the sins of private people are hushed up and kindly forgotten, though there is not really more immorality among us than among them. If an actress loses her reputation you hear of it, because she has to live in the 'fierce light' of public life, and so you come to think that we are worse than the other professions. However, I feel with you, that Nita would probably have been safer and happier had she been brought up in a home like this, for instance, and had married in private life. Such a brave, noble woman as Domenica Borelli, or any woman capable of taking care of herself, may well become an actress if that is her true vocation. If she is not able to take care of herself, and is yet unable to retire from the stage, why then her husband, or father, or brother must do all he can to shield her."

Clare was silent for some minutes; it was very hard to withstand the mingled humility and self-reliance which seemed so strangely blended in Carlo's character. He was a man who listened to advice and suggested with the patience and deference of a child, but when once convinced of the right nothing could shake him; and she knew that it was his genuine goodness that gave him this power, the fearless faith which she had long ago noticed as the strong point in his nature, and which during all these years had been strengthening and developing. Young as he was, he seemed to her indeed well fitted to be poor Nita's champion, even while in her heart she longed to persuade him to turn back, blinded by her love for him and for Francesca.

The thought of Mr. Kavanagh's words returned to her with so keen a pang that to be silent was impossible.

"Yet surety," she urged, "there is a noble mistake which you may be falling into--an exaggerated self-sacrifice, a needless throwing away of life and happiness? After all, you know the command is to love our neighbors as ourselves."

"Do you quite think that?" he said. "I thought it was now 'Love one another as I have loved you.' It ought not to be as impossible as it seems to live out that rule."

He sighed, because he remembered that a few weeks ago the struggle had been to endure the being laid aside, while now his heart sided with Clare, and he only longed to be able to think her arguments right.

"You must recollect how ill you have been," she continued. "It is true you have recovered wonderfully fast, but it was a very severe attack of pleurisy; it seems to me that you ought to think very seriously indeed before venturing on the Western winter. And even if your health stands the life, it is so miserable for you; I can't bear to think that you should have to go on with it year after year."

As she spoke, a vision of his future life rose before him. He thought of the monotonous gossip of the green-room, the perpetual bustle and confusion, the manifold packings and unpackings, the desolate lodgings, the long journeys; the thought of the insults of Gomez, the ill-temper of Merlino, the stinging words and cold manner of Anita, the unwelcome love and admiration of sentimental women, and, above all, of the daily martyrdom of separation from Francesca. His heart sank down like lead.

"It is humiliating to be such a creature of moods," he said; "last night I had got to the point of being content and even happy to have been called out to battle, and here I am hankering after love, and home, and peace again. Man is a contradictory animal, Clare!"

"If you are sure--quite sure--that you are choosing rightly, I will not say a word," she replied. "But you and Francesca are very dear to me, and I can't bear to think that you may be throwing away your life on a hopeless task, and bringing such a terrible grief to her. She is so young and fragile, so little fitted to bear great sorrow."

He tried to speak, but his voice failed him; he pushed back his chair and took several turns up and down the room, then returned to the fireside and stood with his elbows on the mantelpiece and his head in his hands.

"You see, Carlo," she resumed, "I can't help wishing Francesca to have the happiest life, and though I would be the last to say that a single woman may not be extremely happy and useful, yet it does no good to blink the fact that her life is incomplete. You will think it strange that a very happy old maid of fifty should speak like this, but Fanny Kemble's words are very true,--'Those who are alone must learn to be lonely;' and we old people, who know how hard that is, shrink from the thought of the young ones setting out on the rough road by which we have travelled."

"Clare, for God's sake say no more!" he exclaimed, turning towards her a face so full of anguish that she solely regretted her words. "I must not turn back like a coward, even for love of her; but it is hard--so fearfully hard--when the very saints of the earth tempt one! And that she should have to suffer--that seems so unjust--so intolerable!"

She signed to him to sit down on the sofa beside her, and looked with her quiet, shining eyes into his troubled ones.

"Francesca will not think that intolerable; to share your pain will be her comfort. And since you are called to make this choice which will bring shadow on both your lives, why then I have nothing more to say. Once sure of God's will we need not trouble about the rest."

"And if I choose my own will now, why I should not be fit to make Francesca happy," he said, musingly. "Sometimes, Clare, it seems to me that the Donati are fated to give their lives for a forlorn hope."

Clare mused over the well known story of the two patriots. They had been called to give up home, and love, and at last life itself, to save their country from tyranny; the third Donati seemed to be called to give up home, and love, and possibly life also, to save one soul from sin. It was a less picturesque lot, but who would dare to say that it was lower?

"It is strange," she said at length, "but your very name means, 'A given man.'"

"Does Carlo mean 'man'? I never knew that before."

He fell into deep thought, and Clare noticed that his face gradually resumed its usual expression.

"After all," he said, presently, "it does seem strange that we should eternally be slipping back to a short-sighted selfishness. Betweenwhiles, one can only wonder at the fuss one makes over sorrow, and then comes a slight change in weather, or health, or people, or devils, and the struggle begins all over again. I see there is some truth in Captain Britton's accusations,--we Italians do love pleasure and ease, and do cordially detest storm and strife."

"Dear boy, I think English people are much the same!" said Clare, laughing. Then growing grave again, "But tell me, Carlo, is there nothing I can do for you? Since I can't see you as happy as I should wish, let me at least have some little way of helping you."

He took her hand in his courtly Italian fashion and kissed it.

"It is thinking what you have made of life, Clare, that will help us most," he said.

She colored, and her eyes filled with tears.

"To be able to talk to you, and write to you freely will be a comfort to Francesca, and do you think, Clare, you would sometimes write to me?"

"Of course I will," she replied warmly.

"Thank you, that will be something to look forward to. You see it is rather dreary to have no belongings in the world. Enrico Ritter is my only correspondent; for, though my old Maestro writes every now and then, he confines himself strictly to his one subject."

At that moment they were interrupted by one of the extraordinary coincidences which afford subject-matter to the Society for Psychical Research.