"No. I never understood that. And after all if you want moonlight you can have it here. If it shines at Capri it will shine at Sorrento. At least it seems to me so."

"No, dearest Marchesa," answered San Miniato triumphantly. "There you are mistaken."

"About the moon?"

"Yes, about the moon. When it rises we do not see it here, on account of the mountains behind us."

"But I have often seen the moon here, from this very place," objected the Marchesa. "I am sure it is not a week ago that I saw it. You do not mean to tell me that there are two moons, and that yours is different from mine!"

"Very nearly. This at least I say. When the moon is full we can see it rise from Tragara, and we can not see it from this place."

"How inexplicable nature is!" exclaimed the Marchesa fanning herself lazily. "I will not try to understand the moon any more. It tires me. A lemonade, San Miniato—ring for a lemonade. I am utterly exhausted."

"Shall I ask Donna Beatrice's opinion about Tragara?" inquired San Miniato rising.

"Oh yes! Anything—only do not argue with me. I cannot bear it. I suppose you will put me into that terrible boat and make me sit in it for hours and hours, until all my bones are broken, and then you will give me cold macaroni and dry bread and warm wine and water, and the sailors will eat garlic, and it will be insufferable and you will call it divine. And of course Beatrice will be so wretched that she will not listen to a word you say, and will certainly refuse you without hesitation. A lemonade, San Miniato, for the love of heaven! My throat is parched with this talking."

When the Marchesa had got what she wanted, San Miniato sat down beside Beatrice at the piano, in the sitting room.

"Donna Beatrice gentilissima," he began, "will you deign to tell me whether you prefer the moon to Chinese lanterns, or Chinese lanterns to the moon?"

"To wear?" asked the young girl with a laugh.

"If you please, of course. Anything would be becoming to you—but I mean as a question of light. Would you prefer a dinner by moonlight on the rocks of Tragara with a couple of mandolins in the distance, or would you like better a party in the hotel gardens with an illumination of paper lanterns? It is a most important question, I assure you, and must be decided very quickly, because the moon is full to-morrow."

"What a ridiculous question!" exclaimed Beatrice, laughing again.

"Why ridiculous?"

"Because you ought to know the answer well enough. Imagine comparing the moon with Chinese lanterns!"

"Your mother prefers the latter."

"Oh, mamma—of course! She is so practical. She would prefer carriage lamps on the trees—gas if possible! When are we going to Tragara? Where is it? Which boat shall we take? Oh, it is too delightful! Can we not go to-night?"

"We can do anything which Donna Beatrice likes," answered San Miniato. "But if you will listen to me, I will explain why to-morrow would be better. In the first place, we have dined once this evening, so that we could not dine again."

"We could call it supper," suggested Beatrice.

"Of course we could, if we could eat it at all. But it is also ten o'clock, and we could not get to Tragara before one or two in the morning. Lastly, your mother would not go."

"Will she go to-morrow?" asked Beatrice with sudden anxiety. "Have you asked her?"

"She will go," answered San Miniato confidently. "We must make her comfortable. That is the principal thing."

"Yes. She shall have her maid and we must take a chair for her to sit in, and another to carry her, and two porters, and a lamp, and a table, and a servant to wait on her. And she will want champagne, well iced, and a carpet for her feet, and a screen to keep the wind from her, if there is any, and several more things which I shall remember. But I know all about it, for we once made a little excursion from Taormina and dined out of doors, and I know exactly what she wants."

"Very well, she shall have everything," said San Miniato smiling at the catalogue of the Marchesa's wants. "If she will only go, we will do all we can."

"When it is time, let the two porters come in here with the chair and take her away," answered Beatrice. "Dear mamma! She will be much too lazy to resist. What fun it will be!"

And everything was done as Beatrice had wished. San Miniato made a list of things absolutely indispensable to the Marchesa. The number of articles was about two hundred and their bulk filled a boat which was despatched early in the following afternoon to be rowed over to Tragara and unloaded before the party arrived.

Ruggiero and his brother worked hard at the preparations, silent, untiring and efficient as usual, but delighted in their hearts at the prospect of something less monotonous than the daily sail or the daily row within sight of Sorrento. To men who have knocked about the sea for years, from Santa Cruz to Sebastopol, the daily life of a sailor on a little pleasure boat lacks interest, and if circumstances had been, different Ruggiero would probably have shipped before now as boatswain on board one of the neat schooners which are yearly built at the Piano di Sorrento, to be sold with their cargoes of salt as soon as they reach Buenos Ayres. But Ruggiero had contracted that malady of the heart which had taken him to the chemist's for the first time in his life, and which materially hindered the formation of any plan by which he might be obliged to leave his present situation. Moreover the disease showed no signs of yielding; on the contrary, the action of the vital organ concerned became more and more spasmodic and alarming, while its possessor grew daily leaner and more silent.

The last package had been taken down, the last of the score of articles which the Marchesa was sure to want with her in the sail boat before she reached the spot where the main cargo of comforts would be waiting; the last sandwich, the last box of sweetmeats, the iced lemonade, the wraps and the parasols were all stowed away in their places. Then San Miniato went to fetch the Marchesa, marshalling in his two porters with their chair between them.

"Dearest Marchesa," said the Count, "if you will give yourself the trouble to sit in this chair, I will promise that no further exertion shall be required of you."

The Marchesa di Mola looked up with a glance of sleepy astonishment.

"And why in that chair, dearest friend? I am so comfortable here. And why have you brought those two men with you?"

"Have you forgotten our dinner at Tragara?" asked San Miniato.

"Tragara!" gasped the Marchesa. "You are not going to take me to Tragara! Good heavens! I am utterly exhausted! I shall die before we get to the boat."

"Altro e parlar di morte—altro e morire," laughed San Miniato, quoting the famous song. "It is one thing to talk of death, it is quite another to die. Only this little favour Marchesa gentilissima—to seat yourself in this chair. We will do the rest."

"Without a hat? Just as I am? Impossible! Come in an hour—then I shall be ready. My maid, San Miniato—send for Teresina. Dio mio! I can never go! Go without us, dearest friend—go and dine on your hideous rocks and leave us the little comfort we need so much!"

But protestations were vain. Teresina appeared and fastened the hat of the period upon her mistress's head. The hat of the period chanced to be a one-sided monstrosity at that time, something between a cart wheel, an umbrella and a flower garden, depending for its stability upon the proper position of several solid skewers, apparently stuck through the head of the wearer. This headpiece having been adjusted the Marchesa asked for a cigarette, lighted it and looked about her.

"It is really too much!" she exclaimed. "Button my gloves, Teresina. I shall not go after all, not even to please you, dearest friend. What a place of torture this world is! How right we are to try and get a comfortable stall in the next! Go away, San Miniato. It is quite useless."

But San Miniato knew what he was doing. With gentle strength he made her rise from her seat and placed her in the chair. The porters lifted their burden, settled the straps upon their shoulders, the man in front glanced back at the man behind, both nodded and marched away.

"This is too awful!" sighed the Marchesa, as she was carried out of the door of the sitting room. "How can you have the heart, dearest friend! An invalid like me! And I was supremely comfortable where I was."

But at this point Beatrice appeared and joined the procession, radiant, fresh as a fragrant wood-flower, full of life as a young bird. Behind her came Teresina, the maid, necessary at every minute for the Marchesa's comfort, her pink young cheeks flushed with pleasure and her eyes sparkling with anticipation, fastening on her hat as she walked.

"I was never so happy in my life," laughed Beatrice. "And to think that you have really captured mamma in spite of herself! Oh, mamma, you will enjoy it so much! I promise you shall. There is iced champagne, and the foot warmer and the marrons glaces and the lamp and everything you like—and quails stuffed with truffles, besides. Now do be happy and let us enjoy ourselves!"

"But where are all these things?" asked the Marchesa. "I shall believe when I see."

"Everything is at Tragara already," answered Beatrice tripping down the stairs beside her mother's chair. "And we really will enjoy ourselves," she added, turning her head with a bewitching smile, and looking back at San Miniato. "What a general you are!"

"If you could convince the Minister of War of that undoubted fact, you would be conferring the greatest possible favour upon me," said the Count. "He would have no trouble in persuading me to return to the army as commander-in-chief, though I left the service as a captain."

So they went down the long winding way cut through the soft tufo rock and found the boat waiting for them by the little landing. The Marchesa actually took the trouble to step on board instead of trusting herself to the strong arms of Ruggiero. Beatrice followed her. As she set her foot on the gunwale Ruggiero held up his hand towards her to help her. It was not the first time this duty had fallen to him, but she was more radiantly fresh to-day than he had ever seen her before, and the spasm that seemed to crush his heart for a moment was more violent than usual. His strong joints trembled at her light touch and his face turned white. She felt that his hand shook and she glanced at him when she stood in the boat.

"Are you ill, Ruggiero?" she asked, in a kindly tone.

"No, Excellency," he answered in a low voice that was far from steady, while the shadow of a despairing smile flickered over his features.

He put up his hand to help Teresina, the maid. She pressed it hard as she jumped down, and smiled with much intention at the handsome sailor. But she got no answer for her look, and he turned away and shoved the boat off the little stone pier. Bastianello was watching them both, and wishing himself in Ruggiero's place. But Ruggiero, as he believed, had loved the pretty Teresina first, and Ruggiero had the first right to win her if he could.

So the boat shot out upon the crisping water into the light afternoon breeze, and up went foresail and mainsail and jib, and away she went on the port tack, San Miniato steering and talking to Beatrice—which things are not to be done together with advantage—the Marchesa lying back in a cane rocking-chair and thinking of nothing, while Teresina held the parasol over her mistress's head and shot bright glances at the sailors forward. And Ruggiero and Bastianello sat side by side amidships looking out at the gleaming sea to windward.

"What hast thou?" asked Bastianello in a low voice.

"The pain," answered his brother.

"Why let thyself be consumed by it? Ask her in marriage. The Marchesa will give her to thee."

"Better to die! Thou dost not know all."

"That may be," said Bastianello with a sigh.

And he slowly began to fake down the slack of the main halyard on the thwart, twisting the coil slowly and thoughtfully as it grew under his broad hands, till the rope lay in a perfectly smooth disk beside him. But Ruggiero changed his position and gazed steadily at Beatrice's changing face while San Miniato talked to her.

So the boat sped on and many of those on board misunderstood each other, and some did not understand themselves. But what was most clear to all before long was that San Miniato could not make love and steer his trick at the same time.

"Are we going to Castellamare?" asked Bastianello in a low voice as the boat fell off more and more under the Count's careless steering.

Ruggiero started. For the first time in his life he had forgotten that he was at sea.



CHAPTER V.



San Miniato did not possess that peculiar and common form of vanity which makes a man sensitive about doing badly what he has never learned to do at all. He laughed when Ruggiero advised him to luff a little, and he did as he was told. But Ruggiero came aft and perched himself on the stern in order to be at hand in case his master committed another flagrant breach of seamanship.

"You will certainly take us to the bottom of the bay instead of to Tragara," observed the Marchesa languidly. "But then at least my discomforts will be over for ever. Of course there is no lemonade on board. Teresina, I want lemonade."

In an instant Bastianello produced a decanter out of a bucket of snow and brought it aft with a glass. The Marchesa smiled.

"You do things very well, dearest friend," she said, and moistened her lips in the cold liquid.

"Donna Beatrice has had more to do with providing for your comfort than I," answered the Count.

The Marchesa smiled lazily, sipped about a teaspoonful from the glass and handed it to her maid.

"Drink, Teresina," she said. "It will refresh you."

The girl drank eagerly.

"You see," said the Marchesa, "I can think of the comfort of others as well as of my own."

San Miniato smiled politely and Beatrice laughed. Her laughter hurt the silent sailor perched behind her, as though a glass had been broken in his face. How could she be so gay when his heart was beating so hard for her? He drew his breath sharply and looked out to sea, as many a heart-broken man has looked across that fair water since woman first learned that men's hearts could break.

It was a wonderful afternoon. The sun was already low, rolling down to his western bath behind Capo Miseno, northernmost of all his daily plunges in the year; and as he sank, the colours he had painted on the hills at dawn returned behind him, richer and deeper and rarer for the heat he had given them all day. There, like a mass of fruit and flowers in a red gold bowl, Sorrento lay in the basin of the surrounding mountains, all gilded above and full of rich shadows below. Over all, the great Santangelo raised his misty head against the pale green eastern sky, gazing down at the life below, at the living land and the living sea, and remembering, perhaps, the silent days before life was, or looking forward to the night to come in which there will be no life left any more. For who shall tell me that the earth herself may not be a living, thinking, feeling being, on whose not unkindly bosom we wear out our little lives, but whose high loves are with the stars, beyond our sight, and her voice too deep and musical for ears used to our shrill human speech? Who shall say surely that she is not conscious of our presence, of some of our doings when we tear her breast and lay burdens upon her neck and plough up her fair skin with our hideous works, or when we touch her kindly and love her, and plant sweet flowers in soft places? Who shall know and teach us that the summer breeze is not her breath, the storm the sobbing of her passion, the rain her woman's tears—that she is not alive, loving and suffering, as we all have been, are, or would be, but greater than we as the star she loves somewhere is greater and stronger than herself? And we live upon her, and feed on her and all die and are taken back into her whence we came, wondering much of the truth that is hidden, learning perhaps at last the great secret she keeps so well. Her life, too, will end some day, her last blossom will have bloomed alone, her last tears will have fallen upon her own bosom, her last sob will have rent the air, and the beautiful earth will be dead for ever, borne on in the sweep of the race that will never end, borne along yet a few ages, till her sweet body turns to star-dust in the great emptiness of a night without morning.

But Ruggiero, plain strong man of the people, hard-handed sailor, was not thinking of any of these things as he sat in his narrow place on the stern behind his master, mechanically guiding the tiller in the latter's unconscious hand, while he gazed silently at Beatrice's face, now turned towards him in conversation, now half averted as she looked down or out to sea. Ruggiero listened, too, to the talk, though he did not understand all the fine words Beatrice and San Miniato used. If he had never been away from the coast, the probability is that he would have understood nothing at all; but in his long voyages he had been thrown with men of other parts of Italy and had picked up a smattering of what Neapolitans call Italian, to distinguish it from their own speech. Even as it was, the most part of what they said escaped him, because they seemed to think so very differently from him about simple matters, and to be so heartily amused at what seemed so dull to him. And he began to feel that the hurt he had was deep and not to be healed, while he reflected that he was undoubtedly mad, since he loved this lady so much while understanding her so little. The mere feeling that she could talk and take pleasure in talking beyond his comprehension wounded him, as a sensitive half-grown boy sometimes suffers real pain when his boyishness shows itself among men.

Why, for instance, did the young girl's cheek flush and her eyes sparkle, when San Miniato talked of Paris? Paris was in France. Ruggiero knew that. But he had often heard that it was not so big a place as London, where he had been. Therefore Beatrice must have some other reason for liking it. Most probably she loved a Frenchman, and Ruggiero hated Frenchmen with all his heart. Then they talked about the theatre and Beatrice was evidently interested. Ruggiero had once seen a puppet show and had not found it at all funny. The theatre was only a big puppet show, and he could pay for a seat there if he pleased; but he did not please, because he was sure that it would not amuse him to go. Why should Beatrice like the theatre? And she liked the races at Naples, too, and those at Paris much better. Why? Everybody knew that one horse could run faster than another, without trying it, but it could not matter a straw which of two, or twenty, got to the goal first. Horses were not boats. Now there was sense in a boat race, or a yacht race, or a steamer race. But a horse! He might be first to-day, and to-morrow if he had not enough to eat he might be last. Was a horse a Christian? You could not count upon him. And then they began to talk of love and Ruggiero's heart stood still, for that, at least, he could understand.

"Love!" laughed Beatrice, repeating the word. "It always makes one laugh. Were you ever in love, mamma?"

The Marchesa turned her head slowly, and lifted her sleepy eyes to look at her daughter, before she answered.

"No," she said lazily. "I was never in love. But you are far too young to talk of such things."

"San Miniato says that love is for the young and friendship for the old."

"Love," said San Miniato, "is a necessary evil, but it is also the greatest source of happiness."

"What a fine phrase!" exclaimed Beatrice. "You must be a professor in disguise."

"A professor of love?" asked the Count with a very well executed look of tenderness which did not escape Ruggiero.

"Hush, for the love of heaven!" interposed the Marchesa. "This is too dreadful!"

"We were not talking of the love of heaven," answered Beatrice mischievously.

"I was thinking at least of a love that could make any place a heaven," said San Miniato, again helping his lack of originality with his eyes.

Ruggiero reflected that it would be but the affair of a second to unship the heavy brass tiller and bring it down once on the top of his master's skull. Once would be enough.

"Whose love?" asked Beatrice innocently.

San Miniato looked at her again, then turned away his eyes and sighed audibly.

"Well?" asked Beatrice. "Will you answer. I do not understand that language. Whose love would make any place—Timbuctoo, for instance—a heaven for you?"

"Discretion is the only virtue a man ought to exhibit whenever he has a chance," said San Miniato.

"Perhaps. But even that should be shown without ostentation." Beatrice laughed. "And you are decidedly ostentatious at the present moment. It would interest mamma and me very much to know the object of your affections."

"Beatrice!" exclaimed the Marchesa with affected horror.

"Yes, mamma," answered the young girl. "Here I am. Do you want some more lemonade?"

"She is quite insufferable," said the Marchesa to San Miniato, with a languid smile. "But really, San Miniato carissimo, this conversation—a young girl—-"

Ruggiero wondered what she found so obnoxious in the words that had been spoken. He also wondered how long it would take San Miniato to drown if he were dropped overboard in the wake of the boat.

"If that is your opinion of your daughter," said the latter, "we shall hardly agree. Now I maintain that Donna Beatrice is the contrary of insufferable—the most extreme of contraries. In the first place—-"

"She is very pretty," said Beatrice demurely.

"I was not going to say that," laughed San Miniato.

"Ah? Then say something else."

"I will. Donna Beatrice has two gifts, at least, which make it impossible that she should ever be insufferable, even when her beauty is gone."

"Dio mio!" ejaculated the young girl. "The compliments are beginning in good earnest!"

"It was time," said San Miniato, "since your mother—-"

"Dear Count," interrupted Beatrice, "do not talk any more about mamma. I am anxious to get at the compliments. Do pray let your indiscretion be as ostentatious as possible. I cannot wait another second."

"No need of waiting," answered San Miniato, again addressing himself to the Marchesa. "Donna Beatrice has two great gifts. She is kind, and she has charm."

There being no exact equivalent for the word "charm" in the Italian language, San Miniato used the French. Ruggiero began to puzzle his brains, asking himself what this foreign virtue could be which his master estimated so highly. He also thought it very strange that Beatrice should have said of herself that she was pretty, and still stranger that San Miniato should not have said it.

"Is that all?" asked Beatrice. "I need not have been in such a hurry to extract your compliments from you."

"If you had understood what I said," answered San Miniato unmoved, "you would see that no man could say more of a woman."

"Kind and charming! It is not much," laughed the young girl. "Unless you mean much more than you say—and I asked you to be indiscreet!"

"Kind hearts are rare enough in this world, Donna Beatrice, and as for charm—"

"What is charm?"

"It is what the violet has, and the camelia has not—"

"Heavens! Are you going to sigh to me in the language of flowers?"

"Beatrice! Beatrice!" cried the Marchesa, with the same affectation of horror as before.

"Dear mamma, are you uncomfortable? Oh no! I see now. You are horrified. Have I said anything dreadful?" she asked, turning to San Miniato.

"Anything dreadful? What an idea! Really, Marchesa carissima, I was just beginning to explain to Donna Beatrice what charm is, when you cut me short. I implore you to let me go on with my explanation."

"On condition that Beatrice makes no comments. Give me a cigarette, Teresina."

"The congregation will not interrupt the preacher before the benediction," said Beatrice folding her small hands on her knee, and looking down with a devout expression.

"Charm," began San Miniato, "is the something which some women possess, and which holds the men who love them—"

"Only those who love them?" interrupted Beatrice, looking up quickly.

"I thought," said the Marchesa, "that you were not to give us any comments." She dropped the words one or two at a time between the puffs of her cigarette.

"A question is not a comment, mamma. I ask for instruction."

"Go on, dearest friend," said her mother to the Count. "She is incorrigible."

"On the contrary, Donna Beatrice fills my empty head with ideas. The question was to the point. All men feel the charm of such women as all men smell the orange blossoms here in May—"

"The language of flowers again!" laughed Beatrice.

"You are so like a flower," answered San Miniato softly.

"Am I?" She laughed again, then grew grave and looked away.

Ruggiero's hand shook on the heavy tiller, and San Miniato, who supposed he was steering all the time, turned suddenly.

"What is the matter?" he asked.

"The rudder is draking, Excellency," answered Ruggiero.

"And what does that mean?" asked Beatrice.

"It means that the rudder trembles as the boat rises and falls with each sea, when there is a good breeze," answered Ruggiero.

"Is there any danger?" asked Beatrice indifferently.

"What danger could there be, Excellency?" asked the sailor.

"Because you are so pale, Ruggiero. What is the matter with you, to-day?"

"Nothing, Excellency."

"Ruggiero is in love," laughed San Miniato. "Is it not true, Ruggiero?"

But the sailor did not answer, though the hot blood came quickly to his face and stayed there a moment and then sank away again. He looked steadily at the dancing waves to windward, and set his lips tightly together.

"I would like to ask that sailor what he thinks of love and charm, and all the rest of it," said Beatrice. "His ideas would be interesting."

Ruggiero's blue eyes turned slowly upon her, with an odd expression. Then he looked away again.

"I will ask him," said San Miniato in a low voice. "Ruggiero!"

"Excellency!"

"We want to know what you think about love. What is the best quality a woman can have?"

"To be honest," answered Ruggiero promptly.

"And after that, what next?"

"To be beautiful."

"And then rich, I suppose?"

"It would be enough if she did not waste money."

"Honest, beautiful, and economical!" exclaimed Beatrice. "He does not say anything about charm, you see. I think his description is extremely good and to the point. Bravo, Ruggiero!"

His eyes met hers and gleamed rather fiercely for an instant.

"And how about charm, Ruggiero?" asked Beatrice mischievously.

"I do not speak French, Excellency," he answered.

"You should learn, because charm is a word one cannot say in Italian. I do not know how to say it in our language."

"Let me talk about flowers to him," said San Miniato. "I will make him understand. Which do you like better, Ruggiero, camelias or violets?"

"The camelia is a more lordly flower, Excellency, but for me I like the violets."

"Why?"

"Who knows? They make one think of so many things, Excellency. One would tire of camelias, but one would never be tired of violets. They have something—who knows?"

"That is it, Ruggiero," said San Miniato, delighted with the result of his experiment. "And charm is the same thing in a woman. One is never tired of it, and yet it is not honesty, nor beauty, nor economy."

"I understand, Excellency—e la femmina—it is the womanly."

"Bravo, Ruggiero!" exclaimed Beatrice again. "You are a man of heart. And if you found a woman who was honest and beautiful and economical and 'femmina,' as you say, would you love her?"

"Yes, Excellency, very much," answered Ruggiero. But his voice almost failed him.

"How much? Tell us."

Ruggiero was silent a moment. Then his eyes flashed suddenly as he looked down at her and his voice came ringing and strong.

"So much that I would pray that Christ and the sea would take her, rather than that another man should get her! Per Dio!"

There was such a vibration of strong passion in the words that Beatrice started a little and San Miniato looked up in surprise. Even the Marchesa vouchsafed the sailor a glance of indolent curiosity. Beatrice bent over to the Count and spoke in a low tone and in French.

"We must not tease him any more. He is in love and very much in earnest."

"So am I," answered San Miniato with a half successful attempt to seem emotional, which might have done well enough if it had not come after Ruggiero's heartfelt speech.

"You!" laughed Beatrice. "You are never really in earnest. You only think you are, and that pleases you as well."

San Miniato bit his lip, for he was not pleased. Her answer augured ill for the success of the plan he meant to put into execution that very evening. He felt strongly incensed against Ruggiero, too, without in the least understanding the reason.

"You will find out some day, Donna Beatrice, that those who are most in earnest are not those who make the most passionate speeches."

"Ah! Is that true? How strange! I should have supposed that if a man said nothing it was because he had nothing to say. But you have such novel theories!"

"Is this discussion never to end?" asked the Marchesa, wearily lifting her hand as though in protest, and letting it fall again beside the other.

"It has only just begun, mamma," answered Beatrice cheerfully. "When San Miniato jumps into the sea and drowns himself in despair, you will know that the discussion is over."

"Beatrice! My child! What language!"

"Italian, mamma carissima. Italian with a little Sicilian, such as we speak."

"I am at your service, Donna Beatrice," said the Count. "Would you like me to drown myself immediately, or are you inclined for a little more conversation?"

Ruggiero had now taken the helm altogether. As San Miniato spoke he nodded to his brother who was forward, intimating that he meant to go about. He was certainly not in his normal frame of mind, for he had an evil thought at that moment. Fortunately for every one concerned the breeze was very light and was indeed dying away as the sun sank lower. They were already nearing the southernmost point of Capri, commonly called by sailors the Monaco, for what reason no one knows. To reach Tragara where the Faraglioni, or needles, rise out of the deep sea close to the rocky shore under the cliffs, it is necessary to go round the point. There was soon hardly any breeze at all, so that Bastianello and the other men shipped half-a-dozen oars and began to row. The operation of going about involved a change of places in so small a boat and the slight confusion had interrupted the conversation. A long silence followed, broken at last by the Marchesa's voice.

"A cigarette, Teresina, and some more lemonade. Are you still there, San Miniato carissimo? As I heard no more conversation I supposed you had drowned yourself as you proposed to do."

"Donna Beatrice is so kind as to put off the execution until after dinner."

"And shall we ever reach this dreadful place, and ever really dine?" asked the Marchesa.

"Before sunset," answered San Miniato. "And we shall dine at our usual hour."

"At least it will not be so hot as in the hotel, and after all it has not been very fatiguing."

"No," said the Count, "I fail to see how your exertions can have tired you much."

Ruggiero looked down at his master and at the fine lady as she lay listlessly extended in her cane chair, and he felt that in his heart he hated them both as much as he loved Beatrice, which was saying much. But he wondered how it was that less than half an hour earlier he had been ready to upset the boat and drown every one in it indiscriminately. Nevertheless he believed that if there had been a stiff breeze just then, enough for his purpose, he would have stopped the boat's way, and then put the helm hard up again, without slacking out a single sheet, and he knew the little craft well enough to be sure of what would have happened. Murderous intentions enough, as he thought of it all now, in the calm water under the great cliff from which tradition says that Tiberius shot delinquents into space from a catapult.

The men pulled hard by the lonely rocks, for the sun had almost set and they knew how sharp the stones are at Tragara, when one must tread them barefoot and burdened with hampers and kettles and all the paraphernalia of a picnic.

Then the light grew rich and deep, and the sea swallows shot from the misty heights, like arrows, into the calm purple air below, and skimmed and wheeled, and rose again, startled by the splash of the oars and the dull knock of them as they swung in the tholes. And the water was like a mirror in which all manner of rare and lovely things are reflected, with blots of liquid gold and sheen of soft-hued damask, and great handfuls of pearls and opals strewn between, and roses and petals of many kinds of flowers without names. And the air was full of the faint, salt odours that haunt the lonely places of the sea, sweet and bitter at once as the last days of a young life fading fast. Then the great needles rose gigantic from the depths to heaven, and beyond, through the mysterious, shadowy arch that pierces one of them, was opened the glorious vision of a distant cloud-lit water, and a single dark sail far away stood still, as it were, on the very edge of the world.

Beatrice leaned back and gazed at the scene, and her delicate nostrils expanded as she breathed. There was less colour in her face than there had been, and the long lashes half veiled her eyes. San Miniato watched her narrowly.

"How beautiful! How beautiful!" she exclaimed twice, after a long silence.

"It will be more beautiful still when the moon rises," said San Miniato. "I am glad you are pleased."

She liked the simple words better, perhaps, than some of his rather artificial speeches.

"Thank you," she said. "Thank you for bringing us here."

He had certainly taken a great deal of trouble, she thought, and it was the least she could do, to thank him as she did. But she was really grateful and for a moment she felt a sort of sympathy for him which she had not felt before. He, at least, understood that one could like something better in the world than the eternal terrace of a hotel with its stiff orange trees, its ugly lanterns and its everlasting gossip and chatter. He, at least, was a little unlike all those other people, beginning with her own mother, who think of self first, comfort second, and of others once a month or so, in the most favourable cases. Yet she wondered a little about his past life, and whether he had ever spoken to any woman with that ringing passion she had heard in Ruggiero's voice, with that flashing look she had seen in the sailor's bright blue eyes. It would be good to be spoken to like that. It would be good to see the colour in a man's face change, and come and go, red and white like life and death. It would be supremely good to be loved once, madly, passionately, with body, heart and soul, to the very breaking of all three—to be held in strong arms, to be kissed half to death.

She stopped, conscious that her mother would certainly not approve such thoughts, and well aware in her girlish heart that she did not approve them in herself. And then she smiled faintly. The man of her waking vision was not like San Miniato. He was more like Ruggiero, the poor sailor, who sat perched on the stern close behind her. She smiled uneasily at the idea, and then she thought seriously of it for a moment. If such a man as Ruggiero appeared, not as a sailor, but as a man of her own world, would he not be a very lovable person, would he not turn the heads of the languid ladies on the terrace of the hotel at Sorrento? The thought annoyed her. Ruggiero, poor fellow, would have given his good right arm to know that such a possibility had even crossed her reflections. But it was not probable that he ever would know it, and he sat in his place, silent and unmoved, steering the boat to her destination, and thinking of her.

It was not dusk when the boat was alongside of the low jagged rocks which lie between the landward needle and the cliffs, making a sort of rough platform in which there are here and there smooth flat places worn by the waves and often full of dry salt for a day or two after a storm. There, to the Marchesa's inexpressible relief, the numberless objects inscribed in the catalogue of her comforts were already arranged, and she suffered herself to be lifted from the boat and carried ashore by Ruggiero and his brother, without once murmuring or complaining of fatigue—a truly wonderful triumph for San Miniato's generalship.

There was the table, the screen, and the lamp, the chairs and the carpet—all the necessary furniture for the Marchesa's dining-room. And there at her place stood an immaculate individual in an evening coat and a white tie, ready and anxious to do her bidding. She surveyed the preparations with more satisfaction than she generally showed at anything. Then all at once her face fell.

"Good heavens, San Miniato carissimo," she cried, "you have forgotten the red pepper! It is all over! I shall eat nothing! I shall die in this place!"

"Pardon me, dearest Marchesa, I know your tastes. There is red pepper and also Tabasco on the table. Observe—here and here."

The Marchesa's brow cleared.

"Forgive me, dear friend," she said. "I am so dependent on these little things! You are an angel, a general and a man of heart."

"The man of your heart, I hope you mean to say," answered San Miniato, looking at Beatrice.

"Of course—anything you like—you are delightful. But I am dropping with fatigue. Let me sit down."

"You have forgotten nothing—not even the moon you promised me," said Beatrice, gazing with clasped hands at the great yellow shield as it slowly rose above the far south-eastern hills.

"I will never forget anything you ask me, Donna Beatrice," replied San Miniato in a low voice. Something told him that in the face of all nature's beauty, he must speak very simply, and he was right.

There is but one moment in the revolution of day and night which is more beautiful than the rising of the full moon at sunset, and that is the dawn on the water when the full moon is going down. To see the gathering dusk drink down the purple wine that dyes the air, the sea and the light clouds, until it is almost dark, and then to feel the darkness growing light again with the warm, yellow moon—to watch the jewels gathering on the velvet sea, and the sharp black cliffs turning to chiselled silver above you—to know that the whole night is to be but a softer day—to see how the love of the sun for the earth is one, and the love of the moon another—that is a moment for which one may give much and not be disappointed.

Beatrice Granmichele saw and felt what she had never seen or felt before, and the magic of Tragara held sway over her, as it does over the few who see it as she saw it. She turned slowly and glanced at San Miniato's face. The moonlight improved it, she thought. There seemed to be more vigour in the well-drawn lines, more strength in the forehead than she had noticed until now. She felt that she was in sympathy with him, and that the sympathy might be a lasting one. Then she turned quite round and faced the commonplace lamp with its pink shade, which stood on the dinner-table, and she experienced a disagreeable sensation. The Marchesa was slowly fanning herself, already seated at her place.

"If you are human beings, and not astronomers," she said, "we might perhaps dine."

"I am very human, for my part," said San Miniato, holding Beatrice's chair for her to sit down.

"There was really no use for the lamp, mamma," she said, turning again to look at the moon. "You see what an illumination we have! San Miniato has provided us with something better than a lamp."

"San Miniato, my dear child, is a man of the highest genius. I always said so. But if you begin to talk of eating without a lamp, you may as well talk of abolishing civilisation."

"I wish we could!" exclaimed Beatrice.

"And so do I, with all my heart," said San Miniato.

"Including baccarat and quinze?" enquired the Marchesa, lazily picking out the most delicate morsels from the cold fish on her plate.

"Including baccarat, quinze, the world, the flesh and the devil," said San Miniato.

"Pray remember, dearest friend, that Beatrice is at the table," observed the Marchesa, with indolent reproach in her voice.

"I do," replied San Miniato. "It is precisely for her sake that I would like to do away with the things I have named."

"You might just leave a little of each for Sundays!" suggested the young girl.

"Beatrice!" exclaimed her mother.



CHAPTER VI.



While the little party sat at table, the sailors gathered together at a distance among the rocks, and presently the strong red light of their fire shot up through the shadows, lending new contrasts to the scene. And there they slung their kettle on an oar and patiently waited for the water to boil, while the man known as the Gull, always cook in every crew in which he chanced to find himself, sat with the salt on one side of him and a big bundle of macaroni on the other, prepared to begin operations at any moment.

Ruggiero stood a little apart, his back against a boulder, his arms crossed and his eyes fixed on Beatrice's face. His keen sight could distinguish the changing play of her expression as readily at that distance as though he had been standing beside her, and he tried to catch the words she spoke, listening with a sort of hurt envy to the little silvery laugh that now and then echoed across the open space and lost itself in the crannies of the rocks. It all hurt him, and yet for nothing in the world would he have turned away or shut his ears. More than once, too, the thoughts that had disturbed him while he was steering in the afternoon, came upon him with renewed and startling strength. He had in him some of that red old blood that does not stop for trifles such as life and death when the hour of passion burns, and the brain reels with overmastering love.

And Bastianello was not in a much better case, though his was less hard to bear. The pretty Teresina had seated herself on a smooth rock in the moonlight, not far from the table, and as the dishes came back, the young sailor waited on her and served her with unrelaxed attention. Since Ruggiero would not take advantage of the situation, his brother saw no reason for not at least enjoying the pleasure of seeing the adorable Teresina eat and drink as it were from his hand. Why Ruggiero was so cold, and stood there against his rock, silent and glowering, Bastianello could not at all understand; nor had he any thought of taking an unfair advantage. Ruggiero was first and no one should interfere with him, or his love; but Bastianello, judging from what he felt himself, fancied that she might have given him some good advice. Teresina's cheeks flushed with pleasure and her eyes sparkled each time he brought her some dainty from the master's table, and she thanked him in the prettiest way imaginable, so that her voice reminded him of the singing of the yellow-beaked blackbird he kept in a cage at home—which was saying much, for the blackbird sang well and sweetly. But Bastianello only said each time that "it was nothing," and then stood silently waiting beside her till she should finish what she was eating and be ready for more. Teresina would doubtless have enjoyed a little conversation, and she looked up from time to time at the handsome sailor beside her, with a look of enquiry in her eyes, as though to ask why he said nothing. But Bastianello felt that he was on his honour, for he never doubted that the little maid was the cause of Ruggiero's disease of the heart and indeed of all that his brother evidently suffered, and he was too modest by nature to think that Teresina could prefer him to Ruggiero, who had always been the object of his own unbounded devotion and admiration. Presently, when there was nothing more to offer her, and the party at the table were lighting their cigarettes over their coffee, he went away and going up to Ruggiero drew him a little further aside from the group of sailors.

"I want to tell you something," he began. "You must not be as you are, a man like you."

"How may that be?" asked Ruggiero, still looking towards the table, and not pleased at being dragged from his former post of observation.

"I will tell you. I have been serving her with food. You could have done that instead if you had wished. You could have talked to her, and she would have liked it. It is easy when a woman is sitting apart and a man brings her good food and wine—you could have spoken a word into her ear."

Ruggiero was silent, but he slowly nodded twice, then shook his head.

"You do not say anything," continued Bastianello, "and you do wrong. What I tell you is true, and you cannot deny it. After all, we are men and they are women. Are they to speak first?"

"It is just," answered Ruggiero laconically.

"But then, per Dio, go and talk to her. Are you going to begin giving her the gold before you have spoken?"

From which question it will be clear to the unsophisticated foreigner that a regular series of presents in jewelry is the natural accompaniment of a well-to-do courtship in the south. The trinkets are called collectively "the gold."

Ruggiero did not find a ready answer to so strong an argument. Little guessing that his brother was almost as much in love with Teresina as he himself was with her mistress, he saw no reason for undeceiving him concerning his own feelings. Since Bastianello had discovered that he, Ruggiero, was suffering from an acute attack of the affections, it had become the latter's chief object to conceal the real truth. It was not so much, that he dreaded the ridicule—he, a poor sailor—of being known to love a great lady's daughter; ridicule was not among the things he feared. But something far too subtle for him to define made him keep his secret to himself—an inborn, chivalrous, manly instinct, inherited through generations of peasants but surviving still, as the trace of gold in the ashes of a rich stuff that has had gilded threads in it.

"If I did begin with the gold," he said at last, "and if she would not have me when I spoke afterwards, she would give the gold back."

"Of course she would. What do you take her for?" Bastianello asked the question almost angrily, for he loved Teresina and he resented the slightest imputation upon her fair dealing.

Ruggiero looked at him curiously, but was far too much preoccupied with his own thoughts to guess what the matter was. He turned away and went towards the fire where the Gull was already tasting a slippery string of the macaroni to find out whether it were enough cooked. Bastianello shrugged his shoulders and followed him in silence. Before long they were all seated round the huge earthen dish, each armed with an iron fork in one hand and a ship biscuit in the other, with which to catch the drippings neatly, according to good manners, in conveying the full fork from the dish to the wide-opened mouth. By and by there was a sound of liquid gurgling from a demijohn as it was poured into the big jug, and the wine went round quickly from hand to hand, while those who waited for their turn munched their biscuits. Some one has said that great appetites, like great passions, are silent. Hardly a word was said until the wine was passed a second time with a ration of hard cheese and another biscuit. Then the tongues were unloosed and the strange, uncouth jests of the rough men circulated in an undertone, and now and then one of them suffered agonies in smothering a huge laugh, lest his mirth should disturb the "excellencies" at their table. The latter, however, were otherwise engaged and paid little attention to the sailors.

The Marchesa di Mola, having eaten about six mouthfuls of twice that number of delicacies and having swallowed half a glass of champagne and a cup of coffee, was extended in her cane rocking-chair, with her back to the moon and her face to the lamp, trying to imagine herself in her comfortable sitting room at the hotel, or even in her own luxurious boudoir in her Sicilian home. The attempt was fairly successful, and the result was a passing taste of that self-satisfied beatitude which is the peculiar and enviable lot of very lazy people after dinner. She cared for nothing and she cared for nobody. San Miniato and Beatrice might sit over there by the water's edge, in the moonlight, and talk in low tones as long as they pleased. There were no tiresome people from the hotel to watch their proceedings, and nothing better could happen than that they should fall in love, be engaged and married forthwith. That was certainly not the way the Marchesa could have wished the courtship and marriage to develop and come to maturity, if there had been witnesses of the facts from amongst her near acquaintance. But since there was nobody to see, and since it was quite impossible that she should run after the pair when they chose to leave her side, resignation was the best policy, resignation without effort, without fatigue and without qualms. Moreover, San Miniato himself had told her that in some of the best families in the north of Italy it was considered permissible for a man to offer himself directly to a young lady, and San Miniato was undoubtedly familiar with the usages of the very best society. It was quite safe to trust to him.

San Miniato himself would have greatly preferred to leave the negotiations in the hands of the Marchesa and would have done so had he not known that she possessed no power whatever over Beatrice. But he saw that the Marchesa, however much she might desire the marriage, would never exert herself to influence her daughter. She was far too indolent, and at heart, perhaps, too indifferent, and she knew the value of money and especially of her own. San Miniato made up his mind that if he won at all, it must be upon his own merits and by his own efforts.

He had not found it hard to lead Beatrice away from the lamp when dinner was over, and after walking about on the rocks for a few minutes he proposed that they should sit down near the water, facing the moonlit sea. Beatrice sat upon a smooth projection and San Miniato placed himself at her feet, in such a position that he could look up into her face and talk to her without raising his voice.

"So you are glad you came here, Donna Beatrice," he said.

"Very glad," she answered. "It is something I have never seen before—something I shall never forget, as long as I live."

"Nor I."

"Have you a good memory?"

"For some things, not for others."

"For what, for instance?"

"For those I love—-"

"And a bad memory for those whom you have loved," suggested Beatrice with a smile.

"Have you any reason for saying that?" asked San Miniato gravely. "You know too little of me and my life to judge of either. I have not loved many, and I have remembered them well."

"How many? A dozen, more or less? Or twenty? Or a hundred?"

"Two. One is dead, and one has forgotten me."

Beatrice was silent. It was admirably done, and for the first time he made her believe that he was in earnest. It had not been very hard for him either, for there was a foundation of truth in what he said. He had not always been a man without heart.

"It is much to have loved twice," said the young girl at last, in a dreamy voice. She was thinking of what had passed through her mind that afternoon.

"It is much—but not enough. What has never been lived out, is never enough."

"Perhaps—but who could love three times?"

"Any man—and the third might be the best and the strongest, as well as the last."

"To me it seems impossible."

San Miniato had got his chance and he knew it. He was nervous and not sure of himself, for he knew very well that she had but a passing attraction for him, beyond the very solid inducement to marry her offered by her fortune. But he knew that the opportunity must not be lost, and he did not waste time. He spoke quietly, not wishing to risk a dramatic effect until he could count on his own rather slight histrionic powers.

"So it seems impossible to you, Donna Beatrice," he said, in a musing tone. "Well, I daresay it does. Many things must seem impossible to you which are rather startling facts to me. I am older than you, I am a man, and I have been a soldier. I have lived a life such as you cannot dream of—not worse perhaps than that of many another man, but certainly not better. And I am quite sure that if I gave you my history you would not understand four-fifths of it, and the other fifth would shock you. Of course it would—how could it be otherwise? How could you and I look at anything from quite the same point of view?"

"And yet we often agree," said Beatrice, thoughtfully.

"Yes, we do. That is quite true. And that is because a certain sympathy exists between us. I feel that very much when I am with you, and that is one reason why I try to be with you as much as possible."

"You say that is one reason. Have you many others?" Beatrice tried to laugh a little, but she felt somehow that laughter was out of place and that a serious moment in her life had come at last, in which it would be wiser to be grave and to think well of what she was doing.

"One chief one, and many little ones," answered San Miniato. "You are good to me, you are young, you are fresh—you are gifted and unlike the others, and you have a rare charm such as I never met in any woman. Are those not all good reasons? Are they not enough?"

"If they were all true, they would be more than enough. Is the chief reason the last?"

"It is the last of all. I have not given it to you yet. Some things are better not said at all."

"They must be bad things," answered Beatrice, with an air of innocence.

She was beginning to understand, at last, that he really intended to make her a declaration of love. It was unheard of, almost inconceivable. But there he was at her feet, looking very handsome in the moonlight, his face turned up to hers with an unmistakable look of devotion in its rather grave lines. His voice, too, had a new sound in it. Indifferent as he might be by daylight and in ordinary life, the magic of the place and scene affected him a little at the present moment. Perhaps a memory of other years, when his pulse had quickened and his voice had trembled oddly, just touched his heart now and it responded with a faint thrill. For a moment at least he forgot his sordid plan, and Beatrice's own personal attraction was upon him.

And she was very lovely as she sat there, looking down at him, with white folded hands, hatless in the warm night, her eyes full of the dancing rays that trembled upon the softly rippling water.

"If they are not bad things," she said, speaking again, "why do you not tell them to me?"

"You would laugh."

"I have laughed enough to-night. Tell me!"

"Tell you! Yes—that is easy to do. But it would be so hard to make you understand! It is the difference between a word and a thought, between belief and mere show, between truth and hearsay—more than that—much more than I can tell you. It means so much to me—it may mean so little to you, when I have said it!"

"But if you do not say it, how can I guess it, or try to understand it?"

"Would you try? Would you?"

"Yes."

Her voice was soft, gentle, persuasive. She felt something she had never felt, and it must be love, she thought. She had always liked him a little better than the rest. But surely, this was more than mere liking. She had a strange longing to hear him say the words, to start, as her instinct told her she must, when he spoke them, to be told for the first time that she was loved. Is it strange, after all? Young, imaginative and full of life, she had been brought up to believe that she was to be married to some man she scarcely knew, after a week's acquaintance, without so much as having talked five minutes with him alone; she had been taught that love was a legend and matrimony a matter of interest. And yet here was the man whom her mother undoubtedly wished her to marry, not only talking with her as they had often talked before, with no one to hear what was said, but actually on the verge of telling her that he loved her. Could anything be more delicious, more original, more in harmony with the place and hour? And as if all this were not enough, she really felt the touch and thrill of love in her own heart, and the leaping wonder to know what was to come.

She had told him to speak and she waited for his voice. He, on his part, knew that much was at stake, for he saw that she was moved, and that all depended on his words. The fewer the better, he thought, if only there could be a note of passion in them, if only one of them could ring as all of poor Ruggiero's had rung when he had spoken that afternoon. He hesitated and hesitation would be fatal if it lasted another five seconds. He grew desperate. Where were the words and the tone that had broken down the will of other women, far harder to please than this mere child? He felt everything at once, except love. He saw her fortune slipping from him at the very moment of getting it, he felt a little contempt for the part he was playing and a sovereign scorn for his own imbecility, he even anticipated the Marchesa's languid but cutting comments on his failure. One second more, and all was lost—but not a word would come. Then, in sheer despair and with a violence that betrayed it, he seized one of Beatrice's hands in both of his and kissed it madly a score of times. As she interpreted the action, no eloquence of words could have told her more of what she wished to hear. It was unexpected, it was passionate; if it had been premeditated, it would have been a stroke of genius. As it was, it was a stroke of luck for San Miniato. With the true gambler's instinct he saw that he was winning and his hesitation disappeared. His voice trembled passionately now with excitement, if not with love—but it was the same to Beatrice, who heard the quick-spoken words that followed, and drank them in as a thirsty man swallows the first draught of wine he can lay hands on, be it ever so acid.

At the first moment she had been startled and had almost uttered a short cry, half of delight and half of fear. But she had no wish to alarm her mother and the quick thought stifled her voice. She tried to withdraw her hand, but he held it tightly in his own which were cold as ice, and she sat still listening to all he said.

"Ah, Beatrice!" he was saying, "you have given me back life itself! Can you guess what I have lived through in these days? Can you imagine how I have thought of you and suffered day and night, and said to myself that I should never have your love? Can you dream what it must be to a man like me, lonely, friendless, half heart-broken, to find the one jewel worth living for, the one light worth seeking, the one woman worth loving—and then to long for her almost without hope, and so long? It is long, too. Who counts the days or the weeks when he loves? It is as though we had loved from the beginning of our lives! Can you or I imagine what it all was like before we met? I cannot remember that past time. I had no life before it—it is all forgotten, all gone, all buried and for ever. You have made everything new to me, new and beautiful and full of light—ah, Beatrice! How I love you!"

Rather a long speech at such a moment, an older woman would have thought, and not over original in choice of similes and epithets, but fluent enough and good enough to serve the purpose and to turn the current of Beatrice's girlish life. Yet not much of a love-speech. Ruggiero's had been better, as a little true steel is better than much iron at certain moments in life. It succeeded very well at the moment, but its ultimate success would have been surer if it had reached no ears but Beatrice's. Neither she nor San Miniato were aware that a few feet below them a man was lying on his back, with white face and clenched hands, staring at the pale moonlit sky above him, and listening in stony despair to every word that was spoken.

The sight would have disturbed them, had they seen it, though they both were fearless by nature and not easily startled. Had Beatrice seen Ruggiero at that moment, she would have learned once and for ever the difference between real passion and its counterfeit. But Ruggiero knew where he was and had no intention of betraying himself by voice or movement. He suffered almost all that a man can suffer by the heart alone, but he was strong and could bear torture.

The hardest of all was that he understood the real truth, partly by instinct and partly through what he knew of his master. Those rough southern sailors sometimes have a wonderful keenness in discovering the meaning of their masters' doings. Ruggiero held the key to the situation. He knew that San Miniato was poor and that the Marchesa was very rich. He knew very well that San Miniato was not at all in love, for he knew what love really meant, and he could see how the Count always acted by calculation and never from impulse. Best of all he saw that Beatrice was a mere child who was being deceived by the coolly assumed passion of a veteran woman-killer. It was bitterly hard to bear. And he had felt a foreboding of it all in the afternoon—and he wished that he had risked all and brought down the brass tiller on San Miniato's head and submitted to be sent to the galleys for life. He could never have forgotten Beatrice; but San Miniato could never have married her, and that satisfaction would have made chains light and hard labour a pastime.

It was too late to think of such things now. Had he yielded to the first murderous impulse, it would have been better. But he had never struck a man from behind and he knew that he could not do it in cold blood. Yet how much better it would have been! He would not be lying now on the rock, holding his breath and clenching his fists, listening to his Excellency the Count of San Miniato's love making. By this time the Count of San Miniato would be cold, and he, Ruggiero, would be handcuffed and locked up in the little barrack of the gendarmes at Sorrento, and Beatrice with her mother would be recovering from their fright as best they could in the rooms at the hotel, and Teresina would be crying, and Bastianello would be sitting at the door of his brother's prison waiting to see what happened and ready to do what he could. Truly all this would have been much better! But the moment had passed and he must lie on his rock in silence, bound hand and foot by the necessity of hiding himself, and giving his heart to be torn to pieces by San Miniato's aristocratic fine gentleman's hands, and burned through and through by Beatrice's gentle words.

"And so you really love me?" said San Miniato, sure at last of his victory.

"Do you doubt it, after what I have done?" asked Beatrice in a very soft voice. "Did I not leave my hand in yours when you took it so roughly and—you know—-"

"When I kissed it—but I want the words, too—only once, from your beautiful lips—-"

"The words—-" Beatrice hesitated. They were too new to her lips, and a soft blush rose in her cheeks, visible even in the moonlight.

Ruggiero's heart stood still—not for the first time that day. Would she speak the three syllables or not?

As for San Miniato, his excitement had cooled, and he threw all the tenderness he could muster into, his last request, with instinctive tact returning to the more quiet tone he had used at the beginning of the conversation.

"I ask you, Beatrice mia, to say—" he paused, to give the proper effect in the right place—"I love you," he said, completing the sentence very musically and looking up most tenderly into her eyes.

She sighed, blushed again, and turned her head away. Then quite suddenly she looked at him once more, pressed his hand nervously and spoke.

"I love you, carissimo," she said, and rose at the same moment from her seat. "Come—it is time. Mamma will be tired," she added, while he held her hand and pressed it to his lips.

Her confusion had made it easy for him. He would have had difficulty in ending the scene artistically if she had not unconsciously helped him.

Ruggiero clenched his hands a little tighter and tried not to breathe.

"It is a lie," he said in his heart, but his lips never moved, nor did he stir a limb as he listened to the departing footsteps on the ledge above.

Then with the ease of great strength he drew himself along through cranny and hollow till he was far from where they sat, and had reached the place where the boats were made fast. It would seem natural to every one that he should suddenly be standing there to see that all was right, and that none of the moorings had slipped or chafed against the jagged rocks. There he stood, gazing at the rippling water, at the tall yards as they slowly crossed and recrossed the face of the moon, with the rocking of the boats, at the cliffs to the right and left, at the dim headland of the Campanella, at all the sights long familiar to him—seeing none of them and yet feeling that they at least were his own people, that they understood him and knew what he felt—what he had no words with which to tell any one, if he had wished to tell it.

For he who loves and is little loved, or not at all, has no friend, be he of high estate or low, beyond nature, the deep-bosomed, the bountiful, the true; and on her he may lean, trusting, and know that he will not be betrayed. And in time her language will be his. But she will be heard alone when she speaks with him, and without rival, with the full right of a woman who gives all her love and asks for a man's soul in return, recking little of all the world besides. But not all know how kind she is, how merciful and how sweet. For she does not heal broken hearts. She takes them as they are into her own, with all the memory and all the sin, perhaps, and all the bitter sorrow which is the reward of faith and faithlessness alike. She takes them all, and holds them kindly in her own breast, as she has taken the torn limbs of martyred saints and tortured sinners and has softly turned them all into a fragrant dust. And though the ashes of the heart be very bitter, they are after all but dust, which cannot feel of itself any more. Yet there may be something left behind, in the place where it lived and was broken and died, which is not wholly bad, though there be little good in this earth where there is no heart.

Moreover, nature is a silent mistress to all but those who love her, and she tells no tales as men and women do, and forgets none of the secrets which are told to her, for they are our treasures—treasures of love and of hate, of sweetness and of poison, which we lay up in her keeping when we are alone with her, sure that we shall find again all we have given up if we require it of her. But as the years blossom, bloom, and fade in their quick succession, the day will come when we shall ask of her only the balm and be glad to leave the poison hidden, and to forget how we would have used it in old days—when we shall ask her only to give us the memory of a dear and gentle hand—dear still but no longer kind—of the voice that was once a harmony, and whose harsh discord is almost music still—of the hour when love was twofold, stainless and supreme. Those things we shall ask of her and she, in her wonderful tenderness, will give them to us again—in dreams, waking or sleeping, in the sunlit silence of lonely places, in soft nights when the southern sea is still, in the greater loneliness of the storm, when brave faces are set as stone and freezing hands grasp frozen ropes, and the shadow of death rises from the waves and stands between every man and his fellows. We shall ask, and we shall receive. Out of noon-day shadow, out of the starlit dusk, out of the driving spray of the midtempest, one face will rise, one hand will touch our own, one loving, lingering glance will meet ours from eyes that have no look of love for us in them now. These things our lady nature will give us of all those we have given her. But of the others, we shall not ask for them, and she will mercifully forget for us the bitterness of their birth, and life, and death.



CHAPTER VII.



"I THOUGHT I was never to see you again," observed the Marchesa, as Beatrice and San Miniato came to her side.

"Judging from your calm, you were bearing the separation with admirable fortitude," answered the Count.

"Dearest friend, one has to bear so much in this life!"

Beatrice stood beside the table, resting one hand upon it and looking back towards the place where she had been sitting. San Miniato took the Marchesa's hand and raised it to his lips, pressed it a little and then nodded slowly, with a significant look. The Marchesa's sleepy eyes opened suddenly with an expression of startled satisfaction, and she returned the pressure of the fingers with more energy than San Miniato had suspected. She was evidently very much pleased. Perhaps the greatest satisfaction of all was the certainty that she was to have no more trouble in the matter, since it had been undertaken, negotiated and settled by the principals between them. Then she raised her eyebrows and moved her head a little as though to inquire what had taken place, but San Miniato made her understand by a sign that he could not speak before Beatrice.

"Beatrice, my angel," said the Marchesa, with more than usual sweetness, "you have sat so long upon that rock that you have almost reconciled me to Tragara. Do you not think that you could go back and sit there five minutes longer?"

Beatrice glanced quickly at her mother and then at San Miniato and turned away without a word, leaving the two together.

"And now, San Miniato carissimo," said the Marchesa, "sit down beside me on that chair, and tell me what has happened, though I think I already understand. You have spoken to Beatrice?"

"I have spoken—yes—and the result is favourable. I am the happiest of men."

"Do you mean to say that she answered you at once?" asked the Marchesa, affecting, as usual, to be scandalised.

"She answered me—yes, dear Marchesa—she told me that she loved me. It only remains for me to claim the maternal blessing which you so generously promised in advance."

Somehow it was a relief to him to return to the rather stiff and over-formal phraseology which he always used on important occasions when speaking to her, and which, as he well knew, flattered her desire to be thought a very great lady.

"As for my blessing, you shall have it, and at once. But indeed, I am most curious to know exactly what she said, and what you said—I, who am never curious about anything!"

"Two words tell the story. I told her I loved her and she answered that she loved me."

"Dearest friend, how long it took you to say those two words! You must have hesitated a good deal."

"To tell the truth, there was more said than that. I will not deny the grave imputation. I spoke of my past life—"

"Dio mio! To my daughter! How could you—" The Marchesa raised her hands and let them fall again.

"But why not?" asked San Miniato, suppressing a smile. "Have I been such an impossibly bad man that the very mention of my past must shock a young girl—whom I love?" In the last words he found an opportunity to practise the expression of a little passion, and took advantage of it, well knowing that it would be useful in the immediate future.

"I never said that!" protested the Marchesa. "But we all know something about you, dear Don Juan!"

"Calumnies, nothing but calumnies!"

"But such pretty calumnies—you might almost accept them. I should think none the worse of you if they were all true."

"You are charming, dearest Marchesa. I kiss your generous hand! As a matter of fact, I only told Donna Beatrice—may I call her Beatrice to you now, as I have long called her in my heart? I only told her that I had been unhappy, that I had loved twice—once a woman who is dead, once another who has long ago forgotten me. That was all. Was it so very bad? Her heart was softened—she is so gentle! And then I told her that a greater and stronger passion than those now filled my present life, and last of all I told her that I loved her."

"And she returned the compliment immediately?" asked the Marchesa, slowly selecting a sugared chestnut from the plate beside her, turning it round, examining it and at last putting it into her mouth.

"How lightly you speak of what concerns life and death!" sighed San Miniato. "No—Beatrice did not answer immediately. I said much more—far more than I can remember. How can you ask me to repeat word for word the unpremeditated outpourings of a happy passion? The flood has swept by, leaving deep traces—but who can remember where the eddies and rapids were?"

"You are very poetical, caro mio. Your language delights me—it is the language of the heart. Pray give me one of those little cigarettes you smoke. Yes—and a light—and now the least drop of champagne. I will drink your health."

"And I both yours and Beatrice's," answered San Miniato, filling his own glass.

"You may put Beatrice first, since she is yours."

"But without you there would be no Beatrice, gentilissima," said the Count gallantly, when he had emptied his glass.

"That is true, and pretty besides. And so," continued the Marchesa in a tone of languid reflection, "you have actually been making love to my daughter, beyond my hearing, alone on the rocks—and I gave you my permission, and now you are engaged to be married! It is too extraordinary to be believed. That was not the way I was married. There was more formality in those days."

Indeed, she could not imagine the deceased Granmichele throwing himself upon his knees at her feet, even upon the softest of carpets.

"Then I thank the fates that those days are over!" returned San Miniato.

"Perhaps I should, too. I am not sure that the conclusion would have been so satisfactory, if I had undertaken to persuade Beatrice. She is headstrong and capricious, and so painfully energetic! Every discussion with her shortens my life by a year."

"She is an angel in her caprice," answered the Count with conviction. "Indeed, much of her charm lies in her changing moods."

"If she is an angel, what am I?" asked the Marchesa. "Such a contrast!"

"She is the angel of motion—you are the angel of repose."

"You are delightful to-night."

While this conversation was taking place, Beatrice had wandered away over the rocks alone, not heeding the unevenness of the stones and taking little notice of the direction of her walk. She only knew that she would not go back to the place where she had sat, not for all the world. A change had taken place already and she was angry with herself for what she had done in all sincerity.

She was hurt and her first illusion had suffered a grave shock almost at the moment of its birth. She asked herself how it could be possible, if San Miniato loved her as he had said he did, that he should not feel as she felt and understand love as she did—as something secret and sacred, to be kept from other eyes. Her instinct told her easily enough that San Miniato was at that very moment telling her mother all that had taken place, and she bitterly resented the thought. It would surely have been enough, if he had waited until the following day and then formally asked her hand of the Marchesa. It would have been better, more natural in every way, just now when they had gone up to the table, if he had said simply that they loved one another and had asked her mother's blessing. Anything rather than to feel that he was coolly describing the details of the first love scene in her life—the thousandth, perhaps, in his own.

After all, did she love him? Did he really love her? His passionate manner when he had seized her hand had moved her strangely, and she had listened with a sort of girlish wonder to his declarations of devotion afterwards. But now, in the, calm moonlight and quite alone, she could hear Ruggiero's deep strong voice in her ears, and the few manly words he had uttered. There was not much in them in the way of eloquence—a sailor's picturesque phrase—she had heard something like it before. But there had been strength, and the power to do, and the will to act in every intonation of his speech. She remembered every word San Miniato had spoken, far better than he would remember it himself in a day or two, and she was ready to analyse and criticise now what had charmed and pleased her a moment earlier. Why was he going over it all to her mother, like a lesson learnt and repeated? She was so glad to be alone—she would have been so glad to think alone of what she had taken for the most delicious moment of her young life. If he were really in earnest, he would feel as she did and would have said at once that it was late and time to be going home—he would have invented any excuse to escape the interview which her mother would try to force upon him. Could it be love that he felt? And if not, as her heart told her it was not, what was his object in playing such a comedy? She knew well enough, from Teresina, that many a young Neapolitan nobleman would have given his title for her fortune, but Teresina, perhaps for reasons of her own, never dared to cast such an aspersion upon San Miniato, even in the intimate conversation which sometimes takes place between an Italian lady and her maid—and, indeed, if the truth be told, between maids and their mistresses in most parts of the world.

But the doubt thrust itself forward now. Beatrice was quick to doubt at all times. She was also capricious and changeable about matters which did not affect her deeply, and those that did were few enough. It was certainly possible that San Miniato, after all, only wanted her money and that her mother was willing to give it in return for a great name and a great position. She felt that if the case had been stated to her from the first in its true light she might have accepted the situation without illusion, but without disgust. Everybody, her mother said, was married by arrangement, some for one advantage, some for the sake of another. After all, San Miniato was better than most of the rest. There was a certain superiority about him which she would like to see in her husband, a certain simple elegance, a certain outward dignity, which pleased her. But when her mother had spoken in her languid way of the marriage, Beatrice had resented the denial of her free will, and had answered that she would please herself or not marry at all. The Marchesa, far too lacking in energy to sustain such a contest, had contented herself with her favourite expression of horror at her daughter's unfilial conduct. Now, however, Beatrice felt that if it had all been arranged for her, she would have been satisfied, but that since San Miniato had played something very like a comedy, she would refuse to be duped by it. She was very bitter against him in the first revulsion of feeling and treated him more hardly in her thoughts than he, perhaps, deserved.

And there he was, up there by the table, telling her mother of his success. Her blood rose in her cheeks at the thought and she stamped her foot upon the rock out of sheer anger at herself, at him, at everything and everybody. Then she moved on.

Ruggiero was standing at the edge of the water looking out to sea. The moonlight silvered his white face and fair beard and accentuated the sharp black line where his sailor's cap crossed his forehead. Wild and angry emotions chased each other from his heart to his brain and back again, firing his overwrought nerves and heated blood, as the flame runs along a train of powder. He heard a light step behind him and turned suddenly. Beatrice was close upon him.

"Is that you, Ruggiero," she asked, for she had seen him with his back turned and had not recognised him at first.

"Yes, Excellency," he answered in a hoarse voice, touching his cap.

"What a beautiful night it is!" said the young girl. She often talked with the men in the boat, and Ruggiero interested her especially at the present moment.

"Yes, Excellency," he answered again.

"Is the weather to be fine, Ruggiero?"

"Yes, Excellency."

Ruggiero was apparently not in the conversational mood. He was probably thinking of the girl he loved—in all likelihood of Teresina, as Beatrice thought. She stood still a couple of paces from him and looked at the sea. She felt a capricious desire to make the big sailor talk and tell her something about himself. It would be sure to be interesting and honest and strong, a contrast, as she fancied, to the things she had just heard.

"Ruggiero—-" she began, and then she stopped and hesitated.

"Yes, Excellency."

The continual repetition of the two words irritated her. She tried to frame a question to which he could not give the same answer.

"I would like you to tell me who it is whom you love so dearly—is she good and beautiful and sensible, too, as you said?"

"She is all that, Excellency." His voice shook, not as it seemed to her with weakness, but with strength.

"Tell me her name."

Ruggiero was silent for some moments, and his head was bent forward. He seemed to be breathing hard and not able to speak.

"Her name is Beatrice," he said at last, in a low, firm tone as though he were making a great effort.

"Really!" exclaimed the young girl. "That is my name, too. I suppose that is why you did not want to tell me. But you must not be afraid of me, Ruggiero. If there is anything I can do to help you, I will do it. Is it money you need? I will give you some."

"It is not money."

"What is it, then?"

"Love—and a miracle."

His answers came lower and lower, and he looked at the ground, suffering as he had never suffered and yet indescribably happy in speaking with her, and in seeing the interest she felt in him. But his brain was beginning to reel. He did not know what he might say next.

"Love and a miracle!" repeated Beatrice in her silvery voice. "Those are two things which I cannot get for you. You must pray to the saints for the one and to her for the other. Does she not love you at all then?"

"She will never love me. I know it."

"And that would be the miracle—if she ever should? Such miracles have been done by men themselves without the help of the saints, before now."

Ruggiero looked up sharply and he felt his hands shaking. He thought she was speaking of what had just happened, of which he had been a witness.

"Such miracles as that may happen—but they are the devil's miracles."

Beatrice was silent for a moment. She was indeed inclined to believe in a special intervention of the powers of evil in her own case. Had she not been suddenly moved to tell a man that she loved him, only to discover a moment later that it was a mistake?

"What is the miracle you pray for, Ruggiero?" she asked after a pause.

"To be changed into some one else, Excellency."

"And then—would she love you?"

"By Our Lady's grace—perhaps!" The deep voice shook again. He set his teeth, folded his arms over his throbbing breast, and planted one foot firmly on a stone before him, as though to await a blow.

"I am very sorry for you, Ruggiero," said Beatrice in soft, kind tones.

"God render you your kindness—it is better than nothing," he answered.

"Is she sorry for you, too? She should be—you love her so much."

"Yes—she is sorry for me. She has just said so." He raised his clenched hand to his mouth almost before the words were uttered. Beatrice did not see the few bright red drops that fell upon the rock as he gnawed the flesh.

"Just said so?" she said, repeating his words. "I do not understand? Is she here to-night?"

He did not answer, but slowly bent his head, as though in assent. An odd foreboding of danger shot through the young girl's heart. Little as the man said, he seemed desperate. It was possible that the girl he loved might be a Capriote, and that he might have met her and talked with her while the dinner was going on. He might have strangled her with those great hands of his. She would not have uttered a cry, and no one would be the wiser, for Tragara is a lonely place, by day and night.

"She is here, you say?" Beatrice asked again. "Where is she? Ruggiero, what is the matter? Have you done her any harm? Have you hurt her? Have you killed her?"

"Not yet—-"

"Not yet!" Beatrice cried, in a low horror-struck tone. She had heard his sharp, agonised breathing as he reeled unsteadily against the rock behind him. She was a rarely courageous girl. Instead of shrinking she made a step forward and took him firmly by the arm.

"What have you done, Ruggiero?" she asked sternly.

He felt that she was accusing him. His face grew ashy white, and grave—almost grand, she thought afterwards, for she remembered long the look he wore. His answer came slowly in deep, vibrating tones.

"I have done nothing—but love her."

"Show her to me—take me to her," said Beatrice, still dreading some horrible deed, she scarcely knew why.

"She is here."

"Where?"

"Here!—Ah, Christ."

His great hands went out madly as though to take her, then tenderly touched the loose sleeves she wore, then fell, as though lifeless, to his sides again.

Beatrice passed her hand over her eyes and drew back quickly a step. She was startled and angered, but not frightened. It was almost the repetition of the waking dream that had flitted through her brain before she had landed. She had heard the grand ring of passionate love this once at least—and how? In the voice of a common sailor—out of the heart of an ignorant fellow who could neither read nor write, nor speak his own language, a churl, a peasant's son, a labourer—but a man, at least. That was it—a strong, honest, fearless man. That was why it all moved her so—that was why it was not an insult that this low-born fellow should dare to tell her he loved her. She opened her lids again and saw his great figure leaning back against the rock, his white face turned upward, his eyes half closed. She went near to him again. Instantly, he made an effort and stood upright. Her instinct told her that he wanted neither pity nor forgiveness nor comfort.

"You are a brave, strong man, Ruggiero; I will always pray that you may love some one who will love you again—since you can love so well."

The unspoiled girl's nature had found the right expression, and the only one. Ruggiero looked at her one moment, stooped and touched the hem of her white frock with two fingers and then pressed them silently to his lips. Who knows from what far age that outward act of submission and vassalage has been handed down in southern lands? There it is to this day, rarely seen, but still surviving and still known to all.

Then Ruggiero turned away and went up the sloping rocks again, and Beatrice stood still for a moment, watching his tall, retreating figure. She meant to go, too, but she lingered a while, knowing that if ever she came back to Tragara, this would be the spot where she would pause and recall a memory, and not that other, where she had sat while San Miniato played out his wretched little comedy.

It all rushed across her mind again, bringing a new sense of disgust and repulsion with it, and a new blush of shame and anger at having been so deceived. There was no doubt now. The contrast had been too great, too wide, too evident. It was the difference between truth and hearsay, as San Miniato had said once that night. There was no mistaking the one for the other.

Poor Ruggiero! that was why he was growing pale and thin. That was why his arm trembled when he helped her into the boat. She leaned against the rock and wondered what it all meant, whether there were really any justice in heaven or any happiness on earth. But she would not marry San Miniato, now, for she had given no promise. If she had done so, she would not have broken it—in that, at least, she was like other girls of her age and class. Next to evils of which she knew nothing, the breaking of a promise of marriage was the greatest and most unpardonable of sins, no matter what the circumstances might be. But she was sure that she had not promised anything.

At that moment in her meditations she heard the tread of a man's heel on the rocks. The sailors were all barefoot, and she knew it must be San Miniato. Unwilling to be alone with him even for a minute, she sprang lightly forward to meet him as he came. He held out his hand to help her, but she refused it by a gesture and hurried on.

"I have been speaking with your mother," he said, trying to take advantage of the thirty or forty yards that still remained to be traversed.

"So I suppose, as I left you together," she answered in a hard voice. "I have been talking to Ruggiero."

"Has anything displeased you, Beatrice?" asked San Miniato, surprised by her manner.

"No. Why do you call me Beatrice?" Her tone was colder than ever.

"I suppose I might be permitted—"

"You are not."

San Miniato looked at her in amazement, but they were already within earshot of the Marchesa, who had not moved from her long chair, and he did not risk anything more, not knowing what sort of answer he might get. But he was no novice, and as soon as he thought over the situation he remembered others similar to it in his experience, and he understood well enough that a sensitive young girl might feel ashamed of having shown too much feeling, or might have taken offence at some detail in his conduct which had entirely escaped his own notice. Young and vivacious women are peculiarly subject to this sort of sensitiveness, as he was well aware. There was nothing to be done but to be quiet, attentive in small things, and to wait for fair weather again. After all, he had crossed the Rubicon, and had been very well received on the other side. It would not be easy to make him go back again.

"My angel," said the Marchesa, throwing away the end of her cigarette, "you have caught cold. We must go home immediately."

"Yes, mamma."

With all her languor and laziness and selfishness, the Marchesa was not devoid of tact, least of all where her own ends were concerned, and when she took the trouble to have any object in life at all. She saw in her daughter's face that something had annoyed her, and she at once determined that no reference should be made to the great business of the moment, and that it would be best to end the evening in general conversation, leaving San Miniato no further opportunity of being alone with Beatrice. She guessed well enough that the girl was not really in love, but had yielded in a measure to the man's practised skill in love-making, but she was really anxious that the result should be permanent.

Beatrice was grateful to her for putting an end to the situation. The young girl was pale and her bright eyes had suddenly grown tired and heavy. She sat down beside her mother and shaded her brow against the lamp with her hand, while San Miniato went to give orders about returning.

"My dear child," said the Marchesa, "I am converted; it has been a delightful excursion; we have had an excellent dinner, and I am not at all tired. I am sure you have given yourself quite as much trouble about it as San Miniato."

Beatrice laughed nervously.

"There were a good many things to remember," she said, "but I wish there had been twice as many—it was so amusing to make out the list of all your little wants."

"What a good daughter you are to me, my angel," sighed the Marchesa.

It was not often that she showed so much, affection. Possibly she was rarely conscious of loving her child very much, and on the present occasion the emotion was not so overpowering as to have forced her to the expression of it, had she not seen the necessity for humouring the girl and restoring her normal good temper. On the whole, a very good understanding existed between the two, of such a nature that it would have been hard to destroy it. For it was impossible to quarrel with the Marchesa, for the simple reason that she never attempted to oppose her daughter, and rarely tried to oppose any one else. She was quite insensible to Beatrice's occasional reproaches concerning her indolence, and Beatrice had so much sense, in spite of her small caprices and whims, that it was always safe to let her have her own way. The consequence was that difficulties rarely arose between the two.

Beatrice smiled carelessly at the affectionate speech. She knew its exact value, but was not inclined to depreciate it in her own estimation. Just then she would rather have been left alone with her mother than with any one else, unless she could be left quite to herself.

"You are always very good to me, mamma," she answered; "you let me have my own way, and that is what I like best."

"Let you have it, carissima! You take it. But I am quite satisfied."

"After all, it saves you trouble," laughed Beatrice.

Just then San Miniato came back and was greatly relieved to see that Beatrice's usual expression had returned, and to hear her careless, tuneful laughter. In an incredibly short space of time the boat was ready, the Marchesa was lifted in her chair and carried to it, and all the party were aboard. The second boat, with its crew, was left to bring home the paraphernalia, and Ruggiero cast off the mooring and jumped upon the stern, as the men forward dipped their oars and began to pull out of the little sheltered bay.

There he sat again, perched in his old place behind his master, the latter's head close to his knee, holding the brass tiller in his hand. It would be hard to say what he felt, but it was not what he had felt before. It was all a dream, now, the past, the present and the future. He had told Beatrice—Donna Beatrice Granmichele, the fine lady—that he loved her, and she had not laughed in his face, nor insulted him, nor cried out for help. She had told him that he was brave and strong. Yet he knew that he had put forth all his strength and summoned all his courage in the great effort to be silent, and had failed. But that mattered little. He had got a hundred, a thousand times more kindness than he would have dared to hope for, if he had ever dared to think of saying what he had really said. He had been forced to what he had done, as a strong man is forced struggling against odds to the brink of a precipice, and he had found not death, but a strange new strength to live. He had not found Heaven, but he had touched the gates of Paradise and heard the sweet clear voice of the angel within. It was well for him that his hand had not been raised that afternoon to deal the one blow that would have decided his life. It was well that it was the summer time and that when he had put the helm down to go about there had been no white squall seething along with its wake of snowy foam from a quarter of a mile to windward. It would have been all over now and those great moments down there by the rocks would never have been lived.

"Through the arch, Ruggiero," said San Miniato to him as the boat cleared the rocks of the landward needle.