how can  you ask? Of course I  am  speaking only  of the
three or four months that I shall be away. Will you go to one of the Fathers
of Santa Caterina?"
     "Very well."
     They talked of other matters for a little while; then Arthur rose.
     "I must go, Padre; the students will be waiting for me."
     The haggard look came back to Montanelli's face.
     "Already? You had almost charmed away my black mood. Well, good-bye."
     "Good-bye. I will be sure to come to-morrow."
     "Try to come early,  so that I  may  have time to see you alone. Father
Cardi will be here. Arthur, my  dear boy, be careful while I  am gone; don't
be led into  doing anything rash, at  least before  I come back.  You cannot
think how anxious I feel about leaving you."
     "There is no  need, Padre; everything is quite quiet. It will be a long
time yet."
     "Good-bye," Montanelli said abruptly, and sat down to his writing.
     The  first person upon whom Arthur's eyes fell, as  he entered the room
where the  students' little gatherings were held,  was his old playmate, Dr.
Warren's daughter. She was sitting in a corner by the window, listening with
an absorbed and  earnest face to what one of the "initiators," a  tall young
Lombard in a  threadbare coat, was saying to her. During the last few months
she  had changed  and  developed greatly,  and now  looked a grown-up  young
woman, though the dense black plaits still hung down her back in school-girl
fashion. She was dressed all in black, and had thrown a black scarf over her
head,  as the  room was  cold and  draughty. At  her  breast was a spray  of
cypress,  the  emblem  of   Young  Italy.  The  initiator  was  passionately
describing  to  her  the  misery  of the  Calabrian  peasantry; and  she sat
listening silently, her chin resting on one hand and her eyes on the ground.
To Arthur  she seemed  a melancholy vision of Liberty mourning  for the lost
Republic. (Julia would  have seen  in her only an  overgrown hoyden, with  a
sallow complexion, an  irregular nose, and an old  stuff frock that was  too
short for her.)
     "You here, Jim!" he said, coming up to  her when the initiator had been
called to the other end of the room. "Jim" was a childish corruption  of her
curious  baptismal  name:  Jennifer.  Her  Italian  schoolmates  called  her
"Gemma."
     She raised her head with a start.
     "Arthur! Oh, I didn't know you--belonged here!"
     "And I had no idea about you. Jim, since when have you----?"
     "You don't understand!"  she interposed quickly. "I am not a member. It
is only that I have done one or  two little things. You see, I met Bini--you
know Carlo Bini?"
     "Yes, of course." Bini was the organizer of the Leghorn branch; and all
Young Italy knew him.
     "Well, he  began  talking  to me about these things; and I asked him to
let  me go  to  a  students' meeting.  The other  day  he  wrote  to  me  to
Florence------Didn't  you  know I  had been to  Florence  for  the Christmas
holidays?"
     "I don't often hear from home now."
     "Ah, yes! Anyhow,  I went  to stay with the Wrights." (The Wrights were
old schoolfellows of hers who  had moved to  Florence.) "Then Bini wrote and
told me to pass through  Pisa to-day  on my  way home,  so that I could come
here. Ah! they're going to begin."
     The lecture was upon the ideal  Republic and the  duty of  the young to
fit  themselves for  it. The  lecturer's  comprehension of his  subject  was
somewhat vague; but Arthur listened with devout admiration. His mind at this
period was curiously uncritical; when he accepted a moral ideal he swallowed
it whole without stopping to think whether it was quite digestible. When the
lecture and the  long discussion which  followed it  were  finished and  the
students began to disperse, he went  up to Gemma, who was still  sitting  in
the corner of the room.
     "Let me walk with you, Jim. Where are you staying?"
     "With Marietta."
     "Your father's old housekeeper?"
     "Yes; she lives a good way from here."
     They walked for some time in silence. Then Arthur said suddenly:
     "You are seventeen, now, aren't you?"
     "I was seventeen in October."
     "I always knew you would not grow up like other girls and begin wanting
to go to balls and  all that sort  of thing.  Jim,  dear,  I have  so  often
wondered whether you would ever come to be one of us."
     "So have I."
     "You  said you had done things  for Bini; I  didn't know  you even knew
him."
     "It wasn't for Bini; it was for the other one"
     "Which other one?"
     "The one that was talking to me to-night-- Bolla."
     "Do you know him  well?" Arthur put in with a little touch of jealousy.
Bolla  was a sore subject with him; there  had  been  a rivalry between them
about some work  which the committee of Young Italy had finally intrusted to
Bolla, declaring Arthur too young and inexperienced.
     "I know him pretty well; and I like  him very much. He has been staying
in Leghorn."
     "I know; he went there in November------"
     "Because  of  the steamers. Arthur, don't you think your house would be
safer than ours  for that work? Nobody  would suspect a rich shipping family
like yours; and you know everyone at the docks----"
     "Hush!  not so loud, dear! So it  was  in  your  house the  books  from
Marseilles were hidden?"
     "Only for one day. Oh! perhaps I oughtn't to have told you."
     "Why not?  You  know  I belong to the  society. Gemma,  dear, there  is
nothing in all the world that would make me so happy as for you to join us--
you and the Padre."
     "Your Padre! Surely he----"
     "No;   he  thinks  differently.  But  I  have  sometimes  fancied--that
is--hoped--I don't know----"
     "But, Arthur! he's a priest."
     "What  of that? There are priests in the society --two of them write in
the paper. And why  not?  It is the mission  of the  priesthood  to lead the
world to higher ideals and aims, and  what else  does the society try to do?
It is, after all, more a religious and moral question than a  political one.
If people are fit to  be free and responsible citizens, no one can keep them
enslaved."
     Gemma knit her brows. "It seems to me, Arthur," she said, "that there's
a muddle somewhere in  your logic.  A priest teaches  religious  doctrine. I
don't see what that has to do with getting rid of the Austrians."
     "A  priest is  a  teacher  of  Christianity,  and  the greatest of  all
revolutionists was Christ."
     "Do you know,  I was talking about priests to father the other day, and
he said----"
     "Gemma, your father is a Protestant."
     After a little pause she looked round at him frankly.
     "Look here, we  had  better leave  this subject  alone.  You are always
intolerant when you talk about Protestants."
     "I didn't mean to be intolerant. But I think Protestants are  generally
intolerant when they talk about priests."
     "I dare say. Anyhow, we have so often quarreled over this subject  that
it is not worth while to begin again. What did you think of the lecture?"
     "I liked it very much--especially the last part. I was glad he spoke so
strongly about the need of living the Republic, not dreaming of it. It is as
Christ said: 'The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.'"
     "It was just that part that  I didn't like. He  talked so much  of  the
wonderful things we ought  to think and  feel and  be, but he never told  us
practically what we ought to do."
     "When the  time of  crisis comes there will be plenty for us to do; but
we must be patient; these great changes are not made in a day."
     "The longer a thing is to take doing, the more reason to begin at once.
You talk about being fit for freedom--did you ever know anyone so fit for it
as  your  mother? Wasn't she the most perfectly angelic woman you ever  saw?
And  what use  was  all her  goodness?  She  was  a slave till  the  day she
died--bullied and worried and insulted by your brother  James and his  wife.
It  would have been much  better  for her if she  had not been so sweet  and
patient; they would  never have  treated her so. That's just  the  way  with
Italy; it's not patience that's wanted--it's  for  somebody to  get  up  and
defend themselves------"
     "Jim, dear, if anger and passion could have saved Italy she  would have
been free long ago; it is not hatred that she needs, it is love."
     As he said the word a sudden flush went up to his forehead and died out
again.  Gemma  did  not  see it;  she  was looking straight  before her with
knitted brows and set mouth.
     "You  think I  am  wrong,  Arthur,"  she said after a pause;  "but I am
right,  and you will grow to see it  some day.  This is the house. Will  you
come in?"
     "No; it's late. Good-night, dear!"
     He was standing on the doorstep, clasping her hand in both of his.
     "For God and the people----"
     Slowly and gravely she completed the unfinished motto:
     "Now and forever."
     Then she pulled away her hand and ran into the house. When the door had
closed behind her  he stooped and picked up  the spray of  cypress which had
fallen from her breast.
     ARTHUR went back to his lodgings feeling as though he had wings. He was
absolutely,  cloudlessly  happy.  At  the meeting  there  had been hints  of
preparations for  armed insurrection; and now Gemma  was a  comrade, and  he
loved her. They  could work  together,  possibly even die together, for  the
Republic that was to be. The blossoming time of their hope was come, and the
Padre would see it and believe.
     The  next  morning, however, he awoke in a soberer mood and  remembered
that Gemma was  going to Leghorn  and  the Padre to Rome. January, February,
March--three  long  months  to  Easter!  And  if  Gemma  should  fall  under
"Protestant"  influences at home (in Arthur's vocabulary "Protestant"  stood
for "Philistine")------ No, Gemma  would never learn to flirt and simper and
captivate tourists  and bald-headed shipowners, like the other English girls
in  Leghorn; she  was  made  of  different  stuff.  But  she might  be  very
miserable; she was so young, so friendless, so utterly alone among all those
wooden people. If only mother had lived----
     In  the  evening he  went  to the seminary, where  he  found Montanelli
entertaining the  new Director and looking  both tired and bored. Instead of
lighting up, as usual, at the sight of Arthur, the Padre's face grew darker.
     "This is the student I spoke to you about," he said, introducing Arthur
stiffly. "I shall be much obliged if  you  will allow him to continue  using
the library."
     Father  Cardi,  a  benevolent-looking  elderly priest,  at  once  began
talking to Arthur  about the Sapienza, with  an ease  and familiarity  which
showed  him to  be well acquainted with college  life. The conversation soon
drifted into a discussion  of university regulations, a burning question  of
that day. To Arthur's great delight, the new Director spoke strongly against
the custom adopted by the university authorities of constantly  worrying the
students by senseless and vexatious restrictions.
     "I  have had a  good deal of experience  in guiding young  people,"  he
said; "and I make  it  a  rule never to prohibit  anything  without  a  good
reason.  There  are  very few young men who will give much trouble if proper
consideration and respect for  their personality are shown  to them. But, of
course, the most docile horse will  kick  if you are always  jerking at  the
rein."
     Arthur opened his  eyes wide; he had not expected to hear the students'
cause  pleaded  by  the  new  Director.  Montanelli  took  no  part  in  the
discussion; its subject, apparently, did not interest him. The expression of
his face was  so  unutterably hopeless and weary that Father Cardi broke off
suddenly.
     "I  am  afraid  I  have overtired  you,  Canon.  You  must  forgive  my
talkativeness; I am hot upon this subject and forget that  others  may  grow
weary of it."
     "On the contrary, I was  much  interested." Montanelli was not given to
stereotyped politeness, and his tone jarred uncomfortably upon Arthur.
     When Father Cardi went to his own room Montanelli turned to Arthur with
the intent and brooding look that his face had worn all the evening.
     "Arthur, my dear boy," he began slowly; "I have something to tell you."
     "He must  have had bad  news,"  flashed  through  Arthur's mind, as  he
looked anxiously at the haggard face. There was a long pause.
     "How do you like the new Director?" Montanelli asked suddenly.
     The question was so unexpected that, for a moment, Arthur was at a loss
how to reply to it.
     "I--I like him very much,  I think--at least--  no, I am not quite sure
that I do. But it is difficult to say, after seeing a person once."
     Montanelli sat beating his hand gently on the arm of his chair; a habit
with him when anxious or perplexed.
     "About this  journey to Rome," he  began again; "if you  think there is
any--well--if you wish it, Arthur, I will write and say I cannot go."
     "Padre! But the Vatican------"
     "The Vatican will find someone else. I can send apologies."
     "But why? I can't understand."
     Montanelli drew one hand across his forehead.
     "I am anxious  about you. Things keep  coming  into my  head--and after
all, there is no need for me to go------"
     "But the bishopric----"
     "Oh, Arthur!  what  shall  it  profit  me  if  I  gain a bishopric  and
lose----"
     He  broke  off.  Arthur  had never seen  him like this before, and  was
greatly troubled.
     "I can't  understand," he said.  "Padre,  if you could  explain  to  me
more--more definitely, what it is you think------"
     "I think nothing; I am haunted with  a horrible fear. Tell me, is there
any special danger?"
     "He has heard something," Arthur thought, remembering the whispers of a
projected  revolt. But the  secret  was not  his  to  tell;  and  he  merely
answered: "What special danger should there be?"
     "Don't question me--answer me!" Montanelli's voice was almost  harsh in
its eagerness.  "Are you in danger? I don't want to know your secrets;  only
tell me that!"
     "We are all  in  God's hands, Padre;  anything may always happen. But I
know  of no reason why  I should not  be  here alive and safe when  you come
back."
     "When I come back----Listen, carino; I will leave it in your hands. You
need give me no  reason; only  say  to me, 'Stay,' and  I will  give up this
journey.  There will be no injury to anyone, and I  shall feel you are safer
if I have you beside me."
     This  kind  of  morbid  fancifulness  was  so foreign  to  Montanelli's
character that Arthur looked at him with grave anxiety.
     "Padre,  I am sure you are not well. Of course you must go to Rome, and
try  to  have  a  thorough  rest and  get  rid  of  your  sleeplessness  and
headaches."
     "Very well," Montanelli  interrupted, as if tired of  the  subject;  "I
will start by the early coach to-morrow morning."
     Arthur looked at him, wondering.
     "You had something to tell me?" he said.
     "No,  no;  nothing  more--nothing of  any  consequence."  There  was  a
startled, almost terrified look in his face.
     A few  days  after  Montanelli's departure Arthur went  to fetch a book
from the seminary library, and met Father Cardi on the stairs.
     "Ah,  Mr. Burton!"  exclaimed the  Director; "the very person I wanted.
Please come in and help me out of a difficulty."
     He opened the study door, and Arthur followed  him into the room with a
foolish, secret sense of  resentment. It seemed hard to see this dear study,
the Padre's own private sanctum, invaded by a stranger.
     "I am a terrible book-worm," said the  Director; "and my first act when
I got here was to examine the library. It seems very interesting,  but I  do
not understand the system by which it is catalogued."
     "The catalogue is  imperfect; many of the best books have been added to
the collection lately."
     "Can you spare half an hour to explain the arrangement to me?"
     They  went  into  the  library,  and  Arthur  carefully  explained  the
catalogue. When he rose to take his hat, the Director interfered, laughing.
     "No, no! I can't have you rushing off in that way. It is  Saturday, and
quite  time for  you to leave off work till  Monday morning.  Stop  and have
supper with me, now I  have kept you so late. I am quite alone, and shall be
glad of company."
     His manner was so bright and pleasant that Arthur felt at ease with him
at once. After some desultory  conversation, the Director  inquired how long
he had known Montanelli.
     "For about seven years. He came back from China when I was twelve years
old."
     "Ah, yes! It  was there that he gained his  reputation as  a missionary
preacher. Have you been his pupil ever since?"
     "He  began teaching me  a  year later, about  the  time  when  I  first
confessed to him.  Since I  have been at  the Sapienza he has  still gone on
helping me  with anything  I wanted to study that  was  not in  the  regular
course. He has been very kind to me--you can hardly imagine how kind."
     "I can well believe it; he is a man whom  no one can  fail to admire--a
most noble and beautiful  nature. I have  met priests who were  out in China
with him; and they had no words high enough to praise his energy and courage
under all hardships, and his unfailing  devotion. You are  fortunate to have
had in your youth the help and guidance of such a man. I understood from him
that you have lost both parents."
     "Yes; my father died when I was a child, and my mother a year ago."
     "Have you brothers and sisters?"
     "No; I have step-brothers; but they were business men when I was in the
nursery."
     "You  must  have  had  a  lonely  childhood;  perhaps you  value  Canon
Montanelli's kindness  the  more for that.  By  the way, have you  chosen  a
confessor for the time of his absence?"
     "I  thought  of going to one of the  fathers of Santa Caterina, if they
have not too many penitents."
     "Will you confess to me?"
     Arthur opened his eyes in wonder.
     "Reverend Father, of course I--should be glad; only----"
     "Only the Director  of a theological seminary  does not usually receive
lay penitents? That is quite true. But I know Canon Montanelli takes a great
interest in you, and I fancy he is a little anxious on your behalf--just  as
I should be if I were leaving a favourite pupil--and  would like to know you
were under the spiritual guidance  of his colleague. And, to  be quite frank
with you,  my son, I like  you,  and should  be glad to give you any help  I
can."
     "If you put  it that way, of course I  shall be very grateful  for your
guidance."
     "Then you will come to me next  month? That's  right. And run in to see
me, my lad, when you have time any evening."
     . . . . .
     Shortly before  Easter Montanelli's appointment  to  the  little see of
Brisighella, in the Etruscan  Apennines,  was officially announced. He wrote
to  Arthur  from  Rome in a  cheerful  and  tranquil  spirit;  evidently his
depression was passing over.  "You must come to  see  me every vacation," he
wrote; "and I shall often be coming to Pisa; so I hope to see a good deal of
you, if  not so  much  as  I should wish." Dr. Warren had  invited Arthur to
spend  the  Easter holidays with him and  his children,  instead of  in  the
dreary, rat-ridden old place  where Julia  now reigned supreme.  Enclosed in
the  letter was  a  short  note,  scrawled  in Gemma's  childish,  irregular
handwriting,  begging  him to  come if possible,  "as I  want to talk to you
about  something." Still more encouraging  was  the  whispered communication
passing around from student to student in the university; everyone was to be
prepared for great things after Easter.
     All this  had put  Arthur  into a  state  of rapturous anticipation, in
which the wildest improbabilities hinted at among the students seemed to him
natural and likely to be realized within the next two months.
     He  arranged to go home  on  Thursday in Passion week, and to spend the
first days of the vacation there, that  the pleasure of visiting the Warrens
and the delight of seeing Gemma might not unfit him for the solemn religious
meditation demanded by the  Church  from all her children at this season. He
wrote  to Gemma, promising to  come  on Easter Monday;  and  went up to  his
bedroom on Wednesday night with a soul at peace.
     He knelt down before the crucifix. Father Cardi had promised to receive
him in  the  morning;  and  for this, his last  confession before the Easter
communion, he must prepare himself by long and earnest prayer. Kneeling with
clasped hands  and bent head, he looked back over the month, and reckoned up
the  miniature sins of  impatience, carelessness, hastiness of temper, which
had left  their faint, small  spots  upon the whiteness of his soul.  Beyond
these  he  could find nothing; in  this month he  had  been too happy to sin
much. He crossed himself, and, rising, began to undress.
     As  he unfastened  his  shirt  a  scrap  of  paper slipped from  it and
fluttered to  the floor.  It was  Gemma's letter, which he had worn all  day
upon his neck.  He picked it up,  unfolded it, and kissed the dear scribble;
then  began folding the paper up again,  with a dim consciousness of  having
done  something very ridiculous,  when he noticed on the back of the sheet a
postscript which  he had not  read  before.  "Be  sure  and  come as soon as
possible," it ran, "for I want you to meet Bolla. He  has been staying here,
and we have read together every day."
     The hot colour went up to Arthur's forehead as he read.
     Always Bolla! What was he doing in Leghorn again? And  why should Gemma
want to read with him? Had he bewitched her with his smuggling? It  had been
quite easy to  see at the meeting in January that he  was in love with  her;
that was  why he had  been  so earnest over his propaganda. And  now he  was
close to her--reading with her every day.
     Arthur suddenly  threw the letter aside and knelt down again before the
crucifix.  And this  was the soul that was preparing for absolution, for the
Easter sacrament--the soul at peace with God and itself and all the world! A
soul capable of sordid jealousies and suspicions; of selfish animosities and
ungenerous hatred--and against  a comrade!  He covered his  face  with  both
hands in bitter  humiliation. Only five minutes ago he had  been dreaming of
martyrdom; and now he had been guilty of a mean and petty thought like this!
     When he entered the seminary chapel on Thursday morning he found Father
Cardi alone.  After repeating  the  Confiteor,  he plunged at  once into the
subject of his last night's backsliding.
     "My father, I accuse  myself of the sins of jealousy and anger,  and of
unworthy thoughts against one who has done me no wrong."
     Farther Cardi  knew quite well  with  what kind of  penitent he  had to
deal. He only said softly:
     "You have not told me all, my son."
     "Father, the man against whom I have thought an  unchristian thought is
one whom I am especially bound to love and honour."
     "One to whom you are bound by ties of blood?"
     "By a still closer tie."
     "By what tie, my son?"
     "By that of comradeship."
     "Comradeship in what?"
     "In a great and holy work."
     A little pause.
     "And your anger against this--comrade, your jealousy of him, was called
forth by his success in that work being greater than yours?"
     "I--yes, partly.  I  envied him his  experience--  his  usefulness. And
then--I thought--I feared-- that he would take from me the heart of the girl
I--love."
     "And this girl that you love, is she a daughter of the Holy Church?"
     "No; she is a Protestant."
     "A heretic?"
     Arthur  clasped  his hands  in  great  distress.  "Yes,  a heretic," he
repeated. "We were brought  up together; our mothers were friends--and I  --
envied him, because I saw that he loves her, too, and because--because----"
     "My son," said Father Cardi, speaking  after a moment's silence, slowly
and gravely, "you have still not told me all; there is  more  than this upon
your soul."
     "Father, I----" He faltered and broke off again.
     The priest waited silently.
     "I  envied him  because  the  society--the Young Italy--that  I  belong
to------"
     "Yes?"  Intrusted him with a work that I had hoped --would be  given to
me, that I had thought myself --specially adapted for."
     "What work?"
     "The  taking in of books--political books--from the steamers that bring
them--and finding a hiding place for them--in the town------"
     "And this work was given by the party to your rival?"
     "To Bolla--and I envied him."
     "And he gave you no cause for this  feeling? You  do  not accuse him of
having neglected the mission intrusted to him?"
     "No, father; he has worked bravely and devotedly;  he is a true patriot
and has deserved nothing but love and respect from me."
     Father Cardi pondered.
     "My son, if there is within you a new light, a dream of some great work
to be  accomplished  for your  fellow-men, a hope  that  shall  lighten  the
burdens of the  weary and oppressed, take  heed how  you  deal with the most
precious  blessing of  God.  All good things are of  His giving; and of  His
giving is  the new birth. If you have found the  way of  sacrifice, the  way
that  leads to  peace;  if you  have joined with loving  comrades  to  bring
deliverance to them that weep and mourn in secret; then see  to it that your
soul be free from envy and passion  and  your  heart as an altar  where  the
sacred fire  burns eternally. Remember  that this is a high and holy  thing,
and  that  the  heart  which  would receive it  must  be purified from every
selfish thought. This vocation is as the vocation of a priest; it is not for
the love of a woman, nor for the moment of a fleeting passion; it is FOR GOD
AND THE PEOPLE; it is NOW AND FOREVER."
     "Ah!" Arthur started and  clasped his hands;  he  had  almost burst out
sobbing  at the motto.  "Father,  you  give  us the sanction of  the Church!
Christ is on our side----"
     "My son," the priest answered solemnly, "Christ drove the moneychangers
out of the Temple, for His House shall be called a House of Prayer, and they
had made it a den of thieves."
     After a long silence, Arthur whispered tremulously:
     "And Italy shall be His Temple when they are driven out----"
     He stopped; and the soft answer came back:
     "'The earth and the fulness thereof are mine, saith the Lord.'"
        PART I: CHAPTER V.
     THAT afternoon Arthur felt the  need of a  long walk.  He intrusted his
luggage to a fellow-student and went to Leghorn on foot.
     The day was damp and cloudy, but not  cold; and the low,  level country
seemed  to  him fairer than he had ever  known  it to look before. He had  a
sense of  delight in the soft elasticity of the wet grass under his feet and
in the shy, wondering eyes of the wild  spring flowers by the roadside. In a
thorn-acacia  bush at the edge of a little strip of wood a bird was building
a nest, and flew up as he passed with a startled cry  and a quick fluttering
of brown wings.
     He  tried to keep his mind fixed upon the devout meditations  proper to
the eve of Good Friday. But thoughts  of Montanelli and Gemma got so much in
the way of this devotional exercise that at last he gave  up the attempt and
allowed  his fancy to  drift away to the wonders and glories  of the  coming
insurrection, and to the part in it that he had allotted to  his  two idols.
The Padre was to be the leader, the apostle, the prophet before whose sacred
wrath  the powers  of  darkness were  to  flee,  and at whose feet the young
defenders of Liberty were to learn afresh the old doctrines,  the old truths
in their new and unimagined significance.
     And Gemma? Oh, Gemma would fight at the barricades. She was made of the
clay from which heroines are moulded; she would be the  perfect comrade, the
maiden undefiled and unafraid, of whom so many poets have dreamed. She would
stand  beside  him,  shoulder   to  shoulder,  rejoicing  under  the  winged
death-storm;  and  they  would  die  together,  perhaps  in  the  moment  of
victory--without doubt there would be a victory. Of  his love  he would tell
her nothing; he  would say no word that might disturb her peace or spoil her
tranquil sense  of  comradeship. She  was to  him a holy  thing, a  spotless
victim to be laid upon the altar as a burnt-offering for the deliverance  of
the people; and who was he that he should  enter into the white sanctuary of
a soul that knew no other love than God and Italy?
     God and Italy----Then came a sudden drop from  the clouds as he entered
the  great,  dreary house  in  the "Street of Palaces,"  and Julia's butler,
immaculate, calm, and politely disapproving as ever, confronted him upon the
stairs.
     "Good-evening, Gibbons; are my brothers in?"
     "Mr. Thomas is in, sir; and Mrs. Burton. They are in the drawing room."
     Arthur went in with a dull sense of oppression. What a  dismal house it
was! The flood of  life seemed  to roll past  and leave it always just above
high-water  mark.  Nothing in  it ever changed-- neither the people, nor the
family portraits,  nor the heavy furniture  and  ugly plate, nor  the vulgar
ostentation  of riches,  nor the lifeless  aspect of  everything.  Even  the
flowers on the brass stands looked like painted metal flowers that had never
known the stirring of young sap within them in the warm spring  days. Julia,
dressed for dinner, and waiting for  visitors in the drawing room which  was
to her  the centre of existence, might have sat  for a fashion-plate just as
she was, with her  wooden smile and flaxen ringlets, and  the lap-dog on her
knee.
     "How  do you do, Arthur?" she said stiffly, giving him the tips of  her
fingers for a  moment,  and  then  transferring them to the  more  congenial
contact of the lap-dog's  silken  coat. "I hope you  are quite well and have
made satisfactory progress at college."
     Arthur murmured  the first commonplace that  he could  think of  at the
moment, and  relapsed into uncomfortable  silence. The  arrival of James, in
his most pompous mood and  accompanied  by a stiff, elderly  shipping-agent,
did not improve  matters; and when Gibbons announced that dinner was served,
Arthur rose with a little sigh of relief.
     "I won't  come  to dinner, Julia.  If you'll excuse me I will  go to my
room."
     "You're overdoing that fasting, my boy," said Thomas; "I am sure you'll
make yourself ill."
     "Oh, no! Good-night."
     In the  corridor Arthur  met the under housemaid and asked her to knock
at his door at six in the morning.
     "The signorino is going to church?"
     "Yes. Good-night, Teresa."
     He went into his room.  It had belonged  to his mother,  and the alcove
opposite the  window  had  been  fitted  up  during her  long illness  as an
oratory. A great  crucifix  on  a black pedestal occupied the middle  of the
altar; and before it hung a little Roman lamp. This  was the  room where she
had  died. Her portrait was on the  wall beside the  bed; and on  the  table
stood a china bowl  which had been hers, filled with  a  great bunch of  her
favourite violets.  It  was  just  a year since  her death; and the  Italian
servants had not forgotten her.
     He took  out of his portmanteau a framed picture, carefully wrapped up.
It was a crayon portrait of Montanelli,  which had come from Rome only a few
days  before. He was  unwrapping this  precious treasure  when  Julia's page
brought in  a  supper-tray  on  which the old Italian  cook,  who had served
Gladys  before  the  harsh,  new  mistress  came,  had  placed  such  little
delicacies  as she considered her dear signorino might permit himself to eat
without infringing the rules of the Church. Arthur refused everything  but a
piece of  bread;  and  the  page,  a nephew of Gibbons,  lately arrived from
England, grinned  significantly  as he carried out the tray. He had  already
joined the Protestant camp in the servants' hall.
     Arthur went into the alcove and knelt down before  the crucifix, trying
to compose his mind to  the proper attitude  for prayer  and meditation. But
this  he  found difficult to  accomplish. He  had,  as  Thomas said,  rather
overdone  the Lenten privations, and  they had gone to his head  like strong
wine. Little quivers of excitement went down his back, and the crucifix swam
in  a misty  cloud before his  eyes.  It  was  only  after  a  long  litany,
mechanically  repeated,  that  he   succeeded  in  recalling  his  wandering
imagination  to  the  mystery  of the  Atonement.  At  last  sheer  physical
weariness conquered the feverish agitation of his nerves, and he lay down to
sleep  in a  calm and  peaceful mood,  free from all  unquiet or  disturbing
thoughts.
     He was fast asleep when a sharp, impatient knock came at his door. "Ah,
Teresa!"  he thought, turning over lazily.  The  knock was  repeated, and he
awoke with a violent start.
     "Signorino! signorino!" cried a man's voice in Italian; "get up for the
love of God!"
     Arthur jumped out of bed.
     "What is the matter? Who is it?"
     "It's I, Gian Battista. Get up, quick, for Our Lady's sake!"
     Arthur  hurriedly  dressed  and  opened  the  door.  As  he  stared  in
perplexity at  the coachman's pale, terrified  face,  the sound of  tramping
feet and  clanking metal came along the  corridor, and  he suddenly realized
the truth.
     "For me?" he asked coolly.
     "For you! Oh, signorino, make  haste! What have you to hide? See, I can
put----"
     "I have nothing to hide. Do my brothers know?"
     The first uniform appeared at the turn of the passage.
     "The signor has  been  called; all  the  house  is  awake. Alas! what a
misfortune--what  a  terrible misfortune! And on  Good  Friday! Holy Saints,
have pity!"
     Gian Battista burst into tears.  Arthur moved a few steps  forward  and
waited for the gendarmes, who came clattering along, followed by a shivering
crowd of  servants in various impromptu costumes. As the soldiers surrounded
Arthur, the master and  mistress of the house  brought up  the rear of  this
strange  procession;  he  in  dressing  gown and  slippers, she  in  a  long
peignoir, with her hair in curlpapers.
     "There is, sure, another flood toward, and these couples  are coming to
the ark! Here comes a pair of very strange beasts!"
     The  quotation  flashed  across  Arthur's  mind  as  he looked  at  the
grotesque  figures.  He  checked  a  laugh  with  a  sense  of  its  jarring
incongruity--this  was a  time for  worthier  thoughts.  "Ave  Maria, Regina
Coeli!" he whispered, and turned his eyes away, that the bobbing of  Julia's
curlpapers might not again tempt him to levity.
     "Kindly  explain to  me," said  Mr.  Burton, approaching the officer of
gendarmerie,  "what is the meaning of this  violent intrusion into a private
house?  I warn  you  that,  unless you  are  prepared to furnish  me  with a
satisfactory explanation, I  shall  feel bound to  complain  to  the English
Ambassador."
     "I presume," replied the officer stiffly, "that you will recognize this
as  a  sufficient  explanation; the English  Ambassador certainly  will." He
pulled out a warrant for the arrest of Arthur Burton, student of philosophy,
and,  handing  it to  James, added  coldly:  "If you  wish  for  any further
explanation, you had better apply in person to the chief of police."
     Julia snatched the paper from her husband, glanced over it, and flew at
Arthur like nothing else in the world but a fashionable lady in a rage.
     "So it's you that have  disgraced  the  family!" she screamed; "setting
all the rabble  in the town gaping and staring as if the thing were a  show?
So  you have  turned jail-bird, now, with all your piety! It's what we might
have expected from that Popish woman's child----"
     "You  must not  speak to a prisoner in a foreign language,  madam," the
officer  interrupted;  but  his remonstrance  was hardly audible  under  the
torrent of Julia's vociferous English.
     "Just  what we  might have expected! Fasting  and  prayer  and  saintly
meditation; and this is what was underneath it  all! I thought that would be
the end of it."
     Dr. Warren had once  compared Julia to a salad into  which the cook had
upset  the vinegar cruet. The  sound of her  thin,  hard voice set  Arthur's
teeth on edge, and the simile suddenly popped up in his memory.
     "There's no use in this kind of talk," he said. "You need not be afraid
of  any  unpleasantness; everyone  will understand  that you  are all  quite
innocent. I suppose, gentlemen, you want to search my things. I have nothing
to  hide." The  gendarmes,  meanwhile, had  finished their  search, and  the
officer in charge requested Arthur to put on his outdoor clothes. He  obeyed
at once and turned to leave the room; then  stopped with  sudden hesitation.
It  seemed  hard  to  take leave of his mother's oratory in the presence  of
these officials.
     "Have  you  any objection  to leaving the room for a moment?" he asked.
"You see that I cannot escape and that there is nothing to conceal."
     "I am sorry, but it is forbidden to leave a prisoner alone."
     "Very well, it doesn't matter."
     He  went  into the alcove, and,  kneeling  down, kissed  the  feet  and
pedestal of  the crucifix, whispering  softly: "Lord,  keep me faithful unto
death."
     When  he  rose,  the  officer  was standing  by  the  table,  examining
Montanelli's portrait. "Is this a relative of yours?" he asked.
     "No; it is my confessor, the new Bishop of Brisighella."
     On  the  staircase  the  Italian  servants  were  waiting, anxious  and
sorrowful.  They  all loved Arthur  for his  own sake and his  mother's, and
crowded round him, kissing his  hands and  dress with passionate grief. Gian
Battista stood by, the tears dripping  down his gray  moustache. None of the
Burtons  came  out  to  take  leave  of him. Their coldness  accentuated the
tenderness and  sympathy of the servants, and Arthur  was  near  to breaking
down as he pressed the hands held out to him.
     "Good-bye,  Gian  Battista.  Kiss  the  little ones  for  me. Good-bye,
Teresa. Pray for me, all of you; and God keep you! Good-bye, good-bye!"
     He  ran  hastily downstairs to  the front door.  A moment later only  a
little group of silent men and sobbing women  stood on the doorstep watching
the carriage as it drove away.PART I: CHAPTER VI.
     ARTHUR was taken to the huge mediaeval fortress at the harbour's mouth.
He found prison life  fairly endurable. His  cell was  unpleasantly damp and
dark; but he had been brought  up in a  palace in the Via Borra, and neither
close air, rats, nor foul smells were novelties to him.  The food, also, was
both bad  and insufficient; but James  soon obtained permission to send  him
all the necessaries of life  from home. He was kept in solitary confinement,
and,  though  the  vigilance of  the  warders was less  strict  than he  had
expected,  he failed  to obtain  any explanation of the cause of his arrest.
Nevertheless,  the  tranquil frame of  mind in  which  he  had  entered  the
fortress  did not change. Not  being allowed books,  he  spent  his time  in
prayer and devout meditation, and waited without impatience  or anxiety  for
the further course of events.
     One day a soldier  unlocked  the door of  his cell and  called  to him:
"This way, please!" After two  or three questions, to which he got no answer
but,  "Talking  is forbidden," Arthur resigned himself to the inevitable and
followed  the  soldier  through a  labyrinth of  courtyards,  corridors, and
stairs, all more or less musty-smelling, into a large, light  room in  which
three persons  in military uniform  sat at a  long  table covered with green
baize and littered with papers, chatting  in a languid, desultory  way. They
put on a  stiff,  business  air  as he  came in, and the  oldest of  them, a
foppish-looking man with gray whiskers and a colonel's uniform, pointed to a
chair   on  the   other  side   of  the  table  and  began  the  preliminary
interrogation.
     Arthur  had  expected to be threatened, abused, and sworn  at, and  had
prepared  himself to answer with dignity and patience; but he was pleasantly
disappointed.  The  colonel  was  stiff,  cold  and  formal,  but  perfectly
courteous. The usual questions as to his name,  age, nationality, and social
position were put and  answered, and the replies written down in  monotonous
succession. He  was beginning to feel bored and impatient, when  the colonel
asked:
     "And now, Mr. B