It was no wonder that when Francesca was called in to administer her remedies to the handsome young Englishman, Violante should accompany her, nor that, later on, when the Englishman, restored to health, called on his skilful doctress to offer her his thanks, Violante should have been found in the cottage eating eggs and vermicelli with her peasant foster-brothers.
On the fascination which this beautiful half-educated girl soon grew to have for him Sefton touched but lightly. It was, on his side, a delirium that came to an end with the summer’s moon under which it had had its birth. While it lasted, however, it led him over the bounds of prudence, and he accepted an invitation from the Marchese to make the Palazzo his headquarters, and thence visit the places of interest in the neighbourhood.
And before the first week of his visit had come to an end, he had made Violante an offer of marriage which, with her father’s approval, she had accepted.
Then with a start he had awakened from his dream of passion, and told himself what a fool he had been to think of introducing the ill-trained, half-educated, and penniless Violante to his aristocratic English friends as his wife. He set his wits to work to find a way out of the entanglement, and could see one only—flight. That even to be accomplished successfully had to be craftily contrived, for he had no mind to run the gauntlet of the stilettoes or bullets of Violante’s numerous foster-brothers or half-savage cousins. So, under pretext of a journey to England to prepare his mother to receive his beautiful bride, he had said goodbye to the Marchese and Violante, begging them during his absence to make all preparations for the wedding-day, and promising a speedy return.
That promise, it need scarcely be said, had never been fulfilled.
After his flight from Alta Lauria, Captain Culvers had remained for some months in Paris, and there had drifted into dissipations that had left an indelible mark on his character. For some time after his return to England he had lived in the expectation of the story of the Calabrian episode in some way or other becoming known, and of his character suffering accordingly.
It was under the influence of this feeling that he had resigned his commission. When, however, a year passed by, and Violante’s friends made no sign, he concluded that the matter had blown over, and did his best to dismiss it from his thoughts.
He ended his story, saying that he had never in remotest fancy connected Ida’s disappearance with this episode in his life; nor could he in any way explain how nor by whom she had been inveigled into that “accursed Alta Lauria—a nest of wild, hot-blooded ruffians.”
With reference to Ida’s disappearance, his impression from first to last had been either that she and Juliet were playing off some trick on him, doing their utmost, in fact, to make him look like a fool, or else that Ida, having come to the conclusion that married life with him would be an impossibility, had taken the first step in a plan which she and Juliet had arranged together, and of which he would hear more anon. He would give his “word of honour” that this was the simple truth so far as he was concerned.
The phrase, his “word of honour,” came jarringly as “Finis” to such a narrative.
For a few minutes there fell a dead silence in the room—a silence, however, which, to Sefton’s fancy, seemed charged with the contempt and scorn that not a doubt his two hearers felt for him.
Lord Culvers was the first to break that silence.
“My dead brother’s only son!” was all he said by way of comment on the tale.
He did not hurl the words at his nephew, challenging reply and defence; they came rather as the words of a sigh that could not be repressed.
Sefton turned upon him fiercely.
“Surrounded with such a set of desperate ruffians, there was no course but flight open to me. You, yourself, in the circumstances, would have done precisely the same thing.”
Clive felt that it was not the time for either attack or defence. His business training and daily companionship with his father had taught him one thing if nothing else: that to lose self-control at a crisis in affairs, meant to let go the helm and let the vessel drive.
“The most terrible part of the whole thing is that Ida should be in the midst of such a den at the present moment,” he interposed, hurriedly. “We must put every thought but this out of our minds.”
Personally he felt such a course to be imperative. Here was he compelled, by force of circumstances, to act the comrade to a man whom he would have delighted to call a scoundrel to his face. Once give his tongue license, and that comradeship must collapse.
Lord Culvers made no reply. He was wandering slowly, helplessly almost, round the room, collecting papers and other of his possessions, with which he had littered Clive’s sitting-room earlier in the day.
It was easy to see his intention.
“You wouldn’t be fit for it. You’d break down before we got across the frontier,” said Sefton, a little roughly, but not unkindly.
“It will be easy to telegraph to you daily—every few hours, if you like—and then you can follow us step by step, as
