To Win the Love He Sought Part 2

The Englishman descended the stairs and went slowly back to his seat. He had only one thought. In a few hours' time he would see her again. It would be Paradise!

He reached his table and sat down. The seat opposite to him was empty.

The Sicilian had gone.

CHAPTER III

"BETTER THOU WERT DEAD BEFORE ME"

On the brow of the Hill Fiolesse, at a sharp angle in the white dusty road, a man and woman stood talking. On one side of them was a grove of flowering magnolias, and on the other a high, closely-trimmed hedge skirted the grounds of the Villa Fiolesse. There was not another soul in sight, but, as though the place were not secure enough from interruption, the girl, every now and then, glanced half fearfully around her, and more than once paused in the middle of a sentence to listen. At last her fears escaped from her lips.

"Leonardo, I wish that you had not come!" she cried. "What is the good of it? I shall have no rest till I know that you are beyond the sea again."

His face darkened, and his tone was gloomy and sad.

"Beyond the seas, while my heart is chained forever here, Margharita!"

he answered. "Ah! I have tried, and I know the bitterness of it. You cannot tell what exile has been like to me. I could bear it no longer.

Tell me, child! I watched you climb this hill together. You looked back and saw me, and waited. Did she see me, too? Quick! answer me! I will know! She saw me on the Marina. Did she know that I was following her?"

"I think she saw you. She said nothing when I lingered behind. It was as though she knew."

The Sicilian clasped his hands, and looked away over the sea. The moonlight fell upon his weary pallid face, and glistened in his dark sad eyes. He spoke more to himself than her.

"She knew! And yet she would not wait to speak a single word to me! Ah!

it is cruel! If only she could know how night by night, in those far-distant countries, I have lain on the mountain tops, and wandered through the valleys, thinking and dreaming of her--always of her! It has been an evil time with me, my sister, a time of dreary days and sleepless nights. And this the end of it! My heart is faint and sick with longing, and I hastened here before it should break. I must see her, Margharita! Let us hasten on to the villa!"

She laid her hand upon his arm. Her eyes were soft with coming tears.

"Leonardo, listen," she cried. "It is best to tell you. She will not see you. She is quite firm. She is angry with you for coming."

"Angry with me! Angry because I love her, so that I risk my life just to see her, to hear her speak! Ah! but that is cruel! Let me go in and speak to her! Let me plead with her in my own fashion!"

She shook her head.

"Leonardo, the truth is best," she said softly. "Adrienne does not love you. She is quite determined not to see you again. Even I, pleading with tears in my eyes, could not persuade her. She has locked herself in her room while she prepares for the concert. You could not see her unless you forced yourself upon her, and that would not do."

"No, I would not do that," he answered wearily. "Margharita, there is a question; I must ask it, though the answer kill me. Is there--any one else?"

She shook her head.

"There is no one else, Leonardo, yet. But what matter is that, since it cannot be you? Some day it will come. All that a sister could do, I have done. She pities you, Leonardo, but she does not love you. She never will!"

He moved from the open s.p.a.ce, where the moonlight fell upon his marble face, to the shadow of the magnolia grove. He stood there quite silent for a moment. Then he spoke in a strained, hard voice, which she scarcely recognized.

"Margharita, you have done your best for me. You do not know what a man's love is, or you would not wonder that I suffer so much. Yet, if it must be, it must. I will give her up. I will go back to my exile and forget her. Yet since I am here, grant me a last favor. Let me see her to say farewell."

She looked up at him in distress.

"Leonardo, how can I? She has given orders that under no circ.u.mstances whatever are you to be admitted."

"But to say farewell!"

"She would not believe it. It has been so before, Leonardo, and then you have been pa.s.sionate, and pleaded your cause all over again. I have promised that I will never ask her to see you again."

"Then let me see her without asking. You can find an opportunity, if you will. For my sake, Margharita!"

She laid her troubled, tear-stained face upon his shoulder.

"It is wrong of me, Leonardo. Yet, if you will promise me to say farewell, and farewell only----"

"Be it so! I promise!"

"Well, then, each night we have walked past the Marina, and home by the mountain road. It is a long way round and it is lonely; but we have Pietro with us, and on these moonlight nights the view is like fairy-land."

"And will you come that way home to-night, after the concert?"

"Yes."

"It is good."

"You will remember your promise, Leonardo," she said anxiously.

"I will remember," he answered. "And, Margharita, since this is to be our farewell, I have something to say to you also, before I pa.s.s away from your life into my exile. In Rome I was told a thing which for a moment troubled me. I say for a moment, because it was for a moment only that I believed it. The man who told me was my friend, or he would have answered to me for it, as for an insult. Shall I tell you, Margharita, what this thing was?"

Her face was troubled, and her eyes were downcast. The Sicilian watched her confusion with darkening brows. Since she made no answer, he continued:

"They told me, Margharita, that you, a Marioni, daughter of one of Europe's grandest families, daughter of a race from which princes have sprung, and with whom, in the old days, kings have sought alliance, they told me that you were betrothed to some low American, a trader, a man without family or honor. They told me this, Margharita, and I answered them that they lied. Forgive me for the shadow of a doubt which crossed my mind, sister. Forgive me that I beg for a denial from your own lips."

She lifted her head. She was pale, but her dark eyes had an indignant sparkle in them.

"They did lie, Leonardo," she answered firmly, "but not in the fact itself. It is true that I am engaged to be married."

"Betrothed! Without my sanction! Margharita, how is that? Am I not your guardian?"

"Yes, but, Leonardo, you have been away, and no one knew when you would return, or where you were."

"It is enough. Tell me of the man to whom you are betrothed. I would know his name and family."

"Leonardo, his name is Martin Briscoe, and his family--he has no family that you would know of. It is true that he is an American, but he is a gentleman."

"An American! It is perhaps also true that he is a trader?"

His coolness alarmed her. She looked into his face and trembled.

"I do not know; it may be so. His father----"