________________________________________________
_ The details of Harriet's crime were never known. In her
illness she spoke more of the inlaid box that she lent to
Lilia--lent, not given--than of recent troubles. It was clear
that she had gone prepared for an interview with Gino, and
finding him out, she had yielded to a grotesque temptation.
But how far this was the result of ill-temper, to what
extent she had been fortified by her religion, when and how
she had met the poor idiot--these questions were never
answered, nor did they interest Philip greatly. Detection
was certain: they would have been arrested by the police of
Florence or Milan, or at the frontier. As it was, they had
been stopped in a simpler manner a few miles out of the town.
As yet he could scarcely survey the thing. It was too
great. Round the Italian baby who had died in the mud there
centred deep passions and high hopes. People had been
wicked or wrong in the matter; no one save himself had been
trivial. Now the baby had gone, but there remained this
vast apparatus of pride and pity and love. For the dead,
who seemed to take away so much, really take with them
nothing that is ours. The passion they have aroused lives
after them, easy to transmute or to transfer, but well-nigh
impossible to destroy. And Philip knew that he was still
voyaging on the same magnificent, perilous sea, with the sun
or the clouds above him, and the tides below.
The course of the moment--that, at all events, was
certain. He and no one else must take the news to Gino. It
was easy to talk of Harriet's crime--easy also to blame the
negligent Perfetta or Mrs. Herriton at home. Every one had
contributed--even Miss Abbott and Irma. If one chose, one
might consider the catastrophe composite or the work of
fate. But Philip did not so choose. It was his own fault,
due to acknowledged weakness in his own character.
Therefore he, and no one else, must take the news of it to Gino.
Nothing prevented him. Miss Abbott was engaged with
Harriet, and people had sprung out of the darkness and were
conducting them towards some cottage. Philip had only to
get into the uninjured carriage and order the driver to
return. He was back at Monteriano after a two hours'
absence. Perfetta was in the house now, and greeted him
cheerfully. Pain, physical and mental, had made him
stupid. It was some time before he realized that she had
never missed the child.
Gino was still out. The woman took him to the
reception-room, just as she had taken Miss Abbott in the
morning, and dusted a circle for him on one of the horsehair
chairs. But it was dark now, so she left the guest a little
lamp.
"I will be as quick as I can," she told him. "But there
are many streets in Monteriano; he is sometimes difficult to
find. I could not find him this morning."
"Go first to the Caffe Garibaldi," said Philip,
remembering that this was the hour appointed by his friends
of yesterday.
He occupied the time he was left alone not in
thinking--there was nothing to think about; he simply had to
tell a few facts--but in trying to make a sling for his
broken arm. The trouble was in the elbow-joint, and as long
as he kept this motionless he could go on as usual. But
inflammation was beginning, and the slightest jar gave him
agony. The sling was not fitted before Gino leapt up the
stairs, crying--
"So you are back! How glad I am! We are all waiting--"
Philip had seen too much to be nervous. In low, even
tones he told what had happened; and the other, also
perfectly calm, heard him to the end. In the silence
Perfetta called up that she had forgotten the baby's evening
milk; she must fetch it. When she had gone Gino took up the
lamp without a word, and they went into the other room.
"My sister is ill," said Philip, "and Miss Abbott is
guiltless. I should be glad if you did not have to trouble them."
Gino had stooped down by the way, and was feeling the
place where his son had lain. Now and then he frowned a
little and glanced at Philip.
"It is through me," he continued. "It happened because
I was cowardly and idle. I have come to know what you will do."
Gino had left the rug, and began to pat the table from
the end, as if he was blind. The action was so uncanny that
Philip was driven to intervene.
"Gently, man, gently; he is not here."
He went up and touched him on the shoulder.
He twitched away, and began to pass his hands over
things more rapidly--over the table, the chairs, the entire
floor, the walls as high as he could reach them. Philip had
not presumed to comfort him. But now the tension was too
great--he tried.
"Break down, Gino; you must break down. Scream and
curse and give in for a little; you must break down."
There was no reply, and no cessation of the sweeping hands.
"It is time to be unhappy. Break down or you will be
ill like my sister. You will go--"
The tour of the room was over. He had touched
everything in it except Philip. Now he approached him. He
face was that of a man who has lost his old reason for life
and seeks a new one.
"Gino!"
He stopped for a moment; then he came nearer. Philip
stood his ground.
"You are to do what you like with me, Gino. Your son is
dead, Gino. He died in my arms, remember. It does not
excuse me; but he did die in my arms."
The left hand came forward, slowly this time. It
hovered before Philip like an insect. Then it descended and
gripped him by his broken elbow.
Philip struck out with all the strength of his other
arm. Gino fell to the blow without a cry or a word.
"You brute!" exclaimed the Englishman. "Kill me if you
like! But just you leave my broken arm alone."
Then he was seized with remorse, and knelt beside his
adversary and tried to revive him. He managed to raise him
up, and propped his body against his own. He passed his arm
round him. Again he was filled with pity and tenderness.
He awaited the revival without fear, sure that both of them
were safe at last.
Gino recovered suddenly. His lips moved. For one
blessed moment it seemed that he was going to speak. But he
scrambled up in silence, remembering everything, and he made
not towards Philip, but towards the lamp.
"Do what you like; but think first--"
The lamp was tossed across the room, out through the
loggia. It broke against one of the trees below. Philip
began to cry out in the dark.
Gino approached from behind and gave him a sharp pinch.
Philip spun round with a yell. He had only been pinched on
the back, but he knew what was in store for him. He struck
out, exhorting the devil to fight him, to kill him, to do
anything but this. Then he stumbled to the door. It was
open. He lost his head, and, instead of turning down the
stairs, he ran across the landing into the room opposite.
There he lay down on the floor between the stove and the
skirting-board.
His senses grew sharper. He could hear Gino coming in
on tiptoe. He even knew what was passing in his mind, how
now he was at fault, now he was hopeful, now he was
wondering whether after all the victim had not escaped down
the stairs. There was a quick swoop above him, and then a
low growl like a dog's. Gino had broken his finger-nails
against the stove.
Physical pain is almost too terrible to bear. We can
just bear it when it comes by accident or for our good--as it
generally does in modem life--except at school. But when it
is caused by the malignity of a man, full grown, fashioned
like ourselves, all our control disappears. Philip's one
thought was to get away from that room at whatever sacrifice
of nobility or pride.
Gino was now at the further end of the room, groping by
the little tables. Suddenly the instinct came to him. He
crawled quickly to where Philip lay and had him clean by the
elbow.
The whole arm seemed red-hot, and the broken bone grated
in the joint, sending out shoots of the essence of pain.
His other arm was pinioned against the wall, and Gino had
trampled in behind the stove and was kneeling on his legs.
For the space of a minute he yelled and yelled with all the
force of his lungs. Then this solace was denied him. The
other hand, moist and strong, began to close round his throat.
At first he was glad, for here, he thought, was death at
last. But it was only a new torture; perhaps Gino inherited
the skill of his ancestors--and childlike ruffians who flung
each other from the towers. Just as the windpipe closed,
the hand fell off, and Philip was revived by the motion of
his arm. And just as he was about to faint and gain at last
one moment of oblivion, the motion stopped, and he would
struggle instead against the pressure on his throat.
Vivid pictures were dancing through the pain--Lilia dying
some months back in this very house, Miss Abbott bending
over the baby, his mother at home, now reading evening
prayers to the servants. He felt that he was growing
weaker; his brain wandered; the agony did not seem so
great. Not all Gino's care could indefinitely postpone the
end. His yells and gurgles became mechanical--functions of
the tortured flesh rather than true notes of indignation and
despair. He was conscious of a horrid tumbling. Then his
arm was pulled a little too roughly, and everything was
quiet at last.
"But your son is dead, Gino. Your son is dead, dear
Gino. Your son is dead."
The room was full of light, and Miss Abbott had Gino by
the shoulders, holding him down in a chair. She was
exhausted with the struggle, and her arms were trembling.
"What is the good of another death? What is the good of
more pain?"
He too began to tremble. Then he turned and looked
curiously at Philip, whose face, covered with dust and foam,
was visible by the stove. Miss Abbott allowed him to get
up, though she still held him firmly. He gave a loud and
curious cry--a cry of interrogation it might be called.
Below there was the noise of Perfetta returning with the
baby's milk.
"Go to him," said Miss Abbott, indicating Philip. "Pick
him up. Treat him kindly."
She released him, and he approached Philip slowly. His
eyes were filling with trouble. He bent down, as if he
would gently raise him up.
"Help! help!" moaned Philip. His body had suffered too
much from Gino. It could not bear to be touched by him.
Gino seemed to understand. He stopped, crouched above
him. Miss Abbott herself came forward and lifted her friend
in her arms.
"Oh, the foul devil!" he murmured. "Kill him! Kill him
for me."
Miss Abbott laid him tenderly on the couch and wiped his
face. Then she said gravely to them both, "This thing stops
here."
"Latte! latte!" cried Perfetta, hilariously ascending
the stairs.
"Remember," she continued, "there is to be no revenge.
I will have no more intentional evil. We are not to fight
with each other any more."
"I shall never forgive him," sighed Philip.
"Latte! latte freschissima! bianca come neve!"
Perfetta came in with another lamp and a little jug.
Gino spoke for the first time. "Put the milk on the
table," he said. "It will not be wanted in the other
room." The peril was over at last. A great sob shook the
whole body, another followed, and then he gave a piercing
cry of woe, and stumbled towards Miss Abbott like a child
and clung to her.
All through the day Miss Abbott had seemed to Philip
like a goddess, and more than ever did she seem so now.
Many people look younger and more intimate during great
emotion. But some there are who look older, and remote, and
he could not think that there was little difference in
years, and none in composition, between her and the man
whose head was laid upon her breast. Her eyes were open,
full of infinite pity and full of majesty, as if they
discerned the boundaries of sorrow, and saw unimaginable
tracts beyond. Such eyes he had seen in great pictures but
never in a mortal. Her hands were folded round the
sufferer, stroking him lightly, for even a goddess can do no
more than that. And it seemed fitting, too, that she should
bend her head and touch his forehead with her lips.
Philip looked away, as he sometimes looked away from the
great pictures where visible forms suddenly become
inadequate for the things they have shown to us. He was
happy; he was assured that there was greatness in the
world. There came to him an earnest desire to be good
through the example of this good woman. He would try
henceforward to be worthy of the things she had revealed.
Quietly, without hysterical prayers or banging of drums, he
underwent conversion. He was saved.
"That milk," said she, "need not be wasted. Take it,
Signor Carella, and persuade Mr. Herriton to drink."
Gino obeyed her, and carried the child's milk to
Philip. And Philip obeyed also and drank.
"Is there any left?"
"A little," answered Gino.
"Then finish it." For she was determined to use such
remnants as lie about the world.
"Will you not have some?"
"I do not care for milk; finish it all."
"Philip, have you had enough milk?"
"Yes, thank you, Gino; finish it all."
He drank the milk, and then, either by accident or in
some spasm of pain, broke the jug to pieces. Perfetta
exclaimed in bewilderment. "It does not matter," he told
her. "It does not matter. It will never be wanted any
more." _
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