Again and again the prince made desperate attempts to free himself
For a time the others were incapable of action. Merrihew, Kitty, O'Mally and Smith were in the dark as to what had passed verbally; they could only surmise. But here was something they all understood. La Signorina was first to recover. She sprang toward the combatants and grasped Hillard's hand, the one buried in the prince's throat, and pulled. She was not strong enough.
"Merrihew, O'Mally, quick! He is killing him!" she cried wildly.
The two, Merrihew and O'Mally, finally succeeded in separating the men, and none too soon. The prince staggered to a chair and sank heavily into it. A moment more and he had been a dead man. But he was not grateful to any one.
La Signorina turned upon Hillard. "And you would have done this thing before my very eyes!"
"I was mad," he panted, shamed. "I love you better than anything else in God's world, and this man means that I shall lose you."
"And you would have come to me across his blood?" wrathfully.
"I was not thinking of that. The only thought I had was to kill him. God knows I'm sorry enough." And he was.
"Ah, what a night!" She swayed and pressed her hand over her eyes. "No, do not touch me," she said. "I am not the kind of woman who faints."
The prince lurched toward Hillard, but fortunately Merrihew heard the slithering sound of the saber as it left its scabbard. Kitty screamed and O'Mally shouted. Merrihew, with a desperate lunge, stopped the blow. He received a rough cut over the knuckles, but he was not aware of this till the excitement was past. He flung the saber at O'Mally's feet.
"You speak English," said Merrihew, in an ugly temper, half regretting that he had interfered with Hillard. "You may send your orderly to the Hotel Italie to-morrow morning, and your saber will be given to him. You will not carry it back to Florence to-night. Now, it is time to excuse yourself. We can get along without you nicely."
The prince tore at his mustaches. He would have put them all to the sword gladly. Meddlers! To return to Florence without his saber was dishonor. He cursed them all roundly, after the manner of certain husbands, and turned to La Signorina.
"I am in the way here," he said, controlling his passion with difficulty. "But listen attentively to what I say: you shall remain my wife so long as both of us live. I had intended arranging your freedom, once the estate and moneys were divided, but not now. You shall read my wife till the end of the book; for unless I meet you half-way, the marriage contract can not be broken. In the old days it was your conscience. The still small voice seems no longer to trouble you," turning suggestively to Hillard. "You are stopping at the Hotel Italie?"
"I am. You will find me there," returned Hillard, with good understanding.
"Good! Your Highness, to-morrow night I shall have the extreme pleasure of running your lover through the throat." He picked up his cap, which lay on one of the chairs, put it on cavalierly, and took his princely presence out of their immediate vicinity.
"It will do my soul good to stand before that scoundrel," said Hillard, stretching out his hands and closing them with crushing force. "He has felt the power of my hand to-night. I will kill him."
La Signorina laid a hand on his arm. "No, Mr. Hillard, you will fight no duel."
"And why not? I do not see how it can be avoided."
"You have told me that you love me. As it stands I may sometimes see you, but if you kill him, never."
"He is far more likely to kill me," said Hillard morosely. "And perhaps it would be a kind service."
"Shame!" she cried. "Have you no courage? Can you not accept the inevitable manfully? Think of me. I can fight no duels; I must live on and on, tied legally to this man. And it is you who will add misery to my unhappiness? You will not fight him," with the assurance of one who has offered a complete argument.
"Very well. To be called a coward by a man like that is nothing. I shall not fight him."
"Thank you." And she gave him her hand impulsively.
"I love you," he murmured as he bent to kiss the hand; "and it is not dishonorable for you to hear me say so."
"I forbid you to say that!" But the longing of the world was in her eyes as she looked down at his head. She released her hand. "My friends, to-morrow our little play comes to an end. This is no longer Eden. We must go."
"This is what comes of American girls marrying these blamed foreigners," growled the tender-hearted O'Mally. "Why did you do it?"
"I am almost Italian, Mr. O'Mally. I had no choice in the matter; the affair was prearranged by our parents, after the continental fashion."
"I'm sorry I spoke like that," O'Mally said contritely.
"No apologies, if you please. It is only just that you should know something of the case, considering the manner in which I imposed upon you all."
"I'll punch Worth's head when I run across him." O'Mally clenched his fists.
"That would change nothing. He was a part of destiny; he has served his little turn and has gone. Were we not a happy family together for weeks?" La Signorina smiled wanly. "To-morrow I am going to write Mr. Hillard; I am going to tell him the story. From your point of view you may write me down a silly fool, but one's angle of vision is not immutable."
"You're the finest woman in the world," declared O'Mally; "and whatever you have done has been right, I know."
Then Kitty ran up to La Signorina and embraced her; and the eyes of both of them swam in tears.
"You will be happy, at any rate, Kitty."
"Poor girl!" cried Kitty. Princesses were mortal like other people. "How I love you! Come back with us to America."
"I must live out the puzzle over here."
When Hillard and La Signorina were at length alone, he asked: "When shall I see you again?"
"Who knows? Some day, perhaps, when time has softened the sharp edges of this moment, the second bitterest I have ever known. To-morrow I shall write, or very soon. Now, give me your promise that you will no more seek me till I send for you."
"You will send for me?" with eagerness and hope.
"Why not?" proudly. "There is nothing wrong in our friendship, and I prize it. Promise."
"I promise. Good-by! If I remain any longer I shall be making mad, regrettable proposals. For a little while I have lived in paradise. Wherever I may be, at the world's end, you have but to call me; in a month, in a year, a decade, I shall come. Good-by!" Without looking at her again, he rushed away.
She remained standing there as motionless as a statue. It seemed to her that all animation was suspended, and that she could not have moved if she had tried. By and by she gazed round the room, fast dimming; at the guttering candles, at the empty chairs, at the vacant doors and hollow windows.... He had not asked her if she loved him, and that was well. But there was not at that moment in all the length and breadth of Italy a lonelier woman than her Highness the Principessa di Monte Bianca.
Meanwhile the prince, raging and out of joint with the world, mounted his horse. He would have revenge for this empty scabbard, or he would resign his commission. His throat still ached and pointed lights danced before his eyes. Eh, well! This time to-morrow night the American should pay dearly for it. His short laugh had an ugly sound. This American was just the kind of chivalric fool to accept a challenge. But could he handle foils? Could he fight? Could any of these damned American heretics fight, save with their fists? It was the other man's lookout, not his. He put the duel out of his mind as a thing accomplished. Shortly he would have compensation commensurate for all these five years' chagrin. To elude him all this time, to laugh in his face, to defy him, and then to step deliberately into his power! He never could understand this woman. The little prude! But for her fool's conscience he would not have been riding the beggar's horse to-day. She was now too self-reliant, too intelligent, too cunning; she was her father over again, soldier and diplomat. Well, the mystery of her actions remained, but he was no longer the broken noble. So why should he puzzle over the whys and wherefores of her motives? Ah! and would he not dig his hands deep into the dusty sacks of gold and silver? Life again, such as he craved; good cigars and good wine and pretty women who were no ardent followers of Minerva. To jam part of this money down the throats of his yelping creditors, to tear up his paper and fling it into the faces of the greedy Jews! Ha, this would be to live! Paris, or Vienna, or London, where he willed; for what hold had the army now?
He was an expert horseman, but, like all Italians, he was by nature cruel. As he passed the gates the horse slid and stumbled to his knees; he was up instantly, only to receive a hard stroke between the ears. This unexpected treatment caused the animal to rear and waltz. This was not the stolid-going campaign mount, but his best Irish hunter, on which he had won prizes in many a gymkhana. There was a brief struggle, during which the man became master both of himself and the horse. They were just passing the confines of the villa when a man darted out suddenly from the shadows and seized the bridle.
"At last, my prince!"
"Giovanni?"
Instinctively the prince reached for his saber, knowing that he had need of it, but the scabbard was empty. He cursed the folly which had made him lose it. This encounter promised to be a bad one. What mouth of hell had opened to cast this beggar, of all men, in his path? Oddly enough his thought ran swiftly back to the little casa in the Sabine Hills.... Bah! Full of courage, knowing that one or the other would not leave this spot alive, he struck his horse with purpose this time, to run his man down. But Giovanni did not lose his hold; hate and the nearness of revenge made him strong.
"No, no!" he laughed. "She is dead, my prince. And I, I was not going to seek you; I was going to let hell claim you in its own time. But you rode by me to-night. This is the end."
"Let go, fool!" roared the prince, slashing Giovanni across the face with the heavy crop.
Giovanni laughed again and drew his knife. "I shall not miss you this time!"
The prince, a trained soldier, shifted the reins to his teeth, buried his knees in the barrel of the horse, unhooked his scabbard and swung it aloft, deftly catching the reins again in his left hand. But Giovanni was fully prepared. He released the bridle, his arm went back and the knife spun through the air. Yet in that instant in which Giovanni's arm was poised for the cast, the prince lifted his horse on its haunches. The knife gashed the animal deeply in the neck. Still on its haunches it backed, wild with the unaccustomed pain. The lip of the road, at this spot rotten and unprotected, gave way. The prince saw the danger and tried to urge the horse forward. It was too late. The hind-quarters sank, the horse whinnied in terror, and the prince tried in vain to slip from the saddle. There came a grating crash, a muffled cry, and horse and rider went pounding down the rock-bound gorge.
Giovanni listened. He heard the light, metallic clatter of the empty scabbard as it struck projecting boulders; he heard it strangely above the duller, heavier sound. Then the hush of silence out of which came the faint mutter of the stream. Giovanni trembled and the sweat on his body grew cold: less from reaction than from the thought that actual murder had been snatched from his hands. For several minutes he waited, dreading, but there was no further sound. He searched mechanically for his knife, recovered it, and then crept down the abrupt side of the gorge till he found them. They were both dead. A cloud swept over the benign moon.
"Holy Father, thou hast waited seven years too long!" Giovanni crossed himself.
He gazed up at the ledge where the tragedy had begun. The cloud passed and revealed the shining muskets of two carabinieri, doubtless attracted by the untoward sounds. Giovanni, agile and muscular as a wolf, stole over the stream and disappeared into the blackness beyond. But there was an expression of horror on his face which could not have been intensified had Dante and Vergil and all the shades of the Inferno trooped at his heels.