“Oh, Alice!” cried he, in a voice of deep anguish. “It is despair has brought me to this. When I came, I thought I could have spoken with calm and self-restraint; but when I saw you—saw what I once believed might have been mine—I forgot all—all but my misery.”
“Suffer me to pass out, sir,” said she, coldly. He moved back, and opened the door wide, and held it thus as she swept past him, without a word or a look.
Maitland pressed his hat deep over his brow, and descended the stairs slowly, one by one. A carriage drove to the door as he reached it, and his friend Caffarelli sprang out and grasped his hand.
“Come quickly, Maitland!” cried he. “The King has left the palace. The army is moving out of Naples to take up a position at Capua. All goes badly. The fleet is wavering, and Garibaldi passed last night at Salerno.”
“And what do I care for all this? Let me pass.”
“Care for it! It is life or death, caro mio! In two hours more the populace will tear in pieces such men as you and myself, if we 're found here. Listen to those yells, Morte ai Reali! Is it with 'Death to the Royalists!' ringing in our ears we are to linger here?”
“This is as good a spot to die in as another,” said Maitland; and he lighted his cigar and sat down on the stone bench beside the door.
“The Twenty-fifth of the Line are in open revolt, and the last words of the King were, 'Give them to Maitland, and let him deal with them.'”
Maitland shrugged his shoulders, and smoked on.
“Genario has hoisted the cross of Savoy over the fort at Baia,” continued the other, “and no one can determine what is to be done. They all say, 'Ask Maitland.'”