I am quite sure that that period was not altogether an unhappy one for my father, and, for my part, I found it very far from such. The complete novelty of our surroundings and manner of life was full of interest to me, and it was with the keenest pleasure, too, that I watched the colour come slowly back to my father's cheeks, and his limbs regain their old elasticity and vigour. He could not conceal the change which my coming had brought into his life, and he did not attempt to. Many a time did I feel devoutly thankful that I had held to and carried out my purpose.
Our life was simple enough, but pleasant. Some times we spent the whole day trying to shoot the only bird there is to shoot—a sort of wild duck; at others we took long walks, exploring the coast scenery, and frequently winding up by a visit to our robber friends. Antiquities or sight-seeing we neither of us cared much about, but we paid together more than one visit to the vast palatial convent of San Martino and to the Cathedral of Monreale. Other places of interest we avoided, for my father had lost none of his old dread of meeting any of his fellow-countrymen, although, as I more than once pointed out to him, the probabilities of their ever having heard his story were very far removed.
Sometimes we rode on mules across the rich intervening plain into Palermo, and mingled with the little crowd of priests and soldiers in the café, and went down to the Casino to glance through the papers. It was I who read these, however, for my father carefully avoided them, and perhaps it was as well that he did, for more often than not there was some mention of Rupert Devereux's name, either presiding at a meeting or heading a subscription list, or as one of the committee interested in some great philanthropic work. It could not have been pleasant for him to have read such items of news as this, and I was thankful that he chose never to read English papers.
And so our life passed on for more than a year, not at all unpleasantly for either of us. My father, in his previous state of complete solitude, had developed a taste for profound reading, and seemed to find much pleasure in studying abstruse works on Buddhism, the creed of the Mahometans, the Confucian teaching, the religion of the Brahmins and the Fetichists, and the strange, fascinating doctrine of quietism held by so many of the nations of the East. It was a taste which I never pretended to share, the only one of our joint interests in which the other did not participate. I feared it, although in my ignorance I could do nothing to check it. I had dim ideas that to a man circumstanced as my father was, such study must develop any secret leanings towards fatalism, and it was a doctrine which he would have many excuses for embracing. But I was too ignorant to argue with him, so I contented myself with keeping him from his books always in the daytime and often in the evening; for we had improvised in one of the empty rooms a sort of billiard table, on which, I am convinced, we executed some of the most extraordinary strokes that a marker ever gazed upon. Then, too, we played chess often, and I tried, by every means in my power, to keep him from turning bookworm. And, on the whole, I was not dissatisfied with my success.
CHAPTER XXXIV
VISITORS FROM ROME
It was one of those evenings which, to any one acquainted only with our English climate, seem like a foretaste of paradise. I sat before a tiny marble table at one of the open-air cafés at the head of the Marina, listening idly to the music of the band only a few yards off, and gazing over the peaceful, glistening sea which stretched away in front. There were many people passing backwards and forwards, but my thoughts were far away, and I took notice of none of them. With my head resting upon my arm, and my arm upon the low balustrade, I had fallen into a semi-somnolent slumber of thought, and the faces of the people who lounged by chattering and laughing I saw only as figures in a dream. My cigarette even had burnt out between my lips, and the coffee which stood by my side I had not tasted.
The roadway was completely blocked with the carriages of the Palermitan nobility and elite, and the promenade was thronged with a heterogeneous stream of fishermen and natives and visitors. All Palermo flocks on to the Marina at nightfall—as who would not?—to hear the band and breathe in the freshness of the sea, and with other objects very similar to those which attract promenaders on to the esplanades of English watering-places at a similar hour. Often I had amused myself by watching them, and looking out for English visitors; but to-night, early in the evening, I had seen a Sicilian countess who reminded me slightly of Maud, and my thoughts had flashed back to Devereux, and remained there, heedless of my efforts to recall them, hovering around one fair face, which sometimes I feared was more to me than anything else in the world.
What should recall them but the glad, amazed greeting of an English voice! I sprang to my feet, and before me, her face radiant with pleasure, and her little hand stretched out eagerly, stood Lady Olive.
"Of all the strange meetings I ever heard of, Mr. Arbuthnot, this is the most extraordinary!" she exclaimed. "It quite takes my breath away!"