“A world of strife shut out,
A world of love shut in.”
They did not linger long over the supper-table, for Frithiof was suffering too much to eat, and Donati, like most of his countrymen, had a very small appetite. Francesca with a kindly good-night to the Norwegian went upstairs to her baby, and the two men drew their chairs up to the open French window at the back of the room looking on to the little garden to which the moonlight gave a certain mysterious charm.
“I have thought over it,” said Donati, almost abruptly, and as if the matter might naturally engross his thoughts as much as those of his companion. “But I can’t find the very slightest clue. It is certainly a mystery.”
“And must always remain so,” said Frithiof despairingly.
“I do not think that at all. Some day all will probably be explained. And be sure to let me hear when it is, for I shall be anxious to know.”
A momentary gleam of hope crossed Frithiof’s face, but the gloom quickly returned.
“It will never be explained,” he said. “I was born under an unlucky star; at the very moment when all seems well something has always interfered to spoil my life; and with my father it was exactly the same—it was an undeserved disgrace that actually killed him.”
And then, to his own astonishment, he found himself telling Donati, bit by bit, the whole of his own story. The Italian said very little, but he listened intently, and in truth possessed exactly the right characteristics for a confidant—rare sympathy, tact, and absolute faithfulness. To speak out freely to such a man was the best thing in the world for Frithiof, and Donati, who had himself had to battle with a sea of troubles, understood him as a man who had suffered less could not possibly have done.
“It is to this injustice,” said Frithiof, as he ended his tale, “to this unrighteous success of the mercenary and scheming, and failure of the honorable, that Christianity tells one to be resigned. It is that which sets me against religion—which makes it all seem false and illogical—actually immoral.”