“Why yes,” said Donati. “Was that really you? It all comes back to me now—I remember you found the song for me though I had only the merest scrap of it, without the composer’s name.”
“It was just before my illness,” said Frithiof. “I never forgot you, and recognized you the moment I saw you to-night. Somehow you saved my life then just by giving me a hope.”
Perhaps no greater contrast could have been found than these two men who, by what seemed a mere chance, had been thrown together so strangely. But Donati almost always attracted to himself men of an opposite type; as a rule it was not the religious public that understood him or appreciated him best, it was the men of the world, and those with whom he came in contact in his professional life. To them his character appealed in a wonderful way, and many who would have been ashamed to show any enthusiasm as a rule, made an exception in favor of this man, who had somehow fascinated them and compelled them into a belief in goodness little in accord with the cynical creed they professed.
To Frithiof in his wretchedness, in his despairing rebellion against a fate which seemed relentlessly to pursue him, the Italian’s faith came with all the force of a new revelation. He saw that the success, for which but a few hours ago he had cordially hated the great singer, came from no caprice of fortune, but from the way in which Donati had used his gifts; nor had the Italian all at once leapt into fame, he had gone through a cruelly hard apprenticeship, and had suffered so much that not even the severe test of extreme popularity, wealth, and personal happiness could narrow his sympathies, for all his life he would carry with him the marks of a past conflict—a conflict which had won for him the name of the “Knight-errant.”
The same single-hearted, generous nature which had fitted him for that past work, fitted him now to be Frithiof’s friend. For men like Donati are knights-errant all their life long, they do not need a picturesque cause, or seek a paying subject, but just travel through the world, succoring those with whom they come in contact. The troubles of the Norwegian in his prosaic shop-life were as much to Donati as the troubles of any other man would have been; position and occupation were, to him, very insignificant details; he did not expend the whole of his sympathies on the sorrows of East London, and shut his heart against the griefs of the rich man at the West End; nor was he so engrossed with his poor Neapolitans that he could not enter into the difficulties of a London shopman. He saw that Frithiof was one of that great multitude who, through the harshness and injustice of the world, find it almost impossible to retain their faith in God, and, through the perfidy of one woman, are robbed of the best safeguard that can be had in life. His heart went out to the man, and the very contrast of his present life with its intense happiness quickened his sympathies. But what he said Frithiof never repeated to any one, he could not have done it even had he cared to try. When at length he rose to go Donati had, as it were, saved him from moral death, had drawn him out of the slough of despond, and started him with renewed hope on his way.
“Wait just one moment,” he said, as they stood by the door; “I will give you one of my cards and write on it the Italian address. There! Villa Valentino, Napoli. Don’t forget to write and tell me when this affair is all cleared up.”
Frithiof grasped his hand, and, again thanking him, passed out into the quiet, moonlit street.
CHAPTER XXVII.
The events of Monday had cast a shadow over Rowan-Tree House. Cecil no longer sang as she went to and fro, Mr. Boniface was paying the penalty of a stormy interview late on Monday evening with his partner, and was not well enough to leave his room, and Mrs. Boniface looked grave and sad, for she foresaw the difficulties in which Frithiof’s disgrace would involve others.
“I wish Roy had been at home,” she said to her daughter as, on the Wednesday afternoon, they sat together in the verandah.