“‘No, my soul! There is no place on this planet so celestial, or so infernal, as is this city.’
“I stared at him in dismay.
“‘Never fear, my love. You shall never see or hear the infernos of the city.’
“That day I took time to write to my father. I had not an hour’s leisure during our mad journeys to do so before.
“I told him all the circumstances and all the experiences of outer and inner life that had driven me to take my fate in my own hands and go away with Luigi Saviola to be married. And I gave him all the details of the journey and the ceremony. And I ended by imploring him to forgive us both and to receive us on a visit.
“After that act of duty, I plunged with Luigi into all the gayeties of gay Paris, and saw no signs of the ‘infernos.’ Music, the drama, balls, excursions, these filled up our days, for a month of mad rapture.
“Then, about the middle of December, we went down to Marseilles, and took a steamer to Naples, where we arrived in health, spirits and safety.
“I had often questioned Luigi about his family, but he told me he had none to speak of. He was an only child; his father and mother were among the angels in heaven. His uncle was a priest and missionary in Brazil. His two aunts were nuns—one in a Benedictine convent in France, the other in an Augustine sisterhood in Spain.
“I had questioned him about his home.
“He had described to me a half ruined and wholly uninhabitable castle situated among the forest-covered mountains of the wild Abruzzo.