A Roman Singer

by F. Marion Crawford

"You are very kind, Signor Grandi. Signor Cardegna is, I believe, a good friend of mine. You say he will be here?"

"I received a letter from him to-day, dated in Rome, in which he tells me that he will start immediately. He may be here to-morrow morning," I answered. Hedwig had regained her composure, perhaps because she was reassured by my manner of speaking about Nino. I, however, was anxious to hear from her own lips some confirmation of my suspicions concerning the baron. "I have no doubt," I continued presently, "that, with your consent, my boy will be able to deliver you from this prison—" I used the word at a venture. Had Hedwig suffered less, and been less cruelly tormented, she would have rebuked me for the expression. But I recalled her to her position, and her self-control gave way at once.

"Oh, you are right to call it a prison!" she cried. "It is as much a prison as this chamber hewed out of the rock, where so many a wretch has languished hopelessly; a prison from which I am daily taken out into the sweet sun, to breathe and be kept alive, and to taste how joyful a thing liberty must be! And every day I am brought back, and told that I may be free if I will consent. Consent! God of mercy!" she moaned, in a sudden tempest of passionate despair. "Consent ever to belong, body—and soul—to be touched, polluted, desecrated, by that inhuman monster; sold to him, to a creature without pity, whose heart is a toad, a venomous creeping thing—sold to him for this life, and to the vengeance of God hereafter; bartered, traded, and told that I am so vile and lost that the very price I am offered is an honour to me, being so much more than my value." She came toward me as she spoke, and the passionate, unshed tears that were in her seemed to choke her, so that her voice was hoarse.

"And for what—for what?" she cried, wildly, seizing my arm and looking fiercely into my eyes. "For what, I say? Because I gave him a poor rose; because I let him see me once; because I loved his sweet voice; because—because—I love him, and will love him, and do love him, though I die!"

The girl was in a frenzy of passion and love and hate all together, and did not count her words. The white heat of her tormented soul blazed from her pale face and illuminated every feature, though she was turned from the light, and she shook my arm in her grasp so that it pained me. The marble was burnt in the fire, and must consume itself to ashes. The white and calm statue was become a pillar of flame in the life-and-death struggle for love. I strove to speak, but could not, for fear and wonder tied my tongue. And indeed she gave me short time to think.

"I tell you I love him, as he loves me," she continued, her voice trembling upon the rising cadence, "with all my whole being. Tell him so. Tell him he must save me, and that only he can: that for his sake I am tortured, and scorned, and disgraced, and sold; my body thrown to dogs, and worse than dogs; my soul given over to devils that tempt me to kill and be free,—by my own father, for his sake. Tell him that these hands he kissed are wasted with wringing small pains from each other, but the greater pain drives them to do worse. Tell him, good sir,—you are kind and love him, but not as I do,—tell him that this golden hair of mine has streaks of white in these terrible two months; that these eyes he loved are worn with weeping. Tell him—"

But her voice failed her, and she staggered against the wall, hiding her face in her hands. A trembling breath, a struggle, a great wild sob: the long-sealed tears were free, and flowed fast over her hands.

"Oh, no, no," she moaned, "you must not tell him that." Then choking down her agony she turned to me: "You will not—you cannot tell him of this? I am weak, ill, but I will bear everything for—for him." The great effort exhausted her, and I think that if I had not caught her she would have fallen, and she would have hurt herself very much on the stone floor. But she is young, and I am not very strong, and could not have held her up. So I knelt, letting her weight come on my shoulder.

The fair head rested pathetically against my old coat, and I tried to wipe away her tears with her long golden hair; for I had not any handkerchief. But very soon I could not see to do it. I was crying myself, for the pity of it all, and my tears trickled down and fell on her thin hands. And so I kneeled, and she half lay and half sat upon the floor, with her head resting on my shoulder; I was glad then to be old, for I felt that I had a right to comfort her.

Presently she looked up into my face, and saw that I was weeping. She did not speak, but found her little lace handkerchief, and pressed it to my eyes,—first to one, and then to the other; and the action brought a faint maidenly flush to her cheeks through all her own sorrow. A daughter could not have done it more kindly.