"Not long afterwards, my friend was killed by a fall. His horse crushed him. It was a horrible accident, and he lived twelve hours after it, in great pain. He would not let the doctors give him morphia. He said he would die like a man, and he did, with all his senses about him. While he lay dying, I was with him, and then he told me all the truth. The girl would not be able to conceal it much longer. There was no time to bring her to his bedside and marry her while he still breathed. He could not even leave her money, for he was a minor. He could do nothing for her and her parents would turn her into the street; in any case she was ruined. He was in frightful agony of mind for her sake, he was dying before my eyes, powerless to help her and taking his suffering and his fault with him to the next world, and he was my friend. I did what I could. I gave him my word of honour that I would marry her legally, give her and her child my name, and provide for them as well as I could. He thanked me—I shall never forget how he looked—and he died quietly, half an hour afterwards. You know now. I kept my word. That is all."
The Princess looked at his quiet face a moment in silence, and all that was best in her rose up through all that was artificial and worldly, and untruthful and vain.
"I did not know that there were such men," she said simply.
CHAPTER XX
"So he got out," said Gigi to Toto, filling the latter's glass to the brim.
"May he die assassinated!" answered Toto. "I will burn a candle to the Madonna every day, in order that an apoplexy may seize him. He is the devil in person, this cursed engineer. Even the earth and the water will not have him. They spit him out, like that."
Toto illustrated the simile with force and noise before drinking.
Gigi's cunning face was wreathed in smiles.
"You know nothing," he observed.
"What is it?" asked Toto, with his glass in his hand and between two sips.
"There was old Sassi, who was hurt, and the engineer's gaol-bird mason-servant. They were with him. It was all in the Messaggero this morning."