“He is gone,” said Bice, jumping up; “he has been gone a long time. What shall we do, Andrea? Can one of the men take him into Florence?”
“Would he go?—the signorina should rather ask that question. Otherwise the cart from the podere is here, going in with a couple of pigs that have been sold. But the creature would not follow.”
“Then we must tie him to the back.”
“Già, già, that is it, the signorina has always got her ideas.” Old Andrea, who had recovered his good humour, stood shaking his broad shoulders and pointing at Cartouche, who kept close to Beatrice. “And he really is clever, too, he knows he has found a friend. Come along, come along, signorina mia.”
“You will not go?” said Oliver, holding her back. He was furious with the dog, with the old cook, and with the knowledge that Ibbetson had already been there that morning. One other moment and the girl would have been his, he had known it, and now—
It seemed to Bice as if a weight had fallen from her, she caught her hand from his and stood breathing quickly.
“Yes, I must go,” she said, almost angrily. “Don’t you see they cannot manage him by themselves. Come, Cartouche; come, Andrea.”
She ran towards the house, the dog followed her, leaping and barking. Oliver turned sharply away and went to the Virgin’s niche. He wanted to see if she had really taken fresh flowers there. Had Ibbetson helped her; was she playing a double game? He stood for some time thinking, his head bent and a frown on his face; and while he was there, a cart came jolting down the white and stony road. Behind it, and dragged unwillingly along, was poor Cartouche on his way to his home. Bice was walking by his side to console him for a little part of the road by encouraging words. She did not see Oliver Trent, nor hear his exclamation of rage, but she looked like a creature who had escaped to freedom, and had thrown off a burden. He was half disposed to follow her, but something seemed to warn him that the spell was broken, and must be re-woven before he could succeed.
Perhaps people do not very often—except, indeed, in books—lay those elaborate schemes, those widely-spread toils of villainy, which are supposed to belong to a bad man’s career. It is probable that they open out to them almost as unexpectedly as to us, time and opportunity seeming to throw themselves on their side. Certainly Trent, who was growing more involved week by week, had laid no such plans when he took his first step; nay, more, he was made very uneasy by a clear perception of the dangers to which he was exposing himself as he went on. He would gladly have pulled himself up before, and looked forward almost feverishly to laying down the net which he told himself he was forced to weave, with the full intention of never again engaging in such rash work. He had no dislike of Clive to make it easier to do him a mischief, though he salved his conscience in the curious short-sighted way in which that work is often done, telling himself that the means he was obliged to use would not really injure the young man, although they might seem to cloud his prospects for a time:—nay, he sometimes almost succeeded in assuring himself that they were likely to work for Clive’s advantage, giving him just the lesson he needed, and putting him through a wholesome time of trial. But as this view of himself as a kind of abstract justice was one which no effort could keep always in the position where he would have liked to find it, he was subject to fits of impatience, wishing very heartily that he could reach his end and wash his hands of all this miserable business, which both irritated and annoyed him. When he had reached the villa he had confidently looked forward to being free in a week. And already he was feeling as if his acts were turning into scourges. Yet he had no thought of giving up Bice; the more he saw her, the more determined he grew to make her his wife, and when he was in her company all compunctions for Clive and fears for himself vanished in reckless resolution.