The English loan—too late! Its speedy coming had been a certainty in Gordon’s mind before his departure. Was it the agony of failure she had seen on the face that looked at her from the darkness? Was he even now crucified on the cross of a despairing crisis?
A quick thought came to her. The sum he had made hers—a fortune, almost a hundred thousand pounds of English money! Might not that serve, at least until the loan came? If she could help him thus!
There was no time for correspondence, banking routine—no time for delays of any sort. It must go now! A daring plan was born in her mind. She could take it herself, direct to his necessity. Why not? Such a brig as Gordon had chartered was no doubt to be found at Leghorn. Yet she could not make the voyage with but a single servant for escort. To whom could she appeal? To whom else could that far-away cause be near?
A figure flashed before her with the directness of a vision—a man she had seen but once, when with her husband, he had confronted her on a monastery path one dreadful buried day. The friar of San Lazzarro! She recalled the clear deep eyes, the venerable head, the uncompromising honesty of the padre’s countenance. He had known the man she loved—had seen his life in that retreat. Was he still there? Would he aid her?
An hour more and she was riding with Tita toward Leghorn harbor. By the next sunrise she was on her way to Venice. Three days later Tita’s oar swung her gondola to the wharf of the island of Saint Lazarus.
She stepped ashore and rang a bell at the wall-door beside which, in its stone shrine, stood the leaden image of the Virgin, looking out across the gray lagoon.
The place was very still. Peach-blooms hung their glistening spray above the orchard close, and swallows circled about a peaceful spire from which a slow mellow note was striking. It seemed to Teresa that only yesterday she had stood there face to face with Gordon. With a sudden impulse she sank to her knees before the shrine.
When she rose she was not alone; he who she had prayed might still be within those walls stood near—the same reverend aspect, the benignant brow, the coarse brown robe.
“What do you seek, my daughter?”