Carolina did not go downstairs, but turned into her sanctum, and with flooding eyes looked out on San Patrizio’s graveyard. She heard the muffled outburst of wonder that greeted the bridal twain in the parlour, and alert was her ear to the growing quiet that became silence when the priest began the nuptial rites. Soon the merriment of the feast rang beneath her feet. Plainly the lying joke was a great success. Ah! what a fine vendetta it would be to go down there and tell them all the truth—even now while her brother was cracking walnuts on his head and making the table roar! But no; of strife she was weary. She longed for peace—for the peace that lay beyond that gray forest of mortuary shafts; the peace beyond that rectory door, to which the latch string beckoned and a soft voice, clear above the revelry, seemed calling: “Perpetua, perpetua, riposo, pace.”
When Armando, with one hundred dollars in his pocket—the grateful tribute of Signor Di Bello—went to Banca Tomato to buy two second-class tickets for Genoa, the banker led him behind the nankeen sail—sewed together again by Bridget—and whispered that Bertino would be on the same ship in the steerage.
“Did she pay?” asked the sculptor.
“No, not all: a cut on the cheek; a clumsy thrust, dealt in a dark alley, where he waited for her all night. But mark you, the fool wanted to stay, to go back—to make her pay more—to pay all. He is not satisfied; and in truth I do not blame him. She ought to pay all.”
“Si—all.”
“But how could he go back to her, where a dozen man-hunters are waiting? They have been here, the loons, to see if he bought a ticket. They will not find him. He will stay where he is until—until it is time to go on the ship. Ah, my friend, it was grand trouble to make him do this. He was for going back to her—to the man-hunters. But I gave him the light of a wise proverb, and he saw: Better an egg to-day than a hen to-morrow.”
FÉLIX GRAS’S ROMANCES.
The White Terror.