It had been dark for an hour or two, when Martin shambled across the forecourt and into the porch on his return. The large glass doors which separated the porch from the hall were uncurtained, and he crept in without noise to look through them cautiously. The place was altogether transformed. There was a huge fire of logs and coal burning brightly on the hearth, with a many-colored square of carpet laid before it, and chairs drawn up into the light and heat. Great bunches of red holly and pots of scarlet geranium gave bright color to the hall. A woman, grander and more beautiful than he had ever seen, richly clad in purple velvet, sat in one of the high-backed chairs, and standing near to her was the English signore, who called himself his father. It seemed to his dull and troubled mind, as he stood outside in the dark, that this must be the other world, where the saints dwelt, of which the padre had sometimes spoken. Could this be the Paradiso to which Christians went after masses had been said to get them out of the Purgatorio? There was the Inferno, where his mother was, and the Purgatorio, and the Paradiso. But this place was too beautiful to be anything but the Paradiso; and these grand and beautiful beings were the inhabitants of it. He was gazing, with a vague sense of it being impossible for him to enter in, when he saw other figures descending the broad, shallow staircase slowly, side by side. The one was the gracious and radiant vision he had seen in Cortina, the other was his lost friend, his brother, his master, Philippo.
His joy was the joy of a dumb animal on seeing a beloved master suddenly reappear after a mysterious, inexplicable absence. He burst open the door impetuously, and rushed in, covered with the snowflakes that had been lodging half frozen in his hair and beard for the last hour or two. He flung himself before Philip clasping his knees with his arms, and uttering uncouth cries of delight and welcome. For the moment he had relapsed into the savage again; the heavy, clumsy frame, the ragged face, down which the melting snow was running, the bare feet and head, inarticulate cries, all seemed to show that no training, no process of civilizing, could make him other than the confirmed savage that he was.
"Margaret, I cannot bear it!" exclaimed Sidney, as if appealing to her for strength.
"It is only for the moment," she said softly; "he is excited now. And see how fond he is of Philip. That is a good thing for him. Remember how short a time six months is to undo the work of thirty years. And Mary Goldsmith tells me he has no great faults, such as he might have had. She thinks he is learning every day to be something more like other people. He is your son, Sidney—our son; speak to him."
She had not seen him since the festa at Cortina, and she regarded him now with intense interest. His face was certainly more intelligent than it was then; the scared look upon it was gone, and it bore a stronger likeness to Andrew Goldsmith. There was even a slight resemblance to Philip, by whom he was now standing, and on whose face his eyes were riveted with an expression of contentment. His hair and beard were cut short and trimmed, not hanging in matted locks, as when she saw him first. He wore a rough shooting suit, not unsuitable for Philip; and the chief points of oddity in his appearance were his bare head and feet. But Mary was right, thought Margaret; in time he would look like other people.
"Martin!" said his father in a raised voice, louder than he was himself aware of. Martin started and turned away from Philip, approaching Sidney with a cowed yet dogged air. He did not take his outstretched hand.
"Do you know who I am?" asked Sidney in Italian.
"Yes, signore," he answered, "my father."
They stood looking at one another. The one man was twenty-two years older than the other, yet they seemed almost of the same age. Martin was prematurely aged, broken down by persecution, and weatherworn by exposure and want; his father was unbent, strong, and vigorous in mind and body, still in his prime, and only during the last six months showing any sign of his fifty-two years being a burden to him. There was something so pitiful in the contrast, that Philip walked away out into the porch; and Margaret and Dorothy clasped each other's hands and looked on with tear-filled eyes.
"Oh, my father!" said Martin, speaking as if his soul had at length found an outlet in words, "this is the Paradise, and I am not fit for it. I know nothing. You are a great signore, and I am nothing. We are far away from one another. My mother is in the Inferno; Chiara and the padre said it; no masses can be said for her soul. Let me go back to the mountains. I am not fit to live with great signori. My mother calls to me here," and he laid his hand on his heart, "'Come back, Martin, come back!' and I must go. Send me back to the mountains."