Half Brothers

by Hesba Stretton

She went away, up to her own attic, as soon as supper was laid on the table. There she opened her strong box, and, kneeling beside it, held for some time in her hand the thick packet which Sophy had sealed up and directed the night before she died. Which would profit her most? To give up these concealed papers, which most likely contained an account of all the money and goods the Signora had had in her possession, or to keep them secret still, and retain this wealth in her own hands? Unless the stranger gave her very much more than she was already sure of, it was not worth while to expose herself to the indignation and contumely of her neighbors, if ever they should come to know that she had laid hands upon wealth that ought by rights to have been placed in the custody of the mayor. No, it was safer to keep quiet; it would be safer to destroy these papers, as she had often thought of doing. But there was no fire in her room, and it was difficult to make away with them unobserved. She put it off again, as she had done many times, and dropped the packet back into the box, fastening it securely. Then she went down to the great back bedchamber of the inn, where Sophy had died, and laid her handful of ornaments on the table before Trevor. He picked them up one by one, and looked at them with careful curiosity. They were not valuable trinkets—a cameo or two from Rome, and some small mosaics from Florence and glass beads from Venice. Chiara had known their value years ago, and had considered it worth-while to keep them for her own adornment when she went to a festa. The back of one of the cameo brooches opened, and Trevor found an inscription written on a slip of paper: "For my dear little wife, from Sidney." Chiara looked at it almost in a panic; but Trevor translated it to her.

"Is it possible that he was married?" said Trevor to himself, when Chiara carried away all the other trinkets, leaving this brooch in his hands, after having received double its value in money. He sat long beside the heated stove, weighing the probabilities. It was not an unheard-of thing for a youth of one-and-twenty, with plenty of money and no one to look after him, to travel about these remote and unfrequented regions with a girl who was not by law his wife. He did not know enough of Sidney's college career to decide whether or not he would be likely to fall into such a crime. But the fact that he had deserted this girl, a base and cowardly action, implied that she had no legal claim upon his protection. On the other hand, there crossed his mind Sidney's constant avoidance of ordinary social intercourse and avowed disinclination to marriage, which might be accounted for by this girl being already his wedded wife. Moreover, his anxiety now to learn her fate was greater than it would have been if no binding tie was involved in it. He was no longer dependent upon his uncle, and ran no risk of disinheritance by the discovery of any illicit attachment. If Sidney wished to marry now, the necessity of ascertaining what had become of the woman he had forsaken and lost sight of had become of primary importance, supposing her to be legally his wife, and the mother of his heir. But who could this girl have been?

CHAPTER XI.
AT CORTINA.

Early in the morning Trevor found his way to the cemetery, and the gravedigger, who was digging a grave in the dreary and neglected quadrangle, pointed out to him a desolate corner, where the young Englishwoman lay alone. It was strewn over with broken pots and sherds among which a few nettles were growing, and only a little mound, hardly visible, marked the spot where she had been laid in the earth. Even Trevor felt his heart stirred a little at the thought of this unnamed and uncared-for grave. The sexton told him precisely the same story as Chiara had done, and was more than satisfied with the few kreutzers the foreigner gave to him.

Following the gravedigger's directions, Trevor took a narrow, winding path, plentifully bestrewn with stones, which led up the mountain. His brain was too busy with his absorbing discovery to allow him to see the magnificent views opening up to him at almost every turn. He might as well have been threading his way through the crooked streets of the city, so blind and intent was he. The great peaks hanging over the valley were still burning with the bright colors painted on them by the summer sun, before the rains and snows of winter washed them away, and the pine woods through which he passed were full of the pungent scent of the resinous cones hanging in rich clusters on every branch. The channels of the mountain torrents were almost dry, and the huge bowlders in them were bleached nearly as white as ivory. Higher up the air grew very keen; but the sun was hot, until he passed under the shadow of a precipitous wall of rock, into a long, lateral valley, or hollow, in the slope of the mountains, which the sun had ceased to visit, and would shine upon no more that year. Then he shivered, and looked about him curiously for any human habitation.

He walked for about half a mile in the depressing chill of this unbroken shadow before he came suddenly upon a group of hovels, with neither windows nor chimneys, which were hardly to be discerned as not forming part of the barren scene about them. The low wooden roofs were loaded with heavy stones, telling of the tempestuous winds which swept the mountain slopes up here. But amid the rocks were little patches of sward, where a few sheep were browsing, and some goats were climbing the higher points to nibble any tuft of grass found growing there. A dozen children or so were loitering about listlessly until they caught sight of the extraordinary apparition of a visitor, and then they ran toward him with a savage howl that brought some half-clad, red-eyed women to the doors of the huts. He made haste to fight his way through the clamorous crew of children, and to address the nearest of them.

"I come from Cortina," he cried in a loud voice, "from Chiara Lello, who says her sister lives up here."

"That's Chiara's sister," answered the woman, pointing to another who stood in a doorway amid a cloud of wood smoke.

Trevor approached her, catching a glimpse of the dark and filthy interior of the hut, in which a goat and a kid were lying beside the wood fire. But he shrank from putting his foot inside it, and beckoned to the woman to come forward to him.