Dr. Leroy went over to her, and laid his hand upon her shoulder heavily.
“Now we are in for a scene,” he muttered to Mildred. “You have mentioned a most unlucky name.”
“What has she to do with Signor Castellani?”
“He was her cousin. He trained her for the stage, and she was the original in several of his operas. She was his slave, his creature, and lived only to please him. I suppose she expected him to marry her, poor soul; but he knew better than that. He contrived to fascinate a French girl, a consumptive, who was travelling in Italy for her health, with a wealthy father. He married the Frenchwoman; and I believe that marriage broke Maria’s heart.”
The singer had seated herself at the piano again, and was playing with rapid and brilliant finger, running up and down the keys in wild excitement. Mildred and the physician were standing by the window, talking in lowered voices, unheeded by Maria Castellani.
“Was it that event which wrecked her mind?” asked Mildred, deeply interested.
“No, it was some years afterwards that her brain gave way. She had a brilliant career before her at the time of Castellani’s desertion; and she bore the blow with the courage of a Roman. So long as her voice lasted, and the public were constant to her, she contrived to bear up against that burning sense of wrong which has been the distinguishing note of her mind ever since she came here. But the first breath of failure froze her. She felt her voice decaying while she was comparatively a young woman. Her glass told her that she was losing her beauty, that she was beginning to look old and haggard. Her managers told her more. They gave her the cold shoulder, and put newer singers above her head. Then despair took hold of her; she became gloomy and irritable, difficult and capricious in her dealings with her fellow-artists; and then came the end, and she was brought here. She had saved no money. She had been reckless even beyond the habits of her profession. She was friendless. There was nobody interested in her fate—”
“Not even Signor Castellani?”
“Castellani—Paolo Castellani? Pas si bête. The man was a compound of selfishness and treachery. She was not likely to get pity from him. The very fact that he had used her badly made her loathsome to him. I doubt if he ever inquired what became of her. If any one had asked him about her, he would have said that she had dropped through—a worn-out voice, a faded beauty—que voulez-vous?”
“She had no other friends—no ties?”