“Fiordelisa.”
He stood with the letter in his hand, pondering.
Should he do what the letter asked him? Yes, assuredly; although to obey that summons was to place himself unreservedly in Lisa’s power. He was in her power already, perhaps. She might have made her arrangements promptly, so that he should be watched and followed when he left the theatre, and his name and address discovered.
In any case, whatever risk there might be in going to Fiordelisa’s lodging, he did not for a moment hesitate. In his remorseful thoughts of the man he had killed, the bitterest pang of all had been the thought of Fiordelisa and her shattered life, her dream of happiness darkened for ever, her prosperity changed to desolation and bitter want. Again and again he had told himself that the memory of his sin would sit more easily upon him could he but secure Lisa’s comfort, dry her tears for the lover who was to have been her husband, shelter her from the chances of the downward road which the feet that have once turned astray are but too ready to tread.
He had found her, which was more than he had hoped, and had found her earning her bread in a legitimate manner, and living with the aunt who was in some wise a protector, although, remembering that lady’s easy manner of regarding her niece’s former position, there was perhaps not overmuch security in such a duenna.
He walked across Bow Street, and speedily found Stone Court, which seemed a quiet haven from the roar and roll of carriages in the street outside; a highly respectable retreat, consisting for the most part of private houses, one of which—wedged into an obscure corner, where a narrow alley, like the neck of a bottle, cut through into another street—proved to be 24B.
La Zia herself opened the door in answer to Vansittart’s knock, and welcomed him with a cordiality which took his breath away.
“Welcome, Signor. She said you would come, but I was doubtful that you would trouble about her or me,” she said, in Italian, and then, in very tolerable English: “Do me the favour to walk upstairs; it is rather high—il secondo piano. She knew you again in an instant. She has such eyes.”
They ascended the narrow staircase, lighted only by the Zia’s candle. The door of the front room on the second floor was open, and Fiordelisa stood on the threshold, in the light of a paraffin lamp, dressed in a shabby black gown, and with her splendid hair rolled up on the top of her head in a roughened mass.
She held out both her hands to Vansittart, and welcomed him as if he had been her dearest friend. The aunt had fairly astonished him, but the niece was even more astounding.