One, two, three minutes were ticked off by the clock on the chimney-piece before Sir Gilbert came back to his chair. His hand trembled a little as he returned the photograph to Giovanna. “Yes, that is Alec to the life,” he said. “Poor boy! poor boy!” A deep sigh broke from him as he resumed his seat.
For a little space no one spoke.
It was Sir Gilbert who broke the silence. “Unless I am misinformed, madam, you and your husband found your way to the United States no long time after your marriage?”
“We did, Sir Gilbert. And here a little point occurs to me about which it may be as well to enlighten you. Up to the morning of our marriage I had never known my husband by any other name than John Alexander. The only explanation proffered by him after the ceremony was over was, that he had deemed it best, for certain private reasons, to temporarily drop his surname. As to the nature of his reasons, he never enlightened me, and, indeed, so little curious was I to learn them that, as far as I now remember, the subject was never again broached between us, and after our arrival in America we were known simply as Mr. and Mrs. Alexander.”
“Quite right, quite right,” said Sir Gilbert. “My son, for family reasons, chose, right up to the time of his death, to keep his surname in abeyance. Well, and what happened after your arrival in the States?”
“We settled in a place called Barrytown in one of the Eastern States, where John (I always called my husband John, Sir Gilbert) thought he saw an opening for the profitable investment of his capital. But he had had no training, and in all business relations was little better than a child compared with the shrewd Yankees in whose midst he had chosen to locate himself. The result was what might have been expected. Instead of making money, at the end of two years he found himself about four thousand pounds poorer than when he had started in business.”
“That was burning his fingers with a vengeance,” interpolated the Captain, who had so far maintained a diplomatic silence.
Sir Gilbert glared at him for an instant and then turned his shoulder a couple of inches more towards him. “Proceed, madam, pray proceed,” he said blandly to Giovanna.
“By that time our child was born and my health had given way. The doctors told John that the climate of the Eastern States was too inclement for me, and that if I stayed there another winter he would risk losing me. Thereupon he decided to break up our home and go further inland in search at once of a climate that would be likely to agree with me, and of an opening for what was left of his capital which promised better results than his first venture had brought him. Meanwhile I was to go back to Italy, of course taking my child with me, and strive to recruit my health in my native air. As soon as he found himself prospering and had settled where our new home was to be, he would send for me, or fetch me to join him. Well, sir, we parted, my husband seeing me on board ship at New York, little thinking that we should never see each other again. Two letters from him reached me after my arrival at home, in the second of which he told me that he was going to penetrate still further west, or south, I forget which. After that came a silence which has remained unbroken till the present day.”
As Giovanna ended, her head sank forward a little and, as if involuntarily, the fingers of her right hand sought and pressed the golden hoop which still graced the third finger of her left hand.