‘And he didn’t.’
Our chief commented on the native’s tale of his hairbreadth escape as being what Yankees would call ‘rather thin.’ He seemed himself to think that the firing-party had been tampered with, a contingency which he had, in his subsequent rebel-catching adventures, taken care to avert.
BY ORDER OF THE LEAGUE.
CHAPTER III.
Le Gautier was not far wrong in his estimate of Carlo Visci. The game the former was playing was a dangerous one. He had met the youthful Genevieve in one of his country excursions, and, struck by her beauty, conceived the idea of finding some slight amusement in her society. It was not hard, in that quiet place, with his audacity and talents, to make himself known to her; nor did the child—for she was little more—romantic, passionate, her head filled with dreams of love and devotion, long remain cold to his advances. Friendship soon ripens into love in the sunny South, where temperaments are warmer, and the cold restraints of northern society do not exist. The Frenchman had no sinister intentions when he commenced his little flirtation—a mere recreation pour passer le temps on his side; but alas for good intentions; the moth may not approach too near the flame without scorching its wings. Begun in playfulness, almost sport, the thing gradually ripened into love—love such as most women never know, love encountered by keen wit and a knowledge of the evil side of life. When the story opens, Genevieve had known Le Gautier for six months—had known him, loved him, and trusted him.
But Le Gautier was already tired of his broken toy. It was all very well as a pastime; but the gilded chains were beginning to chafe, and besides, he had ambitious schemes into which any calculations of Genevieve never entered. He had been thinking less of dark passionate eyes lately than of a fair English face, the face of Enid Charteris; so in his mind he began to revolve how he could best free himself from the Italian girl, ere commencing his campaign against the heart and fortune of Sir Geoffrey Charteris’ heiress. Come what may now, he must file his fetters.
Filled with this virtuous and manly resolution, he set out the following afternoon for the Villa Mattio. It was Visci’s whim to keep his sister there, along with a younger sister, a child as yet, little Lucrece, both under the charge of a sleepy old gouvernante. In spite of his faults, Visci was a good brother, having too sincere an affection for his sister to keep her with him among the wild student spirits he affected, fearing contamination for her mind. And so she remained in the country; Visci running down from the city to see her, each time congratulating himself upon the foresight he had displayed in such an arrangement as this, little thinking he had thus caused the greatest evil he had to fear.
Le Gautier walked on till the white façade and stucco pillars of the villa were in sight, and then, striking across a little path leading deep into a thick shady wood, all carpeted with spring flowers, threw himself upon the grass to wait. There was a little shrine here by the side of a tiny stream, with the crucifix and a rude stone image of the Virgin in a dark niche; evidently a kind of rustic woodland sanctuary. But Le Gautier did not notice these things as he lay there; and there was a frown upon his brow, and a thoughtful, determined look upon his face, which boded ill for some one.
He had not long to wait. Pushing the branches of the trees aside and coming towards him with eager, elastic step, was a girl. She was tall and slight; not more than seventeen, in fact, and her dark eyes and clear-cut features gave promise of great beauty. There was a wistful, tender smile upon her face as she came forward—a smile tinged with pain, as she noted the moody face of the man lying there, but nevertheless a smile which betokened nothing but perfect, trusting, unutterable love. Le Gautier noted this in his turn, and it did not tend to increase his equanimity. It is not easy for a man, when he is going to commit a base action, to preserve his equanimity when met with perfect confidence by the victim. For a moment she stood there, looking at him, neither speaking for a brief space.
‘How ridiculously happy you look, Genevieve,’ Le Gautier said irritably. ‘It is a great compliment to me, but’——