"Malade?" asked Sybil, trying the only foreign language with which she had a slight acquaintance.
"Si, si!" cried Tonelli, delighted at eventual understanding.
And then a Providence-sent bagman who spoke a little English came out and interpreted.
The illustrissimo signore was ill. A pneumonia. He had stood to feed the pigeons in the rain, in the northeast wind, and had contracted a chill. When they thought he was dying, they sent for the English doctor who had attended him before for trifling ailments, and unconscious he had been transported to the English hospital in the Giudecca. And there he was now. A thousand pities he should die. The dearest and most revered man. The whole neighbourhood who loved him was stricken with grief. They prayed for him in the church, the signore and signora could see it there, and vows and candles had been made to the Virgin, the Blessed Mother, for he too loved all children. Signore Tonelli, joined by this time by his wife, exaggerated perhaps in the imaginative Italian way. But every tone and gesture sprang from deep sincerity. Brother and sister looked at each other in dumb wonder.
"Ecco, Elizabetta!" Tonelli, commanding the doorway of the restaurant, summoned an elderly woman from the pump by the well-head and discoursed volubly. She approached the young English couple and also volubly discoursed. The interpreter interpreted. They gained confirmation of the amazing fact that, in this squalid, stone-flagged, rickety little square, Sir Hildebrand had managed to make himself beloved. Childhood's memories rose within them, half-caught, but haunting sayings of servants and villagers which had impressed upon their minds the detestation in which he was held in their Somersetshire home.
Godfrey turned to his sister. "Well, I'm damned," said he.
"I should like to see his rooms," said Sybil.
The interpreter again interpreted. The Tonellis threw out their arms. Of course they could visit the apartment of the illustrissimo signore. They were led upstairs and ushered into the chill, dark bed-sitting-room, as ascetic as a monk's cell, and both gasped when they beheld the flagellum hanging from its nail over the bed. They requested privacy. The Tonellis and the bagman-interpreter retired.
"What the devil's the meaning of it?" said Godfrey.
Sybil, kind-hearted, began to cry. Something strange and piteous, something elusive had happened. The awful, poverty-stricken room chilled her blood, and the sight of the venomous scourge froze it. She caught and held Godfrey's hand. Had their father gone over to Rome and turned ascetic? They looked bewildered around the room. But no other sign, crucifix, rosary, sacred picture, betokened the pious convert. They scanned the rough deal bookshelf. A few dull volumes of English classics, a few works on sociology in French and Italian, a flagrantly staring red Burke's Landed Gentry, and that was practically all the library. Not one book of devotion was visible, save the Bible, the Book of Common Prayer, and a little vellum-covered Elzevir edition of Saint Augustine's Flammulæ Amoris, which Godfrey remembered from childhood on account of its quaint wood-cuts. They could see nothing indicative of religious life but the flagellum over the bed—and that seemed curiously new and unused. Again they looked around the bare characterless room, characteristic only of its occupant by its scrupulous tidiness; yet one object at last attracted their attention. On a deal writing-table by the window lay a thick pile of manuscript. Godfrey turned the brown paper covering. Standing together, brother and sister read the astounding title-page: