“You look upon things in far too morbid a light,” I declared, not, however, without some sympathy. ”There is a bright lining to every cloud’ the old adage says. Try and look forward to that.”
She shook her head despairingly.
“No,” she answered, with a short bitter laugh. “Proverbs are for the prosperous—not for the condemned.”
I remained with her for some time longer, trying in vain to induce her to reveal the truth. In her stubborn refusal I recognised her determination to conceal some fact concerning her father, yet whether she knew the real truth or not I was certainly unable to determine.
The revelation that Ella was acquainted with Gordon-Wright alias the Lieutenant held her utterly confounded. She seemed to discern in it an increased peril for herself, and yet she would tell me nothing—absolutely nothing.
The situation was tantalising—nay maddening. I intended to save my well-beloved at all costs, yet how was I to do so?
To denounce the adventurer would, she had herself declared, only bring ruin upon her. Therefore my hands were tied and the cowardly blackguard must triumph.
The soft Italian twilight fell, and the street lamps along the broad promenade below were everywhere springing up, while to the right the high stone lighthouse, that beacon to the mariner in the Mediterranean, shot its long streams of white light far across the darkening sea.
From one of the open-air café-chantants in the vicinity came up the sound of light music and the trill of a female voice singing a French chansonette, for a rehearsal was in progress. And again a youth passing chanted gaily one of those stornelli d’amore which is heard everywhere in fair Tuscany, in the olive groves, in the vineyards, in the streets, in the barracks, that ancient half dirge, half-plaintive song, the same that has been sung for ages and ages by the youths in love:—
Mazzo di fiori!
Si vede il viso, e non si vede il core
Tu se’ un bel viso, ma non m’innamori.