Buch lesen: «The Day of Temptation», Seite 10
Chapter Nineteen
A Secret Despatch
At noon next day Count Castellani, the Italian Ambassador to the Court of St. James, stood at the window of his private room gazing out upon cabs and carriages passing and repassing around Grosvenor Square.
In his hand was a secret and highly important despatch which had only ten minutes before arrived from Rome by special messenger. His brows were knit, and he was pondering deeply over it. He stroked his grey beard and sighed, murmuring to himself —
“Extraordinary! Most extraordinary! If I had suspected such a complication as this, I should have never accepted this Embassy. True, this is the highest office in our diplomatic service – an office which I have coveted ever since I was a young attaché at Brussels. And now that I have fame in my own country, and honour among these English, I am unable to enjoy it. Ah! the fruits of life are always bitter – always!”
Then he drew another heavy sigh, and remained silent, gazing moodily out, his dark eyes fixed blankly upon the handsome square. No sound reached that well-furnished room with its double windows and hangings of dark-red velvet, the chamber in which the greatest of English statesmen had often sat discussing the future of the European situation and the probabilities of war; the room in which on one memorable day a defensive alliance had been arranged between Italy and England, the culminating master-stroke of diplomacy which had obviated a great and disastrous European war. And it was the tall, handsome, grey-bearded man, at that moment standing at his window plunged in melancholy, who had thus successfully saved his own country, Italy, by concluding the treaty whereby the fine Italian Navy would, in the event of war, unite with the British fleet against all enemies – the alliance whereby England would be strengthened against all the machinations of the Powers, and bankrupt Italy would still preserve her dignity among nations. It had been a truly clever piece of diplomacy. By careful observation and cunning ingenuity, Count Castellani had obtained knowledge of the projected action of France, of Germany, and of Russia, while the British Foreign Office had remained in utter ignorance. Then one day he had invited Lord Felixtowe, His Majesty’s principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and in that room he had plainly told the story of the conspiracy in progress against England. The Foreign Minister was so surprised that at first he could not credit that the Powers implicated could have the audacity to contemplate the invasion of our island; but when His Excellency brought forward certain undeniable proofs, he was compelled to admit the truth of his assertion.
Then, without a moment’s hesitation, the subject of a defensive alliance was mooted. United with the magnificent vessels of the Italian Navy, the battleships of Britain could hold the seas against all comers. There was no time to be lost, for Russian diplomacy was shrewdly at work in Rome with the object of contracting an alliance between the Government of the Czar and that of King Humbert. Therefore, without consulting the Cabinet, Lord Felixtowe had accepted the Ambassador’s proposals, and within twenty-four hours a treaty was signed, which has ever since been Europe’s safeguard against war. It was a short document, its draft only covering half a sheet of foolscap; but it was a bond between two friendly nations, which, it is to be hoped, will never be severed.
Yet the life of an Ambassador is by no means enviable. Even when promoted to the first rank, he obtains but little thanks from his chief, and less from his own compatriots at home. In this instance, Count Castellani, through whose ingenuity and far-sightedness England, and perhaps the whole of Europe, had been saved from an encounter of so fierce, sanguinary, and frightful a nature as the world has never yet witnessed, obtained not a word of thanks from the Italian people. Indeed, beyond a private autograph note from his sovereign and a long and formal despatch from the Marquis Montelupo, his master-stroke had passed by unnoticed and unknown save to those who had for years been plotting the down fall of the British Empire. The result was that in this, as in nearly every case where clever diplomacy is needed, the result of the negotiations remained hidden from the public. In this case, as in so many others, the alliance was entirely secret, and only after some months was its existence allowed to leak out, and only then in order that the enemies of England should hesitate before embarking upon any desperate step.
Sometimes, in his fits of melancholy, Count Castellani, like all other men, could not help feeling discontented. He was but human. When he reflected upon the glory which the German and French Ambassadors were accorded in their own countries each time they carried through some paltry, unimportant little piece of diplomacy, his heart grew weary within him. It was in this mood, unhappy and discontented, that he stood at the window with the secret despatch in his white, nervous hand. What he had read there brought back to him a recollection of days bygone – a recollection that was painful and bitter now that he had risen to be chief of the service in which he had spent the greater part of his life.
Yet it held him stupefied.
Again he sighed. His daughter Carmenilla, a slim, dark-haired girl of twenty, entered softly and, seeing her father silent and pensive, moved noiselessly across the room. He was wifeless, and all his love was bestowed upon his daughter, who held her father in absolute reverence. Carmenilla was not beautiful, but she was her father’s companion, helpmate, and friend. She stood behind him, and heard him exclaim, in a low voice only just audible —
“If what I suspect is true, then the secret is out. I must obtain leave of absence and go to Rome. Perhaps even now my letters of recall are on their way! Nevertheless, it is too strange to believe. No; at present I must wait. I can’t – I won’t believe it!”
At that moment there was a tap at the door, and as Carmenilla slipped out noiselessly, the liveried Italian servant announced that Dr Malvano had called.
“Show him in here,” His Excellency answered, crossing instantly to his writing-table, unlocking one of the drawers, and placing the secret despatch therein.
When Malvano entered, rosy, buxom, and smiling, well dressed in frock-coat, and carrying his silk hat and stick with that air adopted by members of the medical profession, the Count shook him by the hand and greeted him cordially. Without invitation, His Excellency’s visitor tossed his hat and stick upon the sofa, sank into the nearest chair, and stretched out his legs, apparently quite at home.
The Ambassador, first raising the heavy velvet portière, and slipping the small brass bolt of the door into its socket, took a seat at his table, and fixing his eyes upon the man who had served him with wine the night before, said, with a sigh —
“Well, Filippo. A crisis appears imminent.”
“You have heard from Rome?” Malvano exclaimed quickly. “I met Varesi, the messenger, in the hall.”
“Yes,” His Excellency said. “I’ve received certain instructions from the Minister, but it is impossible to act upon them.”
“Why?”
“For the prestige of Italy, for our own reputations, for the personal safety of the one to whom we owe our knowledge, it is impossible to act,” the Count answered gravely. “My hands are tied absolutely.”
“And you will stand by and see murder committed without seeking to bring pressure to bear against those who seek our ruin? This is not like you, Castellani.”
“No, Filippo,” the other said, in a tone of confidence quite unusual to him, for he was a stern, rather harsh, diplomat, who never allowed any personal interest to interfere with his duties as Ambassador. “Not a word of reproach from you, of all men. You alone know that I have secretly done my best in this affair; that I have more than once risked my appointment in order to successfully accomplish the work which you and I have in hand.”
“And I, too, have done my utmost,” Malvano observed. “Up to the present, however, our enemies have been far too wary to be caught napping.”
“Yes,” the Ambassador said. “In this matter I have relied absolutely upon your patriotism. Like myself, you have run great risks; but I fear that all is to no purpose.”
“Why?”
“Because we have not yet fathomed the mystery of the death of the girl Vittorina Rinaldo. If we could do that it would give us a clue to the whole affair.”
“Exactly,” Malvano answered. “In that matter we are no nearer the truth than we were on the first day we commenced our investigation. And why? Because of one thing – we fear ‘La Gemma.’”
“Where is she now?”
“Ah! Unfortunately she quarrelled with young Armytage, left the Hotel Victoria suddenly, and – ”
“And her whereabouts are unknown,” His Excellency gasped. “Dio mio!” he cried. “Then she may actually have gone back to Italy and betrayed everything!”
“I think that very probable,” Malvano said gravely. “For the past fortnight I’ve been daily at the Bonciani, and have kept my ears open. There is something secret in progress.”
“What’s its nature?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then you ought to know,” His Excellency cried petulantly. “You must find out. Remember, you are the secret agent of this Embassy, and it is your duty to keep me well informed.”
Malvano smiled. The expression upon his round ruddy face at that moment was the same as when, on the night Romanelli dined with him at Lyddington, he had urged his young friend to travel to Livorno, and make a declaration of love to the unfortunate Vittorina. It was a covert glance of cunning and double dealing. “I always report to you all I know,” he answered. “Yes, yes,” His Excellency said hastily, in a more conciliatory tone. “I withdraw those words, Filippo. Forgive me, because to-day I’m much worried over a matter of delicate diplomacy. In this affair our interests are entirely mutual. You and I love our country, our beloved Italia, and have taken an oath to our Sovereign to act always in his interests. It therefore now becomes our duty to elucidate this mystery. In you Italy has a fearless man of marvellous resource and activity – a man who has, in the past, obtained knowledge of secrets in a manner which has almost passed credence. Surely you will not desert us now and relinquish all hope of obtaining the key to this extraordinary enigma. What have you heard at Lady Marshfield’s?”
“I sent in my daily report this morning,” the Doctor answered rather coldly. “You have, I suppose, read it?”
“I have,” His Excellency said, leaning both his arms upon the table. “I cannot, however, believe that your surmise has any foundation. It’s really too extraordinary.”
“Why?”
“Such a thing seems not only improbable, but absolutely impossible,” the Count replied.
There was a pause, brief and painful. The men looked at one another deeply in earnest. At last Malvano spoke.
“I know well the conflicting interests in this matter. If we do our best for Italy, we do the worst for ourselves – eh?”
The Ambassador nodded. “My political enemies in Rome have, I fear, ingeniously plotted my downfall,” the Count replied in a low tone, as he pressed the other’s hand. “A single spark is only required to fire the mine. Then the Ministry will be overthrown, and the country must inevitably fall into the hand of the Socialists. Look what they have already done in Venice and in Milan. At the latter city they’ve closed La Scala, one of the finest theatres in the world; they’ve dissolved the dancing-school, and have done their worst in every direction. Venice has been revolutionised and now at every local election one reads, written with black paint upon the walls, ‘Down with the King and the robbers! Long live the Revolution!’ I’m a staunch supporter of law and order, a firm upholder of country and of King, therefore my days of office are numbered.”
“Not if we successfully solve this enigma.”
“Why? By doing so I shall defeat the plots of my enemies, and thus embitter them against me far more than before.”
“You fear La Gemma?”
His Excellency nodded.
“Why?”
“She knows too much.”
“So did Vittorina. She was silenced.”
“What do you mean, Malvano?” the Ambassador cried, pale and agitated. “That she should share the same fate?”
“No,” the other answered gravely. “As far as I can see no life need be taken if we act with cunning and discretion. Can you trust me?”
“I do so implicitly,” His Excellency answered, seeing that the secret agent was now entirely in earnest. “More than once you have obtained knowledge by means little short of miraculous.”
“Briefly, I’m an excellent spy – eh?” the Doctor laughed. “Well, I didn’t spend ten years at the Questura in Firenze, and practise as a doctor at the same time, without obtaining a little wholesome experience. If you’ll give this affair entirely into my hands, I’ll promise to do my level best, and to assist you out of your dilemma. Your position at this moment is, I know, one of the most extreme peril; but by playing a desperate game we may succeed in discovering what is necessary, thereby placing ourselves and our country in a position of absolute security.”
“You are an extremely good friend, Filippo,” the Count answered quickly. “In this country, surrounded as I am by traitors and spies, you are the only one in whom I can absolutely trust – except Carmenilla.”
“Your daughter must know nothing,” the Doctor exclaimed quickly. “This is no woman’s affair. If life must be sacrificed, then she might inadvertently expose us – women are such strange creatures, you know.”
“Whose life, then, do you fear may be taken?” His Excellency eagerly asked.
The Doctor raised his shoulders with a gesture expressive of profound ignorance.
“Not Gemma’s?”
“Why not Gemma’s?” Malvano inquired, in an intense voice. “In this affair we must speak plainly. Is she not your enemy?”
“Certainly.”
“Then, if a life must be taken, why not hers?”
There was a silence, broken only by the low rumble of carriages and cabs outside.
“No,” His Excellency answered. “Before I give you perfect freedom in this matter you shall promise me that she shall be spared. I have reasons – strong ones.”
“Certainly, if you desire it,” the secret agent replied. The thought at that moment flashed across his mind that, if for the preservation of their secret her lips must necessarily be closed, there were others beside himself who would compass her death. The life of a man or woman can always be taken for a sovereign in London, if one knows where to look for men ready to accomplish such work.
“Then you give me your promise?” the Count asked eagerly.
“On one condition only,” Malvano replied in a firm voice, while his eyes fixed themselves upon those of the Ambassador.
“What is your condition?” His Excellency inquired.
“There must be no secret between you and me, for in order to successfully accomplish this stroke of diplomacy we must act deliberately, with forethought, and yet boldly face the facts, risking everything – even our lives,” he answered. Then, gazing straight into the other’s face, he added, “I shall not act unless you allow me to read the despatch you received to-day from Rome.” The Ambassador’s brows instantly contracted, and he held his breath. For the first time, he became seized with a suspicion that this man, whose deep cunning as a secret agent was almost miraculous, was now playing him false.
“No,” he answered, “that is impossible. My oath to the King prevents me showing any one a despatch marked as confidential.”
“Then your oath to the King prevents you from acting in the interests of Italy and the Crown; it prevents me from forging a weapon wherewith to fight the enemies of our beloved country.”
“The despatch is entirely of a private character, and concerns myself alone,” His Excellency protested.
“In other words, you can’t trust me – eh?” the Doctor said, with a hard look of dissatisfaction. “I therefore refuse to act further in this affair, and shall leave you to do as you think fit. I must be in possession of all the known facts before I embark upon the perilous course before us; and as you decline absolutely, I am not prepared to take any steps in the dark. The risks are far too great.”
The Ambassador was silent for a few moments, his eyes riveted upon those of the secret agent. Then, in a deep, intense voice, he said —
“Malvano, I dare not show you that despatch.”
Chapter Twenty
“The Gobbo.”
Saturday night in South London is a particularly busy time for the wives of the working classes. The chief thoroughfares in that great district lying between Waterloo Bridge and Camberwell Green are rendered bright by the flare of the naphtha-lamps of hoarse-voiced costermongers, whose strident cries call attention to their rather unwholesome-looking wares, and the crowds of honest housewives with ponderous baskets on their arms are marketing in couples and threes, taking their weekly outing, which is never to be missed. In the Walworth Road on a Saturday evening one can perhaps obtain a better glimpse of London lower-class life than in any other thoroughfare. The great broad road extending from that junction of thoroughfares, the Elephant and Castle, straight away to the site of old Camberwell Gate, and thence to the once rural but now sadly deteriorated Camberwell Green, is ablaze with gas and petroleum, and agog with movement. The honest, hard-working costermongers, with their barrows drawn into the gutters, vie with the shops in prices and quality; hawkers of all sorts importune passers-by on the congested pavements; the hatless and oleaginous butchers implore the crowd to “Buy, buy, buy,” and the whole thoroughfare presents a scene of animation unequalled in the whole metropolis – a striking panorama of poverty, pinched faces, shabby clothes, and enforced economy. The district between the Elephant and Camberwell Green has fallen upon evil days. Those who knew the Walworth Road twenty years ago, and know it now, will have marked its decadence with regret; how the lower life of East Street, known locally as Eas’ Lane, has overflowed; how fine old houses, once tenanted by merchants and people of independent means, are now let out in tenements; how model “flats” have reared their ugly heads; how the jerry-builder has swallowed up Walworth Common, across which Dickens once loved to wander; how all has changed, and Walworth has become the Whitechapel of the south.
Life in Walworth is the lower life of modern Cockneydom. There are streets in the district which, highly respectable thoroughfares twenty years ago, now harbour some of the worst characters in London; streets which, although a stone’s throw from the noisy, squalid bustle of the Walworth Road, a policeman hardly cares to venture down without a companion; sunless streets where poverty and crime are hand in hand, where filth has bred disease, and where stunted, pale-faced children wallow in the gutter mire. The wreckage of London life now no longer drifts towards the east, as it used to do, but crosses the Thames, and, after struggling in Lambeth, is swallowed in the debasing vortex of wretched, wonderful Walworth.
Those who pass up the great broad thoroughfare from Camberwell citywards see little of Walworth life. Only when one turns into one or other of its hundred side-streets, which spread out like arms towards the Kennington or Kent Road, can one observe how the poor exist. Among these many streets, one which has perhaps not deteriorated to such an extent as its neighbours, is the Boyson Road. The long thoroughfare of smoke-begrimed, jerry-built houses of monotonous exactness in architecture, two stories, and deep areas, is indeed a very depressing place of residence; but there is not a shop in the whole of it, and it is therefore quiet and secluded from the eternal turmoil of Camberwell Gate.
Halfway down this street, in one of the drab, mournful-looking houses, lived a man and his wife who held themselves aloof from all their neighbours. The man was an Italian, whose vocation was that of waiter in a restaurant in Moorgate Street, and he had taken up his residence in Boyson Road only a few months before. His name was Lionello Nenci, the man who had earned such unenviable reputation among the hucksters’ shops in Hammersmith, and whom Gemma, on her arrival in London, had tried vainly to find.
An air of poverty pervaded the interior of the house. The hall floor was devoid of any covering save for a sack flung down in place of a mat; the sitting-room was furnished in the cheapest manner possible; and, by the hollow sound which rang through the place, it was apparent that few of the other ten or twelve rooms contained any furniture at all.
Before the fire in the rusted grate of the sitting-room, on this cold, damp Saturday night early in December, Nenci himself, a dark-faced, surly-looking man with scrubby black beard, aged about thirty-five, was seated smoking a cheap cigar, while near him was a younger man, ugly, hump-backed, pale-faced, also an Italian. They were speaking in Tuscan.
“Yes,” Nenci said. “I had to clear out of Hammersmith suddenly and come down here, because I thought the Embassy knew too much. She only discovered me a fortnight ago.”
“And she is actually living here?”
“Certainly. This house is the safest place. She lies quite low, and never goes out. Here she comes.”
And at that moment the door opened, and Gemma entered. She was dressed in shabby black; her fair hair was twisted carelessly, and her small white hands bore no rings, yet, even slatternly and unkempt, she looked strikingly beautiful.
“So you are hiding with us?” the hump-backed man exclaimed, after he had greeted her.
“Yes,” she laughed.
“Where is your lover, Armytage?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “He may be abroad again, for all I know. I’ve neither seen nor heard from him since we parted nearly a month ago,” she said, drawing a chair close to the fire and seating herself, her feet placed coquettishly on the rusted fender.
“He knows nothing, I suppose?” Nenci growled, still smoking.
“Not a word. I’m not a fool, even though I may be in love.”
Both men laughed. They knew well the character of this beautiful woman before them, and placed the most implicit confidence in her.
“You really love him – eh?” Nenci inquired.
“I’ve already told you so a dozen times,” she answered impatiently.
“But you won’t desert us?” the younger man – whom they addressed as “The Gobbo,” Italian for hunchback – said earnestly.
“I am still with you,” she answered. “It is impossible for me to serve two masters. What time is the consultation to-night?”
“At ten,” answered Nenci, glancing up at the cheap metal timepiece on the mantel. “Arnoldo should be here in five minutes.”
The door again opened, and Nenci’s wife, a dark-haired Tuscan woman of about thirty, entered. The nasal twang of her speech stamped her at once as Livornese. She was good-looking, and, although ill-dressed, her drab skirt hung well, and her carriage had all the grace and suppleness of the South. For a moment she stood chatting to her husband, her visitor, and their companion, then turning down the smoking lamp, placed several chairs around the plain deal-topped table.
“Gemma hasn’t yet got used to London,” she laughed, as she busied herself preparing for the mysterious consultation which had been arranged. “She pines for her lover, and thinks this place a trifle poor after the big hotel at Charing Cross.”
“No, no,” Gemma protested. “I don’t complain. I’m quite safe here. And I can wait.”
“For your lover?” the Gobbo laughed, in a dry, supercilious tone. “It is a new sensation for you to love. L’amore è la gioia, il reposo la félicita – eh?”
Her clear eyes flashed upon him for an instant, but she did not reply. His words cut her to the quick. In that instant she thought of the man she adored, the man who was held aloof from her by reason of her secret.
Presently, after some further conversation, the door-bell rang, and Nenci’s wife, who promptly answered the summons, admitted two well-dressed men, Romanelli and Malvano.
The appearance of the latter was the signal for congratulations, Gemma alone holding aloof from them. She exchanged a glance with the Doctor, but he in an instant noticed its swift maliciousness, and remained silent.
After some conventional chatter, in which the Gobbo cracked many grim jokes, all six took seats around the table. Nenci had previously assured himself that the shutters were closed, and that the doors both back and front were securely barred, when Malvano was the first to speak.
“There are two of us absent,” he observed. “I received a telegram from one an hour ago. He is in Berlin, and could not be back in time. He apologises.”
“It is accepted,” they all exclaimed.
“And the other cannot come for reasons you all know.”
Then Nenci, a stern, striking figure, rather wild-looking, with his black, bushy hair slightly curled, bent forward earnestly, and said —
“Since last we held a consultation in Livorno some months ago, much has occurred, and it is necessary for us once again to review the situation. Most of us have had severe trials; more than one has fallen beneath the vengeance of our enemies; and more than one is now in penal servitude on Gorgona, that rocky island which lies within sight of the land we all of us love. Well, our ranks are thinner, indeed. Of our twenty-one brothers and sisters who met for the first time in Livorno three years ago only eight now remain. Yet we may accomplish much, for not one of us knows fear; all have been already tried and found staunch and true.”
“Are you sure there is no traitor among us?” Gemma asked, in a clear intense voice, her pointed chin resting upon her white palm as she listened to his speech.
“Whom do you suspect?” Nenci demanded, darting a quick look at her.
“I suspect no one,” she answered. “But in this desperate crisis we must, if we would successfully accomplish our object, have perfect faith in one another.”
“So we have,” Malvano said. “Here in London we are in absolute security. We have sacrificed enough, Heaven knows! Thirteen of us are already either in prison, or dead.”
Gemma sighed. She herself had been compelled to sacrifice a man’s passionate love, her own happiness and all that made life worth living, because of her connexion with this mysterious band which had its headquarters among the working class in London, and whose ramifications were felt in every part of Italy. She lifted her beautiful face once again. She was pale and desperate.
“Thirteen is an unlucky number,” remarked the Gobbo grimly.
“For the dead, yes. But eight of us are still living,” Malvano said.
“By the holy Virgin! it’s a desperate game we are playing,” Nenci’s wife exclaimed.
“Shut your mouth,” growled her husband roughly. “When your opinion is required, we’ll ask for it.” She was a slim, fragile woman, with a pale face full of romance, black eyes that flashed like gems, and a profusion of dark, frizzy hair, worn with those three thin spiral curls falling over the brow, in the manner of all the Livornesi. Even though she existed in squalid Walworth, she still preserved in the mode of dressing her hair the fashion she had been used to since a child. In that drab, mournful street, she sighed often for her own home in gay, happy, far-off Livorno, with its great Piazza, where she loved to gossip; its fine old cathedral, where she had so often knelt to the Madonna; its leafy Passeggio where, with her friends, she would stroll and watch the summer sun sinking into the Mediterranean behind the grey distant islands. When her husband spoke thus roughly she exchanged glances across the table with Gemma, and her dark, sad eyes became filled with tears.
“No,” protested Malvano quickly, “that’s scarcely the language to use towards one who has risked all that your wife has risked. I entirely agree with her that the game’s desperate enough. We must allow no discord.”
“Exactly,” Nenci admitted. “The reason why I have summoned you here is because the time is past for mere words. We must now act swiftly and with precision. There is only one person we have to fear.”
“What is his name?” they all cried, almost with one accord.
“The man whom Gemma loves – Charles Armytage,” the black-haired man answered, his eyes still fixed maliciously upon the woman before him.
In an instant Gemma sprang up, her tiny hands clenched, an unnatural fire in her eyes.
“You would denounce him?” she cried wildly. “You who have held me bound and silent for so long, now seek to destroy the one single hope to which I cling; to snatch from me for ever all chance of peace and happiness!” The eyes of the five persons at the table were upon her as she, strikingly beautiful, stood erect and statuesque before them. They all saw how deeply in earnest and how desperate she was.
But Nenci laughed. The sound of his harsh voice stung her. She turned upon him fiercely, with a dangerous glint in her clear blue eyes, a look that none of that assembly had ever before witnessed.
“In the past,” she said, “I have served you. I have been your catspaw. I have risked love, life, everything, for the one object so near my heart: the desire for a vengeance complete and terrible. Because of my association with you” – and she gazed around at them as she spoke – “I have been debarred marriage with the man I love. In order that he should leave me, that his daily presence should no longer fill me with regret and vain longing for happiness, I was compelled to resort to self-accusation, and to denounce myself as an adventuress.”
“Then you actually spoke the truth for once in your life!” Nenci observed superciliously, a fierce expression in his black eyes.
“Enough!” Malvano protested. “We didn’t come here to discuss Gemma’s love affairs.”
“But this man, who for the last three years has sought my ruin, has made a false denunciation against the young Englishman. I know only too well what passes in his mind. He declares to you that the only person we need fear is Charles Armytage, and the natural conclusion occurs that he must be silenced. I know full well that at this moment our position is one of desperation. Well, you know my past full well, each one of you, and have, I think, recognised that I’m not a woman to be trifled with. You may stir up the past and cast its mud into my face. Good! But, however wrongly I’ve acted, it is because this man has held me within his merciless grip, and I have been compelled to do his bidding blindly, without daring to protest. You may tell me that I am an adventuress,” she cried vehemently; “that my reputation is evil and unenviable; that my friends in Italian society have cast me adrift because of the libellous stories you have so ingeniously circulated about me; but I tell you that I love Charles Armytage, and I swear on the tomb of my dead mother he shall never suffer because of his true, honest love for me.”
