THE ROBERT E. COWAN COLLECTION runs! N i i:i> ii> nn: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA C. P. HUNTINGTON JUNE. 1897. Accession Nc Class J it ft m* /W. ARMADUKE JENVER D AND OTHEB STOEIES. BY MARY G. MAHONY. SAN FRANCISCO: WOMEN'S CO-OPERATIVE PRINTING OFFICE, 1887. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1887, by MARY G. MAHONY In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. The author offers this little collection of stories to her friends with a sincere apology. Firstly, because some of them have been published before in the columns of the newspapers, and secondly, because I am compelled to reproduce them in this shape by stern necessity. I seek neither name nor fame, but that which is much dearer to me than either, your friendly forbearance and kindly consideration. M. G. M. OF T TJNIVERSITT CHAPTER I. It was the sweet season of buds and blossoms; the fra grant hawthorn breathed a generous largess of perfume through the soft spring air and had already begun to spread a gorgeous carpet of pink and white petals. In the orchard at Redwood Farm two young people were seated beneath a hoary-looking apple-tree whose gnarled limbs, speckled with grey-white moss gave it a patriarchal eminence among its more youthful companions. From their Titian-like parent sprang vigorous young shoots which triumphantly spread forth a lavish load of satiny blossoms. Florence Denver was a rosy-cheeked girl of some fifteen summers, plump and healthy and sunburnt, but full of promise of the glorious fruit of beauty which was sure to follow this healthy blossoming. The soft, smooth skin was tinged with a pink hue which seemed to come from the great rose in each cheek; the somewhat large mouth was clear cut and expressive, and the full eyes seemed to have borrowed their color from the shifting hues of the sky so changeable were they, now light, now dark blue eyes that would be capable of expressing every emotion. The boy at her side was so very boyish and awkward, that an observer would never have lingered to bestow a second glance upon him. A man in the chrysalis state MARMADUKE DENVER. if we may so call it is rather an uninteresting creature at best, while the pretty caterpillar which promises the lady butterfly, has usually more attractions of color and contour. Harold Hereford was so obviously unfinished, so crude from nature's mould, that it would be almost cruel to describe him at this period of his existence, so far was he from having yet " filled the measure of youth." Added to his other disadvantages, he had just developed the uncertain and certainly unmusical squeak which heralds the transition from the voice of boyhood to a manly base. In a word, our readers must take Master Hereford on trust as we can promise nothing nor prophecy much for such a piece of unleavened earth, and a present estimate of him can only be gathered from his conversation with Florence Denver beneath the apple-tree, and hencefor ward by watching his career up and down the ladder of life which lay before him. "And so you are going away to college, Hal," said the girl at his side, "and I sha'n't see you for ever so long," and she gathered the falling blossoms into her lap with a sigh. " And you will be going to boarding-school," he replied somewhat ruefully, "and you will soon forget all about me." "Oh, I'll be sure to miss you, Harold," she answered, laughing at his lugubrious expression. " You see I have known you such a long time I can't forget you." Her reasons for remembering him did not seem to afford him much comfort, for he looked at her reproach fully, and swallowed an imaginary something. That he was very fond of his playmate ever since the period of mud pies, was a fact of about as much consequence to MARMADUKE DENVER. her as the affection of her favorite dog, but when he produced from its many wrappings of paper, a photograph of himself, and presented to her very solemnly, the girl's eyes filled with tears. They had known each other since childhood, and he had seemed as necessary a part of her life as her pet dog or most cherished toy, and she felt that she would miss him as such. Childlike they sat there and mapped out their garden of life, as though they alone were the sole and supreme gardeners, and as if there would be no adverse winds to disturb the flowers therein. A sudden breeze sent down a shower of blossoms upon them, which lodged in her hair, and nestled in the folds of lace upon her bosom. She laughingly bent her head towards the boy that he might pick them out, and while doing so he touched her hair sofily and reverently with his lips. With many good-byes tender and sorrowful on his side they parted at the orchard gate, and as the grateful incense of supper floated out upon the evening a^ir, our heroine soon forgot all about love and lovers. Such is extreme youth in love. Florence was the eldest daughter of wealthy Farmer Denver, who had leavened a handsome farm out of the primitive prairie, which had, after years of toil, yielded him a generous recompense, and now, at a hale and hearty period of his life, he relegated the responsibility to his two growing sons. To farmer Denver's mind, the education of boys should consist merely of "readin', 'ritin', and 'rithmetic," any thing else he deemed superfluous nonsense. <; If/had gone to college," he was wont to say, " and learned Greek and Latin, and other darned dead langwidges, I would be MARMADUKE DENVER. just one of them good-for-nothing fops as can spend mor'n they can earn." This was his final clincher to any argu ment on the subject, and the only concession his wife could obtain in this matter was the promise of a tutor who should be sternly cautioned against imparting any of his city non sense to his boys. Upper-ten-dom was, in William Denver's honest estima tion, an artificial structure, whose veneering was often of the thinnest and cheapest kind, and he found much of the grandeur of life in the green glory of his crops and their rich ripeness, wrought by the peaceful plowshare. His great heart, unwarped by conventionalism, was guileless and generous, and knew naught or the shallow artifices of the effete elegante. He held the soft-clothed city man in sub lime contempt, and eventually fell into the very venial sin of judging them all from one standpoint hence his stubborn antipathy to what he considered superfluous edu cational and ornamental acquirements. The pink and white petals of the blossoms had hardly withered among the long grasses in the orchard when the delicate little mistress of the farm sickened, and in one week the patient hands were folded in placid resignation over the dead heart. Twenty years before Hattie Wilberforce had left her refined home in a great city, and married " Wild Will Denver," her handsome, uneducated country cousin. She had always been delicate, and her being so seemed to make her all the more dear to the strong, healthy husband, and he had been as tenderly kind to her as if she had been a little child, in all those twenty years. Her death was a cruel stroke to him, now when fortune had given them the wherewithal to make their declining years still happier. The little wife had never grown old in MARMADUKE DENVER. his eyes, and in his bereavement he thought of her only as the blithe, blue-eyed girl, who had left a higher sphere to share his uncertain lot, for love of him. They saw but little of him for many days, and when he came again amongst them the brown hair was thickly streaked with white, and the feebleness of old age had suddenly come upon him. The summer had nearly gone and the leaves had turned to gorgeous hues of crimson and gold before things had resumed their wonted course at the farm. William Denver had made a solemn promise to the dead wife, as he kissed her white lips for the last time, and he was going to fulfill it as an act of reparation, which was sacredly due. To send her two boys to college had been one of Mrs. Denver's dearest wishes, and it was the only wish in which he had ever decidedly opposed her; but now there was a great uprooting of many old hobbies in the farmer's mind, and a gradual awakening to the con sciousness that his whole life had been devoted to the science of money getting, to the exclusion of many higher or nobler objects. Now that his gentle wife had left him, to think and judge alone, he found himself looking at matters with her eyes, and thinking with her thoughts about many things, but particularly of the future of the children. In due time the two boys, Milton and Duke, were sent to school to a distant city, Florence being sent to a boarding school. Soon after the farmer found himself alone with his grief, which became even more poignant when his little five-year-old girl toddled from her nurse's care to nestle in his arms. Five years had passed away leaving their meed of joys and sorrows. Gently they had touched the farmer's head, silvering more of the brown hair; lovingly had they dealt MARMADUKE DENVER. with his children bringing rare beauty to the faces and forms of his girls, and magnificent manliness to his boys. Florence's vacations were seasons of unmeasured delight to the youthful Kataline and her father, and he longed for the time when Florence would be the guiding angel of his house, and in a measure fill the void in his heart. A perfect picture of beauty was the little Kataline whose sunny, blue eyes and tangled mass of sunny hair made a rare picture of lovely childhood. And now arose a new necessity in the farmer's house hold; this "wee lamb" was fast freeing herself from the shackles of the nursery, and the prospect of sending her away to school was so distasteful to the farmer's widowed heart, that he put it off as long as possible and compro mised the matter for the present by advertising for a gover ness who should make her home with them. A few days later the Lefton Herald announced the fact that a " lady teacher would find a comfortable home at Redwood Farm." Later on during that day the advertisement became an important theme of discussion between two ladies, the occupants of a dingy lodging in the cheapest part of the city of Lefton. " Do you feel strong enough to undertake it, Madeline ? queried the older of the two ladies in question, with anxious solicitude in her face, and a quavering note of apprehen sion in her voice. "I'm afraid the doctor will not allow you." " But it is to the country, mother; going to the country is a very different thing." Her voice was full of a feverish entreaty. " I want the country air; it would do me all the good in the world. The city feels like a prison to me. Pray let me try it, mother." MARMADUKE DENVER. Madeline Grey's face was almost ghost-like in the inten sity and transparency of its pallor. A long and terrible illness had left cruel marks of suffering upon face and form, and the mother's heart sank within her as she gazed upon her stricken child whose life had been blighted in its very prime. After a long and anxious consultation, it was decided that Madeline should try the position thus offered, iff spite of broken health and bruised heart, for the widowed mother was dependent upon this slender reed for susten ance. She had written to Farmer Denver, and two days after she was seated beside him in the comfortable spring cart which he had almost filled with cushions and coverings to render the thirty miles of rugged country road as comfort able as possible. William Denver lifted the slight form in his arms, and his touch was almost of a womanly tenderness as he wrapped her around with shawls and rugs, nor did he for one moment stop to consider her apparent want of strength for the duties of her position; in his kindly heart there was only tenderness and solicitude for her comfort. Madeline Grey was almost silent during the long drive, but her eyes became brighter and a faint tinge of color stole into the pallid cheeks. The pure country air was already doing its work, and a great breath of thankfulness, a wordless prayer welled silently up from the weak heart, as her eyes feasted upon the majestic stretches of moun tain and wooded valleys. The air was filled with the glorious incense of clover and ripened hay, making a grand tribute of fruitful nature to its Creator. In all this there was to her an indescribable sense of rest, a very numbness of quiet pleasure that barred out every thought of aught else 8 MARMADUKE DENVER. save peace, to soul and body, and, if a wish could creep in, it would be that this driving thus might go on forever, through such scenes as these, an unending but peaceful and beautiful day-dream. The evening shadows were lengthening when they reached the farm; the great house dog barked sleepily without open ing his eyes, and wagging a lazy welcome to his master, again resumed his slumbers. For the first time in her life the little Kataline almost ignored the presence of her father, and clinging to the new governess held up her mouth to be kissed. Farm life seemed to agree with the world-worn woman whose apparent youth contrasted strangely with her shat tered health and sad demeanor. There was a settled, despairing sort of sadness in her dark blue eyes which gave her a spiritual expression; her cameo-like features were almost severe in their classical contour, and in repose were cold and rigid as marble. William Denver was no connoisseur of character, nor was he in the least a diviner of the depths and recesses of a woman's heart. His was not a nature to search beneath the surface for materials to form his opinions about things or people. The method of calculation by which he had arrived at a satisfactory conclusion with regard to Mrs. Grey must have been a short and simple one. He was pleased with her, and would as soon think of uprooting a beautiful flower, which was an unquestioned pleasure to him, to look for suspected unsightliness at its root, as to probe or pry into the hidden feelings of people who pleased him, much less this silent woman who seemed intent only upon doing her duty. That Mrs. Grey was a widow, with a mother dependent upon her for bread was all that he knew, and that much was sufficient to enlist his warmest sympathy. MARMADUKE DENVER. Kataline improved rapidly under her tuition, and the girl's attachment to her beautiful governess grew stronger every day. Little improvements were soon visible through the house, and when Florence came home during her customary vaca tion, she was at first inclined to shed tears over some of the deposed ornaments cherished of her childhood which were replaced by dainty little miracles in needle-work, and exquisite "bits" in pencil which modestly usurped their places. " Papa has got a governess for sister Kataline," wrote Florence to her brother Duke, "and she looks like the picture of a saint, but a very sad one. You could not help thinking that she must have seen something that once frightened her very much, and that she has never forgotten it. I know what you will want to do when you see her. You will want to paint her picture, but if you could leave the great sorrow out of her eyes, Duke, you would surely fall in love with your picture, like that poor sculptor that fell in love with his beautiful statue. I wish you could see her. Come soon. Love to Milton, from SISTER FLORENCE " About the same time Madeline Grey wrote the following to her mother: " I am far happier here than I had ever dared to hope. I seem to think that the things which you and I dread cannot enter here as well might lightning flash from a clear sky. There is only one clanger threaten ing my peace now it is the home-coming of those young men, which I hope will be deferred a long time. I have seen their pictures, and one is oh, so like but I must not think of this. Your child, MADELINE." CHAPTER II. Duke Denver, whose proper name was Marmaduke, had developed some taste as an artist, while at school, and had been sent to Italy to prosecute his studies. Milton, the oldest, became an enthusiastic student of theology, and so the vocation of the two young men seemed to be decided. Milton's letters from college were prayerful, pious things, as became an embryo churchman, and Duke's, from Flor ence, were brimful of life's pleasures, "much of which maybe found," he wrote, " in fair Florence, that wonderful treasury of books, pictures and music." Roseate, glowing letters they were, yet boyish and light as the foam of an effervescing draught. Harold Hereford had become a clever doctor of medi cine, and his visits to the farm were numerically like to those of the angels. How matters progressed between him and Florence will be learned in a future chapter. One magnificent street in Naples, fronts the Bay for miles, and commands many superb views. The shifting, opali?tic colors assumed by the waters, the weird and varied lights and shadows born of the voluptuous Neapolitan evenings, and the beautiful as well as grotesque shapes presented by Mount Vesuvius contribute inexhaustible treasures to the poetic and artistic student. Duke Denver and his companion, a young Frenchman, had somehow managed to secure an attic in one of the houses in this favored locality, which he had likened in letters " to an obscure corner in heaven." Those magnificent Neapolitan nights and they are MARMADUKE DENVER. II seldom otherwise can lull one's senses, wine-like, to a dreamy languor. No one ever desires to stay indoors after sunset. Duke and his brother artist were lounging in the easiest possible attitude, too luxuriously lazy even to talk. Smoking, under the circumstances, was out of the question, and would have required a supreme effort, which, in their pleasant, sublime state of ease, would be closely akin to labor. The Frenchman was the first -to break the silence. " Monsieur Denver, what have you done with your little model, that pretty Calabrian child of last year ?" "Oh, gone back to her tribe, I suppose/' replied Duke, raising his arms languidly and folding them softly upon his bosom, " or, maybe, found a lover among the enterprising heroes of the Abruzzi." " A haughty elf she was, too," continued the French man. k 'I tried to kiss her one day, but she flung herself out of my reach and flashed a look of anger at me that would have done credit to an abbess, though, by my faith, there are dozens of fine dames who would not flaunt Peirre Lacroix aye dozens." Duke was not evidently pleased with his friend's remarks for he vouchsafed no further comment, but turned his thoughts to the pretty Sicilian girl of whom he had made a sketch the year before a waif whose gypsy-like face came sometimes into his dreams. She was one of the people who whined in the usual Neapolitan fashion for alms, but she sang for hers, and there was rare melody in her plaintive voice that gained her more money than her poverty could have done. A pretty face is no rarity among the Sicilian street singers, and artists' models with faces and forms of marvelous beauty were as plenty in that " City of Sanctity," 12 MARMADUKE DENVER. as "leaves in Vallembrosa;" even in the highest ranks can be found fair dames who will graciously condescend to pose for a satisfactory remuneration. Yet above and beyond all, the modest peasant child retained a higher place in his thoughts, and her sweet voice like the dreamy music of an ^Eolian harp, often floated pleasantly through his memory. He had hoped to see her again when he returned to Florence, and he longed again to hear her voice, which seemed to harmonize with the soft twilight, blending her plaint for alms with songs of love, whose import she was all too young to understand. There are surely many small byways as well as highways to the human heart, and it is often reached by strangely devious paths that are unknown to us and unguarded; little things often impel us with a strength that is at once subtle and supreme. Duke did not know which was the strongest power that made him long so much to visit Florence again. It might be a chain of many different links, but he did not know the peasant girl was a link as strong as any of the others. Duke Denver's life had been soft-gliding and placid as a stream without a ripple; he had passed into manhood in unconscious possession of all the boyish traits and buoyant hopefulness that belong to youth, and he felt as happy in his unpretentious atelier in Naples, as a man whose future was assured. " I'm getting tired of Naples, Pierre, "he said at length, " let us go back to Florence, again." "You must be surely dreaming, Marmaduke," replied his friend. " Why, we are not here a month yet, and you longed so much to come here." "I like Florence better," replied Duke, illogically, and he relapsed again into meditation. MARMADUKE DENVER. 13 "Very well, mon ami, you shall go, you shall have your whim, if you really mean it. When would you like to go, mon comrade^ To-morrow? " Yes, to-morrow," repeated Duke, brightening. " Hurrah ! " responded the cheerful Frenchman. " To morrow, then, we are en voyage again, and / shall not unpack my valise when I get there until you manage to get a little more backbone into your present weak reso lutions." " Merci" said Duke with a languid smile, "you are a cherub, Pierre." Pierre Lacroix liked the young American, who had an unconscious knack of winning his way into many hearts, his frank, boyish blue eyes could look the whole world in the face making good people pause to give him a hearty hand shake, and compelling the other kind to feel ashamed of themselves. Pierre Lacroix was a veritable Bohemian, good-natured as he was reckless. He had conceived an intense liking for Duke, chiefly because the young American was his op posite in almost everything. Among innumerable other French adjectives he called him " his ballast," "his buoy and anchor," and in pathetic moods " his guiding angel." He would have gone cheerfully to the end of the world with Duke, and would then, as he expressed it, "hang on by a peg to the outer edge for the pleasure of his com pany." The next day saw them en route for Florence. A lovely landscape flitted past the hurrying train like a panorama; the low, grassy hills were dotted daisy-like with little white cottages; the glowing orchards and trim hedges, looking almost artificial in their neat regularity, presented an unrivalled picture of peace and beauty. 14 MARMADUKE DENVER. They were fortunate enough to find apartments in the old locality and soon found themselves comfortably housed. Duke had spent a year in Florence and had made many friends there. The day after their arrival invitations poured in upon them from many old acquaintances, but the Prin cess de Carillo's card was by far the most important in Pierre Lacroix's estimation. The Princess was as popular in Italy as a queen might be in her own dominion; her power was potent in political intrigues, and her wealth al most fabulous. She was a woman without a particle of beauty, and yet whom to know was to love, and whose slightest favor could draw men down upon their knees aye, almost to death. "A dangerous siren" so said the world. To-night her gorgeous salon in Florence was a veritable fairyland of light, and music, and flowers. Our young artists arrived late but were fortunate enough to get a glimpse of the princess who was leaning upon the arm of an Austrian Ambassador, whose very evident ad miration seemed to weary her. A smile lighted up her face when she recognized the two young artists. " Mon enfants, how good you are;" (the princess was barely twenty and invariably assumed a maternal air towards the young men of her acquaintance) " how very good of you to come and see a tired old woman. Seeing you back again," she continued," is so pleasant; it is like mending a broken chain, after finding two of the lost links again." As she said this she dismissed his Austrian great ness with a grace and sweetness that were inimitable, and then motioning the two young men to a divan seated her self between them. Duke, as might be expected, was not much of a courtier; his tongue could form no such honied speeches as her ears were accustomed to hear, and yet, strange enough, MARMADUKE DENVER. 15 in this very defect lay his greatest charm in her eyes. The unsophisticated American was a novelty to her, and there was positive refreshment in his out-spoken, unstudied thoughts and unconventional manner. A French woman's life, it is said, revolves upon the pivot of matrimony, adu lation and flattery being two of the most important levers in the matrimonial machinery. Up to a certain period Hortense de Carillo's life had revolved like most others of her sex, and then she was married, at a tender age, to a man who was older than her father, totally unable to discriminate in a matter about which she was scarcely consulted, and too young to realize what love meant. The gorgeous vista pictured to her by a marriage with a wealthy old man, completely satisfied the ambition of her untutored school-girl heart, the release from a stern parental rule being the most sublime sort of emancipation in a French girl's mind. This was what she felt, standing in the fairy portals of marriage, when the voice of the youthful heart was easily stilled, when love was stifled even before its birth, and then she was whirled into the vortex of a soulless, gilded life, in which heart and conscience held no share. Hortense de Carillo had reeled through the maze but a short time when the stifled heart-cry became a passionate plaint. Her husband, a blase man of the world, had never loved her, and his blunted sin-gorged sensibilities were not a whit disturbed by the knowledge that she found no pleasure in his society. They saw but little of each other, and she was free to amuse herself after her own fashion, provided, " she made no scenes," nor eloped with any one. Surrounded with all that could apparently gratify a woman's senses wealth and adoration the princess was l6 MARMADUKE DENVER. restless and unhappy. Satin and diamonds cover, alas ! how often, a starving heart, and the flashing light of jewels can never warm its dreary chambers. Without the sun no plant can be healthy, no fruit can ripen, no flower can gain color or perfume, nor can the human heart flourish without its meed of sunshine which is love. Denied of this it will ever crave in its wordless language, and mutely spread out its golden tendrils eager to twine themselves around some loved object. Alas ! for the poor heart whose hunger is unappeased; whose still, small voice is unheeded; whose tendrils are flung back to shrink and wither, hiding forever their dead leaves in the empty heart. Duke had been telling the princess about his pretty model whom he had found in Florence. " Mon Dieu" murmured the princess naively, "how I wish I were a peasant girl, with soft black eyes and a sweet voice." She sighed naturally enough as she said this, and bent her brown eyes for a moment upon the young American. "And you would console yourself with a lurking hope of some King Cophetua's making his debut at the proper time," laughed Pierre Lacroix, as he twisted the ends of his mustache. " You must let me see that picture sometime, Monsieur Denver. I am quite interested in your gypsy queen," said the princess lightly, "and I hope for your sake that she may be the lost heiress of someone who is somebody; and she has a sweet voice, too," she continued. " If you find her again be sure and bring her to me. And now, Monsieur," she said, rising, her billowy lace foaming around her, " I must leave you ; but pray, don't forget my request, nay, my command (this with mock sternness) to bring the child to me," and with a charming smile, from which a thousand sweet regrets shown, she left them. MARMADUKE DENVER. 17 Hortense de Carillo's face was not one to attract any notice, if one did not happen to know her. The small face was plain almost to homeliness, and the quiet brown eyes were nearly expressionless, but when she smiled and in that lay all her glory her lips and all her features assumed the most bewitching expression, and seemed to be illumin ated by a strangely beautiful light. " She should be always smiling," said many of her admirers. It was her greatest power a force that brought lovers by the hundreds, who forgot their allegiance elsewhere while basking in the entrancing atmosphere which this woman diffused around her. It is difficult to analyze the heart, to arraign its thousanis of varying emotions before the tribunal of reason. A year had passed since she had first met Duke Denver, with his boyish, beardless face, and artless tongue, and now the shackles, golden though they were, that bound her, felt cold and tight, and cruel as death, and the brave religious heart that had hitherto been as a giant bulwark against dishonor, was, alas, even now reaching out its weary tendrils towards him. Duke had passed into manhood without losing any of his boyish fancies. Before he was seventeen he had formed an ideal for himself, one that he had conceived by the pure light of an innocent heart, and because of this the wiles and witcheries of society women had but little power over him, and he emerged from many a gorgeous labyrinth with his beloved ideal graven more deeply upon his honest heart. " Let us go, Pierre, I am tired of the salon," said Duke, after the princess had left them. "Certainly, mon ami," replied the other, smiling; "it is only a dreary desert when she goes away. You are I 8 MARMADUKE DENVER. right" he added, "she will not come near us again to-night. What an angel she is; but her visites resemble theirs a little too much. A lions mon enfant." In truth, Duke was not thinking of the princess just then. He longed to get back to his rooms, and sit upon the pleasant veranda where he had first heard the sweet voice of the peasant girl whose face had often come to him in dreams. This soft-eyed child of the Calabrias, a beggar in the streets of Florence, had a face which an empress might stop to wonder at, and when she sang her simple chant for alms, there were few indeed who did not pause to look and listen. Trustfully and innocently she had followed Duke to his studio one day, coming again and again, without a thought of danger, and she often sang for him when her voice seemed a part of the twilight and the evening odors of the flowers, while her great eyes, that Fra Angelico would have loved to paint, tried to find him up there in the darkness upon the veranda. After he had gone to Naples she had come there night after night, not knowing that he had gone, and when at last she had realized that he was no longer there, she sang from house to house through the whole city, caring but little for the coins that were flung to her, heedless alike of the coarse jokes and flatteries which were still more lavish, hoping to find him, until at last, weary and hopeless, she went, no one knew whither, perhaps to other cities to look for him, for she had already made of her simple heart a pedestal, whereon she had placed him, to be worshipped in silent and sorrowing reverence. The rich blood of Sicily becomes warmed to love's tem perature at a tender age, and the kindly behaviour of the MARMADUKE DENVER. young American, free from raillery or coarseness, had reached the childish heart unlocking it all too soon with its hidden treasures of love. Night after night Duke sat and listened on the veranda, hoping to hear her again, and by day he often peered anxiously among the groups of peasants on the streets, but he never found her. " She will find you some day, be assured," the princess had said to him one evening, "and then you shall make me a present of her, and some day," she added thought fully, "you shall hear a charming singing bird whom you shall want to capture for yourself." " What a romantic web the princess can weave around a prosy old fellow like you, Duke," laughed Pierre La- croix, looking at Duke in mock admiration. It was Duke's habit on such occasions to allow his friend full scope for the witty and polite retorts upon which Pierre prided himself not a little, and although the prin cess laughed good-naturedly at them, she never failed to look expectantly to Duke for some reply. "HI remember aright," said Duke, slowly, "the nymph or siren who knitted or crochetted those mythical materials was called "Daphne." " Yes/' suggested Pierre, " something that begins with a D, I think." "Oh, yes," chimed in the princess gayly, "and the materials she used were c rays of sunshine/ and 'threads of moonbeams fringed with dewdrops ' and other airy nothings." " Oh, but madame la princess would need some stronger stuff to enclose that young Hercules," said Pierre, pointing to Duke. "The finer web might do for me" he added, plaintively. " I'm slight and tender ," "And innocent 20 MARMADUKE DENVER. as a child," interrupted Duke, with a genuine American grin. "Oh, golden warp and silver woof," sang the princess softly, as if her voice was away in the distance, and a sudden shade of sadness came into her face. In all that gorgeous maze of music and mirth, and the perfume of flowers, her heart was beating heavily and becoming more than ever conscious of its terrible void. She arose to accept the arm of a white-haired old general, who claimed her for the waltz which was just then commencing. Duke followed her with his eyes, thinking the while how pleasant it was to be near her, and listen to the voice, which had such lulling power. There was an indescribable something about the woman which pleased one in an easy, passionless way some thing more akin to the nature of music or sunshine, or the pleasure that one derives from the presence and perfume of flowers, inspiring the reverence that one might feel for a thing of beauty and goodness. CHAPTER III. About this time the fact began to dawn upon Duke's lazy imagination that he was becoming a hopeless idler, purposeless arid indifferent. He roused himself just enough to wonder at it, but did not inquire very closely into the matter it is not easy to grasp at will or define the oft-times intangible causes of our failings for analysis. Duke was a little puzzled about it, but at length comfort ably concluded that it was nothing worse than the inevitable ennui that one is sure to succumb to in the lazy, luxu rious indolence of an Italian climate. But he was ex ceedingly conscientious, and deeming himself too partial a tribunal to be arraigned before, complained to Pierre of the growing inanity which was besetting him of late- Your case is just this, mon chere enfant " replied Pierre tenderly, as if he dreaded to hurt some sore spot on Duke's mental person. "You are very young. Mon Dieu! hor ribly young. An American is always an enfant in his own land, but in Paris, Florence Gods, he is a babe. Then your appetite is not regulated for these climates; you take over much wine at your repast, mon frere" " Wine," echoed Duke, staring in astonishment, "you know I never drink, Pierre." " Oh, I mean your banquets of pleasure, your feasts of reason, etc.; your sun-bathing in madame's eyelight, the wine of her smiles. You are a glutton, mon chere, a drunkard, a-a but you don't know it, you don't know yourself, you are a babe, you " " Oh, stop, for heaven's sake!" cried Duke, throwing up his hands as if to defend himself from blows. " You are on 22 MARMADUKE DENVER. the wrong track, as they say in America, and that eloquent peroration of yours is a tissue of nonsense." " I will prescribe for you, I will save you," cried his friend, tragically. " You shall be more moderate; you shall do violence to your weakness; you shall live; henceforth, thou shalt labor with thine hands." "Yes," sighed Duke, flinging the end of a cigar away, " but you talk nonsense, Pierre; I am not in love with anyone, least of all with another man's wife." " Of course not," replied his friend calmly, with a grin that would have made his fortune as Mephistopheles; " men seldom get mad in a minute, or drunk in a moment. You are not quite poisoned yet; some potions work slowly* but they ///all the more surely." " Nothing so common as that hallucination of yours, dear boy," Duke retorted; "you are the one who is in love, and think, naturally enough, that everyone must needs see with your eyes." "Time will tell," responded Pierre, prophetically; " this air is my native element, old man, and you can't drown a duck in water." " Well, granting that all you say is true, what would you prescribe for the sad case ?" inquired Duke. " What shall I do that I may be saved ?" " Keep away from the salon of the princess for a month and paint something me, for instance; it will take some bitumen, but the exercise is good try it." "All right," replied Duke, tilting his chair back and closing his eyes; " 'tis a cruel punishment, but it is some satisfaction to know that you must suffer some of it." For the first time in his life Duke found himself medi tating seriously. In this shower of nonsense which his friend had jocosely launched upon him, he seemed to feel MARMADUKE DENVER. 23 a slender shaft which pricked him with a keen sting. The influence of his simple country home was still strong upon him; as yet there had been nothing in his life to awaken strong emotions. He was a religious man, too, and a will ing prisoner in the chains with which the Catholic Church guards the passions of its followers. That anyone should suspect him of being in love with a woman who belonged to another was inexpressibly shocking to him, when put into words. Even if he had been unconsciously drifting into a liking for the society of the princess, these words of his friend rudely dispelled any self-illusive shading there might have been, exposing a naked and hideous fact, and proved him by the light of his own conscience, a criminal) and he began to feel like a man who had just been dragged from the brink of a dangerous precipice. Under the in fluence of these feelings, he resolved to keep away from the salon of the princess, and at least disabuse the mind of his friend of this monstrous idea. More than a month had passed and Duke had kept his resolution bravely. His abstinence, as Pierre termed it, was not as easy a task as he had imagined, though they both tried to "make merry" over it, and Pierre grimly intimated at times, f ' that it was hard to live without the light of the sun." There was more truth in his wit than either of them dreamed of. It had been an unusually warm day in Florence, and people gladly welcomed the evening with its drowsy hum of softly dying noises, which lessened gradually until snatches of laughter and occasional bursts of music alone broke the stillness. A little later the theatres commenced to pour forth their throngs, whose merry voices and laugh ter sounded wonderfully distinct through the still air of the city. 24 MARMADUKE DENVER. Our two young artists had been to the theatre and were elbowing their way out through a dense crowd, which be gan to scatter as they approached the Piazza de la Signora. Here a good many people paused to listen to a serenade which was going on before one of the houses. Duke Denver stood for a moment to listen, and then started quickly forward as he recognized a well-known voice. Pierre tried to hold him back. "Wait 'til the song is over," he said, in a low voice; "then we will find her." The crowd listened breathlessly to the wildly-beautiful music that welled up from those untutored peasant throats: In Venice, when the sinking sun In blushing beauty seeks the West, When purple shadows softly blend Their colors with the deep blue sea, A sound comes stealing near and near, Until it rests within my heart, And of its pulses seems a part-- The singing of the Gondolier. When tender flowers droop and swoon Beneath the perfumed pall of night, And trembling trees show leaflets white, All silvered by the pale moonlight; Now faintly near, now sweetly near, Now faint and far, now deep and clear, A lingering memory ever dear The music of the Gondolier. Many carriages had crashed past the little group of listeners and had rumbled softly away in the distance. As the song ended the people turned to disperse, and no one seemed to notice the nearness of a vehicle, which was close upon them, until the fiery eyes of a pair of runaway horses flashed upon them, and in a moment more they had dashed through the crowd, tramping a path over prostrate forms. It was all so sudden, that no one saw the driver crouching in helpless terror upon the box, holding on with both hands and clutching one side of a broken rein, MARMADUKE DENVER. 25 and inside a woman's face white and rigid with fear. All was now confusion and screams, where a moment before was only music and peace. Duke had been borne down in an attempt to grasp the horses, and was mercilessly crushed beneath their feet. A square further the maddened brutes crashed blindly against an archway, one falling dead, and so entangling the other as to render it helpless. The driver, almost paralyzed with fright, now clambered feebly to the ground and thrust his head into the still un injured carriage, with the ghastly expectation of finding his mistress a corpse, but the Princess de Carillo for it was she had recovered from her terror and stepped now firmly on to the street. Through the whole hideous crush she had never lost consciousness; she had seen the horses beating down the little crowd in the Piazza, and knew that some of then must have been injured or killed, and in spite of the lateness of the hour and the remonstrances of the still trembling coachman, she walked quickly back to the scene of the accident. The rough pebbles almost cut through the thin satin shoes, and there was but little pro tection in the flimsy lace shawl around her head, but she was a generous and kindly-hearted woman and did not con sider herself when people needed help. " Come, Leon, and be quick," she said almost angrily to the coachman; "I'm not afraid." When they reached the place they found that five people had been hurt, and were being carried to their homes by friends. Pierre had gone in search of a carnage. At a little distance from the rest she saw a group bending over a prostrate form. There was an ominous stillness among them. As the princess approached them one of the women rose to her feet; an other, a mere girl, sat upon the ground, and held the sufferer's head on her lap. The princess stood over them 26 MARMADUKE DENVER. for a moment, and then sank weakly upon her knees, as she recognized the deathly white face of Duke Denver. She forgot the people who were looking on, and the girl who sat supporting his head, and who now glanced jeal ously up at her, and in a moment the white jewelled arms, bare and cold, were around him, drawing him towards her. The young girl arose and fell back a pace or two, and stood gazing, with tightly folded hands, at the woman in white, who looked so like a beautiful apparition. " Quick, Leon, go get a carriage. I know him. I will take him to his home. Come to me to-morrow, if you need help. lam the Princess de Carillo/' Her voice sounded harshly, as if the utterance of words pained her, and she bent again over the still, insen sible form, holding him as tenderly as one might hold a child. They brought him to her house, where the doctors were soon in attendance. Pierre was almost distracted with grief and forgot his own bruises. He remained with Duke all night, and mourned his young friend as already dead. Duke did not become conscious until the next day, and then he lay helpless and speechless, the graceful young form, quite paralyzed. No murmur of pain escaped him, and the princess could only tell by the look in his eyes, when she came into the room, that he knew her. She could notice a faint flush on the pallid face, as she bent over him with sad beseeching eyes. It was unutterable agony to her to see him lying thus, and she would have shed her heart's blood, if it would have given him life enough to speak one word to her. The doctors were puzzled about the case, and would not give much hope. " A severe injury to the spine had affected the brain. It was dangerous very dangerous," they said, "but his magnificent physique might surmount MARMADUKE DENVER. 27 it." Every voice in the house had been hushed to the softest whisper. Three days had passed since the accident, and there was still no change in Duke's condition. The princess was almost in despair, and now looked for the death which would surely take some of her life with it. One evening when the crimson glow of the sunset stole into the sick chamber, a broad beam fell upon the sick man's face, and surrounded his head like a halo. The princess sat near him, her head drooping upon her hands. She looked up suddenly and saw the glory of light upon his face, and making a golden aureole of his fair hair. The wide blue eyes were looking straight at her, full of melting pity, as if he fain would speak and comfort her. She thought with a thrill of fear that this must be death holy and awful to her. For a moment she sank upon her knees, awed and reverent in its presence, and then, some thing that had become infinitely stronger than holy fear, arose in her, and she drew the unresisting head close to her and kissed the still dumb lips again and again. Then she laid him back softly upon the pillow and went away, covering her face with her hands, as if to keep that last look of his in her eyes forever, and walked unsteadily to the room where the doctor was still waiting. But the "grim white steed" took his departure at last, and a change for the better set in; even the doctors were surprised. The rigidity of his limbs began to relax and he gained strength rapidly; his own vojce was the first to break the long silence in his chamber, and her name was the first word that he uttered. They sent for her and she came quickly, but paused in the doorway so that she might hear his voice and compose herself. She waited in the darkness of the doorway until the doctors should leave the room by the door leading to 28 MARMADUKE DENVER. the main hall, "for no one must see the Princess de Carillo weeping over the young American stranger." She could hear his voice, weak and querulous as that of a child, asking to see her, but she could not stir then to save her life. She dared not go in yet, but not a word, not a sigh of his escaped her. The doctors went away at last and then she went softly in; she had composed her self, although her face bore ineffaceable traces of acute anguish. His eyes lighted up joyously as she came towards him; there was a questioning, too, in their blue depths that he could never put into words it was soul speaking to soul, in which no words could avail. " You have been suffering for me," he said softly, as she put her hand into his, "and it nearly killed me to '* but she put her hand gently over his mouth and he said no more. Great tears of thankfulness were in her eyes and dropped upon his face as he held her hand in happy silence. The doctors soon returned and she became her own superb self again. Pierre Lacroix was with the doctors and his joy was like that of a schoolboy, a mixture of laughter and tears. In his boyish, affectionate way, Duke had liked the princess, and had actually felt very young and insignificant in her eyes. To submit to her kindly patronage seemed quite natural to Ijis simple, glowing nature, and matters might have gone on thus for a lifetime without awaken ing any other sentiments in his heart; but such friendships are often dangerously blind as well as beautiful. The princess left the room with a sweet smile upon her face and walked slowly to her own chamber, where her pride and fortitude deserted her, or rather, were flung MARMADUKE DENVER. 29 aside, and a wretched woman grovelled upon the floor because of the love which was a shame. Some souls grow stronger as the body weakens it may be that the spirit detaches itself from its earthly shell gathering its scattered strength unto itself, and stands alone in its own purity. So also does the spirit sometimes weaken as its earthly rind withers and falls away. Duke's soul and body sank together and were now craving, child-like in their weakness, for the comfort that his soul would, in its strength, have rejected. With returned health he might beat this weakness back from heart and brain, though quelling the surging tide of a young heart is an Herculean task and might be more than he could accomplish. Just now he did not trouble himself about the right or wrong of it; he had no strength for any mental exertion, but lay quietly, a strange, happy languor upon him which he did not care to disturb. The princess came to see him but seldom now, and he understood her reasons; she only came when the doctors were there. The memory of that kiss, given, as she thought, in his dumb and dying moments, seemed to linger upon his lips, and was freshened by the loving mem ory in which he held it. There was in it much of boyish longing for her woman's kindly touch, but its fatal sweet ness gathered strength with returning health, eating its way to his very soul, and fanning the dormant fire in his nature to an unquenchable flame. He sprang quickly into health and strength, now, and as he did so, the visits of the princess ceased entirely, and he could have wished that he might lie there maimed and helpless all his life. We are taught to buffet what is antagonistic to body and 30 MARMADUKE DENVER. soul; and most of us are educated and strengthened by religion to combat the sins which we know by name, but there are innumerable untrained emotions, intangible weaknesses, which are our most fatal foes, because they are born of the human heart, every day and hour of our lives, and for which we have no laws, no rules, for ever troubling us with questions which we know not how to answer, and menacing us with danger which we are almost powerless to ward away. Duke Denver's boyhood had passed quickly out of sight forever. The placidity of the calm, religious-tinted soul in him, which had been like a clear lake in the sunshine, was now stirred to its deepest depths, bringing much that was earthly in it to the surface, and a swift and troubled cur rent into his life. A few days after Duke had left the house of the prin cess, her maid came to her with a puzzled face. " Madame, there is a person, a girl, who has been here very often, to enquire about the health of M. Denver; some creature, no doubt, who should be sent away." " What does she look like, Marie?" questioned the princess, with a thoughtful air. "Perhaps," she added hastily, " she comes from some of the people who were hurt by my carriage. Did she wish to see me ? Let her be brought to me." "Yes, madame, if the porter has not sent her away; he has grown tired of her coming so often." "Go quick, Marie," said the princess, angrily, "and bring her back." In a few minutes the maid returned, followed by the Sicilian peasant, the girl whom Duke Denver had told her about, and the princess recognized the girl who had been holding his head upon her lap when he lay for dead. MARMADUKE DENVER. 31 The princess gazed at her in silence, as if her mind were occupied with something else, and then begging Marie to leave her, she motioned to the girl to come nearer. " I know what you would ask, child for M. Denver, is it not ?" "Excellenza, yes, pray tell me that he lives, that he will not die," replied the girl with an imploring gesture, " He has been kind, ah! so kind to me;" here she quailed and clasped her hands beseechingly. For a moment a wild, unreasoning anger filled the bosom of the princess against this wretched child, who could and might love him without sin or shame, but only for a moment, and then the woman's better nature asserted itself, and when she spoke again her voice had a broken, pitiful tone. "Yes, girl, he is well. He has been kind to you?" Her voice grew softer now. " Ah, who would not be," she murmured more to herself, as she noticed the slim, graceful outlines of the form, which promised a mag nificent maturity. The thin, clinging garments upon her were old and faded, but there was in every wreath and fold an unconscious beauty. The faint dusk of red in her olive cheeks deepened as she stood there, embarrassed and irresolute. " She is not a bold girl," thought the princess, "Oh, far, far from it. Mon Dieu" she murmured, " but it nearly cost her her life to come here, and yet she would walk upon burn ing brass to get news of him. Sapristi, what a face she has. But you are standing, my child," she said; " I had not noticed. I am sorry. Pray sit down." The princess now relapsed into deep thought. " And I am the one who has destroyed him," she said to herself, " and I am, alas! powerless to save him, to help him. Mon Dieu" she sighed almost aloud, "my help would only 32 MARMADUKE DENVER. complete his ruin. Presently she turned to the girl: " You can sing, I believe." "Excellenza, yes; in my poor way/' the girl replied. "Will you sing for me now?" the princess asked, with one of her sweet smiles. The young peasant looked at the gorgeous surroundings for a troubled moment, and then her eyes rested upon the face of the princess in a mute appeal, as if she thought her singing would be incongruous in the presence of so much magnificence, but the reassuring smile of the prin cess, who quite understood her, gave her some courage, and she commenced to sing. The sweet mouth quivered at first and the words came tremblingly, and then the sound of her own voice seemed to render her oblivious of her surroundings, and it grew and swelled in strength and sweetness, the stream-like flow of the melody scarcely rippled by a word, so soft is the accent of Sicily; even the patois of the peasant is so softly lipped as to be scarcely distinguishable in song. Not till her song was finished, so wrapped was she in her own exquisite music, did the girl's cheeks redden, but now the rich blood diffused her face until it fairly burned, and she seemed sadly conscious of having done a very bold act. " Charming," murmured the princess, though somewhat absently. Already she had commenced to plan a scheme in which this young girl might play an important part, and her brain had become so busy that she had not paid much attention to the girl's singing, but she had heard enough to know that she possessed the germ of a superb voice, and with such a face and form, too, she thought, could be easily improved into a magnificent woman. The prin cess was thoroughly herself now; all the womanly kindness and generosity of her nature were aroused, and became MARMADUKE DENVER. 33 powerful factors in the plans which her busy brain was now weaving. She dismissed the young girl with a request that she would come to her on the morrow with her parents. The next day Veronica, for such was her name, arrived with her parents, who were easily persuaded to allow the girl to be sent to school, where the princess assured them she would be taught all the arts of music and singing, and, moreover, promised to help them, as they were very poor, and Veronica had been their chief support. The princess attended to all the arrangements for send ing the girl to school with a feverish sort of joy which had in it a linking pain. Her noble efforts in this matter were wrung from the keenest self-sacrifice, but, when all had been completed, and she had kissed the girl farewell, a flood swept through her soul, calming, consoling, and purifying, because of this act of God-inspired justice and atonement, the conception of which was worthy of a goddess. But there was something more to be done she must see Duke Denver again, though she knew it would wring her heart to its very roots. Her note to him was without name or date, and ran thus: "I ought not to send for you, and cannot blame you if you refuse to come. I want to ask your forgiveness. I am trying, with God's help, to undo the wrong which I have unintentionally done. 5 ' This was the hardest part of the task which she had set herself to do, but she would shrink from nothing now. CHAPTER IV. Pierre Lacroix was too kindly hearted to plume himself upon the fulfillment of his jocose prophecy, but was now cursing himself unmercifully for what he considered was his fault in allowing his young friend to fall into trouble. He had regarded Duke as a mere boy, whose love, he thought, would be only a youthful effervescence which would quickly boil over, and vanish like a bubble. He loved Duke as a brother, and loved him well, after his own fashion. Wild, blase, and godless, he had scarcely an atom of feeling for men of his own mould; though he played, drank and caroused with them all his life, not one of them found room in his thoughts an hour later. To the young American, whose boyhood seemed to be ever freshly springing within him, whose rare honesty and purity were ever mildly reproachful to him, Pierre had given all the affection of which his reckless nature was capable. To other men he could freely boast of his excesses, but he could no more tell of such things to Duke than he could to a refined woman. He was terribly pained because the unruffled calm of the young man's life, which was hitherto like the placid bosom of a clear lake, was now tempest- tossed to its deepest depths. The thing which he had dimly feared had actually occurred, and Duke, for the first time in his life, had sought a wretched oblivion in the treacherous wine-cup. The Frenchman had seen intemperance in all its stages, unmoved, but a pain which had in it the bitterness of death, had wrung his heart when he came home one even- MARMADUKE DENVER. 35 ing, and saw the fair boyish face flushed and feverish, a reckless light in the blue eyes, and the handsome form flung in utter helplessness upon a lounge. He had seen wrecks of men who were once of the " pur ple and fine linen" order, he knew of such things every day in Paris, but they seemed as nothing beside this this destruction of what was to him almost an idol. The princess had secretly dreaded this also. She feared for him because he was so young, and, to her mind, with out a man's endurance of disappointment. She waited, day after day, for ne