IBRARV
;ALIFORNIA
AN DIEGO
THE CASTAWAY
Man's love is of man 1 s life a thing apart,
' Tis woman's whole existence . . . ." />.
THE
CASTAWAY
THREE GREAT MEN RUINED IN
ONE YEAR A KING, A CAD AND
A CASTAWAY
By
HALLIE ERMINIE RIVES
Author of Hearts Courageous, A Furnace of Earth, etc., etc.
Jttuttrated by
HOWARD CHANDLER CHRISTY
INDIANAPOLIS
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT 1904
THK BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
MAY
The price of this book at retail is One Dollar net.
No dealer is licensed to sell it at a less price, and a
sale at a less price will be treated as an infringe-
ment of the copyright.
THE BOBBS-MERBILL COMPANY.
PRESS OF
BRAUNWORTH A. CO.
BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS
BROOKLYN, N. Y.
TO
POST WHEELER, LITT. D.
My history will furnish materials for a pretty
little Romance which shall be entitled and de-
nominated the loves of Lord B. Byron, 1804
I hate things all fiction ; and therefore the
Merchant and Othello have no great associa-
tions to me ; but Pierre has. There should
always be some foundation of fact for the
most airy fabric, and pure invention is but
the talent of a liar. Byron, 1817
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I THE FEAST OF RAMAZAN 1
II " MAD, BAD AND DANGEROUS TO KNOW " 9
III THE BOOMERANG 18
IV THE LITTLE BOY IN ABERDEEN 26
V AN ANTTHINGARIAN 34
VI WHAT THE DEAD MAY KNOW 41
VII THE YOUTH IN FLEET PRISON 49
VIII A SAVAGE SPUR 58
IX GORDON WAKES AND FINDS HIMSELF FAMOUS 66
X THE PRICE OF THE BAUBLE 75
XI THE BEATEN PATH 86
XII " MAN'S LOVE Is OF MAN'S LIFE A THING
APART" 92
XIII THE SMIRCHED IMAGE 96
XIV WHAT CAME OF THE TREACLE-MOON 100
XV THE PITFALL 112
XVI THE DESPOILING 120
XVII THE BURSTING OF THE STORM 128
XVIII GORDON STANDS AT BAY 135
XIX THE BURNING OF AN EFFIGY 142
XX THE EXILE 152
XXI GORDON SWIMS FOR A LIFE 156
XXII THE FACE ON THE IVORY 162
XXIII THE DEVIL'S DEAL 167
XXIV THE MARK OF THE BEAST 173
XXV TERESA MEETS A STRANGER 180
XXVI A WOMAN OF FIRE AND DREAMS 189
XXVII THE EVIL EYE 197
XXVIII THE HAUNTED MAN 204
XXIX TERESA'S AWAKENING 208
XXX THE PEACE OF PADRE SOMALIAN 218
XXXI AT THE FEET OF OUR LADY OF SORROWS 223
XXXII THE RESTRAINING HAND 235
XXXIII THE PASSING OF JANE CLERMONT 246
CHAPTBB PAGE
XXXIV TITA INTERVENES 252
XXXV IN THE CASA GARDEN 256
XXXVI THE FACE AT THE WINDOW 263
XXXVII TREVANION FINDS AN ALLY 269
XXXVIII THE HEART OF A WOMAN 276
XXXIX BARRIERS BURNED AWAY 283
XL THE OATH ON THE KRISS 290
XLI ASHES OF DENIAL 298
XLII GORDON TELLS A STORY 303
XLIII ONE GOLDEN HOUR 309
XLIV BY ORDER OP THE POPE 316
XLV THE SUMMONS 321
XLVI THE POTION 325
XL VII THE COMPLICITY OF THE GODS 329
XLVIII THE ALL OF LOVE 337
XLIX " You ARE AIMING AT MY HEART! " 344
L CASSIDY FINDS A LOST SCENT 348
LI DR. NOTT'S SERMON 352
LII TREVANION IN THE TOILS 359
LII I THE COMING OF DALLAS 363
LIV THE PYRE 372
LV THE CALL 378
LVI THE FAREWELL 386
LVII THE MAN IN THE RED UNIFORM 395
LVIII THE ARCHISTRATEGOS 401
LIX IN WHICH TERESA MAKES A JOURNEY 410
LX TRIED As BY FIRE 416
LXI THE RENUNCIATION 423
LXII GORDON GOES UPON A PILGRIMAGE 427
LXIII THE GREAT SILENCE 434
LXIV " OF HIM WHOM SHE DENIED A HOME,
THE GRAVE " 437
AFTERMATH 440
THE CASTAWAY
CHAPTER I
THE FEAST OF RAMAZAN
A cool breeze slipped ahead of the dawn. It blew dim
the calm Greek stars, stirred the intricate branches of
olive-trees inlaid in the rose-pearl fagade of sky, bowed
the tall, coral-lipped oleanders lining the rivulets, and
crisped the soft wash of the gulf-tide. It lifted the
strong bronze curls on the brow of a sleeping man who
lay on the sea-beach covered with a goatskin.
George Gordon woke and looked about him: at the
pallid, ripple-ridged dunes, the murmuring clusters of
reeds; at the dead fire on which a kid had roasted the
night before ; at the forms stretched in slumber around
it Suliotes in woolen kirtles and with shawl girdles
stuck with silver-handled pistols, an uncouth and sav-
age body-guard; at his only English companion, John
Hobhouse, who had travelled with him through Albania
(1)
2 THE CASTAWAY
and to-morrow was to start back to London, asleep now
with a saddle for a pillow. While he gazed, day broke
effulgent, like light at the first hour, and the sun rose,
pouring its crimson wine into the goblet of the sea's
blue crystal.
For a full year Gordon had roughed it in the wilder-
ness, sleeping one night in a pasha's palace, the next
in a cow-shed a strange choice, it seemed, for a peer
of twenty-two, who had taken his seat in the House
of Lords and published a book that had become the
talk of London. Yet now, as he rose to his feet and
threw back his square-set shoulders, his colorless face
and deep gray-blue eyes whetted with keen zest.
"This is better than England," he muttered. "How
the deuce could anybody make such a world as that, I
wonder ? For what purpose were there ordained dandies
and kings and fellows of colleges and women of a
certain age and peers and myself, most of all ?" His
thought held an instant's thin edge of bitterness as his
look fell : his right boot had a thicker sole than the left,
and he wore an inner shoe that laced tightly under the
shrunken foot.
Stepping gingerly lest he waken his comrade he
threaded the prostrate forms to the shambling rock-
path that led, through white rushes and clumps of
cochineal cactus, to the town. A little way along, it
crossed a ledge jutting from the heel of the hill. Under
this shelf the water had washed a deep pool of limpid
emerald. He threw off his clothing and plunged into
the tingling surf. He swam far out into the sea, under
the sky's lightening amethyst, every vein beating with
delight.
THE CASTAWAY 3
Before he came from the water, the sunrise had
gilded the tops of the mountains; while he dressed on
the rock it was kindling golden half-moons on the
minarets of Missolonghi, a mile away.
As his eyes wandered over the scene the strange
stern crags, the nearer fields hroidered with currant-
bushes, the girdling coast steeped in the wild poignant
beauty of an Ionian October they turned with a
darker meaning to the town, quiet enough now, though
at sunset it had blazed with Mussulman festivity, while
its Greek citizens huddled in shops and houses behind
barred doors. It was the feast of Ramazan a time for
the Turks of daily abstinence and nightly carousal, a
long fast for lovers, whose infractions were punished
rigorously with bastinado and with the fatal sack. Till
the midnight tolled from the mosques the shouts and
muskets of the faithful had blasted the solitude. And
this land was the genius-mother of .the world, in the
grip of her Turkish conqueror, who defiled her cities
with his Moslem feasts and her waters with the bodies
of his drowned victims !
Would it always be so? Gordon thought of a roll
of manuscript in his saddle-bag verses written on the
slopes of those mountains and in the fiery shade of
these shores. Into the pages he had woven all that old
love for this shackled nation which had been one of
.the pure enthusiasms of his youth and had grown and
deepened with his present sojourn. Would the old spirit
of Marathon ever rearise ?
He went back to the sandy beach, sat down, and
drawing paper from his pocket, began to write, using
4 THE CASTAWAY
his knee for a desk. The spell of the place and hour
was upon him. Lines flowed from his pencil:
"The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece!
Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
Where grew the arts of war and peace,
Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them yet,
But all, except their sun, is set.
The mountains look on Marathon
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone,
I dreamed that Greece might still be free;
For, standing on the Persians' grave,
I could not deem myself a slave."
His gaze fell on the figures ahout the dead fire,
wrapped in rough capotes rugged descendants of a
once free race, hardier than their great forefathers,
but with ancient courage overlaid, cringing now from
the wands of Turkish pashas. A somber look came to
his face as he wrote :
" 'Tis something, in the death of fame,
Though linked among a fettered race,
To feel at least a patriot's shame,
Even as I sing, suffuse my face;
For what is left the poet here?
For Greeks a blush for Greece a tear.
Must we but weep o'er days more blessed?
Must we but blush? Our fathers bled.
Earth! Render back from out thy breast
A remnant of the Spartan dead!
Of the three hundred grant but three
To make a new Thermopylffi!"
THE CASTAWAY 5
He looked up. The crescents on the spires of the
town were dazzling points of light in the gold-blue air,
the morning full-blown, clean and fragrant with scents
of sun and sea. In the midst of its warmth and beauty
he shivered. An odd prescient sensation had come to
him like a gelid breath from the upper ether. He
started at a voice behind him :
"More poetry, I'll lay a guinea I"
Gordon did not smile. The chill was still creeping
in his veins. He thrust the paper into his pocket as
Hobhouse threw himself down by his side.
The latter noticed his expression. "What is it?" he
asked.
"Only one of my moods, I fancy. But just before you
spoke I had a curious feeling; it was as though this
spot that town yonder were tangled in my destiny."
The barbaric servants had roused now and a fire was
crackling.
"There's a simple remedy for that," the other said.
"Come back to London with me. I swear I hate to
start to-morrow without you."
Gordon shook his head. He replied more lightly, for
the eerie depression had vanished as swiftly as it had
come:
"Not I ! You'll find it the same hedge-and-ditch
old harridan of a city wine, women, wax-works and
weather-cocks the coaches in Hyde Park, and man
milliners promenading of a Sunday. I prefer a clear
sky with windy mare's-tails, and a fine savage race of
two-legged leopards like this," he pointed to the fire
with its picturesque figures. "I'll have another year of
it, Hobhouse, before I go back."
6 THE CASTAWAY
"You'll have spawned your whole quarto by then, no
doubt!"
"Perhaps. I am like the tiger; if I miss the first
spring I go growling back to my jungle. I must take
the fit as it offers. Composition comes over me in a
kind of frenzy, and if I don't write to empty my mind,
I go mad. Poetry is the lava of the imagination, whose
eruption prevents an earthquake. Much the little en-
vious knot of parson-poets who rule the reviews know
about it!" he continued half satirically.
Hobhouse smiled quizzically. The man beside him
had had a short and sharp acquaintance with England's
self-constituted authorities in poetic criticism. Two
years before, fresh from college, he had published a
slender volume of verses. In quality these had been in-
different enough, but the fact that their author was a
peer offered an attractive text for the gibes of the re-
viewers. Their ridicule pierced him. His answer had
been immediate and stunning a poetical Satire, keen
as a rapier, polished as a mirror, pitiless as the Inqui-
sition, which flayed his detractors one by one for the
laughter of London. The book had been the talk of
the year, but while at the very acme of popularity, the
youthful author had withdrawn it, and, still smarting
from the sneers which had been its inspiration, had
sailed for the Levant. A thought of this sensitiveness
was in Hobhouse's mind as Gordon continued:
"When I get home I'll decide whether to put it into
the fire or to publish. If it doesn't make fuel for me
it will for the critics."
"You gave them cause enough. You'll admit that."
"They should have let me alone." Gordon's voice
THE CASTAWAY 7
under its lightness hid a note of unaffected feeling, and
his eyes gathered spots of fire and brown. "It wasn't
much that first poor little college book of mine ! But
no! I was a noble upstart a young fool of a peer
that needed taking down ! So they loosed their literary
mountebanks to snap at me! Is it any wonder I hit
back? Who wouldn't?"
"At least," averred Hobhouse, "very few would have
done it so well. There was no quill-whittler left in the
British Isles when you finished that Satire of yours.
None of the precious penny-a-liners will ever forgive
you/'
The other laughed. "I was mad, I tell you mad !"
he said with humorous ferocity. "I wrote in a passion
and a sirocco, with three bottles of claret in my head
and tears in my eyes. Besides, I was two years younger
then. Before I sailed I suppressed it. I bought up
the plates and every loose volume in London. Ah well,"
he added, "one's youthful indiscretions will pass. When
I come back, I'll give the rascals something better."
He paused, his eyes on the stony bridle-path that led
from the town. "What do you make of that?" he
queried.
Hobhouse looked. Along the rugged way was ap-
proaching a strange procession. In advance walked an
officer in a purple coat, carrying the long wand of his
rank. Following came a file of Turkish soldiers. Then
a group of servants, wearing the uniform of the Way-
wode the town's chief magistrate and leading an ass,
across whose withers was strapped a bulky brown sack.
After flocked a rabble of all degrees, Turks and Greeks.
"Queer!" speculated Hobhouse. "It's neither a fu-
S THE CASTAWAY
neral nor a wedding. What other of their hanged cere-
monials can it be?"
The procession halted on the rock-shelf over the deep
pool. The soldiers began to unstrap the ass's brown
burden. A quick flash of horrified incredulity had
darted into Gordon's eyes. The ass balked, and one
of the men pounded it with his sword-scabbard. While
it flinched and scrambled, a miserable muffled wail came
from somewhere seemingly from the air.
Gordon stiffened. His hand flew to the pistol in his
belt. He leaped to his feet and dashed up the scraggy
path toward the rock, shouting in a voice of strained,
infuriate energy:
"By God, Hobhouse, there's a woman in that sack!"
CHAPTER II
"MAD, BAD AND DANGEROUS TO KNOW."
At Lady Jersey's town house, in Portman Square, the
final course had been served and the gentlemen's glasses
were being replenished. Lady Jersey gave the signal.
The gentlemen rose and bowed, the three ladies withdrew
to the drawing-room ; then the host, the earl, said, crack-
ing a walnut :
"I heard the other day that George Gordon is on his
way back to London. You were with him in the East
some time, weren't you, Hobhouse ?"
There were but three besides the host : Sheridan, the
playwright, looking the beau and wit combined, of a
clarety, elderly, red complexion, brisk and bulbous
William Lamb, heir of the Melbourne title, a personi-
fied "career" whose voice was worn on the edges by pub-
lic speaking and Hobhouse, whom the earl addressed.
The young man bowed. "I left him in Greece just a
year ago."
"Is it true," asked Lamb, sipping his Moe't with finical
deliberation, "that he drinks nothing but barley-water
and dines on two soda biscuits ?"
"He eats very little," assented Hobhouse; "dry toast,
(9)
10 THE CASTAWAY
water-cress, a glass of claret that was usually his regi-
men."
"What an infernal pose!" Lamb exclaimed, rousing.
"A ghoul eating rice with a needle ! He does it to be
eccentric. Why, at Cambridge they say he used to keep
a tame bear ! His appetite is all apiece with his other
fopperies abroad that the papers reprint here. One week
he's mopish. Another, he's for being jocular with every-
body. Then again he's a sort of limping Don Quixote,
rowing with the police for a woman of the town like
that Greek demirep of his he rescued from the sack, that
Petersham tells about."
"Nobody believes Petersham's yarns !" growled Sheri-
dan.
"I was on the ground when that incident occurred.
I'm sorry the clubs got hold of it. It's a confounded
shame."
Hobhouse spoke explosively. Lord Jersey's shrewd
deep-set eyes gathered interest, and Sheridan paused
with a pinch of snuff in transit.
"It happened one sunrise, when we were camped on
the sea-beach just outside Missolonghi. That is a Greek
town held by the Turks, who keep its Christian citizens
in terror of their lives. The girl in the case was a Greek
by birth, but her father was a renegado, so she came un-
der Moslem law."
"I presume she was handsome," drawled Lamb caus-
tically. "I credit Gordon with good taste in femininity,
at least."
Hobhouse flushed, but kept his temper.
"It's nonsense/' he went on, "the story that it was
any affair of his own. There was a young Arab-looking
THE CASTAWAY 11
ensign who had fallen in with us, named Trevanion
he had deserted from an English sloop-of-the-line at
Bombay. He had disappeared the night before, and we
had concluded then it was for some petticoat deviltry
he'd been into. I didn't like the fellow from the start,
but Gordon wouldn't give an unlucky footpad the cold
shoulder."
Sheridan chuckled. "That's Gordon ! I remember he
had an old hag of a fire-lighter at his rooms here Mrs.
Muhl. I asked him once why he ever brought her from
Newstead. 'Well/ says he, 'no one else will have the
poor old devil/ "
"Come, come," put in Lamb, waspishly. "Let's hear
the new version ; we've had Petersham's."
"We had seen Trevanion talking to the girl," Hob-
house continued, "in her father's shop in the bazaar.
We didn't know, of course, when we saw the procession,
whom the Turkish scoundrels were going to drown. I
didn't even guess what it was all about till Gordon
shouted to me. His pistol was out before you could
wink, and in another minute he had the fat leader by the
throat."
"With Mr. Hobhouse close behind him," suggested
the earl.
"I hadn't a firearm, so I was of small assistance. We
had some Suliote ragamuffins for body-guard, but they
are so cowed they will run from a Turkish uniform.
They promptly disappeared till it was all over. Well,
there was a terrible hullabaloo for a while. I made sure
they would butcher us out and out, but Gordon kept his
pistol clapped on the purple coat and faced the whole
lot down."
12 THE CASTAWAY
"Wish he had shot him/' rumbled Sheridan, "and
appealed to the resident ! In the year of Grace 1810 it's
time England took a hand and blew the Turk out of
Greece, anyway !"
"I presume there was no doubt about the offense?"
asked the earl.
"It seemed not. Trevanion was a good-looking,
swarthy rogue, and had been too bold. Though he got
away himself, he left the girl to her fate. It was the
feast of Eamazan, and he must have known what that
fate would be. The time made interference harder for
Gordon, since both law and religion were against him.
He had learned some of their palaver. He told them he
was a pasha-of-three-tails himself in his own country,
and at last made the head butcher cut open the sack.
The girl was a pitiful thing to see, with great almond
eyes sunk with fright fifteen years old, perhaps,
though she looked no more than twelve and her chalk-
white cheeks and the nasty way they had her hands and
feet tied made my blood boil. There was more talk,
and Gordon flourished the firman Ali Pasha had given
him when we were in Albania. The officer couldn't
read, but he pretended he could and at last agreed to
go back and submit the matter to the Waywode. So
back we all paraded to Missolonghi. It cost Gordon a
plenty there, but he won his point."
"That's where Petersham's account ends, isn't it?"
The earl's tone was dry.
"It's not all of it," Hobhouse answered with some
heat. "Gordon was afraid the rascally primate might
repent of his promise (the Mussulman religion is strenu-
ous) so he took the girl that day to a convent and as soon
THE CASTAWAY 13
as possible sent her to Argos to her brother. She died,
poor creature, two months afterward, of fever."
Lamb sniffed audibly.
"Very pretty ! He ought to turn it into a poem. I
dare say he will. If you hadn't been there to applaud,
Hobhouse, I wager the original program wouldn't have
been altered. Pshaw! He always was a sentimental
harlequin," he went on contemptuously, "strutting about
in a neck-cloth and delicate health, and starving himself
into a consumption so the women will say, 'Poor Gor-
don how interesting he looks !' Everything he does
is a hectic of vanity, and all he has written is glittering
nonsense snow and sophistry."
Sheridan's magnificent iron-gray head, roughly
hacked as if from granite, turned sharply. "He's no
sheer seraph nor saint," he retorted; "none of us is,
but curse catch me ! there's no sense in remonstering
him ! He'll do great things one of these days. He was
born with a rosebud in his mouth and a nightingale
singing in his ear !"
The other shrugged his shoulders, but at that mo-
ment the protestant face of the hostess appeared.
"How interesting men are to each other !" Lady Jer-
sey exclaimed. "We women have actually been driven to
the evening papers."
The four men followed into the drawing-room, fur-
nished in ruby and dull gold a room perfect in its
appointments, for its mistress added to her innate kind-
ness of heart and tact a rare taste and selection. It
showed in the Sevres-topped tables, the tawny fire-
screens, the candelabra of jasper and filigree gold, and
in the splendid Gainsborough opposite the door.
14 THE CASTAWAY
The whole effect was a perfect setting for Lady Jer-
sey. In it Lady Caroline Lamb appeared too exotic, too
highly colored, too flamboyant like a purple orchid in
a dish of tea-roses ; on the other hand, it was too warmly
drawn for the absent stateliness of Annabel Milbanke,
Lady Melbourne's niece and guest for the season. The
latter's very posture, coldly fair like a sword on salute,
seemed to chide the sparkle and glitter and color that
radiated, a latent impetuosity, from Lady Caroline.
"I see by the Courier," observed Lady Jersey, "that
George Gordon is in London."
"Speak of the devil " sneered Lamb ; and Sheridan
said:
"That's curious; we were just discussing him."
Miss Milbanke's even voice entered the conversation.
"One hears everywhere of his famous Satire. You
think well of it, don't you, Mr. Sheridan?"
"My dear madam, for the honor of having written it,
I would have welcomed all the enemies it has made its
author."
"What dreadful things the papers are always saying
about him!" cried Lady Jersey, with a little shudder.
"I hope his mother hasn't seen them. I hear she lives
almost a recluse at Newstead Abbey."
"With due respect to the conventions," Lamb inter-
posed ironically, "there's small love lost between them.
His guardian used to say they quarrelled like cat and
dog."
"He never liked the boy," disputed the hostess,
warmly. "Why, he wouldn't stand with him when he
took his seat in the Lords. I am right, am I not, Mr.
Hobhouse?"
THE CASTAWAY 15
"Yes, your ladyship. Lord Carlisle refused to intro-
duce him. The Chancellor, even, haggled absurdly over
his certificate of birth. Gordon came to Parliament
with only one friend an old tutor of his entered
alone, took the peer's oath and left. He has never
crossed the threshold since."
"What a shame," cried Lady Caroline, "that neither
Annabel nor I have ever seen your paragon, Lady
Jersey! Mr. Hobhouse, you or Mr. Sheridan must
bring him to dinner to Melbourne House."
"If he'll come!" said Lamb, sotto voce, to the earl.
"They say he hates to see women eat, because it destroys
his illusions."
Lady Jersey shrugged. "It is vastly in his favor
that he still has any," she retorted, rising. "Come, Caro,
give us some music. We are growing too serious."
Lady Caroline went to the piano, and let her hands
wander over the keys. Wild, impatient of restraint,
she was a perpetual kaleidoscope of changes. Now an
unaccountably serious mood had captured her. The
melody that fell from her fingers was a minor strain,
and she began singing in a voice low, soft and caressing
with a feeling that Annabel Milbanke had never
guessed lay within that agreeable, absurd, perplexing,
mad-cap little being :
"Maid of Athens, ere we part,
Give, oh, give me back my heart!
Or since that has left my breast,
Keep it now and take the rest!
Hear my vow before I go,
Zoe mou, sas agapo !
16 THE CASTAWAY
By thy tresses unoonfined,
Wooed by each JEgea,n wind!
By those lids whose jetty fringe,
Kiss thy soft cheeks' blooming tinge!
By those wild eyes like the roe,
Zoe mou, sas agapo!
By those lips I may not taste!
By that zone-encircled waist!
By all token-flow'rs that tell
(Word can never speak so well!)
By love's changing joy and woe,
Zoe mou, sas agapo!"
She sang the lines with a strange tenderness a
haunting accent of refrain, that had insensibly moved
every one in the room, and surprised for the moment
even her own matter-of-fact husband. A womanly soft-
ness had misted Lady Jersey's gaze, and Annabel Mil-
banke looked quickly and curiously up at the singer us
she paused, a spot of color in her cheeks and her hazel
eyes large and bright.
There was a moment of silence a blank which Hob-
house broke:
"He wrote that when we were travelling together in
Albania. I'm glad I sent it to you, Lady Caroline. I
didn't know how beautiful it was."
Miss Milbanke turned her hea'd.
"So that is George Gordon's," she said. She had
felt a slight thrill, an emotion new to her, while the
other sang. "Mr. Hobhouse, what does he look like?"
The young man, who was by nature and liking some-
thing of an artist, took a folded paper from his wallet
and spread it out beneath a lamp.
THE CASTAWAY 17
"I made this sketch the last night I saw him in
Greece," he said, "at Missolonghi, just a year ago."
Lady Caroline Lamb and Miss Milbanke both bent
to look at the portrait. When they withdrew their eyes,
the calmer, colder features showed nothing, but Lady
Caroline's wore a deep, vivid flush.
"Mad, bad and dangerous to know!" her brain was
saying, "yet what a face !"
CHAPTEE III
THE BOOMERANG
"George Gordon!"
There was an unaffected pleasure in the exclamation,
and its echo in the answer : "Sherry ! And young as
ever, I'll be bound !"
"I heard last night at Lady Jersey's you were in
London/' said Sheridan, after the first greetings. "So
you've had enough of Greece, eh ? Three years ! What
have you done in all that time ?"
"I have dined the mufti of Thebes, I have viewed the
harem of Ali Pasha, I have kicked an Athenian post-
master. I was blown ashore on the island of Salamis.
I caught a fever going to Olympia. And I have found
that I like to be back in England the oddest thing of
all !"
Gordon ended half-earnestly. Threading the famil-
iar thoroughfares, tasting the city's rush, its intermina-
bleness, its counterplay and torsion of living, he had
felt a sense of new appreciation. His months of freer
breathing in the open spaces of the East had quickened
his pulses.
(18)
THE CASTAWAY 19
The pair strolled on together chatting, the old wit
linking his arm in the younger man's. He had always
liked Gordon and the appearance of his famous t our de
force had lifted this liking into genuine admiration.
"Hobhouse says you've brought back another book/''
said he, presently.
"I've a portmanteau crammed with stanzas in Spen-
ser's measure, but they're likely to be drivelling idiot-
ism. I must leave that to the critics. I have heard
their chorus of deep damnations once," Gordon added
ruefully. "But no doubt they've long ago forgotten
my infantile ferocities."
Sheridan shot a keen glance under his bushy brows.
Could the other, he wondered, have so undervalued the
vicious hatred his cutting Satire had raised in the ranks
of the prigs and pamphleteers it pilloried? In his
long foreign absence had he been ignorant of the flood
of tales so assiduously circulated in the London news-
papers and magazines?
His thought snapped. Gordon had halted before a
book-shop which bore the sign of "The Juvenile Li-
brary," his eye caught by printed words on a paste-
board placard hung in its window.
"Sherry !" he cried, his color changing prismatically.
"Look there !"
The sign read :
"Queen Mob."
For writing the which Mr. Percy Bysshe Shelley
Stands lately expelled from University College, Oxford.
2s, 6d.
20 THE CASTAWAY
Also
"English Bards and Scotch Reviewers"
A Poetical Satire
By a Noble Lord Travelling Abroad.
A few copies of this work
(Suppressed by the Author at great expense)
which can be bought nowhere else in London 1 guinea,
"Devil take the blackguard !" blurted SheridanT " He
followed the other into the musty shop where a stooped,
agate-eyed old man laid aside a black-letter volume of
Livy's Eoman History and shuffled forward to greet
them.
Gordon's face was pallid and his eyes were sparkling.
He had written the book the pasteboard advertised in a
fit of rage that had soon cooled to shame of its retaliative
scorn. He had believed every copy procurable destroyed
before he left England. He had thought of this fact
often with self-congratulation/ dreaming this monu-
ment of his youthful petulance rooted out. To-day it
was almost the first thing he confronted. The sedu-
lous greed that hawked his literary indiscretion to the
world roused now an old murderous fury that had some-
times half-scared him in his childhood. He was bat-
tling with this as he pointed out the second item of
the sign.
"How many of these have you?" he asked the pro-
prietor shortly.
"Twelve."
"I will take them all." Gordon put a bank-note on
the counter.
THE CASTAWAY 21
The bookseller regarded him sagely as he set the
books before him. It was a good day's bargain.
A doorway led from the shop into a binding-room,
where stood a stove with glue-pots heating upon it.
With a word to Sheridan, Gordon seized his purchase
and led the way into this room. The dealer stared and
followed.
He saw the purchaser tear the books cover from
cover, and thrust them one by one into the fiery maw
of the stove. And now, at the stranger's halting step
and the beauty of his face, sudden intelligence came to
him. Five ten twenty guineas apiece he could have
got, if he had only found the wit to guess ! The know-
ledge turned his parchment visage saffron with sup-
pressed cupidity, anger and regret.
The bell in the outer room announced a customer,
and the bookseller went into the shop, leaving the door
ajar. Through it came a voice a lady's inquiry. She
was asking for a copy of the Satire whose pages were
shrivelling under Sheridan's regretful eye.
Gordon's hand held the last volume. He had turned
to look through the door a fine, tall, spirit-looking girl,
he thought. His observant eye noted her face a cool,
chaste classic, and her dress, rich, but with a kind of
quiet and severity.
Yielding to some whimsical impulse, he went rapidly
out to the pavement. She was seating herself in her
carriage beside her companion as he approached.
"I had just secured the last copy," he stated gravely,
almost apologetically. "I have another, however, and
shall be glad if you will take this."
22 THE CASTAWAY
A glimmer of surprise had shadowed the immobile
face, but it passed.
"You are very kind/' she said. "It seems difficult
to procure. We saw the sign quite by accident !" She
was demurring on prudential grounds. She hesitated
only a moment just long enough for him to become
aware of another personality beside her, an impression
of something wild, Ariel-like, eccentric yet pleasing
then she searched her purse and held out to him a
golden guinea.
"That is the price, I think/' she added, and with the
word "Melbourne House" to the coachman, the carriage
merged in the stream of the highway.
Annabel Milbanke's complaisant brow was undis-
turbed. She was very self-possessed, very unromantic,
very correct. As the chestnut bays whirled on toward
Hyde Park Corner, she did no more than allow her
colorless imagination to ask itself: "Who is he, I
wonder ?"
Her fragile, overdressed companion might have an-
swered that mental question. As Gordon had come
from the doorway, his step halting, yet so slightly as
to be unnoticed by one who saw the delicate symmetry
of his face, a quick tinge had come to Lady Caroline
Lamb's cheeks. The brown curls piled on the pale oval
of brow, the deep gray eyes, the full chiselled lips and
strongly modelled chin all brought back to her a pen-
cil sketch she had once seen under a table-lamp. The
tinge grew swiftly to a flush, and she turned to look
back as they sped on, but she said nothing.
Gordon had seen neither the flush nor the backward
look. His eyes, as he surveyed the golden guinea in his
THE CASTAWAY 23
hand, held only the picture of the calm girl who had
given it to him.
"Melbourne House," he repeated aloud. "What a
stately beauty she has the perfection of a glacier ! I
wonder now why I did that," he thought quizzically.
"I never saw her before. A woman who wants to read
my Satire ; and I always hated an esprit in petticoats !
It was impulse pure impulse, reasonless and irrespon-
sible. God knows what contradictions one contains !"
He tossed the coin in the air abstractedly, caught it
and slipped it into his waistcoat pocket as Sheridan re-
joined him. The latter had not seen the carriage and
its occupants.
"A fine ash-heap we've made," said the wit, "and a
pity too ! Curse catch me, I wish I'd written it ! If it
were mine, instead of suppressing, I'd print a new edi-
tion and be damned to them. If they won't forget this,
cram another down their throats and let them choke
on it ! Come and drink a bottle of vin de Graves with
me at the Cocoa-Tree," he continued persuasively.
"Tom Moore is in town. We'll get him and go to the
Italian Opera afterward. What do you say ?"
Gordon shook his head. "Not to-day. I have an ap-
pointment at my rooms. Hobhouse pretends he wants
to read my new manuscript."
"To-morrow, then. I want to get the rights of the
latest apocryphal stories of you the clubs are relish-
ing."
"Stories ? What stories ?"
Sheridan cleared his throat uneasily. "Surely, let-
ters newspapers must have reached you in Greece ?"
"Newspapers!" exclaimed Gordon. "I haven't read
24 THE CASTAWAY
one in a year. As for letters well, it has been little
better. So the newspapers have been talking of me,
eh?"
"Not that any one in particular believes them," in-
terposed his companion hastily, "or anything the
Scourge prints, for that matter !"
"The Scourge ? That was the worst of the lot before
I left. It's still mud-flinging, is it? I suppose I might
have expected it. There's scarcely a witling-scribbler
in London I didn't grill with that cursed Satire of
mine, that they won't let stay in its grave. But the
newspaper wiseacres what under the canopy can they
know of my wanderings? I haven't set eyes on a jour-,
nalist since I left."
"Of course, they're perfectly irresponsible!"
"What are they saying, Sherry?"
Sheridan hesitated.
"Come, come; out with it!"
"The Morning Post reported last week that the pasha
of the Morea had made you a present of a Circassian
girl-"
"It was a Circassian mare!"
"And that you had quarters in a Franciscan nun-
nery."
"A monastery!" Gordon laughed an unmirthful
laugh. "With one Capuchin friar, a bandy-legged
Turkish cook, a couple of Albanian savages and a drag-
oman ! What tales are they telling at the clubs ?"
"That's about all that's new except Petersham. He
has some tale of a Turkish peri of yours that you saved
from a sack in the ^Egean."
Gordon's lips set tight together. The pleasure he
THE CASTAWAY 25
had felt at his return had been shot through with a
new pain that spoke plainly in his question:
"Sherry! Is there no story they tell of these two
years that I need not blush at?"
The other caught at the straw. "They say you swam
the Hellespont, and outdid Leander."
"I'm obliged to them ! I wonder they didn't invent
a Hero to wait for my Leandering!" The voice held
a bitter humor, the antithesis of the open pleasantry of
their meeting. "I presume that version will not be long
in arriving/' Gordon added, and held out his hand.
Sheridan grasped it warmly. "I shall see you to-
morrow," he said, and they parted.
From the edge of his show-window, William Godwin,
the bookseller, with a malignant look in his agate eyes,
watched Gordon go.
In the inner room he raked the fragments of charred
leather from the stove, thinking of the guineas he had
let slip through his fingers. Then he sat down at hi&
desk and drawing some dusty sheets of folio to him
began to write, with many emendations. His quill pen
scratched maliciously for a long time. At last he leaned
back and regarded what he had written with huge sat-
isfaction.
"The atheistical brat of a lord!" he muttered vin-
dictively. "I'll make his ribs gridirons for his heart!
I'll send this as a leader for the next issue of the
Scourge!"
CHAPTER IV
THE LITTLE BOY IN ABERDEEN
"It is magnificent !" Hobhouse looked up as he spoke.
It was in Gordon's apartment in Reddish's Hotel.
The table was strewn with loose manuscript the verses
he had laughingly told Sheridan were "likely to be
drivelling idiotism." Over these Hobhouse had bent
for an hour, absorbed and delighted, breathing their
strange spirit of exhilaration, of freedom from rhyth-
mic shackles, of adventure into untried poetic depths.
They stood out in sharp relief original, unique, of
classic model yet of a genre all their own. It would
be a facer for Jeffrey, the caustic editor of the Edin-
burgh Review, and for all the crab-apple following Gor-
don's boyish rancor had roused to abuse. Now he said :
"Nothing like it was ever written before. Have you
shown it to a publisher yet?"
Gordon glanced at the third person in the room a
gray-haired elderly man with kindly eyes as he re-
plied :
"Dallas, here, took it to Miller. He declined it."
"The devil !" shot out Hobhouse, incredulously.
"John Murray will publish it," Gordon continued.
(26)
THE CASTAWAY 27
"I had his letter with the copyhold an hour ago." He
took a paper from his pocket and held it up to view.
"I congratulate you both," Hobhouse said heartily.
Gordon shrugged acridly, and rising, began to pace
the room. The sore spot had been rankling since that
walk with Sheridan.
"Wait till the critics see it. They will have other
opinions, no doubt. Well, never mind," he added. "I
was peppered so highly once that it must be aloes or
cayenne to make me taste. They forced me to bitter-
ness at first ; I may as well go through to the last. Vat
victis! I'll fall fighting the host. That's something."
The gray-haired man had picked up his hat. It was
not a hat of the primest curve, nor were his clothes of
a fashionable cut. They were well-worn, but his neck-
cloth was spotless, and though his face showed lines of
toil and anxiety, it bore the inextinguishable marks of
gentility. Gordon had not told him that he had spent
a part of the day inquiring into the last detail of in-
valid wife and literary failure ; now his glance veiled a
singular look whose source lay very deep in the man.
"Don't hasten," he said. "I have a reputation for
gloom, but my friends must not be among the reput-
ants! Least of all you, Dallas."
The other sat down again and threw his hat on the
table, smiling. "Gloom?" he asked. "And have you
still that name ? You were so as a little laddie in Aber-
deen, but I thought you would have left off the Scotch
blues long ago with your tartan."
"I wish I could," cried Gordon, "as I left off the
burr from my tongue. How I hated the place all ex-
cept Dee-side and old Lachin-y-gair ! That pleased me
28 THE CASTAWAY
for its wildness. If God had a hand in its valleys, the
devil must have had a hoof in some of its ravines, for
the clouds foamed up from their crevices like the spray
of the ocean of hell. Dallas," he said, veering, "what
a violent, unlovely little wretch it was we used to know
so many years ago, you never saw him, Hobhouse!
that little boy in Aberdeen !"
Hobhouse looked up. There was a curious note in
the voice, a sort of brooding inquiry, of regret, of wist-
fulness all in one. It was a tone he had never heard
so plainly but once before a night when they two had
sat together before a camp-fire on the Greek sea-coast,
when Gordon had talked of old Cambridge days, and of
Matthews, his classmate, destined to be drowned. It
was this tone Hobhouse heard.
The older man's eyes had a retrospective haze, which
he winked away, as he smoothed down the frayed edges
of his waistcoat with a hesitating hand, as though half-
embarrassed under the other's gaze.
"A little misshapen unit of a million," continued
Gordon, "a miserable nothing of something, who
dreamed barbarous fantasies and found no one who un-
derstood him no one but one. Do you remember him,
Dallas?"
The other nodded, his head turned away. "He was
not so hard to understand."
"Not for you, Dallas, and it's for that reason most
of all I am going to paint his picture. Will it bore you,
Hobhouse?" he asked whimsically. "To discuss child-
hood is such a snivelling, popping small-shot, water-
hen waste of powder to most people."
Hobhouse shook his head, and the speaker went on:
THE CASTAWAY 29
"First of all, I wish you would witness a signature
for me," and handed him the paper he had taken from
his pocket.
As the young man glanced at it, he looked up with
quick surprise, but checked himself and, signing it,
leaned back in his chair.
Gordon returned to his slow pace up and down the
room, and as he went he talked:
"The fiercest animals have the smallest litters, and
he was an only child, though he had been told he had a
half-sister somewhere in the world. He was unmanage-
able in temper, sullenly passionate, a queer little bundle
of silent rages and wants and hates the sort people
call 'inhuman/ There was never but one nurse, if I
remember, who could manage him at all. He had a
twisted foot the gift of his mother, and added to by
a Nottingham quack. He lived in lodgings, cursed
fusty they were, too, the fustiest in Aberdeen, with
his mother. He had never set eyes on his father; how
he knew he had one, I can't imagine. When he was old
enough, he was sent to 'squeel', as they called it in
Aberdeen dialect day-school, where he learned to say:
'God made man.
Let us love Him,'
and to make as poor a scrawl as ever scratched over a
frank. He was a blockhead, a hopeless blockhead ! The
master, how deyout and razor-faced and dapper he
was! he was minister to the kirk also, used to topsy-
turvy the class now and then, and bring the lowest
highest. These were the only times the boy was at the
30 THE CASTAWAY
head. Then the master would say, 'Now, George, man,
let's see how soon you can limp to the foot again !' This
was a jest, but when the others shouted, the boy used
to turn cold with shame. Small wonder he didn't learn,
for he didn't want to. A pity, too, Dallas, for in those
days three words and a half-smile would have changed
him. I venture it would take more than that to-day !"
He paused, his brows frowning, his lips drawn softly.
When he went on, it was in a more constrained tone:
"One year, suddenly, everything changed. His guard-
ian took him from the school and he had a tutor a
very serious, saturnine young man, with spectacles,"
Dallas had taken off his own and was polishing them
earnestly with his handkerchief, "who didn't make
the boy hate him a curious thing! He was a great
man already in the boy's eyes, because he had been in
America when the Colonies were fighting King George.
The boy would have liked to be a colonist too he had
never been introduced to the gaudy charlatanry of kings
and the powwowishness of rank. He hadn't become a
lord then, himself.
"This marvel of a tutor wasn't pestilently prolix.
He taught him no skimble-skamble out of the cate-
chism, though he was a good churchman; but the first
time the boy looked in those big horn spectacles, he
knew there was one man in the world who could under-
stand him. The tutor made him want to learn, too,
and strangest of all, he never seemed to notice that his
pupil was lame. How did he perform that miracle,
Dallas?"
The older man set his glasses carefully on the ridge
of his nose, as he shook his head with a little graceful,
THE CASTAWAY 31
deprecating gesture that was very winning. Hobhouse's
eyes were tracing the design of the carpet.
"I remember once/' Gordon continued, "a strange
thing happened. The boy's father came to Aberdeen.
One day the boy was walking up the High Street with
his tutor some one pointed him out. To think that
splendid-looking man in uniform was his father ! He
felt very pitiful-hearted, but he plucked up courage and
went up to him and told him his name."
Dallas, who had shifted uneasily in his chair, cleared
his throat with some energy, rose and stood looking out
of the window.
"The splendid gentleman forgot to take the boy in
his arms. He looked him over and lisped: 'A pretty
boy but what a pity he has such a leg !' A queer thing
to say, wasn't it, Hobhouse!
"One of those fits of rage that made all right-minded
people hate him came over the boy when he heard that,
T)inna speak of it! Dinna speak of it!' he screamed,
and struck at the man with his fist. Then he ran away
off to the fields, I think as fast as he could, and
that was the first and the last time he ever saw his
father.
"He had forgotten all about his tutor, but the tutor
ran after him, and found him, and took him for a
wonderful afternoon miles away, clear to the seaside,
where they lay on the purple heather and he read to
him out of the history what was it he read to the
boy, Dallas?"
The man by the window jumped. "Bless my soul,"
he said, wiping his eyes vigorously; "I do believe it
was the battle of Lake Eegillus !"
32 THE CASTAWAY
"Yes, it was, Dallas ! And they went in swimming
and had supper at a farmhouse "
"So they did ! So I believe they did !"
"And they didn't get home till the moon was up. Ah
Dallas !"
Gordon went over and laid his hand on the other's
arm. "Do you think I shall ever forget?" he said.
"I imagine that was the end of the tutorship," ob-
served Hobhouse.
"Yes, the idiots!" Gordon laughed a little, as did
the elder man, though there was a suspicious moisture
in the latter's eyes. "They said he was spoiling me.
You came to London, Dallas, and wrote books moral
essays and theology too good to give you money or
fame. Yes, yes," as Dallas made a gesture of dissent,
"much too good for this thaw-swamped age of rickety
tragedy and canting satire! But when you left Aber-
deen, you left something behind. It was a pony four
sound straight legs, Dallas, to help out a crooked one
a fat, frowsy, hard -going little beast, I've no doubt, but
it seemed the greatest thing in all Scotland to me."
"Pshaw!" protested Dallas. "It laid me only four
pounds, I'll swear."
"Well," pursued Gordon, "the boy finally dropped
back into the old stubborn rut. He went to Harrow
and came out a solitary, and to Cambridge and they
called him an* atheist. Life hasn't been all mirth and
innocence, milk and water. I've seen nearly as many
lives as Plutarch's, but I'm not bilious enough to for-
get, Dallas. You were the first of all to write and con-
gratulate me when the critics only sneered. When I
came to London to claim. my seat in the Lords (a
THE CASTAWAY 33
scurvy honor, but one has to do as other people do, con-
found them!) without a single associate in that body
to introduce me I think a peer never came to his
place so ' unfriended you rode with me to the door r
Dallas, you and I alone, and so we rode back again/'
He paused, took up the paper Hobhouse had signed
and handed it to the man who still stood by the win-
dow.
"Dallas/' he said, "you gave me my first ride in the
saddle. I've been astride another bigger nag lately
one they call Pegasus ; this is its first real gallop, and I
want you to ride with me."
With a puzzled face Dallas looked from the speaker
to the paper. It was Gordon's copyhold of the verses
that lay there in manuscript, legally transferred to him-
self.
As he took in its significance, a deep flush stole into
his scholarly-pale cheeks, and tears, unconcealed this
time, clouded his sight. He put out one uncertain hand,
while Hobhouse made a noisy pretense of gathering to-
gether the loose leaves under his hands.
"It's for six hundred pounds !" he said huskily ; "six
hundred pounds !"
CHAPTER V
AN ANYTHINGARIAN
Two hours later Gordon sat alone in the room, look-
ing out on the softening sun-glare of St. James Street.
In the chastened light the brilliant dark-auburn curls
that clustered over his colorless face showed a richer
brown and under their long black lashes his eyes had
deepened their tint. Near-by, where Park Place opened,
a fountain played, on whose bronze rim dusty sparrows
preened and twittered. The clubs that faced the street
were showing signs of life, and on the pave a news-
boy, for the benefit of late-rising west-end dandies, was
crying the papers.
Gordon was waiting for Hobhouse. They were to
sup together this last night. To-morrow he was to leave
for Newstead Abbey and the uncomfortable ministra-
tions of his eccentric and capricious mother, whom he
had not yet seen. He had come back to his land and
place to find that enmity had been busy envenoming
his absence, and the taste of home had turned unsweet
to his palate.
As he sat now, however, Gordon had thrust bitterness
from his mood. He was thinking with satisfaction of
the copyhold he had transferred. He had always de-
(34)
THE CASTAWAY 35
clared that for what he wrote he would take no money.
If these verses the first in which he felt he had ex-
pressed something of his real self if these brought
recompense, it was a fitting disposition he had made.
He had paid an old debt to the man with the worn
waistcoat and kindly, studious face almost the only
debt of its kind he owed in the world.
The words with which Dallas had left him recurred
to him "God bless you!"
"Poor old plodding Dallas!" he mused reflectively.
"It's curious how a man's sense of gratitude drags up
his religion if he has any to drag up. He thinks now
the Creator put into my heart to do that doesn't give
himself a bit of credit for it !"
He laughed reminiscently.
"I don't suppose he has seen six hundred pounds to
spend since he bought that pony ! He has had a hard
row to hoe all his life, and never did an ounce of harm
to any living thing, yet at the first turn of good luck,
he fairly oozes thankfulness to the Almighty. He is
a churchman clear through. He believes in revealed
religion though no religion ever is revealed and yet
he doesn't mistake theology for Christianity. He posi-
tively doesn't know the meaning of the word cant. Ah
there goes another type !"
Gordon was looking at a square, mottle-faced man
passing slowly on the opposite side of the street, carry-
ing a bundle of leaflets from which now and then he
drew to give to a passer-by. He was high-browed, with
eyes that projected like an insect's and were flattish in
their orbits. He wore a ministerial cloak over his street
costume.
36 THE CASTAWAY
"There's Cassidy," he said to himself. "Dr. James
Cassidy, on shore leave, distributing his little doc-
trinal tracts. I remember him well. He is in the navy
medical service, but it's the grief of his life he can't
be a parson. He talked enough pedantry over the ship's
table of the Pylades, while I was coming home from
Greece, to last me till the resurrection. He is as ardent
a predestinarian as any Calvinistic dean in gaiters, and
knows all the hackneyed catch-phrases of eternal pun-
ishment. He has an itch for propaganda, and distributes
his tracts, printed at his own expense, on the street-cor-
ner for the glory of theology. He is the sort of Chris-
tian who always writes damned with a dash. And yet, I
wonder how much real true Christianity he has Chris-
tianity like Dallas', I mean. I remember that scar on
his cheek ; it stands for a thrashing he got once at Bom-
bay from a deserting ensign named Trevanion a youth
I met in Greece afterward, and had cause to remember,
by the way !"
His eyes had darkened suddenly. His brows frowned,
his firm white hand ran over his curls as though to
brush away a disagreeable recollection.
"Cassidy would travel half around the globe to find
the deserter that thrashed him and land him in quod.
That man would deserve it richly enough, but would
Cassidy's act be for the good of the king's service ? No
for the satisfaction of James Cassidy. Is that Chris-
tianity? Dallas never treasured an enmity in his life.
Yet both of them believe the same doctrine, worship
the same God, read the same Bible. Does man make
his beliefs? Or do his beliefs make him? If his be-
liefs make man, why are Dallas and Cassidy so differ-
THE CASTAWAY 37
ent ? If man makes his beliefs, why should I not make
my own ? I will be an Anythingarian, and leave dreams
to Emanuel Swedenborg!"
His gaze, that had followed the clerical figure till it
passed out of sight, returned meditatively to the slaty
white buildings opposite.
"Some people call me an atheist I never could un-
derstand why, though I prefer Confucius to the Ten
Commandments and Socrates to St. Paul, the two lat-
ter happen to agree in their opinion of marriage,
and I don't think eating bread or drinking wine from
the hand of an earthly vicar will make me an inheritor
of Heaven. Dallas would tell me not to reason, but to
believe. You might as well tell a man not to wake but
to sleep. Neither Cicero nor the Messiah could ever
have altered the vote of a single lord of the bed-cham-
ber ! And then to bully with torments and all that !
The menace of hell makes as many devils as the penal
code makes villains. All cant Methodistical cant
yet Dallas believes it. And both he and Cassidy belong
to the same one of the seventy-two sects that are tear-
ing each other to pieces for the love of the Lord and
hatred of each other the sects that call men atheists be-
cause the eternal why will creep into what they write.
If it pleases the Church I except Dallas to damn me
for asking questions, I shall be only one with some
millions of scoundrels who, after all, seem as likely to
be damned as ever. As for immortality, if people
are to live, why die ? And our carcases, are they worth
raising? I hope, if mine is, I shall have a better pair
of legs than I have moved on these three-and-twenty
38 THE CASTAWAY
3 r ears, or I shall be sadly behind in the squeeze into
Paradise !"
There was a knock at the door. He rose and opened
it. It was Hobhouse. Gordon caught up his hat and
they left the hotel together.
As they crossed Park Place a woman, draggled and
gin-besotted, strayed from some Thames-side stews, sat
on the worn stone base of the fountain, leaning un-
certainly against its bronze rim. Her swollen lids hid
her eyes and one hand, palm up, was thrown out across
her lap. Gordon drew a shilling from his pocket, and
passing his arm in Hobhouse's, laid it in the out-
stretched hand. At the touch of the coin, the drab
started up, looked at him stupidly an instant, then with
a ribald yell of laughter she flung the shilling into the
water and shambled across the square, mimicking, in
a hideous sort of buffoonery, the lameness of his gait.
Gordon's face turned ashen. He walked on without
a word, but his companion could feel his hand tremble
against his sleeve. When he spoke, it was in a voice
half-smothered, forbidding.
"The old jeer!" he said. "The very riffraff of the
street fling it at me ! Yet I don't know why they should
spare that taunt ; even my mother did not. 'Lame brat !'
she called me once when I was a child." He laughed,
jarringly, harshly. "Why, only a few days before 1
sailed from England, in one of her fits of passion, she
flung it at me. 'May you be as ill-formed in mind as
you are in body !' Could they wish me worse than she ?"
"Gordon!" expostulated the other. "Don't!"
He had no time to finish. A grizzled man in the
dress of an upper servant was approaching them, his
THE CASTAWAY 39
rubicund face bearing an unmistakable look of haste
and concern.
"Well, Fletcher?" inquired Gordon.
"I thought your lordship had gone out earlier. I
have been inquiring for you at the clubs. This message
has just come from Newstead."
His master, took the letter and read it. A strange,
slow, remorseful look overspread the passion on his face.
"No ill news, I hope/' ventured Hobhouse.
Gordon made no reply. He crushed the letter into
his pocket, turned abruptly and strode up St. James
Street.
"His lordship's mother died yesterday, Mr. Hob-
house," said the valet in a low voice.
"Good God!" exclaimed the other. "What a contre-
temps"
A knot of loungers were seated under the chande-
liers in the bow-window of White's Club as Gordon
passed on his way to the coach. Beau Brummell, ele-
gant, spendthrift, in white great-coat and blue satin
cravat exhaling an odor of eau de jasmin, lifted a lan-
guid glass to his eye.
"I'll go something handsome !" cried he ; "I thought
he was in Greece !"
"He's the young whelp of a peer who made such a
dust with that Satire he wrote," Lord Petersham in-
formed his neighbor. "Hero of the sack story I told
you. Took the title from his great-uncle, the madman
who killed old Chaworth in that tavern duel. House
of Lords tried him for murder, you know. Used to
train crickets and club them over the head with straws;
40 THE CASTAWAY.
all of them left the house in a body the day he died.
Devilish queer story! Who's the aged party with the
portmanteaus ? Valet ?"
"Yes/' asserted some one. "The old man was here
a while ago trying to find Gordon with bad news. His
lordship's mother is dead."
"Saw her once at Newstead Abbey," yawned Brum-
mell, wearily, dusting his cuffs. "Corpulent termagant
and gave George no end of a row. He used to call her
his 'maternal war-whoop.' My own parents poor good
people! died long ago," he added reflectively; " cut
their throats eating peas with a knife."
WHAT THE DEAD MAY KNOW
Gordon was alone in the vehicle, for Fletcher rode
outside. He set his face to the fogged pane, catching
the panorama of dark hedges, gouged gravelly runnels
and stretches of murky black, with occasional instan-
taneous sense of detail dripping bank, sodden rhodo-
dendron and mildewed masonry vivid in a dull, yellow,
soundless flare of July lightning. A gauze of unbroken
grayness, a straggling light the lodge. A battle-
mented wall plunging out of the darkness and Gordon
saw the Abbey, its tiers of ivied cloisters uninhabited
since Henry the Eighth battered the old pile to ruin, its
gaunt and unsightly forts built for some occupant's
whim, and the wavering, fog-wreathed lake reflecting
lighted windows. This was Newstead in which the
bearers of his title had lived and died, the gloomy seat
of an ancient house stained by murder and insanity,
of which he was the sole representative.
What was he thinking as he sat in the gloomy dining-
room, with Eushton, the footman he had trained to his
own service, standing behind his chair ? Of his mother
first of all. He had never, even as a child, distinguished
a sign of real tenderness in her moments of tempes-
(41)
42 THE CASTAWAY
tuous caresses. His maturer years had grown to regard
her with a half-scornful, half good-humored tolerance.
He had shrugged at her tempers, dubbing her "The
Honorable Kitty" or his "Amiable Alecto." His letters
to her had shown only a nice sense of filial duty : many
of them began with "Dear Madam"; more had been
signed simply with his name. Yet now he felt an aching
hope that in her seclusion she had not seen the unkind-
est of the stories of him. His half-sister now on her
way from the north of England absorbed with her
family cares, would have missed the brunt of the at-
tacks ; his mother had been within their range. He re-
called with a pang that she had treasured with a degree
of pride a single review of his earliest book which had
not joined in the sneering chorus.
He pushed back his chair, dismissed the footman, and
alone passed to the hall and ascended the stair. At
the turn of the balustrade a shaded lamp drowsed like a
monster glow-worm. In his own room a low fire burned,
winking redly from the coronetted bed-posts, and a
lighted candle stood on the dressing-table. He looked
around the familiar apartment a moment uncertainly,
then crossed to a carved cabinet above a writing-desk
and took therefrom a bottle of claret. The cabinet
had belonged to his father, dead many years before.
Gordon thought of him as he stood with the bottle in
his hand, staring fixedly at the dull, carved ebony of
the swinging door.
His father ! "Mad Jack Gordon" the world had called
him when he ran away with the Marchioness of Car-
mathen to break her heart! Handsome he had been
Btill when he married for her money the heiress of
THE CASTAWAY 43
Gight, Gordon's mother. A stinging memory recalled
the only glimpse he had ever had of that father a tall
man in uniform on an Aberdeen street, looking critically
at a child with a lame leg.
Gordon winced painfully. He felt with a sharper
agony the sensitive pang of the cripple, the shame of
misshapenness that all his life had clung like an old-
man-of-the-sea. It had not only stung his childhood;
it had stolen from him the romance of his youth the
one gleam that six years ago had died.
Six years! For a moment time fell away like rot-
ten shale from about a crystal. The room, the wine-
cabinet, faded into a dim background, and on this, as
if on a theater curtain, dissolving pictures painted them-
selves flame-like.
He was back in his Harrow days now, at home for
his last vacation.
"George," his mother had remarked one day, looking
up from a letter she was reading, "I've some news for
you. Take out your handkerchief, for you will need it."
"Nonsense! What is it?"
"Mary Chaworth is married."
"Is that all?" he had replied coldly; but an expres-
sion, peculiar, impossible to describe, had passed over
his face. He had never afterward seen her or spoken
her name.
"Mary!" he murmured, and his hand set down the
bottle on the table. Love such love as his verses told
of he had come to consider purely subjective, a mirage,
a simulacrum to which actual life possessed no counter-
part. Yet at that moment he was feeling the wraith of
44 THE CASTAWAY
an old thrill, his nostrils smelling a perfume like a dead
pansy's ghost.
He withdrew his hand from the bottle and his fingers
clenched. How it hurt him the sudden stab ! For
memory had played him a trick ; it had dragged a voice
out of the past. It was her voice her words that she
had uttered in a careless sentence meant for other ears,
one that through those years had tumbled and reechoed
in some under sea-cavern of his mind "Do you think
I could ever care for that lame boy?"
He smiled grimly. She had been right. Nature had
set him apart, made him a loup-garou, a solitary hob-
goblin. He had been unclubbable, sauvage, even at
Cambridge. And yet he had had real friendships there ;
one especially.
Gordon's free hand fumbled for his fob and his fin-
gers closed on a little cornelian heart. It had been a
keepsake from his college classmate, Matthews, drowned
in the muddy waters of the Cam.
He released the bottle hurriedly, strode to the window
and flung it open. A gust of rain struck his face and
spluttered in the candle, and the curtain flapped like
the wing of some ungainly bird. Out in the dark, be-
neath a clump of larches, glimmered whitely the monu-
ment he had erected to "Boatswain," his Newfoundland.
The animal had gone mad.
"Some curse hangs over me and mine !" he muttered.
"I never could keep alive even a dog that I liked or that
liked me!"
A combined rattle and crash behind him made him
turn. The wind had blown shut the door of the cabi-
net with a smart bang, and a yellow object, large and
THE CASTAWAY 45
round, had toppled from its shelf, fallen and rolled to
his very feet.
He started back, his nerves for the instant shaken. It
was a skull, mottled like polished tortoise-shell, mounted
in dull silver as a drinking cup. He had unearthed the
relic years before with a heap of stone coffins amid the
rubbish of the Abbey's ruined priory grim reminder
of some old friar and its mounting had been his own
fancy. He had forgotten its very existence.
Now, as it lay supine, yet intrusive, the symbol at
one time of lastingness and decay, it filled him with a
painful fascination.
Picking it up, he set it upright on the desk, seized
the bottle, knocked off its top against the marble man-
tel and poured the fantastic goblet full.
"Death and life !" he mused. "One feeds the other,
each in its turn. Life ! yet it should not be too long ;
I have no conception of any existence which duration
would not render tiresome. How else fell the angels?
They were immortal, heavenly and happy. It is the
lastingness of life that is terrible; I see no horror in a
dreamless sleep."
He put out his hand to the goblet, but withdrew it.
"No wait!" he said, and seating himself at the
desk, he seized a pen. The lines he wrote, rapidly and
with scarcely an alteration, were to live for many a
long year index fingers pointing back to that dark
mood that consumed him then :
"Start not nor deem my spirit fled:
In me behold the only skull,
From which, unlike a living head,
"Whatever flows is never dull.
46 THE CASTAWAY
I lived, I loved, I quaffed, like thee:
I died: let earth my bones resign.
Fill up thou canst not injure me;
The worm hath fouler lips than thine.
Better to hold the sparkling grape,
Than nurse the earth-worm's slimy brood;
And circle in the goblet's shape
The drink of gods, than reptile's food.
Quaff while thou canst: another race,
When thou and thine, like me, are sped,
May rescue thee from earth's embrace,
And rhyme and revel with the dead."
He repeated the last stanza aloud and raised the gob-
let in both hands.
"Rhyming and revelling what else counts? To
drink the wine of youth to the dregs and then good
night! Is there anything beyond? Who knows? He
who can not tell ! Who tells us there is ? He who does
not know !"
Did the dead know ?
He set the wine down, pushing it from him, sprang
up, seized the candle and entered the room on the other
side of the corridor. The bed-curtains were drawn close
and a Bible lay open on the night-stand. He wondered
with a kind of impersonal pity if the book had held
comfort for her at the last.
He held the candle higher so its rays lighted the
page: But the Lord shall give thee there a trembling
heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind. . . .
In the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were even!
and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning!
It stared at him plainly in black letters, an age-old
THE CASTAWAY 47
agony of wretchedness. Had this been the keynote of
her lonely, fitful, vehement life? Had years of misery
robbed her as it had robbed him, too? A distressed
doubt, like a dire finger of apprehension, touched him;
he put out his hand and drew aside the curtains.
Looking, he shuddered. Death had lent her its mys-
tery, its ineffaceable dignity. He recognized it with
a new and inexplicable feeling, like rising from the
grave. Back of the placid look, in abeyance, in the stir-
lessness of the unringed hands she had lost her wed-
ding-ring years ago some quality, strange, unintimate,
lay confronting him. He remembered his words to Hob-
house in the street words that had not been cold on his
lips when he read Fletcher's message. Ever since, they
had lain rankling like a raw burn in some crevice of his
brain. "Lame brat!" And yet, beneath her frantic
rages, under the surface he had habitually disregarded,
what if in her own way she had really loved him !
A clutching pain took possession of him, a sense of
physical sickness and anguish. He dropped the cur-
tain, and stumbled from the room, down the long stair,
calling for the footman.
"Kushton," he shouted, "get the muffles ! Let us have
a bout like the old times." He threw off his coat,
'pushed the chairs aside and bared his arms. "The
gloves, Kushton, and be quick about it !"
The footman hesitated, a half-scared expression in
his look.
"Never fear," said Gordon, and laughed a tighten-
ing laugh that strained the cords of his throat. "Put
them on! That's right! AVhat are you staring at? Do
you think she will hear you? Not she! Put up your
48 THE CASTAWAY
hands so ! Touched, by the Lord ! Not up to your old
style, Eushton ! You never used to spar so villainously.
You will disgrace the fancy. Ah-h !" And he knocked
him sprawling.
Eushton scrambled to his feet as the housekeeper en-
tered, dismay upon her mask-like relic of a face. Gordon
was very white and both noticed that his eyes were full
of tears.
Long after midnight, when the place was quiet,
the housekeeper heard an unaccustomed sound issuing
from the chamber where the dead woman lay. She
took a light and entered. The candle had burned out,
and she saw Gordon sitting in the dark beside the bed.
He spoke in a broken voice :
"Oh, Mrs. Muhl," he said, "she was my mother!
After all, one can have but one in this world, and I
have only just found it out 1"
CHAPTER VII
THE YOUTH IN FLEET PRISON
Behind the closed shutters of the book-shop which
bore the sign of "The Juvenile Library/ 7 in the musty
room where George Gordon had burned the errant copies
of his ubiquitous Satire, old William Godwin sat reading
by a guttering candle, Livy's Roman History in the
original. It was his favorite book, and in the early even-
ings, when not writing his crabbed column for the
Courier, or caustic diatribes for the reviews, he was apt
to be reading it. A sound in the living-room above
drew his eyes from the black-letter page.
"Jane !" he called morosely "Jane Clermont !"
A lagging step came down the stair, and a girl en-
tered, black-eyed, Creole in effect. Her cheeks held the
flame of the wild-cherry leaf.
"Where is your sister ?"
"I have no sister/'
The old man struck the table with his open hand.
"Where is Mary, I say?"
"At the door."
"Go and see what she is doing."
(49)
50 THE CASTAWAY
The girl stood still, regarding her stepfather with a
look that under its beauty had a sullen half-contempt.
"Why don't you do as I tell you ?"
"I'm not going to be a spy for you, even if you did
marry my mother. I'm tired of it."
The anger on the old man's face harshened. "If you
were my own flesh and blood," he said sternly, "I would
flog that French impudence of yours to death. As long
as you eat my bread, you will obey me."
She looked at him with covert mockery on her full
lips.
"I'm not a child any longer," she said as she turned
flauntingly away; "I could earn my bread easier than
by dusting tumble-down book-shelves. Do you think I
don't know that?"
To William Godwin this defiant untutored girl had
been a thorn in the side a perpetual slur and affront to
the irksome discipline he laid upon his own pliant Mary,
the child of that first wife whose loss had warped his
manhood. Now he saw her as a live danger, a flagrant
menace whose wildness would infect his own daughter.
It was this red-lipped vixen who was teaching her the
spirit of disobedience !
He raised his voice and called sharply : "Mary !"
There was no answer, and he shuffled down the shabby
hall to the street door. The old man glowered at the
slender, beardless figure of the youth who stood with
her the brown, long coat with curling lamb's-wool
collar and cuffs, its pockets bulging with mysterious
books. In a senile rage, he ordered his daughter indoors.
Passers-by stopped to stare at the object of his rancor,
standing uncertainly in the semi-dusk, a brighter ap-
THE CASTAWAY 51
parition, with luminous eyes and extravagant locks.
Words came thickly to the old man; he launched into
invective, splenetic and intemperate, at which the listen-
ers tittered.
As it chanced, a pedestrian heard the name he
mouthed a man sharp-featured and ill dressed. With
a low whistle he drew a soiled slip of paper from his
pocket and consulted it by a street lamp, his grimy
forefinger running down the list of names it contained.
"I thought so. I've a knack for names," he muttered,
and shouldered through the bystanders.
"Not so fast, young master/' he said, laying his hand
on the youth's arm ; "t'other's the way to the Fleet."
The other drew back with a gesture of disgust. "The
Fleet!" he echoed.
"Aye," said the bailiff, winking to the crowd; "the
pretty jug for folk as spend more than they find in
pocket ; with a nice grating to see your friends so gen-
teel like."
Breaking from her father's hand, the girl in the door-
way ran out with fear in her blue eyes.
"Oh, where are you taking him ?" she cried.
The fellow smirked. "I'm just going to show his
honor to a hotel I know, till he has time to see his pal
Dellevelly of Golden Square to borrow a tidy eighteen
pound ten, which a bookseller not so far off will be
precious glad to get."
"Eighteen pounds!" gasped the youth, with a hys-
teric laugh. "Debtors' prison for only eighteen pounds !
But I have the books still he can have them back."
"After you've done with 'em, eh?" said the bailiff.
52 THE CASTAWAY
"Oh, I know your young gentlemen's ways. Come
along."
"Father!" cried the girl, indignantly, as the bailiff
dropped a heavy grasp on the lamb's-wool collar.
"You'll not let them take Shelley. You'll wait for the
money, father."
"Go into the house !" thundered the old man. "He's
a good-for-nothing vagabond, I tell you!" He thrust
her back, and the slammed door shut between her and
the youth standing in the "bailiff's clutch, half-wonder-
ingly and disdainfully, like a bright-eyed, restless fox
amid sour grapes.
"Go to your room !" commanded her father, and the
girl slowly obeyed, dashing away her tears, while the old
bookseller went back to the cluttered shop and his read-
ing of I/ivy's Roman History.
In the chamber the girl entered, Jane Clermont looked
up half-scornfully.
"I heard it all," she burst; "you are a little fool to
take it scolding you like a child, and before all those
people !"
Mary opened a bureau drawer and took out a small
rosewood box containing her one dearest possession.
As she stood with her treasure in her hand, Jane jumped
to her feet.
"I've borne it as long as I can myself," she cried under
her breath. "I'm going to run away before I am a fort-
night older."
"Run away? Where?"
Jane had begun to dance noiselessly on tiptoe with
swift bacchante movements. "I'm going to be an ac-
THE CASTAWAY 53
tress/' she confided, as she stood at a pirouette. "I've
been to see Mr. Sheridan the great Mr. Sheridan
and he's promised to get me a trial in a real part at
Drury Lane !". She paused, struck with the determina-
tion in the other's face. "What are you going to do ?"
"I'm going to Shelley."
"Good ! I'll go with you. But you have no money.
How can you help him ?"
Mary held out the little box.
<f Your mother's brooch !" cried Jane. "Do you really
care as much as that for him?" a little satirically.
Her companion was dressing for the street with rapid,
uncertain fingers. "It's all I have," she answered.
They sat in silence till they heard the outer door
bolted and knew the old man below had gone to his own
room. Then they stole softly down the creaking stair,
undid the outer door cautiously and went out into the
evening bustle.
The pavements were crowded, and Mary clung to her
companion's arm, but Jane walked nonchalantly, her
dark eyes snapping with adventure. Not a few turned
to gaze at her piquant beauty. To one whose way led in
the same direction it brought a thought of a distant land.
"In a Suliote shawl she might be a maid of Misso-
longhi !" mused George Gordon, as he strode across Fleet
market behind the two girls. "Greece ! I wonder when
I shall see it again !"
A shade of melancholy was in his face as he walked
on, but not discontent. The resentment of his London
home-coming and the desolation of that first black night
at Newstead he had overcome. With the companionship
of his sister and in the calm freshness of frosty lake and
54 THE CASTAWAY
rolling wind-washed moor he had recovered some of the
buoyant spirits so suddenly stunned by the impact of
the slanders that had met him. The London papers he
had left unopened, from a sensitive dread of seeing the
recital of his mother's well-known eccentricities, which
her death might furnish excuse for recalling. His new
book, whose stanzas stood like mental mile-posts of his
journey, had almost finished its progress through the
press. In its verses he hoped to stand for something
more than the petty cavilling of personal paragraphists.
It was to his publisher's he was bound this night when
that wistful thought of the shores he best loved had
shadowed his mood.
Crossing the open space on which faced the dark brick
front and barred windows of the Fleet Prison, he saw
the two girlish forms pause before its dismal entrance,
where stood the shirt-sleeved warden, pipe in mouth.
What errand could have brought them there unaccom-
panied at such an hour, he wondered.
Just then the clock of St. Dunstan's-in-the-West be-
gan a ponderous stroke, and the warden knocked the
ashes from his pipe.
"Eight o'clock," he announced gruffly. "Prison's
closed."
A cry of dismay fell from Mary's lips a cry freighted
with tears. "Then we can't get poor Bysshe !"
Gordon turned back and approached the dingy portal.
"I have a fancy to see the inside of the old rookery,
warden," he said. "Perhaps these visitors may enter
with me." His hand was in his pocket and a jingle
caught the warden's acute ear. The gruff demeanor of
the custodian merged precipitately into the obsequious.
THE CASTAWAY 55
He pushed open the gate with alacrity and preceded
them into the foul area of the prison.
Mary threw Gordon a quick glance of gratitude as she
passed into the warden's office to return without the
little rosewood box. Across the look had flitted a shud-
der at the shouts and oaths that tainted the inclosure,
and as she emerged he caught the gleam of relief with
which she saw him still in the court.
A moment later the bailiff, who had figured in the
scene before Godwin's shop, was leading the way along
a noisome gallery. It was littered with refuse of vege-
table and provision-men who cried their wares all day
up and down. At one side gaped a coffee-house, at the
other an ordinary, both reeking with stale odors and
tobacco-smoke, and a noisy club was meeting in the tap-
room. Laughter and the click of glasses floated in the
air, a suffocating atmosphere of tawdry boisterousness.
Jane Clermont stole more than one sidelong glance
as Gordon's uneven step followed. At length the bailiff
paused and unlocked a barred door. Mary knocked, but
there was no answer; she pushed the door open and the
girls entered.
From his station in the background, Gordon saw a
dingy chamber, possessing as furniture only a cot, a
chair, and a narrow board mantel, on which a candle
was burning, stuck upright in its own tallow. Standing
before this breast-high impromptu table, a pamphlet
spread open, upon it, his shoulders stooped, his eyes de-
vouring the page, was the room's solitary occupant. He
had thrown off the long coat with the lamb's-wool trim-
ming, his collar was open leaving his throat unfettered,
and his long locks hung negligently about his face.
56 THE CASTAWAY
"Bysshe !" cried Mary, ecstatically.
The figure by the mantel turned, flinging back his
tumbled hair as if to toss away his abstraction.
"Mary !" he echoed, and sprang forward. "What are
you doing here?"
"We've come for you. The debt is cancelled. To
think of your being shut up here!" she said with a
shiver, as a burst of noises rose from the court below.
"Cancelled!" he repeated with a hesitating laugh.
<r 5Tour father would better have let me stay, Mary. I
shall be just as bad again in a month. I couldn't re-
sist buying a book if it meant the gallows !"
She did not undeceive him, but handed him his
great-coat, and gathered the volumes tossed on to the
couch to stuff into its bulging pockets.
Jane had been scrutinizing the room. "What's that ?"
she inquired, pointing to a plate of food which sat on the
far end of the mantel, as though it had been impatiently
pushed aside.
The youth colored uneasily. "Why, I suppose that
was my supper," he said shamefacedly; "I must have
forgotten to eat it."
Jane laughed, picked up the pamphlet for which the
meal had been forgotten, and read the title aloud.
"'Twelve Butchers for a Jury and a Jeffreys for a
Judge. An Appeal against the Pending Frame-Breakers
*Bill to legalize the Murder of the Stocking- Weavers. By
Percy Bysshe Shelley !' "
"Frame-Breakers !" she finished disdainfully. "Stock-
ing-Weavers !"
Shelley's delicate face flushed as he folded the pam-
phlet.
THE CASTAWAY 57
"Are they not men ?" he exclaimed. "And being men,
have they no natural rights? Is British' law to shoot
them down like wild beasts for the defense of their
livelihood? Oh, if I were only a peer, with a voice in
Parliament!" He spoke with fierce emphasis, but in
tone soft, vibrating and persuasive a sustained, song-
like quality in it.
"Percy Bysshe Shelley!" Gordon's mind recited the
name wonderingly. He remembered a placard he had
seen in a book-shop window: "For writing the which
he stands expelled from University College, Oxford." So
this was the heir to a baronetcy, the author of "Queen
Mab," the stripling iconoclast who had laughed at ful-
minating attorney-generals, had fled to Lynmouth beach
where he had spent his days making little wooden
boxes, inclosed in resined bladders, weighted with lead
and equipped with tiny mast and sail, and had sent
them, filled with his contraband writings, out on the
rollers of the Atlantic in the hope that they might reach
some free mind on the Irish shore or on some ocean brig.
Gordon left his post and went slowly down the stair,
past the blackened office, wherein the warden sat ad-
miringly fingering the brooch that had wiped out a debt
to old William Godwin the bookseller, and into the
street.
The words of the youth he had seen sounded in his
brain : "If I were only a peer, with a voice in Parlia-
ment !"
That voice was his. When had he used it for his
fellow-man ?
CHAPTER VIII
A SAVAGE SPUB
John Murray, anax of publishers, sat that evening in
his shop in Fleet Street. He was in excellent humor,
having dined both wisely and well. His hair was sparse
above a smooth-shaven, oval face, in which lurked good-
humor and the wit which brought to his drawing-room
the most brilliant men of literary London, as his genius
as a publisher had given him the patronage of the great-
est peers of the kingdom, and even of the prince regent.
His black coat was of the plainest broadcloth and his
neck-cloth of the finest linen. Dallas sat opposite, his
scholarly face keen and animated. The frayed waist-
coat was no longer in evidence, and the worn hat had
given place to a new broad brim.
"Yes," said the man of books, "we shall formally pub-
lish to-morrow. I wrote his lordship, asking him to
come up to town, to urge him to eliminate several of the
stanzas in case we reprint soon. They will only make
him more enemies. He has enough now," he added rue-
fully.
"You still think as well of it?"
The publisher pushed back his glasses with enthu-
siasm. "It is splendid unique." He pulled out a desk-
drawer and took therefrom a printed volume, poising
it proudly, as a father dandles his first-born, and, turn-
(58)
THE CASTAWAY 59
ing its pages, with lifted forefinger and rolling voice
read:
"Fair Greece! sad relic of departed worth!
Immortal, though no more; though fallen, great!
Who now shall lead thy scattered children forth,
And long accustomed bondage uncreate?
Not such thy sons who whilom did await,
The hopeless warriors of the willing doom,
In bleak Thermopylae's sepulchral strait
Oh! who that gallant spirit shall resume,
Leap from Eurotas' banks, and call thee from the tomb?
Yet are thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild;
Sweet are thy groves, and verdant are thy fields,
Thine olive ripe as when Minerva smiled,
And still his honeyed wealth Hymettus yields;
There the blithe bee his fragrant fortress builds,
The freeborn wanderer of thy mountain air;
Apollo still thy long, long summer gilds,
Still in his beam Mendeli's marbles glare;
Art, glory, freedom fail, but Nature still is fair.
Hereditary bondsmen! Know ye not
Who would be free themselves must strike the blow?
By their right arms the conquest must be wrought.
Will Gaul or Muscovite redress ye? No!
True, they may lay your proud despoiler low,
But not for you will freedom's altars flame.
Shades of the Helots! triumph o'er your foe!
Greece! change thy lords, thy state is still the same;
Thy glorious day is o'er, but not thine years of shame."
He broke off abruptly. "The pamphleteers have been
busy since he landed," he admitted, a trace of shrewd-
ness edging his tone, "but the abuse seems to have dulled
now. I have been waiting for that to issue."
"His lordship, sir," announced a clerk, and the pro-
prietor sprang to his feet to greet his visitor.
60 THE CASTAWAY
Gordon's eyes lighted with pleasure as they fell on
Dallas, noting the change the few months of relief from
the galling pressure of poverty had wrought in the fea-
tures no less than the attire. "Are the types ready?'*
he asked the publisher.
"Yes, my lord. We distribute to-morrow. I have
marked a few stanzas, however, that I hesitate to in-
clude in a further edition. Here they are. You will
guess my reason."
The other looked, his eyes reading, but his mind
thinking further than the page.
"London! Right well thou know'st the hour of prayer;
Then thy spruce citizen, washed artisan
And smug apprentice gulp their weekly air."
The lines were bitter indeed ! They had been written
when he was still smarting under the lash of his earlier
critics, in the first months of his journeyings, before
the great wind of travel had swept his mind clear and
sweet for the latter harmonies of his poesy. In them
lay the hurt sneer of a personal resentment the re-
sentment that had been in his soul when he sailed from
England; that had sprung alive again on his return,
when he learned that his enemies had employed his
absence to bespatter his name with lying tales.
Yet that was past. He had oast it behind him. And
should he carry the old spirit into this better and nobler
work, to deflect his message from its significance into
cheaper channels of abuse? His thought recurred to
the youth in the bare room of the Fleet. Even there,
in a debtors' prison, Shelley had forgot his own plight,
and sunk individual resentment in desire for wider
THE CASTAWAY 61
justice! Should he be less big in tolerance than that
youth? So he asked himself, as the publisher casually
fluttered the leaves of an uncut review which the clerk
had laid on his desk.
All at once John Murray's eyes stopped, fixed on a
page. He made an exclamation of irritation and cha-
grin, and pushed it out toward Gordon. It was a fresh
copy of the Scourge, and the leader Gordon read, while
the publisher paced the floor with nervously angry
strides, was the one in which had been steeped the
anonymous venom of William Godwin the bookseller
a page whose caption was his own name:
"It may be asked whether to be a simple citizen is more
disgraceful than to be the illegitimate descendant of a
murderer; whether to labor in an honorable profession be
less worthy than to waste the property of others in vulgar
debauchery; whether to be the son of parents of no title
be not as honorable as to be the son of a profligate father
and a mother of demoniac temper, and, finally, whether a
simple university career be less indicative of virtue than
to be held up to the derision and contempt of his fellow
students, as a scribbler of doggerel and a bear-leader, to be
hated for repulsiveness of manners and shunned by every
man who would not be deemed a profligate without wit and
trifling without elegance."
A cold dead look of mingled pain and savagery grew
on his face as he read. Then he sprang up and went to
the door. Behind him Dallas had seized the review and
was reading it with indignation. The publisher was
still pacing the floor : "What an unfortunate advertise-
ment !" he was muttering.
Gordon stared out into the lamp-lighted street. The
62 THE CASTAWAY
bitter malignancy which had spared not even the grave
in its slander, numbed and maddened him. His breath
came hard and a mist was before his eyes. Opposite
the shop loomed the blackened front of the old church
of St. Dunstan's-in-the-West ; as he stood, the two
wooden figures of wild men on the clock which projected
over the street struck the hour with their clubs, and a
late newsboy passed crying tiredly: "News and Chron-
icle! All about the Frame-Breakers shot in Notting-
ham!"
The volume the publisher had given him was still in
Gordon's hand. He turned into the room and flung it
on the desk. %
"No," he said with harsh bluntness. "Not a line shall
be altered ! If every syllable were a rattlesnake and
every letter a pestilence, they should not be expunged!
Let those who can not swallow, chew it. I will have
none of your damned cutting and slashing, Murray. I
will battle my way against them all, like a porcupine !"
Then he wheeled and plunged into the clack and
babble of Fleet Street's pedestrians.
London would be reading his effusion when his book
appeared to-morrow reading it and talking about it.
"The curs!" he said to himself, as he walked fiercely
down the Strand.
The cry of the newsboy ahead came back to him like
a dulled refrain. He turned into Whitehall at Charing
Cross, and looked up to find himself opposite Melbourne
House. He remembered suddenly the clear-eyed girl to
whom he had offered his Satire and whose coin was still
in* his waistcoat pocket : she had said "Melbourne House"
63
that day to the coachman. He wondered with a curious
levity whether she would read the Scourge.
Before the Houses of Parliament stood a double line
of carriages.
"It's the debate in the Lords on the Frame-Breakers
bill/' he heard one passer-by inform another, as he
stared frowning at the high Gothic entrance. That was
the measure against which Shelley's pamphlet had been
written.
The pain was dulling and the old unyielding devil of
challenge and fight was struggling uppermost. " 'The
illegitimate descendant of a murderer !' " Gordon mut-
tered " 'a scribbler of doggerel and a bear-leader ! J ''
Then suddenly he raised his head. His eyes. struck
fi^e like gray flint. "I am a peer/' he said through his
teeth, and strode through the door which he had never
entered in his life, but once.
An hour later there was a sensation in John Mur-
ray's shop, where Dallas still sat. It was furnished by
Sheridan, who came in taking snuff and shaking his
gray head with delight.
"Heard the news?" he cried, chuckling. "George
Gordon just made a great speech best speech by a lord
since the Lord knows when ! I was in the gallery with
Lady Melbourne and Lady Caroline Lamb. He opposed
the Frame-Breakers bill. They say it means the death
of the measure. You should have seen the big-wigs flock
to offer congratulations ! Why, even the Lord Chancel-
lor came down from the woolsack to shake hands with
him !" He paused out of breath, with a final "What d'ye
think of that?"
64 THE CASTAWAY
"Well, well !" ejaculated the publisher, taking off his
glasses and polishing them with vigor. He looked at
Dallas.
"What an unfortunate advertisement!" quoth that
gentleman, pulling his nose. "Eh ?"
John Murray brought his fist down on the desk with
a force that made the ink-well leap. "By the foot of
Pharaoh!" he swore, "we'll take advantage of it; it
will discount that attack in the Scourge. The papers
have their copies of the book already. I'll send them
word. We'll not wait till to-morrow. We'll issue TO-
NIGHT !"
He rang the bell sharply and gave a clerk hurried
orders which in a few moments made the office a scene
of confusion.
When Lady Melbourne entered Melbourne House
with her daughter-in-law that evening about the time
a swarm of messengers were departing from the Fleet
Street shop carrying packages of books addressed to the
greatest houses of London she found her stately niece,
Annabel Milbanke, reading in the drawing-room.
Lady Caroline's eyes were very bright as she threw off
her wraps. She went to the piano and played softly
long dissolving arpeggios that melted into a rich minor
chord. Presently she began to sing the same Greek air
that she had sung once before with a pathos that had
surprised and stirred even the colder, calculate Annabel.
"Caro, what is that ?" asked Lady Melbourne, unclasp-
ing her sables before the fireplace. The singer did not
hear her.
"Ifs a song Mr. Hobhouse sent her when he was
traveling in the East," Annabel volunteered.
THE CASTAWAY 65
Lady Melbourne's thoughts were not wholly on the
song. She had seen the book her niece had been reading
it was George Gordon's long famous Satire. She
picked it up, noting the name on the title-page with ap-
proval. She had been pondering since she left the ladies'
gallery of the House of Lords, and her thoughts had
concerned themselves intimately with its author, the
young peer whose maiden speech had challenged such
surprise and admiration. His name went perpetually
accompanied by stories of eccentricities and wild life at
college, of tamed bears and hidden orgies at Newstead
with Paphian dancing girls, of a secret establishment
at Brighton, of adventures and liaisons the most reck-
less in cities of the Orient. Yet he had stanch support-
ers, too.
"Annabel," she said presently, and with singular em-
phasis, "George Gordon is in town. He spoke in Parlia-
ment this evening. I am going to ask him to dinner
here to-morrow to meet you/'
The refrain Lady Caroline was singing broke queerly
in the middle, and her fingers stumbled on the keys.
The others did not see the expression that slipped
swiftly across her face, the rising flush, the indrawn,
bitten under lip, nor did they catch the undertone in
her laugh as she ran up the stair.
In her own room she unlocked a metal frame that
stood on her dressing table. It held a pencil portrait,
begged long before from Hobhouse. A vivid, conscious
flush was in her cheeks as she looked at it.
"For a woman of fire and dreams!" she murmured.
"Not for a thing of snow ! Never never !"
CHAPTER IX
GORDON WAKES AND FINDS HIMSELF FAMOUS
The sharp jostle of the pavement; the rattle of the
crossings; the "this way, m'lord!" of dodging link-
boys and the hoarse warning of the parochial watch to
reckless drivers; street lamps flaring redly in the raw
and heavy night; the steaming tap-rooms along the
Thames ; the cut-throat darkness and the dank smell of
the ^slow turgid current under London bridge. Still
Gordon walked while the hours dragged till the traffic
ebbed to midnight's lull on and on, without purpose or
direction. It was dawn before he entered his lodgings,
fagged and unstrung, with blood pumping and quiver-
ing in his veins like quicksilver.
He let himself in with his own key. The door of the
ante-chamber which his valet occupied was ajar.
Fletcher had been waiting for his master; he was
dressed and seated in a chair, but his good-humored,
oleaginous face was smoothed in slumber.
Gordon went into his sitting-room, poured out a half
goblet of cognac and drank it to the last drop, feeling
gratefully its dull glow and grudging release from
nervous tension.
His memory of his speech was a sort of rough-drawn
composite impression whose salient points were color
(66)
THE CASTAWAY 67
and movement: the wide groined roof, the peaked and
gilded throne, the crimson woolsack, the long, red
morocco sofas set thickly, the rustle in the packed gal-
leries, and peers leaning in their seats to speak in low
tones with their neighbors.
The majority there had not known him, but his pale-
ness, his beauty, his curling hair, and most of all his
lameness, told his name to the few. The few whispered
it to the many, they in turn gazed and whispered too,
and almost before he had uttered a word, the entire
assemblage knew that the speaker was the notorious
writer of the famous Satire whose winged Apollonian
shafts had stung the whole poetic cult of England the
twenty-four-year-old lord whose name was coupled in
the newspapers with unlovely tales of bacchanals in
Madrid, duellos in Malta and Gibraltar, and harem in-
trigues in Constantinople; tales half -believed even by
those who best knew what enemies his vitriolic pen had
made and their opportunities for slander.
Gordon had acted in a mental world created by ex-
citement. His pride had spurred him, in a moment of
humiliation, to thrust himself into the place he of right
should occupy. Mere accident had chosen the debate;
the casual circumstance of a visit to the Fleet Prison
had determined his position in it. Given these, his mind
had responded clearly, spontaneously, with a grasp and
brilliancy of which he himself had been scarcely con-
scious. He remembered, with a curious impersonal won-
der as he walked, the sharp, straining, mental effort be-
fore that battery of glances coldly formal at first, then
surprised into approval and at length warmed to enthu-
siastic applause; the momentary hush as he sat down;
68 THE CASTAWAY
the buzz of undammed talk crisped by the tap of the
gavel; the press of congratulations which followed him
to the outer air.
Now, as he stood in his room in the gray light of the
early morning, a feeling of distaste came over him.
Why had he spoken ? Had it been from any sympathy
for the cause he championed? Was it not rather in a
mere spirit of hurt pride and resentment the same
resentment that had made him refuse to eliminate the
bitter stanzas from his book ? A flush rose to his brow.
How unworthy had been his motive beside that of the
stripling who had written against that same bill !
A sense of shame rushed through him. In the late
weeks at Newstead he had felt how small were such im-
pulses. He had told himself that he would sing for his
song's own sake and keep it free from the petty and
the retaliative; that he would live in the azure his own
mind created and let the world's praise and abuse alike
go by. Had he kept this determination ?
He poured out a second tumbler of the liquor and
drank it.
Neither claret nor champagne ever affected him, but
the double draft of brandy brought an immediate
intoxication that grew almost instantly to a gray giddi-
ness. He pushed a couch to the wall, shoved a screen
between it and the dawn-lit windows, threw himself
down without undressing and fell into a moveless sleep
that lasted many hours. The reaction, his physical
weariness and both topped by the cognac, made his slum-
ber log-like, a dull, dead blank of nothingness, unbroken
by any sound.
Fletcher came in yawning, looked into his master's
THE CASTAWAY 69
sleeping-room and went out shaking his head. Later he
brought a pile of letters, and relaid the fire. Noon came
one, two o'clock and meanwhile there were many
knocks upon the door, from each of which the valet re-
turned with larger eyes to add another personal card or
note to the increasing pile on the table.
As the clock struck three, he opened the door upon
two of the best-liked of his master's old-time town asso-
ciates. They were Tom Moore, with a young ruddy face
of Irish humor, and Sheridan, clad to sprucery as if
Apollo had sent him a birthday suit, and smiling like a
rakish gray-haired cherub.
"Fletcher, where's your master ?"
"His lordship is out, Mr. Sheridan."
"The devil he is! Hang it, we'll wait then, Tom.
Go and look for him, Fletcher."
"I shouldn't know where to look, sir. My lord didn't
come in at all last night."
Sheridan whistled. "That's queer. Well, we'll wait
a while," and they entered. As he saw the pile of
newly arrived stationery, the older man threw his stick
into the corner and smote Moore on the shoulder with a
chuckle.
"I told them so!" he vociferated, wagging his head.
"I told them so when his Satire first came out. Curse
catch me, d'ye ever know of such a triumph? That
speech was the spark to the powder. It was cute of
Murray to issue last night. Every newspaper in town
clapping its hands and bawling bigger adjectives. Gen-
ius and youth ah, what a combination it is !"
He took a pinch of snuff and descended upon the
heap of cards and billets, picking up each in turn
70 THE CASTAWAY
between thumb and forefinger and looking at it with
a squint. " 'Lord Carlisle/ " he read "his guardian,
eh? Wouldn't introduce him in the Lords two years
ago. 'Colonel Greville' wanted to fight George once
for a line in his Satire about high-play in the Argyle
Club! He's cooing gently now! Blue-tinted note
smells of violets. Humph ! More notes seven of 'em !
Fletcher, you old humbug, d'ye know your master at this
moment is the greatest man in London ?"
"Yes, Mr. Sheridan."
"Oh, you do ? Knew it all along, I suppose. Doesn't
surprise you one bit, eh ?"
"No, Mr. Sheridan."
"Curse catch me! "
"Yes, Mr. Sheridan/'
Moore laughed, and the older man, cackling at the
valet's matter-of-fact expression, continued his task:
"Card from the Bishop of London Lord deliver us!
Another letter where have I seen that silver crest?
Why, the Melbourne arms, to be sure! By the hand-
writing, it's from the countess herself. 'Lord Heath-
cote' 'Lord Holland.' It's electric ! It's a contagion !
All London is mad to-day, mad over George Gordon!"
"I passed Murray's shop an hour ago," declared
Moore. "There was a string of carriages at the door
like the entrance of Palace Yard. Murray told me he
will have booked orders for fourteen thousand copies
before night-fall/'
As the other threw down the mass of stationery, he
spied the bottle which Gordon had half emptied.
"Here's some cognac," he said. "Fletcher, some
glasses. That's right. It's early in the day for brandy,
THE CASTAWAY 71
but 'better never than late/ as Hobhouse would say.
We'll toast Gordon's success." He poured for both and
the rims clicked.
"To 'Childe Harold' !" cried Moore.
With the glasses at their lips, a voice broke forth be-
hind them declaiming ex tempore:
"My boat is on the shore,
And my bark is on the sea;
But before I go, Tom Moore,
Here's a double health to thee!"
Moore dragged away the screen. Gordon was stand-
ing by the couch ; his tumbled hair and disordered dress
showed he had just awakened. His face was flushed,
his eyes sparkling.
"You villain!" expostulated Moore; "it's you we're
toasting."
" And with water or with wine,
The libation I would pour .
Should be peace with thine and mine,
And a health to thee, Tom Moore!"
"Gordon, you eavesdropper, have you read the pa-
pers?" Sheridan shouted.
"Not a line !"
"Curse catch me, you've heard us talking then!
George, George, you've waked to find yourself famous !"
Gordon hardly felt their hand-clasps or heard their
congratulatory small-talk. He almost ran to the win-
dow and flung it open, drawing the cool air into his
lungs with a great respiration. His sleep had been
crumpled and scattered by the fall of a walking-stick,
72 THE CASTAWAY
as the crackling of thin ice will spill and dissipate a
crowd of skaters. He had caught snatches of conver-
sation indistinctly as he shook off the leaden stupor of
the intoxicant. "Every newspaper in town clapping
its hands!" "All London mad over George Gordon!"
His mind had conned the sentences dully at first, then
with a gasping dart of meaning. His speech? No, it
could not be that. Moore had spoken the name of his
book, and he had known realized in a flash, while
he lay quivering. Then it was that he had leaped to
his feet. Then he had voiced that impromptu toast,
declaimed while he fought hard to repress his exulta-
tion, with every nerve thrilling a separate, savage tri-
umph of its own.
He looked down. It was as fine a day as that on which
Paradise was made, and the streets were alive. Several
pedestrians stopped to stare up at him curiously. A car-
riage was passing, and he saw the gentleman it held
speak to the lady by his side and point toward the build-
ing. Fame ! To clamp shut the mouths of the scoun-
drels who maligned him and his ! To feel the sting of
the past covered with the soothing poultice of real repu-
tation ! To fling back the sneers of his enemies into
their teeth. To be no longer singular, isolated, excom-
municate to have the world's smiles and its praise!
Yesterday seemed a dream. It was fading into an
indistinguishable background, with the face of the
bright-eyed youth in the Fleet Prison and the dull
shame he had felt at dawn.
He turned. "Pardon me if I play the host poorly to-
day," he said ; "I am ridiculously, fine-ladically nervous.
I fear I must have retired drunk a good old gentle-
THE CASTAWAY 73
manly vice and am now at the freezing point of re-
turning soberness."
Sheridan pushed him into his bedroom.
"Make* your toilet, my boy," he told him good-na-
turedly. "We will wait/' and Gordon resigned himself
to the ministrations of Fletcher and the comfort of
hot water and fine linen.
When he came back to find his visitors smoking, he
had thrust all outward agitation under the surface. He
was dressed in elegance, and a carnation was in the
buttonhole of his white great-coat. There was less of
melancholy curve to the finely-wrought lips, more of
slumbrous fire in the gray-blue eyes.
"There's a soberer for you." Moore indicated the
pile of sealed missives and pasteboards. "You'll cer-
tainly need a secretary."
Gordon's eye caught the Melbourne crest. He picked
out the note from the rest hastily, with a vision flit-
ting through his mind of a clear-eyed statuesque girl.
While he was reading there was a double knock at the
door which Fletcher answered.
A splendid figure stood on the threshold, arrayed as
Solomon was not in all his glory, and the figure pushed
his way in, with gorgeous disregard of the valet.
"Is his lordship in yet?" he simpered. "Eh? Stap
my vitals, say it's Captain Brummell George Brum-
mell and be quick about it. Ah !" he continued, rais-
ing his glass to his eye, as he distinguished the group,
"there he is now, and old Sherry, too. I am your lord-
ship's most obedient ! I've been here twice this after-
noon. You must come to Watier's Club with me, sir
I'll be sworn, I must be the one to introduce you ! You
74 THE CASTAWAY
will all favor us, gentlemen, of course, as my guests.
My chariot is at the door !"
"I thank you, Captain," Gordon answered, as he
folded the note of invitation he had been reading and
put it in his pocket, 4< but I cannot give myself the
pleasure this afternoon. Mr. Sheridan and Mr. Moore
will doubtless be charmed. I am promised within the
hour to dinner at Lady Melbourne's."
CHAPTER X
THE PRICE OF THE BAUBLE
Beau Brummell, from his seat in the bow-window,
bowed with empressement as Gordon alighted from his
carriage and ascended the steps of White's Club from
an early dinner at Holland House.
"'Fore gad," admired the dandy, "what a coat! It
becomes him as if he'd been hatched in it."
Lord Petersham at his elbow gazed with seconding
approval. The somber elegance of the black velvet
dress-coat, which Gordon wore close-buttoned, and the
white rolling collar left open so as to expose the throat,
served to heighten the pallor of his skin and set in
high relief the handsome, patrician face above it.
"Still on his pedestal," observed Petersham. "Be-
fore long his vertex sublimis will displace enough stars to
overthrow the Newtonian system! I hear Caro Lamb
is not tired doing homage. His affair with Lady Ox-
ford seems to be tapering."
"Women!" ejaculated Brummell. "He's a martyr
to them. Stap my vitals, the beauties run after him
because he won't make up to them. Treat women like
fools, and they'll all worship you !"
To the pinnacle this implied, Gordon had risen at
(75)
76 THE CASTAWAY
a leap. He was the idol of fashionable London, the
chief topic of frivolous boudoir gossip and intellectual
table-talk. His person, his travels spangled with ro-
mantic tales, his gloom, his pride, his beauty, and the
dazzle of his prodigious success, combined to bring him
an unheard-of homage. His newest book was on every
drawing-room table in the kingdom. He was made much
of by Lady Jersey. Hostesses quarrelled over entertain-
ing him, and ladies of every title below the blood-
royal asked to be placed next him at dinner. The
regent himself had asked him to Carlton House.
Each of his publications since that February day
when he woke to fame and when the chariot of the in-
comparable Captain Brummell had set him down at Mel-
bourne House, had had a like history. Each had won
the same rapt praise, the same wondering homage to
talent. If they missed the burning fervor of those
earlier impassioned lines on Grecian liberty, if they
held, each more clearly, an under-note of agnosticism,
it was overlooked in delight at their freedom, their
metrical sweep and seethe of feeling, the melancholy
sea-surge and fret of their moods. His ancient de-
tractors, whom his success had left breathless, con-
strained to innuendo, had added to his personality the
tang of the audacious, of bizarre license, of fantastic
eccentricity, that beckoned even while it repelled.
One would have thought Gordon himself indifferent
to praise as to censure. The still dissatisfaction that
came to him in the night hours in his tumbled study,
when he remembered the strength and purpose that
had budded in his soul in those early weeks at New-
stead, he alone knew. The convention that had carped
THE CASTAWAY 77
at him before his fame he trod under foot. He fre-
quented Manton's shooting-gallery, practised the broad
sword at Angelo's, sparred with "Gentleman Jackson,"
the champion pugilist, in his rooms in Bond Street,
and clareted and champagned at the Cocoa-Tree with
Sheridan and Moore till five in the matin. Other men
j might conceal their harshest peccadilloes; Gordon con-
cealed nothing. What he did he did frankly, with dis-
dain for appearances. Hypocrisy was to him the soul's
gangrene. He preferred to have the world think him
worse than to think him better than he was.
His enemies in time had plucked up courage, re-
vamped old stories and invented new; these seemed to
give him little concern. He not only kept silence but
declined to allow his friends, such as Sheridan and
Hobhouse, to champion him. When the Chronicle
barbed a sting with a reference to the enormous sums
he was pocketing from his copyholds, he shrugged his
shoulders. John Murray, his publisher, knew that the
earnings of "The Giaour" had been given to a needy au-
thor; that "Zuleika" had relieved a family from the
slavery of debt and sent them, hopeful colonists, to Aus-
tralia.
Gordon passed into the club, bowing to the group
in the bow-window with conventional courtesy, and
entered the reading-room. It was September, but the
night had turned cool, and he dropped into a chair be-
fore the hearth.
"Why does Lady Holland always have that damned
screen between the whole room and the fire ?" he grum-
bled half-humorously. "I who bear cold no better than
an antelope, and never yet found a sun quite done to
78 THE CASTAWAY
my taste, was absolutely petrified, and couldn't even
shiver. All the rest, too, looked as if they were just
unpacked, like salmon from an ice-basket !"
A lackey in the club's regalia brought a tray of let-
ters and set it beside him. Gordon lit a cigar before he
examined them. They were the usual collection: a
sprinkling of effusions from romantic incognitas; a
graver tribute from Walter Scott; a pressing request
for that evening from Lady Jersey.
"To meet Madame de Stael!" he mused. "I once
travelled three thousand miles to get among silent peo-
ple; and this lady writes octavos and talks folios. I
have read her essay against suicide ; if I heard her recite
it, I might swallow poison."
The final note he lifted was written on blue-bordered
paper, its corners embossed with tiny cockle-shells, and
he opened it with a nettled frown.
"Poor Caro !" he muttered. "Why will you persist in
imprudent things? Some day your epistle will fall
into the lion's jaws, and then I must hold out my iron.
I am out of practice, but I won't go to Manton's now.
Besides," he added with a shrug, "I wouldn't return his
shot. I used to be a famous wafer-splitter, but since
I began to feel I had a bad cause to support, I have
left off the exercise."
His face took on a deeper perplexity as he read the
eccentric, curling hand:
"... Gordon, do you remember that first dinner at
Melbourne House the day after your speech in the Lords?
You gave me a carnation from your buttonhole. You
said, 'I am told your ladyship likes all that is new and
rare for the moment!' Ah, that meeting was not only
THE CASTAWAY 79
for the moment with me, you know that! It has lasted
ever since. I have never heard your name announced
that it did not thrill every pulse of my body. I have never
heard a venomous word against you that did not sting me,
too."
Gordon held the letter in a candle-flame, and dropped
it on the salver. As it crackled to a mass of glowing
tinder, a step fell behind him. He looked up to see
Moore.
"Tom," he said, his brow clearing, "I am in one of
my most vaporish moments."
Moore seated himself on a chair-arm and poked the
blackening twist of paper with his walking-stick. He
smiled an indulgent smile of prime and experience.
"From which I conclude " he answered sagely,
"that you are bound to Drury Lane greenroom instead
of to Lady Jersey's this evening."
Gordon's lips caught the edge of the other's smile.
"You are right. I'm going to let Jane Clermont
brighten my mood. She is always interesting more so
off the stage than on. They are only hothouse roses
that will bloom at Lady Jersey's. Jane is a wild tiger-
lily. She has all the natural wit of the de Stael a
pity it must be wasted on the pit loungers ! Heaven
only knows why I ever go to their ladyships' infernal
functions at all, for I hate bustle as I hate a bishop.
Here I am, eternally stalking to parties where I shan't
talk, I can't flatter, and I won't listen except to a
pretty woman. If one wants to break a commandment
and covet his neighbor's wife, it's all very well. But to
go out amongst the mere herd, without a motive, a
80 THE CASTAWAY
pleasure or a pursuit, of no more use than a sick butter-
fly it begins to pall upon my soul !"
\ Moore's stick was still meditatively poking the
charred paper. The ashes fell apart, and a tiny un-
burnt blue corner showed it bore the familiar device
of a cockle-shell. His lips puckered in a thoughtful
whistle. Aloud he said :
"Why not adopt the conventional remedy?"
"I'm too lazy to shoot myself !"
"There's a more comfortable medicine than that."
Gordon's smile broke into a laugh. "Wedlock, eh?
Beading the country newspapers and kissing one's wife's
maid! To experience the superlative felicity of those
foxes who have cut their tails and would persuade
the rest to part with their brushes to keep them
in countenance ! All my coupled contemporaries
save you, Tom are bald and discontented. Words-
worth and Southey have both lost their hair and
good humor. But after all," he said, rising, "anything
is better than these hypochondriac whimsies. In the
name of St. Hubert, patron of antlers and hunters, let
me be married out of hand. I don't care to whom, so
it amuses anybody else and doesn't interfere with me
in the daytime ! By the way, can't you come down to
Newstead for the shooting-season ? Sheridan and Hob-
house are to be there, and my cellar is full though my
head is empty. What do you say ? You can plague us
with songs, Sherry can write a new comedy, and I mean
to let my beard grow, and hate you all."
His companion accepted with alacrity. "When shall
we start?" he inquired, walking with the other to his
carriage.
THE CASTAWAY 81
"At noon, to-morrow/' Gordon replied. "Till then,
good night. I commend you to the care of the gods
Hindoo, Scandinavian and Hellenic."
As the wheels clattered on, Gordon's mind was run-
ning in channels of discontent.
"I am ennuye," he thought, "beyond my usual tense
of that yawning verb I am always conjugating. At six-
and-twenty one should be something and what am I?
Nothing but six-and-twenty, and the odd months. Six-
and-twenty years, as they call them why, I might have
been a pasha by this time !"
The coach turned a corner, and he saw, a little way
off, the lighted front of Drury Lane Theater. In the
shadow of its stage-door stood a couple his sight did not
distinguish, but the keen black eyes of one of them a
vivid, creole-looking girl had noted with a quick in-
stinctive movement the approach of the well-known
carriage, now tangled in the moving stream.
The gaze of the man beside her defiant, furtive,
theatric and mustachioed, with hair falling thickly and
shortly like a Moor's followed her look.
"He was in the greenroom last night, too !" he said,
with angry jealousy. "I saw him coming away."
"Suppose you did?" flung the girl with irritation.
"Who are you, that I must answer for whom I see or
know yes, and for anything else? He was here, and
so was Mr. Sheridan and Captain Brummell. I should
like to know what you have to say about it !"
The other's cheek had flushed darkly.
"You used to have more time for me, Jane," he an-
swered sullenly, "before you took up with the theater
82 THE CASTAWAY
when you lived over the old book-shop and hadn't a
swarm of idling dandies about you."
"I suppose his lordship there is an 'idling dandy' !"
she retorted with fine sarcasm. "A dandy, and the
most famous man in England! An idler, who gets a
guinea a line for all he writes. What do you spend, pray,
that your father in Wales didn't leave you ? Tell me,"
she said curiously, her tone changing ; "you were in the
East when you were in the navy. Are all the stories
they tell of George Gordon in Greece true? They say
he himself is Conrad, the hero of his 'Corsair/ Was he
so dreadfully wicked?"
He turned away his head, gnawing his lip. "I don't
know," he returned doggedly, "and I care less. I know
he's only amusing himself with you, Jane, and you
know it, too "
"And it's no amusement to you ?" she prompted, with
innate coquetry, dropping back into her careless tone.
"If it isn't, don't come then. I shall try to get along,
never fear. Why shouldn't I know fine people?" she
went on, a degree less hardly. "I'm tired of this foggy,
bread-and-butter life. It was bad enough at God-
win's stuffy house with poverty and a stepfather. I
don't wonder Mary has run away to marry her Shelley !
He'll be a baronet some day, and she can see life. I
don't intend to be tied to London always, either even
with the playing ! I want to know things and see some-
thing of the world. Why do you stay here? Why
don't you go to sea again ? I'm sure I'd like to."
<r 5Tou know why I don't," he said, "well enough. I
deserted the service once, besides. But I'd like to see
the world with you, Jane !"
THE CASTAWAY 83
He did not see the line that curved her lips, half-
scornful, half-pitying, for his look had fastened on a
figure in a ministerial cloak, who was passing on the
pavement. The figure was Dr. James Cassidy, taking
his evening walk with the under-curate of St. Dun-
stan's-in-the-West an especially enjoyable hour with
him.
Now, as Cassidy*s insect eyes lifted, they fell on the
oriental face in the shadow of the doorway with a sud-
den interrogative start. He took a step toward it, hesi-
tatingly, but the curate was in the midst of a quotation
from Eusebius, and the pause was but momentary. The
girl's Moorish-looking companion had not moved, but
his hands had clenched and his face had an ugly expres-
sion as Cassidy passed on.
"Only a resemblance," remarked the latter, as he pro-
ceeded. "The man in the doorway there reminded me
of an ensign who deserted the Pylades once when we
were lying at Bombay." His hand touched a broad white
scar on his cheek. "I trust he may yet be apprehended
for the good of the service," he added softly.
Gordon's eyes, as the carriage picked its way, had
been on the front of the theater, but they were preoc-
cupied. He did not see the look of dislike from the mus-
tachioed face in the shadow, nor the girl as she vanished
through the stage-door. Yet, as it happened, the first
glimpse of the theater had brought a thought of her.
"Fond, flippant, wild, elusive, alluring the devil!"
he mused. "That's Jane Clermont she would furnish
out a new chapter for Solomon's Song. The stage is
her atmosphere: she came to it as naturally as a hum-
ming-bird to a garden of geraniums. Yet she will never
84 THE CASTAWAY
make a Siddons; she lacks purpose and she is
mechante. She appeals to the elemental, raw sense of
the untamed and picturesque men own in common with
savages. Nature made such women to cure man's ennui :
they fit his mood. Jane Clermont was not born for
fine ladies' fripperies. What is it she lacks ? Balance ?
or is it the moral sense ? After all, I'm not sure but
that lack is what makes her so interesting. I have been
attracted a million times by passion; have I ever been
attracted by sheer purity? Yes there is one. Anna-
bel Milbanke !"
There rose before his mind's eye a vision of the tall
stateliness he had so often seen at Melbourne House. He
seemed to feel again the touch of cool, ringless fingers.
How infinitely different she was from others who had
been more often in his fancy ! She had attracted him
from his first street glimpse of her from the first day
he looked into her calm virginal eyes across a dinner-
table. It was her placidity the very absence of chaos
that drew him. She represented the one type of
which he was not tired. Besides, she was beautiful
net with the ripe, red, exotic beauty of Lady Caroline
Lamb, or the wilder eccentric charm of Jane Clermont,
but with the unalterable serenity of a rain-washed sky,
a snow-bank, a perfect statue.
On his jaded mood the thought of her fell with a
salving relief, like rain on a choked highway. A link-
boy, throwing open the carriage door, broke his reverie.
He looked up. The bright, garish lanterns smote
him with a new and alien sense of distaste. Beyond the
stage-entrance and the long dim passage lay the candle-
lighted greenroom, the select coterie that gossiped there,
THE CASTAWAY 85
and Jane Clermont. In Portman Square, in the city's
west end, Lady Jersey was standing by her bower of
roses and somewhere in the throng about her moved a
tall, spirit-looking girl with calm, lash-shaded eyes.
Gordon saw both pictures clearly as he paused, his
foot on the carriage step. Then he spoke to the coach-
man.
"To Lady Jersey's," he said, and reentered the car-
riage.
CHAPTEK XI
t THE BEATEN PATH
The late sun, rosying the lake beside the ruined clois-
ter, had drawn its flame-wrought curtains across the
moor that lay about Newstead, and the library was full
of shadows as Gordon groped in the darkness for a can-
dle.
Dinner was scarce through, for the party he had
gathered who for a noisy fortnight had made the
gray old pile resound to the richest fooleries in the
range of their invention did not rise before noon, had
scarce breakfasted by two, and voted the evening still
in its prime at three o'clock in the morning. The Ab-
bey had been theirs to turn upside down and they had
given rein to every erratic audacity. That very day
they had had the servants drag into the dining-room an
old stone coffin from the rubbish of the tumble-down
priory; had resurrected from some cobwebbed corner a
set of monkish dresses with all the proper apparatus of
crosses and beads with which they had opened a con-
ventual chapter of "The Merry Monks of Newstead";
and had set Fletcher to polishing the old skull drink-
ing-cup on whose silver mounting Gordon long ago had
had engraved the stanzas he had written on the night
(86)
THE CASTAWAY 87
his mother lay dead. The grotesquerie had been hailed
with enthusiasm, and the company had sat that even-
ing gowned and girdled about the dinner-table, where
Sheridan's gray poll had given him the seat of honor
as abbot.
Gordon wore one of the black gabardines, as he lit
the candle in the utterly confused library. It was a
sullen, magnificent chamber. The oak wainscoting was
black with age. Tapestries and book-shelves covered
one side, and- floor and tables were littered with reviews
and books, carelessly flung from their place.
A shout, mingled with the prolonged howls of a wolf
and the angered "woof" of a bear sounded from the
driveway the guests were amusing themselves with the
beasts chained on either side of the entrance. These
were relics of that old, resentful season when Gordon
had hermited himself there to lash his critics with his
defiant Satire. The wolf, he had then vowed, should be
entered for the deanery of St. Paul's, and the bear sit
for a theological fellowship at Cambridge.
For a moment, candle in hand, he listened to the
mingled noises, his head on one side, a posture almost of
irksomeness. He started when Sheridan's hand fell on
his shoulder.
"By the Lord!" he ejaculated. "I took you for the
Abbey ghost !"
Sheridan laughed, lit the cigar Gordon handed him,
and sat down, tucking the ends of his rope-girdle be-
tween his great knees. The tonsure he had contrived
was a world too small for his massive head, and the
monk's robe showed inconsistent glimpses of red waist-
coat and fawn-colored trousers where its edges gaped.
S8 THE CASTAWAY
"What are you mooning over?" he asked. "Got a
new poem in mind?"
"No. To-day I have thrown two into the fire to my
comfort, and smoked out of my head the plan of an-
other."
"Sentimental ?"
"Not I. I was thinking of the East. I wish I might
sail for Greece in the spring provided I neither marry
myself nor unmarry any one else in the interval."
"Why not the first?" the other pursued. "I tried it
younger than you."
The speaker sighed presently, and locking his hands
behind his head, leaned back against the cushions, his
fine, rugged face under its shock of rough gray hair,
turned tender. "My pretty maid of Bath!" he said
softly. "Elizabeth, my girl-wife that I fought a duel
for at Kingsdown and who ran away with me to
France when I hadn't a pound ! It's twelve years since
she died. This is an anniversary to me, my boy. Forty
years ago to-day she married me. I hadn't written 'The
Eivals' then, nor gone to Parliament nor grown old !"
Gordon was silent. Sheridan's face, in the candle-
light, was older than he had ever seen it. Age was
claiming him, though youth was still in the foppish
dress, the brilliant sparkle of the eye, the sharp quick-
ness on the tongue. But the wife he remembered at
that moment had belonged to a past generation.
A muffled call came "Sherry! Sherry!" and at the
summons the gray head lifted and the gleam of in-
corrigible humor shot again across the thin cheeks. "The
rogues are whooping for me !" he chuckled, and hurried
out.
THE CASTAWAY 89
Gordon stared into the gloom of the open window
opposite in a reverie. That echo of still-living memory
struck across his whimsical mood with strange direct-
ness, like a voice speaking insistently of simple human
needs.
"To love, to marry " he reflected. "It is the re-
course of the highest intellect as well as the lowest.
There is Sheridan. He is brain at its summit. He puts
more intellect into squeezing a new case of claret out of
a creditor tradesman than the average man has in his
whole brain-box. He has written the very best drama
and delivered the very best single oration ever conceived
or heard in England. And now, without his pretty
wife, he is a prey to debt, to gaming and to the bailiffs I
Peace and single possession, the Eden-right of man
the having and holding from all the world of one warm,
human sympathy that is the world's way, the clear
result of ages of combined experience."
He looked up at a pounding of hoofs outside and a
howl from the chained wolf. The sounds merged into
a hilarious hubbub from the dining-room, betokening
some neighborhood arrival.
His eyes, still gazing through the parted curtains,
could discern dimly on the terrace a white image stand-
ing out in relief from the swathing darkness. It was a
statue of Vesta, goddess of the domestic fireside. It
seemed to gaze in at him with a peculiar quiet signifi-
cance. To the Eomans that image had stood for the
hearthstone for all the sweet, age-old conventionali-
ties of life, such as enshrined his sister, in her placid
country home, her children around her. He had a vi-
sion of a stately figure moving about the Abbey with
90 THE CASTAWAY
a watching solicitude, and there flashed into his mind
the beginning of one of his poems:
"She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies "
It sang itself over in his brain. The woman he
would choose would be like that cool, cloudless, beau-
tiful as the night outside the open window. He knew
such a woman, as flawless and as lovely one, and one
only. His thought, unweighted by purpose, had fol-
lowed her since that July afternoon when she had
handed him the golden guinea in exchange for his book.
She was not in London now. At that moment she was
in Mansfield, a sharp gallop across the Newstead moor.
If he had ever had a dream of feminine perfectness,
she was its embodiment. Would marriage with such a
one fetter him ? In the great clanging world that teased
and worried him, would it not be a refuge ?
A sudden recollection came to him, out of the dust
of a past year a recollection of a youth with bright
eyes and tangled hair, in the Fleet Prison. There had
been an hour, before success had bitten him, when he
had promised himself that fame's fox-fire should not
lure him, that he would cherish his song and rid his
soul of the petty things that dragged it down. How
had that promise been fulfilled ? With poor adventure,
and empty intrigue and flickering rushlight amours to
which that restless something in him had driven him
on, an anchorless craft in the cross-tides of passion !
"Home !" he mused. "To pursue no will-o'-the-wisp
of fancy! To shut out all vagrant winds and prolong
that spark of celestial fire I"
THE CASTAWAY 91
He drew a quick sibilant breath, sat down at the
writing-table and wrote hastily but unerringly, a letter,
clean-etched and unembellished, a simple statement
and a question.
He signed it, laughing aloud as a sense of wild in-
congruity gushed over him. Through the heavy oaken
doors he could hear mingled laughter and uproar. A
stentorian bass was rumbling a drinking-song.
What a challenging antithesis ! Lava and snow
erratic comet and chaste moon jungle passions and the
calm of a northern landscape ! A proposal of marriage
written at such a time and place, with a drinking-stave
shouted in the next room ! And what would be her an-
swer?
The daring grew brighter in his eye. He sealed the
letter with a coin from his waistcoat pocket, sprang up
and jerked the bell-rope. The footman entered.
"Rushton, have Selim saddled at once and take this
note to Mansfield. Kide like the devil. Do you hear ?"
"Yes, my lord." The boy looked at the superscrip-
tion, put the note in his pocket and was gone.
Gordon laughed again a burst of gusty excitement
and seized the full ink-well into which he had dipped
his pen. "It shall serve no lesser purpose!" he ex-
claimed, and hurled it straight through the open win-
dow.
Then he threw open the door and walked hastily to-
ward the hilarity of the great dining-room.
CHAPTER XII
"MAN'S LOVE is OF MAN'S LIFE A THING APABT"
What he saw as he emerged from the hall was Sat-
urnalia indeed.
Sheridan, his robe thrown open from his capacious
frame, sat with knees wide apart, his chair tilted back,
his face crumpling with amusement. Hobhouse sat
cross-legged on the stone coffin. Others, robed and ton-
sured, were grouped about the board, and on it was
perched a stooped and ungainly figure in a somber dress
of semi-clerical severity.
"Sunburn me, it's Dr. Cassidy," muttered Gordon,
with a grim smile. "And without his tracts! What's
he doing at Newstead? The rascals they've got him
fuddled I"
The hospitality offered in the host's absence had in
truth proved too much for the doctor. Now, as he bal-
anced on his gaitered feet among the overturned wine-
bottles, he looked a very unclerical figure indeed. His
neck-cloth was awry, and his flattish eyes had a look of
comical earnestness and unaccustomed good-fellowship.
He held a wine-glass and waved it in uncertain ges-
tures, his discourse punctured by frequent and unstint-
ed applause:
THE CASTAWAY 93
"What was the Tree of Knowledge doing in the gar-
den, you ask. Why not planted on the other side of
the wall? Human reason, enlightened by inspiration,
finds no answer in the divine Word. Theology is our
only refuge. Adam was predestined to sin. All created
things axe contingent on omnipotent volition. Sin be-
ing predestined, the process leading to that sin must
be predestined, too. See? Sin Adam. Garden
snake. The law of the divine Will accomplished."
Hobhouse wiped his eyes with his handkerchief.
"Who could contemplate the picture/' he groaned,
"without tears? Poor fallen man! I weep for him."
The remark struck the lecturer with pathos. The
look of stern satisfaction with which he had so elo-
quently justified the eternal tragedy melted into a com-
passionate expression which had a soft tinge of the ro-
mantic. He smiled a smile of mingled burgundy and
benevolence.
"Herein, gentlemen, appears our lesson of infinite
pity. Man expelled from Eden, but still possessing
Eve. Justice tempered with mercy. Love of woman
compensating for the loss of earthly Paradise."
"True, true," murmured Hobhouse. " 'There's
heaven on earth in woman's love,' as Mr. Moore, here,
sings. A prime subject for another toast, Doctor.
We've drunk to the navy and to theology; now for a
glass to her eternal ladyship ! Egad ! Here's Gordon !"
The final word brought a shout, and the glasses were
refilled. "Gordon's toast !" they insisted as they opened
ranks. "A toast, or a new poem !"
Some disturbance out of doors had roused the ani-
94 THE CASTAWAY
mals kennelled at the hall entrance and a battery of
growls mingled with the importunities.
Sheridan pounded with his great fist on the jingling
board till the uproar stilled. "The lord of the manor
speaks !" he proclaimed.
Gordon approached the table and picked up the skull-
cup. In the blaze of candle-light, his face showed
markedly its singular and magnetic beauty. He
glanced about him an instant at Sheridan's waggish,
rough-hewn countenance, at the circle of younger
flushed and uproarious ones, and at the labored solem-
nity and surprise of the central figure on the table. The
doctor's answering stare was full of a fresh bewilder-
ment; he was struggling to recall a message he had
brought to some one he had forgotten to whom
which in the last half-hour had slipped like oil from his
mind.
In Gordon's brain verses yet unwritten had been
grouping themselves that afternoon verses that not for
long were to be set in type and he spoke them now;
not flippantly, but with a note of earnestness and of
feeling, a light flush in his cheek tingeing the colorless
white of his face, and his gray-blue eyes darkened to
violet.
"Woman! though framed in weakness, ever yet
Her heart reigns mistress of man's varied mind.
And she will follow where that heart is set
As roll the waves before the settled wind.
Her soul is feminine nor can forget
To all except love's image, fondly blind.
And she can e'en survive love's fading dim,
And bear with life, to love and pray for him!"
THE CASTAWAY 95
It was an odd thing to see this compelling figure,
standing in the midst of these monkish roisterers, all
in celibate robes and beads, declaiming lines of such
passionate beauty and in a voice flexible and appealing.
An odd toast to drink from such a goblet !
"Man's love is of man's life a thing apart,
Tis woman's whole existence; man may range
The court, camp, church, the vessel and the mart,
Sword, gown, gain, glory offer in exchange.
Pride and ambition may o'er run his heart,
And few there are whom these can not estrange.
Woman knows but one refuge, if love err
To draw him from these baubles, back to her!"
There was an instant of dead silence when he paused,
broken by the doctor's hiccough and a voice behind
them.
Sheridan saw Gordon set down the skull-cup as the
spot of color faded from his cheek. He turned to the
entrance.
"Curse catch me!" gasped the wit, springing to his
feet. "Lady Melbourne and Miss Milbanke !"
CHAPTER XIII
THE SMIRCHED IMAGE
All turned astonished faces. Just inside the oaken
door swung wide open to the night, stood her lady-
ship, her features expressing a sense of humor strug-
gling with dignity, and just behind her, with a look of
blent puzzle and surprise, her stately niece, Annabel
Milbanke. Mrs. Muhl, Gordon's withered fire-lighter,
was hovering in the rear.
It was a tense moment. Gordon's glance swept An-
nabel's face distinguished a letter still unopened in
her hand as he came forward to greet them. A dull
red was climbing over Cassidy's sobering face, and with
something between a gulp and a groan he got down
heavily from his commanding position.
It was Lady Melbourne who broke the pause:
"I fear we intrude. We were driving across to
Annesley where there is a ball to-night, and felt
tempted to take your lordship with us. We had not
known of your guests. Dr. Cassidy rode ahead to ap-
prise you of our call."
The doctor was mopping his mottled brow. He was
far too miserable to reply.
"I fear our hospitality outran our discretion," ven-
(96)
THE CASTAWAY 97
tured Gordon. "The doctor perhaps forgot to mention
it."
Lady Melbourne's quick gaze overran the scene and
lingered on the crosses and the monkish robes with a
slow-dawning smile.
Sheridan made a dramatic gesture. "Lo, the first
poet of his age in the depths of one of his abandoned
debauches!" He pointed to Mrs. Muhl who stood in
the background, her wrinkled countenance as brown as
a dry toast "Behold the troop of Paphian damsels, as
pictured in the Morning Post! Evasion is no longer pos-
sible."
"I see. And you, Doctor ?"
"The doctor," said Moore, maintaining his gravity,
"had just read us his latest tract."
"I regret we missed it." She turned to Gordon.
"We will not linger. Good night, gentlemen. No,"
as Gordon protested "our carriage and escort are wait-
ing."
"My dear Lady Melbourne," interposed Sheridan,
"the entire chapter shall escort you. As abbot, I claim
my right," and he offered her his arm. Gordon fol-
lowed with her niece.
Annabel's hand fluttered on his sleeve. "We heard
your toast," she said. "I did not dream it of you."
On the threshold a tide of rich light met them. The
moon had risen and was lifting above the moor beyond
a belt of distant beechwood, bathing the golden flanks
of the hills, flooding the long lake with soft yellow lus-
ter and turning the gray ruins of the priory to dull
silver. Lady Melbourne led the way out on to the mole
of the drained moat with a cry of delight: "What a
98 THE CASTAWAY
perfect lilac night ! It is like Venice. All it lacks is a
gondola and music."
Gordon and Annabel had lingered at the turn of the
parapet. He put out his hand and touched the letter
she held with his forefinger. "You have not opened it."
"No. Your footman met us coming in the lodge
gate."
"Read it."
She looked at him a moment hesitatingly. For a
long time she had not been ignorant of her interest in
George Gordon. She admired him also, as every woman
admires talent and achievement, and the excess of wor-
ship which the world gave him fed her pride in the
special measure of his regard. She saw something new
in his look to-night something more genuine, yet il-
lusive.
'Head it," he repeated.
She broke the seal and held the written page to the
moonlight. As she read, a soft mellow note arose. It
was Hobhouse's violoncello, playing an aria of Eossini's
a haunting melody that matched the night. The
notes were still throbbing when her eyes lifted.
Gordon had taken a golden guinea from his pocket;
he leaned forward and laid it on the letter's waxen
seal. It fitted the impression.
"It was a gift," he said. "It is the one you gave me
that day at the book-shop."
She felt a sudden tremor of heart or of nerves.
"Oh," she exclaimed, thrilled for a brief moment;
"and you kept it?"
At that instant a figure approached them across the
terrace, doffing his cap awkwardly. It was the under-
THE CASTAWAY 99
gardener, bringing a trinket he had found that after-
noon among the lily-bulbs.
Gordon looked at the plain gold circlet he handed
him. He turned to Annabel with a strange expression
as the. man disappeared.
"It is my mother's wedding-ring," he said in a low
voice. "It was lost when I was a child."
"How very odd," she commented, "to find it to-
day I"
The music had ceased, and Lady Melbourne and her
tonsured attendants were coming toward them.
Annabel's hand rested on the stone railing and Gor-
don took it, looking full into her eyes.
"Shall I put it on?" he asked.
She looked from the ring to his face her cool fin-
gers trembling in his.
"Yes," she answered, and he slipped it on her finger.
The noise of the departing carriage-wheels had scarce
died away when Sheridan entered the library, whither
Gordon had preceded him. He was tittering inordi-
nately.
"I've been trying to find Cassidy," he said, "but he's
gone. Went and got his horse while Hobhouse was fid-
dling. Poor doctor ! If he'd only been a parson !"
"Look, look !" cried Gordon. He was pointing to the
window.
Sheridan stared. The unwavering moonlight fell on
the image of Vesta no longer marble- white. The ink-
well Gordon had hurled through the window had struck
full on its brows, and the clear features and raiment
were blackened and befouled with a sinister stain !
CHAPTER XIV
WHAT CAME OF THE TREACLE-MOON
"The treacle-moon is over. I am awake and find my-
self married."
Gordon read the lines in the diary he held, by the fad-
ing daylight. He sat in the primrosed garden of his
town house on Piccadilly Terrace, beside a wicker tea-
table. The day was at its amber hour. The curtains
of the open windows behind him waved lazily in the
breeze and the fragrance of hawthorn clung like a ca-
ress across the twilight. What he read had been the last
entry in the book.
He smiled grimly, remembering the night he had
written it. It was at Seaham, the home of his wife's
girlhood, the final day of their stay the end of that
savorless month of sameness and stagnation, of eating
fruit and sauntering, playing dull games at cards, yawn-
ing, reading old Annual Registers and the daily papers,
listening to the monologue that his elderly father-in-
law called conversation, and watching the growth of
stunted gooseberry bushes the month in which he had
eaten of the bitter fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. To-
day he recalled the trenchant features of that visit dis-
tinctly: the prim, austere figure of Lady Noel, his
(100)
THE CASTAWAY 101
wife's mother, presiding at the table; Sir Kalph oppo-
site, mumbling for the third time, over a little huddle
of decanters which could neither interrupt nor fall
asleep, the speech he had made at a recent tax-meeting ;
his own wife with eyes that so seldom warmed to his,
but grew keener each day to glance cold disapproval;
and Mrs. Clermont, Lady Noel's companion and con-
fidante, black-gowned, bloodless, with noiseless gliding
step and observant gaze Jane Clermont's aunt, as he
had incidentally learned.
"The treacle-moon is over !" And that satiric com-
ment had been penned almost a year ago !
Gordon moved his shoulders with a quick gesture, as
though dismissing an unpleasant reflection, and took
from his pocket a little black phial. He measured out a
minute quantity of the dark liquid into a glass and
poured it full of water. He drank the dull, cloudy
mixture at a draft.
"How strange that mind should need this!" he said
to himself. "My brain is full of images rare, beauti-
ful, dreamlike but they are meaningless, incoherent,
unattached. A few drops of this elixir and they coal-
esce, crystallize, transform themselves and I have a
poem. I have only to write it down. I wrote 'Lara' in
three evenings, while I was undressing from the opera.
It shan't master me as it has De Quincey, either. Why,
all my life I have denied myself even meat. My soul
shall not be the slave of any appetite !"
He smiled whimsically as he set down the glass:
"What nonsense it is to talk of soul," he muttered,
"when a cloud makes it melancholy, and wine makes it
mad!"
102 THE CASTAWAY
He paused, listening intently. A low sound, an in-
fant's cry, had caught his ear. His eyes grew darker
violet. His look changed.
"Ada ! Ada !" he said in a whisper.
In his voice was a singular vibrant accent intense,
eager, yet the words had the quality of a sacrament and
a consecration.
He rose, thrust the diary into his pocket and went
into the house, ascending the stair to a small room at
the end of the hall. The door was ajar and a dim light
showed within. He listened, then pushed the door
wider and entered. A white nursery bed stood in one
corner, and Gordon noiselessly placed a chair beside it
and sat down, his elbow on his knee and his chin in his
hand, looking at the little face against the pillow, the
tiny fist lying on the coverlid.
Gazing, his deeply carved lips moulded softly, a sense
of the overwhelming miracle of life possessed him.
This small fabric was woven of his own flesh. He saw
his own curving mouth, his full chin, his brow ! Some
day those hands would cling to his, those lips would
frame the word "father/' What of life's pitfalls, of its
tragedies, awaited this new being he had brought into
the world?
He sighed, and as if in answer, the baby sighed too.
The sound smote him strangely. Was there some oc-
cult sympathy between them? Her birthright was not
only of flesh, but of spirit. Had she also share in his
isolated heart, his wayward impulses, his passionate
pride?
At length he took out the diary and opening it on his
"ADA! MY ONE SWEET DAUGHTER!"/. 103.
THE CASTAWAY 103
knee, began to write lines whose feeling swelled from
some great wave of tenderness :
"Ada! my one sweet daughter! if a name
Dearer and purer were, it should be thine.
Whate'er of earth divide us I shall claim
Not tears, hut tenderness to answer mine:
Go where I will, to me thou art the same
A loved regret which I would not resign.
There are hut two things in my destiny,
A world to roam through, and a home with thee.
I can reduce all feelings but this one;
And that I would not; for at length I see
Such scenes as those wherein my life begun.
The earliest even the only paths for me
Had I but sooner learned the crown to shun,
I had been better than I now can be;
The passions which have torn me would have died;
I had not suffered, and thou hadst not sighed.
I feel almost at times as I have felt
In happy childhood; trees, and flowers and brooks
Which do remember me of where I dwelt
Ere my young mind was sacrificed to books,
Come as of yore upon me, and can melt
My heart with recognition of their looks;
Till even at moments I have thought to see
Some living thing to love but none like thee.
With false ambition what had I to do?
Little with love, and least of all with fame.
And yet they came unsought, and with me grew,
And made me all which they can make a name.
Yet this was not the end I did pursue;
Surely I once beheld a nobler aim.
Yet if thou help me find it even so
Shall I be glad that I have purchased woe!"
104 THE CASTAWAY
The door of the room adjoining opened and a figure
dressed in white appeared. He rose and passed through.
"You wished me, Annabel ?"
"I do not wish Ada disturbed. As you know, I am
starting with her to Seaham to-morrow, and she needs
the rest."
"I was very quiet," he said almost apologetically, and
a little wearily.
Her critical eye had wandered to the book and pencil
in his hand. The look was cold glacially so and
disapproving, as she asked with quiet point :
"My lord, when do you intend to give up your tire-
some habit of versifying ?"
He stared at her. In all her lack of understanding,
she had at least spared him this. Yet this was really
what she thought! At heart she despised him for the
only thing that to him made life endurable. She took
no pride in his poetry, wished him a man like others of
her circle a dull, church-going, speech-reading, tea-
drinking, partridge-hunting clod! A flush blurred his
vision.
"Surely," a thin edge of contempt cutting in her
words, "you do not intend always to do only this ? You
are a peer, you have a seat in the Lords. You might be
anything you choose."
<r But if I am what I choose ?" he said difficultly.
A chill anger lay behind her constrained manner.
Her lips were pressed tight together. During the
whole time of their marriage he had never seen her
display more feeling than in that brief moment on the
terrace at Newstead when he had put his mother's ring
upon her finger. For a long time he had watched for
THE CASTAWAY 105
some sign each day feeling his heart, so savage of vi-
tality, contract and harden under that' colorless re-
straint till he had come to realize that the untroubled
gentleness was only passivity, the calm strength but
complacency as cold as the golden guinea he had treas-
ured, that the flower he had chosen for its white fra-
grance was a sculptured altar-lily. Now her mind
seemed jolted from its conventional groove. The fact
was that the constant flings of his enemies, which he
noted with sovereign contempt, had pierced her deeply,
wounding that love of the world's opinion so big in her.
And a venomous review which her mother had brought
her that day had mingled its abuse with a strain of pity
for her, and pity she could not bear.
"Why do you not choose to live like other men?" she
broke out. "There is something so selfish, so unnatural
in your engrossed silences, your changeable moods, your
disregard of ordinary customs. You believe nothing
that other men believe."
f
His face had grown weirdly white. The sudden out-
burst had startled him. He was -struggling with re-
sentment.
"Cassidy's doctrinal tracts, for instance ?" The query
had a tinge of sarcasm.
She bit her lips. "You have no idea of reverence for
anything. I might have guessed it that night at New-
stead and how you treated him ! You speak your views
on religion views that I hate openly, anywhere. You
write and print them, too, in your verse !"
"You are frank," he said ; "let me be the same. What
my brain conceives my hand shall write. If I valued
fame, I should flatter received opinions. That I have
106 THE CASTAWAT
never done ! I cannot and will not give the lie to my
doubts, come what may."
"What right have you to have those doubts?" Her
anger was rising full-fledged, and bitter-winged with
malice. "Why do you set yourself -against all that is
best? What do you believe in that is good, I should
like to know ?"
"I abhor books of religion," he responded steadily,
"and the blasphemous notions of sectaries. I have no
belief in their absurd heresies and Thirty-nine Articles.
I feel joy in all beautiful and sublime things. But I
hate convention and cant and lay-figure virtue, and
shall go on hating them to the end of the Chapter."
"To the end of the chapter!" she echoed. "You
mean to do nothing more to think of nothing but
scribbling pretty lines on paper and making a mystery
of yourself! What is our life to be together? What
did you marry me for ?"
"Bella!" The word was almost a cry. "I married
you for faith, not for creeds ! I am as I have always
been I have concealed nothing. I married you for
sympathy and understanding! I know I am not like
other men but I tried to make you love and under-
stand me! I tried! Why did you marry me?"
For an instant the real pain in the appeal seemed to
cleave through her icy demeanor and she made an in-
voluntary movement. But as she hesitated, Fletcher
knocked at the door :
"Mr. Sheridan, my lord, come to take you to Drury
Lane."
The words congealed the softer feeling. As the valet
withdrew, she turned upon her husband.
THE CASTAWAY 107
"Sheridan! and Drury Lane! That is the kind of
company you prefer to keep ! A doddering old man who
falls asleep over his negus in White's bow-window,
coming and going here at all hours, and littering the
library with his palsied snuff-taking."
A doddering old man! It was true. The soul of
White's and Brookes', the first table wit and vivant of
the kingdom, the companion of a royal prince he,
"Sherry/' who all his life had never known ache or
pain, not even the gout, who had out-dandied and out-
bumpered the youngest of them had lived beyond his
time. The welcome of the gay world had dwindled to
a grudging patronage. Gordon had more than once of
late come between him and a low sponging-house or the
debtors' prison. Yet at his wife's tone, a gleam of
anger shot into his eyes anger that made them steely-
blue as sword blades.
"Sheridan was my friend," he said. "My friend
from the first, when others snarled. He is old now
old and failing but he is still my friend. Is a man to
pay no regard to loyalty or friendship ?"
"He should have regard first to his own reputation.
Do you? Even Brummell and Petersham and your
choice fops of the Cocoa-Tree tavern and the Drury
Lane committee have some thought for the world's
opinion. But you have none. You care nothing for
what it thinks of you or of your morality."
"Morality!" he repeated slowly. "I never heard the
word before from anybody who was not a rascal that
used it for a purpose !"
"Why will you sit silent," she continued, "and hear
108 THE CASTAWAY
yourself defamed everywhere without a word? Why
will you not defend yourself ?"
He shrugged his shoulders, the flash of indignation
past. She had touched the point of least response. The
shrug angered her even more than his satiric reply:
"What man can bear refutation?"
"You seem to think it beneath your dignity to deny
slander," she went on. "You always did. I thought
it would be different after we were married. But it
has grown worse. The papers print more and more
horrible things of you, and you do not care either for
yourself or for me !"
He gazed at her with a curious intentness.
"Surely you pay no heed to such irresponsible tales ?"
"If they were all ! Do you suppose I do not hear
what people say besides? They do not spare my ears!
Do you think I do not know the stories what they used
to say of your bachelor affairs with Lady Oxford, and
Lady Frances Wedderburn Webster and Caro Lamb?"
"Is there none more recent?" A bitter smile had
appeared, called by the veiled insinuation in her tone.
Another name flew to her tongue, for malicious ru-
mor had credited him with a footlight amour. "Yes
Jane Clermont!"
A frown of incredulity and annoy hung blackly on
his brow an instant. Had this baseless gratuitous fling
gone beyond the circle of Drury Lane gossipers? Had
it even reached his wife's ears ? Aloud he said :
"Really, I can scarcely hold myself responsible for
silly chatterers who are determined to Eochefoucauld
my motives. I seem to be fast becoming the moral
of the community. I am judged by what I pre-
THE CASTAWAY 109
sume Dr. Cassidy would call a dramatic Calvinism
predestined damnation without a sinner's own fault."
Her control was gone. She could not trust herself to
speak further and turned away. He waited a moment
in the doorway, but she did not move, and with an even
"good night" he left her.
At the foot of the stair, during Gordon's painful
interview, a black-gowned woman had noiselessly bent
over the hall table. A letter, arrived by the post, had
been laid there by Fletcher for his master. She lifted
it and examined it closely. The address was written
in a peculiar, twirly handwriting, on blue-tinted paper
that bore in each corner the device of a cockle-shell.
She listened, then passed with it into the library.
The room was unlighted, but a spring fire flickered
on the hearth. She caught up a paper-knife and crouch-
ing by the hearth held its thin blade in the flame. When
the metal was warmed, she softened the edges of the
seal and with deftness that betrayed long practice, split
it off without its breaking, opened the note and read it.
Her basilisk eyes lighted with satisfaction the tri-
umph of a long quest rewarded. Then she warmed the
wax again, replaced it, and as it hardened, broke it
across as if the letter had been opened in the ordinary
manner.
As Mrs. Clermont rose to her feet, a thin, severe
figure stood on the threshold. She saw with relief
that it was Lady Noel, and handed her the letter with
a feline smile.
"Perhaps your ladyship will know if this should
110 THE CASTAWAY
be preserved/' she said. "I found it just now on the
floor/'
Lady Noel's eyes glittered at sight of the cockle-
shells. She read it hastily by the firelight. Her look
was coldly yet triumphantly malignant as she leaned
forward.
"Put an outer wrapper on this," she ordered in an
undertone, "seal it, and take it at once to Melbourne
House. Give it into William Lamb's hands to no one
else. Do you understand ?"
"Yes, my lady," the other replied, and left her noise-
lessly, as Gordon came slowly down the stair.
"I have left your lordship this evening's Courier"
said Lady Noel, forbiddingly.
"Thank you," he answered and looked at it carelessly.
On its exposed page a pencil had marked an article of
considerable length whose title was: "The Poetical
Works of a Peer of the Kealm, viewed in connection
with Christianity and the Obligations of Social Life."
Its final paragraph was underscored with meaning
heaviness :
"We have less remorse in quoting the noble lord," he
read "for, by this time, we believe the whole world is in-
clined to admit that he can pay no compliment so valu-
able as his censure, nor offer any insult so intolerable as
his praise. Crede Gordon is the noble lord's armorial
motto: 'Trust Gordon' is the translation in the Red-Book.
We cannot but admire the ingenuity with which his lord-
ship has converted the good faith of his ancestors into a
sarcasm on his own duplicity."
A simmer of rage rose in Gordon's throat. He tore
the paper twice across, flung it down, and passed on to
THE CASTAWAY 111
the drawing-room. Seeing no one, he rang for the valet.
"Where is Mr. Sheridan ?" he demanded.
Fletcher was carrying a wine-glass and seemed sur-
prised at the query.
"He was here five minutes ago, your lordship.' Mr.
Sheridan looked very bad when I let him in, sir. I
was just getting him this brandy."
"I suppose he tired of waiting," thought Gordon.
"The Clermont has a new part to-night, and Sherry's
bound for Fops' Alley."
As he buttoned his great-coat, he heard a cry from
the valet, and ran into the drawing-room to find
Fletcher bending over the form of the old wit, prostrate
on the floor, moveless, speechless, his face swept by a
bluish pallor.
"Good God !" cried Gordon. "Help me lift him and
fetch a doctor at once !"
With Fletcher's aid the old man was placed upon a
sofa, and Gordon loosed the stiff neckerchief, put a
cushion under the recumbent head and chafed the sick
man's hands.
The physician looked grave when he came.
"A paralytic stroke," he said. "He must be taken
home."
CHAPTER XV
THE PITFALL
It was later evening. Gordon sat in the library, the
diary in which he had written those lines to Ada open
before him.
Since the scene with Annabel whose dark aftermath
had been the illness of his old friend, a deeper sense
of pain had oppressed him. His marriage had sprung
from an inarticulate divining of the infinite need of
his nature for such a spiritual influence as he had im-
agined she possessed. It had ended in failure. A
mood of hopelessness was upon him now as he wrote:
"Man is a battle-ground between angel and devil.
Tenderness and roughness sentiment, sensuality soar-
ing and grovelling, dirt and deity all mixed in one
compound of inspired clay. Marriage is the hostage
he gives to his better nature. What if this hostage con-
spire with his evil side to betray the citadel ?
"Nature made me passionate of temper but with an
innate tendency to the love of good in my mainspring
of mind. I am an atom jarring between these great
discords. Sympathy is the divine lifter the supreme
harmonizer. And shall that evade me forever? Where
shall I find it? In the cheap intrigue that absorbs half
(112)
THE CASTAWAY 113
the life of those around me? Shall I turn to the fair-
est of those blandishments, and, like the drunkard, for-
get my penury in the hiccough and happiness of in-
toxication ?"
The thought of the delicate coquetry of Jane Cler-
mont and of the ripe beauty of Lady Caroline Lamb
flashed across the page, an insistent vision. He saw the
latter's eyes, eager and inviting, as he had so often
seen them at Melbourne House, when he had turned
from them to a paler beauty. He thought of a past
season when the whirlwind of her infatuation had wound
their two names in gossip that had never tired. Love
with her would have counted all sacrifice cheap, all ob-
stacles gossamer. Could such a passion yield him what
he craved ? Was he bound to live pent within the pali-
sade a priest's ceremony had reared about him ? Of what
virtue were honor and faith to a bond where love was
not?
But this picture faded as he wrote across it the an-
swer to its question :
"No ! I will not. I will keep the bond. Yet I and
the mother of my child are far apart as the two poles !
I am a toy of inborn unbeliefs, linked to unemotional
goodness, merciless virtue and ice-girdled piety. I am
asked to bow down to arcana which to me are bagatelles.
As well believe in Eoberts the Prophet, or Breslau the
Conjurer if he had lived in the reign of Tiberius ! The
everlasting why which stares me in the face is an unfor-
givable thing. Yet to yield to go the broad, easy way
of conventional belief and smug morality to shackle
the doubts I feel ! To anchor myself to the frozen mole-
hills and write, like other men, glozed comfortable lines
114 THE CASTAWAY
on which friend and foe can batten alike, and with which
reviewer and reviewee, rhinoceros and elephant, mam-
moth and megalonyx can lie quietly together !"
He threw down his pen, and leaned his forehead in
his hands.
"Would to God I had nothing better in this soul of
mine !" he exclaimed. "The rest of the world can game
and kiss and besot themselves in peace. Only I I
must writhe and struggle unsatisfied !"
"There is a carboy outside, your lordship, who wishes
to see you."
"A carboy I" Gordon raised his head. "What does he
want?"
"He says he has a message for your lordship's own
hands. He's a likely-looking lad."
"Very well, show him in. Hasn't Kushton returned
from Mr. Sheridan's yet ?" he added.
"Yes, my lord. But Lady Noel sent him out again
with a letter for Sir Ralph to his club."
Gordon heaved a sigh of relief. "Sherry must be
better," he thought. He waited on the threshold till
Fletcher ushered in a slim figure in the round coat and
buttons of a carman. His chin was muffled in a coarse
neckerchief, and a rumpled mass of brown hair showed
beneath the edges of the cloth cap whose visor was pulled
over his eyes.
"Well, my lad?"
The boy stood still, twisting his fingers in his jacket
till the valet had retired. Then suddenly as the door
closed, the cap was snatched off, a mass of brown hair
dropped curling about the boyish shoulders the silver-
buttoned jacket fell open, revealing a softly rounded
THE CASTAWAY 115
throat and delicate slope of breast. Gordon uttered an
astonished and bewildered exclamation:
"Caro ! What mad masquerade is this ?"
She drew back under the pale intensity, the con-
trolled agitation of his face. "Forgive me! forgive
me !" Tumult was looking from her eyes, and her
shoulders were heaving. "I could not help it! I have
tried to forget you during all this past year. I cannot
bear to see you only at Melbourne House and at parties
and on the street. How pale you always are !" she went
on. "Like a statue of marble, and your dark hair such
a contrast. I never see you without wanting to cry. If
any painter could paint me your face as it is, I would
give anything I possess !"
She had touched his hand, but he drew it away
sharply, feeling a black sense of entanglement in the
touch.
"Lady Caroline! This is unthinkable! To come
here in that dress here, to this house, is sheer mad-
ness ! I did not imagine you capable of such folly."
"You think I am weak and selfish," she pleaded.
"You have always thought I did not struggle to with-
stand my feelings. But indeed, indeed, it is more than
human nature can bear ! I loved you before you mar-
ried Bella loved you better than name, than religion,
than any prospects on earth ! You must have loved me
more if you had never seen her ! She has never cared
for you as I do."
He darted a glance at the door. His wife! A 're-
bellious anger rose in him at being thrust into such a
predicament.
"You have taken a strange way to show that love."
116 THE CASTAWAY
"Oh, I could show it other ways !" She was looking
at him with tremulous daring. "They used to say that
once in the East, to prove to a Greek girl that you loved
her, you wounded yourself in the breast. Would such a
thing make you believe how I love you ?"
At that moment both heard a voice in the hallway.
"Bella !" he said in a whisper.
<f Oh, I thought she had gone to Seaham," she
breathed. "You must believe I did not know she was
here!" She buttoned the coat over her breast with
nervous fingers and put on the cloth cap. The sound
had thrown her into a paroxysm of dread.
"Quick, quick !" she urged.
"Not that way. Here, to the garden entrance !" He
caught her hand, drew her sharply toward the rear door
and opened it.
The retreat was closed. Lady Noel, with sparkling
eyes and spare figure leaning on her cane, faced them
at the threshold, her gaze leaping with flickering tri-
umph. At the same instant Annabel entered by the
other door.
The trap had sprung, the joints were working with
precision. Gordon's first glance at his wife's face told
him there had been betrayal, for the look he saw was
not of surprise or wonder, though its indignant lines
set themselves deeper in presence of the visible fact.
The jaws of this trap had not been set by accident. How
had Lady Noel and Annabel guessed ? The latter's eyes
were on the carboy's costume, as if she would convince
herself doubly by every evidence of her senses. The
grim figure on the threshold pointed one thin fore-
finger at the shrinking form in the boy's dress.
THE CASTAWAY 117
"Take off that cap!"
Annabel took a quick step forward, as Lady Caroline
snatched off the covering to show a face flaming with
defiance. "Caro V she exclaimed "Caro !"
As she looked from one to the other, contempt rose
in a frigid wave over her features and she drew her-
self up to her full height and stood stonily erect.
Lady Noel laughed with an echoing amusement, as
Lady Caroline burst out in a torrent:
"You can hate and despise me if you want to, Bella.
It can make no difference to me. Why did you come
between us in the first place? You never loved him,
at least. You had nothing to give him but that hor-
rible virtuous indifference of yours nothing! noth-
ing! You have nothing to give him now. You have
made his life wretched with your perfectness and your
conventions ! Everybody knows that !"
Annabel's look swept her with its sharp edge of scorn ;
then flashed on Gordon, who stood composed, motion-
less, in a grip of repression.
"Is it not enough for you to have made me the butt
of your daily caprice, your shameless atheism?" she
drove the words at her husband "for all London to
gossip of your social 'conquests' and your dissolute af-
fairs? Is this not enough that you offer me the final
dishonor of such planned meetings, under this roof ?"
"It was not his fault !" cried Lady Caroline. "Bella !
I will tell you the truth !"
Gordon put out his hand with a gesture of protest
as Lady Noel laughed again, musically, maliciously.
A knock at the door silenced all voices. It heralded
118 THE CASTAWAY
Fletcher, whose eyes, habitually discreet, seemed to see
no further than his master.
"Mr. S'omers is outside, sir, with the Melbourne
coach, to wait for Lady Caroline Lamb."
Lady Caroline's blank, terror-struck eyes turned to
Gordon, and she began to tremble. She ran and pulled
aside the portiere from the window. She shrank back
with a gasping cry, for she recognized the coach drawn
up at the curb, whose lighted lanterns, reflected from
fawn-covered panels emblazoned with the Melbourne
arms, lit plainly the figure of William Lamb's con-
fidential factotum waiting by its step. Her husband
had known she was coming there ! He had sent Somers
instead of the coachman he even knew of the carboy's
dress !
A slow change passed over her face. Fear and dread
had shown there an instant pallidly dread of the
malignant fury she knew lay couched beneath the cold
exterior of her husband; now these were swallowed up
in a look more burning, more intense, more terrible a
look of sudden, savage certainty. She turned this new
countenance upon Gordon.
"So!" she said in a stifled voice. "You sent my
letter to my husband! You did not count on a scene
with Bella but for me who have bored you, you took
this cruel way to end it all ! Well, you have succeeded.
Now I know Madame de Stael was right when she called
you 'demon/ You are without a heart. How I have
loved you and now I hate you. I hate you !"
He made no reply. Her letter ? As she spoke he had
had a vision of Mrs. Clermont's noiseless movements
and thin secret mouth, and suspicion clogged his tongue.
THE CASTAWAY 119
Lady Caroline looked at him an instant with a shud-
der as she passed out. "I shall always hate you," she
said with vengeful emphasis. They heard the outer
door close heavily behind her and the dulled sound of
wheels.
As Gordon turned again to meet his wife's flinty gaze,
the footman appeared.
"Sir Ealph wished me to say he would answer at
once, your ladyship," he said to Lady Noel.
"There was no change in Mr. Sheridan's condition,
Kushton?" asked Gordon,
"Change, my lord?" the boy stammered. "Why,
I " He looked from him to the others, his jaw
dropped.
Lady Noel shifted her cane. "I received Rushton's
report. I thought it a pity anything should interfere
with your lordship's evening engagement."
"Mr. Sheridan was thought to be dying, my lord,"
said the boy, "and had asked for you."
CHAPTER XVI
THE DESPOILING
As his hackney-coach sped through the night, Gor-
don's anger at the inhumanity that had kept from him
the sick man's message, faded gradually into a duller
resentment that held most of grief.
The words of his wife recurred to his mind: "A
doddering old man!" She had seen only the uncer-
tain walk, the trembling hand, the dying down of the
brilliance and fire into crumbling ashes. Not the past,
the career in Parliament, the masterly craft of the play-
wright, the years of loyalty to his friends. Social
morality had been a lifelong jest to Sheridan a verita-
ble "School for Scandal" from which he drew his
choicest "bon-mots, yet his whole character had been
sweetened with the milk of human kindness. Annabel
walked a moral princess of parallelograms, viciously vir-
tuous, mercilessly inflexible. "And the greatest of these
is charity" whose was it? Annabel's or Sheridan's?
On the steps of St. Dunstan's-in-the-West stood Dr.
Cassidy with his friend, the under-curate, and he caught
a glimpse of the coach that whirled by.
"Yonder," said Cassidy, "rides London's poet-apos-
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THE CASTAWAY 121
tate, known by his limp and his profligacy. The dev-
otees are tiring. How long can the idol stand ?"
The other turned to gaze. "Woe unto you, when all
men shall speak well of you!" he quoted, "for so did
their fathers, to the false prophets!" He also was a
sanctimonious young man.
The house that sheltered the old wit was dark as
Gordon ascended the steps, and the hollow echoes from
the knocker, reverberating through the hall, chilled him
with dread. "He died an hour ago, your lordship," the
servant said.
An hour! And but for the delay, he would have
been in time! As Gordon entered, a prey to this re-
flection, a thick-set man dressed shabbily, ascended the
steps. He had once been the dead man's groom, he ex-
plained, and begged awkwardly to be allowed to look
upon his face. The servant hesitated, but at the grief
in the stranger's voice, he let him in, and the new-comer
pushed quickly past Gordon and entered the darkened
bedroom before him.
There his profound emotion vanished. He drew a
bailiffs wand from beneath his coat and touching the
rigid figure that lay there, proclaimed with gruff tri-
umph : "I arrest this body in the king's name, for five
hundred pounds."
The exultant bailiff started at the touch of fingers
gripping his wrist. Something in Gordon's face, though
now distorted with feeling, was familiar.
"Why," he said, "I'm a turnkey, if you ain't the gent
that took the young ladies into the Fleet !"
"Come with me," rasped Gordon between his teeth,
and the bailiff followed. In the next room he drew from
122 THE CASTAWAY
his pocket a draft from John Murray, his publisher, for
four hundred and eighty guineas. Without a word he
indorsed this and handed it to the bailiff, who scruti-
nized it and counted out the four pounds change.
"Now go !" said Gordon.
The clock of St. Paul's was pealing the hour of
eleven as the hackney-coach drove back to the house on
Piccadilly Terrace. A light low-lying mist softened the
outlines of the alley-ways and purified the filth of the
street. Overhead, it frayed into a night of wonderful
starshine, where, beyond the soiled sordidness of the
clamorous city, the sky spread a web of diamonds and
sifted gold dust.
While the wheels rattled onward, Gordon's white
whimsical face, lifted to those presences above the smoky
roofs, gradually lost its bitter glaze and expressed a
curious wistfulness a vague, appealing weariness and
speculation.
"Matter is eternal," he reflected, "always changing,
but reproduced and eternal. May not mind be also ? Is
its inner spark celestial? Or, like the cells that pro-
duce it, is it a creature of the mold, doomed to ex-
tinction with the brain, sinking as the candle-flame
perishes when the wick falls? I remember when I
viewed the planets through Herschel's telescope and
saw all at once that they were worlds. What has eter-
nity to do with the congregated cosmic dust we call
mankind? What are our little passions and resent-
ments before the least of those stars ?"
His gaze and his thought fell from the sky.
Had he any right to the stubborn pride which would
THE CASTAWAY 123
not bemean itself by self-defense? Would his own si-
lence not abet the calculating hatred of Lady Noel's and
add to that monstrous estrangement that was steadily
carrying his soul further and further from the soul of
Annabel ? The question of whether his wife believed or
disbelieved aside, was he justified in such a course now ?
A softer feeling took possession of him. Appearances
had been against him. To speak could make the mat-
ter no worse for Lady Caroline. He would go to Anna-
bel and assure her of the truth. Perhaps even out of
such a catastrophe as to-night's might arise a truer and
a nearer confidence.
He threw off his great-coat in the empty hall and
ascended the stair. The door of the chamber where
sat the little white bed was open. He went in. The
lamp still shed its radiance on the pillow, but the tiny
fragrant mould where a baby head had lain, now held
only a note, bearing Gordon's name.
With a puzzled look he tore it open.
A white anguish spread over his features. A cry
broke from his lips. He flung wide the door of his
wife's room it was empty. He ran down the stair,
where the footman met him, turning a wondering face
to his question.
"My lady went out with Lady Noel, my lord," Eush-
ton answered, "and took the baby with her. Sir Ealph
came for them a half -hour ago. Here is a letter he left
for your lordship."
Gordon took it mechanically and read the few curt
lines that burned into his sight like points of pain. It
was the end, then ! Annabel had gone, not to return
gone with only a hastily pencilled note for farewell,
123 THE CASTAWAY
his pocket a draft from John Murray, his publisher, for
four hundred and eighty guineas. Without a word he
indorsed this and handed it to the bailiff, who scruti-
nized it and counted out the four pounds change.
"Now go \" said Gordon.
The clock of St. Paul's was pealing the hour of
eleven as the hackney-coach drove back to the house on
Piccadilly Terrace. A light low-lying mist softened the
outlines of the alley-ways and purified the filth of the
street. Overhead, it frayed into a night of wonderful
starshine, where, beyond the soiled sordidness of the
clamorous city, the sky spread a web of diamonds and
sifted gold dust.
While the wheels rattled onward, Gordon's white
whimsical face, lifted to those presences above the smoky
roofs, gradually lost its bitter glaze and expressed a
curious wistfulness a vague, appealing weariness and
speculation.
"Matter is eternal," he reflected, "always changing,
but reproduced and eternal. May not mind be also ? Is
its inner spark celestial? Or, like the cells that pro-
duce it, is it a creature of the mold, doomed to ex-
tinction with the brain, sinking as the candle-flame
perishes when the wick falls? I remember when I
viewed the planets through Herschel's telescope and
saw all at once that they were worlds. What has eter-
nity to do with the congregated cosmic dust we call
mankind? What are our little passions and resent-
ments before the least of those stars ?"
His gaze and his thought fell from the sky.
Had he any right to the stubborn pride which would
THE CASTAWAY 123
not bemean itself by self-defense? Would his own si-
lence not abet the calculating hatred of Lady Noel's and
add to that monstrous estrangement that was steadily
carrying his soul further and further from the soul of
Annabel ? The question of whether his wife believed or
disbelieved aside, was he justified in such a course now ?
A softer feeling took possession of him. Appearances
had been against him. To speak could make the mat-
ter no worse for Lady Caroline. He would go to Anna-
bel and assure her of the truth. Perhaps even out of
such a catastrophe as to-night's might arise a truer and
a nearer confidence.
He threw off his great-coat in the empty hall and
ascended the stair. The door of the chamber where
sat the little white bed was open. He went in. The
lamp still shed its radiance on the pillow, but the tiny
fragrant mould where a baby head had lain, now held
only a note, bearing Gordon's name.
With a puzzled look he tore it open.
A white anguish spread over his features. A cry
broke from his lips. He flung wide the door of his
wife's room it was empty. He ran down the stair,
where the footman met him, turning a wondering face
to his question.
"My lady went out with Lady Noel, my lord," Kush-
ton answered, "and took the baby with her. Sir Ralph
came for them a half -hour ago. Here is a letter he left
for your lordship."
Gordon took it mechanically and read the few curt
lines that burned into his sight like points of pain. It
was the end, then ! Annabel had gone, not to return
gone with only a hastily pencilled note for farewell,
126 THE CASTAWAY
dress, penned in the first hour of his bereavement, and
offered to the public ostensibly by his own hand. Pub-
licity would be just the note to make the whole strain
ring false. It would recoil upon him in open disap-
proval and contempt! It would rouse new voices in
the clarion-tongued clamor of abuse that her jubilant
ear had heard swelling through the past year forge a
new link in the chain that would bind Iiim to disgrace,
the disgrace she believed he had had share in heaping
upon her niece !
The mainspring of the woman's hatred leaped. The
world had coupled their names long ago, when the girl
had first stolen away from the dreary Godwin house to
the glamour and allurements of Drury Lane ! And the
world no doubt told the truth. If she could help to ruin
him, line for line, name and fame as he had ruined
Jane Clermont!
In her vision rose the stooped figure of William God-
win, Jane's foster-father. He hated Gordon, she knew
and he had a connection with the Courier, the bitter-
est of them all.
Fletcher was in the lower hall as Mrs. Clermont
passed out the street door. He knew the catastrophe
that had befallen. Now his honest old eyes were full of
grief and perplexity.
It was long past midnight when he ascended to his
master's room. Gordon had thrown off his clothing and
was stretched on the bed. He was asleep.
As the grizzled valet's eyes rested on the recumbent
figure, he could see that one foot the lame one was
uncovered. Through all the years of his service, he had
never seen the member which Gordon's sensitiveness
THE CASTAWAY 127
concealed. He had often wondered curiously what was
the nature of the deformity. How did it look ?
Fletcher turned away, took a counterpane from a
chair and with face averted, drew it over the uncovered
foot. Then he shaded the candle and went out, and as
he went, a tear splashed down his seamed and weather-
beaten cheek.
CHAPTER XVII
THE BURSTING OF THE STORM
Over the great, crow-footed face of London, full of
tragedies, a heavy fog had fallen. Dismal and murky,
it lay like a bodiless incubus, shutting out the shining
sun and the sweet smells of spring and showers. To
Gordon, in the house on Piccadilly Terrace, the color-
less dun had seemed to reflect his own feelings. He was
numbed. His mind was stumbling through wastes of
dumb protest.
The links of Mrs. Clermont's forging had held. The
story of his wife's flight which the Courier had dis-
played on its front page had been a masterpiece of dark
hints and veiled insinuations. To Gordon, who had
read it with aching eyeballs, it had seemed printed in
monstrous symbols of flame.
It was to prove the opening note of a chorus whose
vicious strength he had not comprehended till the fol-
lowing day, when the avalanche of abuse broke over him
with the morning newspapers. Every personal grudge,
every pygmean hater of success, every cowering enmity
that had sickened under his splendor had roused. He
shut himself in the library, telling Fletcher he was at
home to no one, and read grimly the charges they pre-
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THE CASTAWAY 129
ferred: he had carried his unprincipled profligacy into
his home and ensconced beneath his own roof a Drury
Lane inamorata; he had persecuted his wife with in-
human cruelties, denied her the offices of religion, fired
pistols in her bedroom to frighten her while she slept
these were the lightest of their accusations.
Gordon's mind, racing over the pages, was catching ^
glimpses of heterogeneous elements which blended in
a dim, dread futurity. He saw suddenly the inertia
of Annabel's passive correctness saw why his own
name, with its eccentric dazzle, had stood forth blackly
against her even ways, her spotless, conventional pure-
ness. The mute contrast had always been there, and he
had suffered accordingly. To the world she stood a
martyr a stony pillar, once a woman, who had looked
back to catch some lurid fume from doomed cities sink-
ing under Dead Sea waters.
Gould the great world credit these monstrous calum-
nies? Might the reiterate malice of the public prints
infect his nearer acquaintances those at whose tables
he had sat almost weekly, the cliques of the clubs, the
gay set at Almack's, the circle of Melbourne House?
He drew a sharp breath, for he thought of William
Lamb, heir to the Melbourne title, from whom he had
daily expected a cartel. He would leave no path of re-
venge untrod; nor would Lady Caroline. Could their
disassociate hatred envenom even the few for whose
opinion he cared ?
The Courier had reserved its bitterest attack. On the
second day it published the stanzas entitled "Fare Thee
Well," signed by Gordon's name. He saw them with
a strange sensation, his mind grasping for the cords he
130 THE CASTAWAY
felt enmeshing; him, hft eyes fully opened now to the
devilish ingenuity of his persecution.
But he himself stood appalled at the deadly effect of
Ihis attack. Innuendo was thrown aside; invective took
its place. Paragraph, pamphlet and caricature held the
lines up to odium. The hypocrisy of a profligate! A
cheap insincere appeal to mawkish sympathy ! A taste-
* less vulgar parade of a poseur strumming his heart-
strings on the highway !
It came to Gordon with a start that during the past
forty-eight hours he had forgotten his mail. He rang
the bell arid asked for his letters.
"There are none, my lord."
No letters ? And daily for a year his table had been
deluged with tinted and perfumed billets crested and
sealed with signets of great houses. No letters !
"Who has called to-day?"
Fletcher's honest eyes could scarcely meet his master's.
"Mr. Hobhouse called this morning, and Mr. Dallas this
afternoon."
"That is all?"
"Yes, your lordship."
Gordon went to the fireplace and stared down dazedly
into the embers. He had been a santon ; now he was an
Ishmaelite, a mark for the thrust of every scurrillous
poetaster who wielded a pen a chartered Blue-Beard
another Mirabeau whom the feudalists discovered to be
a monster! The world had learned with pleasure that
he was a wretch. Tom Moore was in Ireland, Sheridan
dead. Of all he knew, only two rallied to his support:
Hobhouse, the sturdy, undemonstrative, likable com-
panion of his early travels, and Dallas !
THE CASTAWAY 131
Gordon laughed bitterly. He had been London's
favorite. Now, without justice or reason, it covered
him with obloquy and went by on the other side.
There had followed days and nights of mental agony,
of inner crying-out for reprisal hours of fierce longing
for his child, when he had sought relief in walking un-
frequented streets from dark to dawn, in desultory com-
position, more often in the black bottle that lay in the
library drawer. Meager news had reached his sister,
and a brave, true message from her was the only cooling
dew that fell into his fiery Sahara of suffering. A
packet left by a messenger roused him to a white fury.
It was from Sir Samuel Eomilly, the solicitor under
his retainer. Sir Samuel had reversed his allegiance.
His curt note inclosed a draft of separation proposed
by Sir Ralph Milbanke, and though couched in judicial
phrases, voiced a threat unmistakable.
Almost a round of the clock Gordon sat with this
paper before him, his meals untasted. His wife at that
moment was with Ada his child and hers ! at her
father's house in Seaham. She had read the attacks
knew their falseness knew and would not deny. Now
he knew why. What she wanted was written in that
document: freedom and her daughter. She would en-
gulf him in calumny only so the world would justify
her in her self-righteous desertion. And lest he put
it to the test, lest he refuse to be condemned unheard
and demand the arbitrament of an open though pre-
judiced tribunal, she threatened him with what further
veiled accusations he could not imagine. Good God!
Was there anything more to accuse him of ? Better any
132 THE CASTAWAY
appeal to publicity now than this step which shut him
from Ada !
Suppose he made this appeal. There was no justice
in public opinion. In his case, it was already poisoned.
Already it dubbed him a Nero, a Caligula, a Richard
Third ! Add to the present outcry new and more terri-
ble charges the formless insinuations of Sir Ralph
and what might not its verdict be ? It would justify his
wife, applaud the act which robbed him of his child!
And these dark indictments, though false, would be
no less an evil legacy for that daughter whom he loved
with every fiber of his being.
To consent to lose Ada forever or to risk both her
loss and her blight. To battle, and jeopardize her life's
happiness perhaps or to yield and give tacit admission
to the worst the world said of him, her father !
Night fell. At last he stirr-ed and his square shoul-
ders set. "To wait," he said "to wait and be patient.
That is all that is left. Whatever I must do, the world
shall not see me cringe. The celebrity I have wrung
from it has been in the teeth of all opinions and pre-
judices. I will show no white feather now !"
He laid the document aside, rose and looked in the
glass. His face was haggard, worn; there were listless
lines under his eyes. He summoned Fletcher and
dressed with all his old scrupulousness such a cos-
tume as he had worn the afternoon he had waked to
fame. With a thought, perhaps, of that day, he drew a
carnation through his buttonhole. Then he left the
house and turned his steps toward Drury Lane.
The fog was gone, the air lay warm and pleasant,
and a waxing moon shamed the street lamps. He
THE CASTAWAY 133
passed down St. James Street, and came opposite
White's Club. He had no thought of entering. Lord
Petersham descended the steps as he approached, his
dress exquisite, his walking-stick held daintily between
thumb and forefinger like a pinch of snuff. The fop's
eyes met Gordon's in a blank stare.
A group of faces showed in the bow-window and for
an instant Gordon hesitated, the old perverse spirit
tempting him to enter, but he resisted it.
The first act was on when he reached Drury Lane
Theater, and the lobby was empty save for the usual
loungers and lackeys. The doors of the pit were open
and he stood behind the rustling colors of Fops' Alley.
He scanned the house curiously, himself unobserved,
noting many a familiar face in the boxes.
Night after night the pit had roused to the veteran
actor Kean. Night after night, Fops' Alley had fur-
nished its quota of applause for a far smaller part,
played with grace and sprightliness by Jane Cler-
mont, the favorite of the greenroom. Her first entrance
formed a finish to the act now drawing to a close. To
Gordon's overwrought senses to-night there seemed
some strange tenseness in the air. Here and there heads
drew together whispering. The boxes were too quiet.
As the final tableau arranged itself, and Jane ad-
vanced slowly from the wings, there was none of the
usual signs of approval. Instead a disturbed shuffle
made itself heard. She began her lines smiling. An
ugly murmur overran the pit, and she faltered.
Instantly a man's form leaned over the edge of a
box and hissed. The watcher, staring from the shadow
of the lobby, recognized him with a quick stab of sig-
134 THE CASTAWAY
nificance it was William Lamb. The action seemed
a concerted signal. Some one laughed. An undulate
hiss swept over the house like a nest of serpents. Even
some of the boxes swelled its volume.
Jane shrank, looking frightenedly about her, bewil-
dered, her hands clutching her gown; for the pit was
on its legs now, and epithets were hurled at the stage.
"Crede Gordon!" came the derisive shout a cry taken
up with groans and catcalls and a walking-stick clat-
tered across the footlights. The manager rushed upon
the stage and the heavy curtain began to descend.
"The baggage!" said a voice near Gordon with a
coarse laugh. "It's the one they say he had in his house
when his wife left him. Serves her right V
Gordon's breath caught in his throat. So this had
been William Lamb's way ! Not an appeal to the court
of ten paces an assassin in the dark with a bloodless
weapon to slay him in the world's esteem !
He heard the din rising from the whole house, as he
crossed the lobby and strode down the passageway lead-
ing to the greenroom.
CHAPTER XVIII
GORDON STANDS AT BAY
Jane Clermont had reached it before him, her eyes
a storm of anger. She tore the silver ornaments from
her costume, and dashed them at the feet of the man-
ager. "How dare they ! How dare they !" she flamed.
"Don't talk!" he snapped. "I must go on with the
play or they will be in here in five minutes. Don't
wait to change your dress go! go, I tell you! Do
you think I want my theater tumbled about my ears ?"
He cursed as the dulled uproar came from beyond
the dropped curtain.
Curious eyes had turned to Gordon, faces zestful,
relishing, as he paused in the doorway. The girl had
not seen him. But at that moment hurried steps came
down the passage a youth darted past Gordon and
threw an arm about her.
"Jane !" he cried, "we were there Mary and I
we saw it all ! It is infamous !"
A flash of instant recollection deepened the vivid
fire in Gordon's look as it rested on the boyish, beard-
less figure, whose quaint dress and roving eyes, bright
and wild like a deer's, seemed as incongruous in that
circle of paint and tinsel as in the squalor of the Fleet
Prison. Shelley went on rapidly through Jane's in-
coherent words:
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136 THE CASTAWAY
"Jane, listen! We're not poor now. We came to
the play to-night to tell you the news. Old Sir Bysshe,
my grandfather^ is dead and the entail conies to me.
We sail for the continent at daybreak. Mary is wait-
ing in the carriage. Come with us, Jane, and let Eng-
land go."
On the manager's face drops of perspiration had
started. "Aye, go !" he foamed. "The quicker the bet-
ter ! His lordship is waiting "
He shrank back, the sneer throttled on his lips, for
there was that in Gordon's colorless features, his spark-
ling eyes, at which the man's tongue clove to the roof
of his mouth.
"George Gordon !" exclaimed Shelley under his
breath.
Jane's glance had followed his and she saw the figure
at the door for the first time, as Gordon spoke:
"Cowards !" he said. "Cowards !" a shrivelling rage
was making his speech thick. "A thousand against one !
It is I they hate, and they vent their hatred of me
upon a woman ! Such is the chivalry of this puddle
of water- worms they call London !"
A sudden admiration swept the girl. "You dare
them, too! You are not afraid!" She turned on the
manager passionately. "I wouldn't play for them again
for all London ! I despise you all, in front of the cur-
tain and behind it. Liars all liars! Come, Bysshe,
I will go with you !"
Shelley held out his hand to Gordon with an open,
friendly, "Good-by, my lord."
Gordon had been looking at him steadily looking,
but with a strange irrelevance, seeing really himself,
AYE, GO! " HE FOAMED. " THE QUICKER THE BETTER!" /. Ij6.
THE CASTAWAY 137
standing in his own room at a long-ago dawn, a gob-
let of brandy in his hand, and in his heart a deter-
mination rising anew a wish to be like the youth
whose clasp now met his own, with a like serenity and
purpose, a soul to which fame meant least, truth and
right all! In that year of dazzle before his marriage
he had quenched that determination. He had wor-
shiped the Great Beast. He had lived the world's life
and played its games and accepted its awards. Now
he suffered its punishments !
Malicious faces were peering in at the street entrance.
The pit had overflowed into the lobby, the lobby into
the street, and the numbers swelled from the hordes
of the pave whose jargon banter flew back and forth.
The jeering voices came plainly down the brick passage-
way.
"I will see you to your carriage/' said Gordon, and
went out with them.
They passed to the vehicle from which Mary Shel-
ley's frightened face looked out through a vociferous
human lane, that groaned and whistled in gusto.
"There's the jade ; an' 'er lordship with 'er, too !"
"Which is 'im?"
"W'y, 'im with the leg."
At the gibe which followed Gordon smiled mirth-
lessly. This blind rabble, egged on by hatred that uti-
lized for its ends the crass dislike of the scum for the
refined what was it to him ? He knew its masters !
As Jane took her seat the jeers redoubled. Across
the heads between him and the surging entrance of the
theater he saw the sneering, heavy-lidded face of Wil-
liam Lamb. The sight roused the truculent demon of
138 THE CASTAWAY
stubbornness in him. With a flare of unrecking im-
pertinence, and a racing recollection of a first dinner at
Melbourne House, when he had given Lady Caroline
Lamb such a blossom from his coat, Gordon drew the
carnation from his buttonhole and handed it to Jane
Clermont.
The crowd had looked to see him enter with the
others; now as the vehicle rolled away, leaving him
standing alone, the clamor, sharpened by his nonchalant
act and by the smile which they could not translate,
rose more derisive, more boldly mixed with insult.
They were overcoming that dull inborn fear of the clod
for the noble. There was menace in what they said,
a foreshadowing of peril that might have fallen but for
a diversion.
A coach, adroitly handled, whirled up to the kerb-
stone, and a man leaped to the pavement. Gordon felt
1 a hand touch his arm.
"The carriage, my lord," said Fletcher.
The valet, guessing better than his master, had fol-
lowed him. A sense of the dog-like fidelity of the old
servitor smote Gordon and softened the bitter smile on
his lips. Only an instant he hesitated before he entered
the carriage, and in that instant a hand grasped at the
horses' heads, but the coachman's whip fell and the
plunging animals made an aisle through which the ve-
hicle, hissed and hooted, rolled in safety.
As it drew away, a young man, dark and oriental
looking, came through the crowd, staring wonderingly
at the excitement. He was one who more than once
on that spot had watched Gordon's approaching car-
riage with black envy and jealousy the same who had
THE CASTAWAY 139
stood with Jane Clermont on the night Dr. Cassidy's
suspicious gaze had made him draw closer into the
shadow of the doorway. At the names the crowd
coupled, he started, paled and hurried into the stage-
- entrance.
In an instant he emerged, breathing hard, heard the
jeers of the crowd directed at the moving carriage, and,
his fingers clenching, rushed into the street and gazed
'after it. It turned into Long Acre, going toward Picca-
dilly. He plunged into the network of side streets op-
posite and hastened rapidly in the direction it had
taken.
It was not far to the house on Piccadilly Terrace, and
he outstripped the coach. From the shadow he saw it
stop, saw the man it carried dismount alone.
"Where is she?" he muttered. "He took her from
the theater damn him! Where has he left her?"
The same bitter smile with which he had faced the
clamor outside the theater was on Gordon's white face
as he entered the house. In the hall he opened a single
note of invitation, read it and laughed.
Rushton met him. "Mr. Dallas is in the library,
your lordship."
Gordon strode into the room. Dallas saw that though
he was smiling oddly, his face was deeply lined, and
his eyes were glittering like those of a man with a fever.
"George," cried Dallas, "I was bound to see you!
Why, you are ill!"
"Not I, Dallas. I have been to Drury Lane to-night.
All society was there, divorced and divorceable, in-
trigants and Babylonians of quality. Lady Holland,
140 THE CASTAWAY
like a hippopotamus in the face, and William Lamb
with the very manner of the ursine sloth !"
There was genuine anxiety in Dallas' tone. "Come
with me to Stratford for a few days," he besought.
"Come now to-night !"
"Not this week, old friend. I have social engage-
ments to fill!" Gordon tossed him the note he held.
"See ! Lady Jersey, the loveliest tyrant that shakes the
cap and bells of fashion's fools! the despot of Al-
mack's the patroness-in-chief of the Dandy Ball, in-
vites the reprobate, the scapegrace, to that sumptuous
conclave! She dares the frown and risks pollution!
Would you have me disappoint my only woman apolo-
gist in London ? Shall I not reward such unparagoned
courage with the presence of its parlor lion, its ball-
room bard, its hot-pressed darling?"
He laughed wildly, sardonically, and jerked the bell.
"Fletcher, a bottle of brandy," he commanded, "and
I shall not want you again to-night."
The valet set the bottle down with an anxious look
at his master a half-appealing one toward Dallas.
As the door closed, Gordon, sitting on the table-edge,
began to sing with perfect coolness, without a quaver
in the metallic voice:
"The Devil returned to hell by two,
And he stayed at home till five;
He dined on a dowager done ragout
And a peer boiled down in an Irish stew
And, quoth he, Til take a drive!
I walked this morning, I'll ride to-night
In darkness my children take delight
And I'll see how my favorites thrive!'"
THE CASTAWAY 141
"Laddie!" Dallas' cry was full of pity and en-
treaty. "I beg of you stop!" He went over and
touched the other's arm.
"Listen, Dallas
"The Devil he lit on the London pave
And he found his work done well.
For it ran so red from the slandered dead
That it blushed like the waves of hell!
Then loudly and wildly and long laughed he
'Me thinks they have here little need of me!' "
CHAPTEE XIX
THE BURNING OF AN EFFIGY
Beau Brummell, pattern of the dandies, stood in Al-
maek's Assembly Rooms, bowing right and left with
the languid elegance of his station. The night before,
in play at the Argyle, he had lost twenty thousand
pounds at macao, but what mattered that to the czar
of fashion, who had introduced starch into neck-cloths
and had his top-boots polished with champagne, whose
very fob-design was a thing of more moment in Brookes'
Club than the fall of Bonaparte, and whose loss even of
the regent's favor had not been able to affect his reign.
He was a still fool that ran deep. He had been in
debt ever since a prince's whim had given him a cor-
netcy in the Tenth Hussars; the episode now meant to
him only another ruined Jew, and a fresh flight for
his Kashmerian butterfly career.
He took snuff with nonchalant grace from a buhl
snuff-box, he had one for each day in the year, and
touched his rouged lips with a lace handkerchief of
royal rose-point. His prestige had never been higher,
nor his insolence more accurately applied than on this
vening of the last of the Dandy Balls.
The club tables, where ordinarily were grouped play-
(142)
THE CASTAWAY 143
ere at whist and hazard, had vanished ; brackets holding
glass candelabra were distributed along the walls, and
the pink shaded glow of myriads of wax tapers was re-
flected from mirrors set crosswise in every angle and
surrounded by masses of flowers. The great tapestried
ball-room, a hundred feet in length, in which Ma-
dame Catalani had given her famous concerts and Kean
his readings from Shakespeare, was decorated with
gilt columns, pilasters, and classic medallions with
candles in cut-glass lusters. A string orchestra played
behind a screen of palms and a miniature stage had
been built across the lower end of the room.
Here were gathered the oligarchs of fashion and the
tyrants of ton. The dandies Pierrepont, Alvanley,
Petersham, the fop lieutenants and poodle-loving wor-
shipers of Brummell with gold buckles glittering in
their starched stocks, and brave in tight German trou-
sers and jewelled eye-glasses, preened and ogled among
soberer wearers of greater names and ladies of title,
whose glistening shoulders and bare arms flashed whitely
through the shifting stir of bright colors.
On the broad stair, under the chandeliers of crystal
and silver, in the ball-room, wherever the groups and
the gossip moved that evening, one name was on every
tongue. The series of tableaux rehearsed under direction
of Lady Heathcote, and the new quadrille introduced
from Paris by Lady Jersey, the features of the evening,
were less speculated upon than was George Gordon.
The hissing at Drury Lane had several new versions,
and there were more sensational stories afloat. It was
said he had entered Brookes' Club the day before, where
no one had spoken to him; that the Horse Guards had
144 THE CASTAWAY
had to be sent for to prevent his being mobbed in Palace
Yard as he attempted to enter the House of Lords. It
was even confidently asserted that a motion was to l>e
introduced in Parliament to suspend him from his priv-
ileges as a peer.
Lady Jersey, stately in black velvet and creamy lace,
met John Hobhouse on the stair.
"Have you seen him?" she asked anxiously.
"No, but I have called every day. It was courageous
of you to send him the invitation for to-night. No
other patroness would have dared."
"I only wish he would come!" she flashed imperi-
ously. "One would think we were a lot of New Eng-
land witch-hunters! There is nothing more ridiculous
than society in one of its seven-year fits of morality.
Scandals are around us every day, but we pay no heed
till the spasm of outraged virtue takes us. Then we
pick out some one by mere caprice, hiss him, cut him
make him a whipping-boy to be lashed from our doors.
When we are satisfied, we give our drastic virtue chloro-
form and put it to sleep for another seven years !"
Hobhouse smiled grimly at the gleam in her hazel
eyes as she passed on to the lower room where the quad-
rille was to have its final rehearsal. Lady Jersey's was
a despotic rule. She was as famous for her diplomacy
as for her Sunday parties. More than one debate had
been postponed in Parliament to avoid a conflict with
one of her dinners. Gordon, he reflected, could have
no more powerful ally.
He ascended to the ball-room, where the tableaux
were oozing patiently on with transient gushes of ap-
THE CASTAWAY 145
probation: "Solomon and the Queen of Sheba," with
Lady Heathcote as the queen; "Tamerlane the Great,"
posed by a giant officer of the foot-guards in a suit of
chain-mail, and subjects drawn from heathen mythol-
ogy-
The last number, a monologue, was unnamed, but
word had gone forth that the performer was to be Lady
Caroline Lamb.
Slowly the curtain was drawn aside and a breath of
applause stirred as Lady Caroline was revealed, in com-
plete Greek costume, with short blue skirt and round
jacket, its bodice cut square and low and its sleeves
white from elbow to wrist. In that congress of beauties,
decked in the stilted conventions of Mayfair modistes,
the attire had a touch of the barbaric which suited its
wearer's type a touch accentuated by the jade beads
about her throat and the dagger thrust through her
girdle.
The fiddles of the orchestra had begun to play, as
prelude, the music of the Greek love-song Gordon had
written, long ago made popular in London drawing-
rooms, and "Maid-of - Athens !" was echoed here and
there from the floor.
The figure on the stage swept a slow glance about her,
her cheeks dark and red from some under-excitement.
She waved her hand, and from the wings came a pro-
cession of tiny pages dressed as imps, all in red.
A murmur of wonder broke from the crowd. Lady
Caroline's vagaries were well-known and her wayward
devisings were never without sensation.
"What foolery of Caro's can this be ?" queried Bruin-
146 THE CASTAWAY
mell to Petersham as the first page set up a tripod and
the second placed upon it a huge metal salver.
The whole room was rustling, for it was clear, from
the open surprise of the committee, that this was a
feature not on the program. Those in the rear even
stood on chairs while the scarlet-hued imps grouped
about the tripod in a half-circle open toward the audi-
ence.
Lady Caroline clapped her hands and a last page en-
tered dressed in red and black as Mephistopheles, car-
rying aloft on a wand what looked like a gigantic doll.
The wand he fitted into a socket in the salver, and the
dangling figure that swung from it, turning slowly, re-
vealed a grotesque image of George Gordon.
The audience gazed at the effigy with its clever bur-
lesque of each well-known detail, the open rolling col-
lar, the short brown curls pasted on the mask, the car-
nation in its buttonhole startled at the effrontery of
the idea. It was Brummell who gave the signal by an
enthusiastic Brava!
Then the assemblage broke into applause and laugh-
ter that ran like a mounting wave across the flash and
glitter of the ball-room, thundering down the refrain
of the orchestra.
The applause stilled as Lady Caroline raised her
hand, and recited, in a voice that penetrated to the
furthermost corner:
"Is it Guy Pawkes we bring with his stuffing of straw?
No, no! For Guy Fawkes paid his debt to the law!
But the cause we uphold is to decency owed,
By a social tribunal, unmarked by the code!
THE CASTAWAY 147
Behold here a poet an eloquent thing
Which the Drury Lane greenroom applauded its king,
Who made all the envious dandies despair
By the cut of his cuffs and the curl of his hair."
She had spoken this doggerel with elaborate gestures
toward the absurd manikin, her eyes gleaming at the
applause that greeted each stanza. Unsheathing the
dagger at her girdle, she waved it with a look of lan-
guishing that made new laughter.
"Who, 'tis said, when a fair Maid-of-Athens he pressed,
Swore his love on a dagger-scratch made on his breast!
And when they'd have drowned the poor creature, alack,
Brought gain to his glory by slitting the sack!"
John Hobhouse was staring indignantly, unable to
control his anger. A note of triumph, more trenchant
and remorseless than her raillery, grew into Lady Caro-
line's tone:
"His deportment, so evilly mal-ci-propos,
At last sunk him far every circle below,
Till, besmirched by the mire of his flagrant disgrace,
The front door of London flew shut in his face.
So burn, yellow flame, for an idol dethroned!
Burn, burn for a Gordon, by Muses disowned!
Burn, burn! while about thee thy imps circle fast,
And give them their comrade, recovered at last! "
At the word ( burn," the speaker seized a candle from
a sconce and touched it to the figure, which blazed
brightly up. The imp-pages grasped hands and began
to run round and round the group. At the weird sight
a tumult of applause went up from the whole multi-
148 THE CASTAWAY
tude, which clapped and stamped and brava'd itself
hoarse.
Suddenly a strange thing happened unexpected,
anomalous, uncanny. The applause hushed as though
a wet blanket had been thrown over it. Faces forsook
the stage. The pages ceased their circling. Women
drew sharp tremulous breaths and men turned eagerly
in their places to see a man advancing into the assembly
with halting step and with a face pale yet brilliant, like
an alabaster vase lighted from within.
Some subtle magnetism had always hung about
George Gordon, that had made him the center of any
crowd. Now, in the tension, this was enormously in-
creased. His sharply chiselled, patrician features
seemed to thrill and dilate, and his eyes sparkled till
they could scarce be looked at. A hundred in that room
he had called by name ; scores he had dined and gamed
with. His look, ruthless, yet even, seemed to single
out and hold each one of these speechless and staring,
deaf to BrummelPs sneer through the quiet.
Speech came from Gordon's lips, controlled, yet vital
with subterraneous passion words that none of that
shaken audience could afterward recall save in part
hot like lava, writhing, pitiless, falling among them
like a flaying lash of whip-cords:
"Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! I have heard
hyenas and jackals in the ruins of Asia, Albanian
wolves and angry Mussulmans ! Theirs is sweet music
beside the purr of England's scandal-mongers. I have
hated your cant, despised your mediocrity and scoffed
at your convention, and now, lacking the dagger and
the bowl, when deliberate desolation is piled upon me,
THE CASTAWAY 149
when I stand alone on my hearth with my household
gods shivered around me, you gather your pomp and
rabblement of society to bait me !"
There was a stir at the door. Lady Jersey had en-
tered, and John Hobhouse sprang to her side. She saw
the blazing puppet and divined instantly the cruel
farce that had been enacted. Her indignation leaped,
but he caught her arm.
"No, no," he said, "it is too late."
The stinging sentences went on:
"So have you dealt with others, those whose names
will be rung in England when your forgotten clay has
mixed with its earth! Let them be gently born and
gently minded as they may as gentle as Sheridan,
whom a year ago you toasted. He grew old and you
covered him with the ignominy of a profligate, aban-
doned him to friendless poverty and left him to die
like a wretched beggar, while bailiffs squabbled over
his corpse! What mattered to him the crocodile tears
when you laid him yesterday in Westminster Abbey?
What cared he for your four noble pall-bearers a duke,
a pair of earls and a Lord Bishop of London? Did it
lighten his last misery that you followed him there
two royal highnesses, marquises, viscounts, a lord mayor
and a regiment of right-honorables ? Scribes and Phari-
sees, hypocrites !
"So you dealt with Shelley the youth whose songs
you would not hear ! You hounded him, expelled him
from his university, robbed him of his father and his
peace, and drove him like a moral leper from among
you ! You write no pamphlets in verse nor read them
if a canon frowns! You sit in your pews on Sunday
150 THE CASTAWAY
and thank Fate that you are not as Percy Bysshe Shel-
ley, the outcast! God! He sits so near that Heaven
your priests prate of that he hears the seraphs sing !
"And do you think now to break me on your paltry
wheel ? You made me, without my search, a species of
pagod. In the caprice of your pleasure, you throw down
the idol from its pedestal. But it is not shattered;
I have neither loved nor feared you! Henceforth I
will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with
you. Attribute to me every phase of your vileness!
Charge me with profligacy and madness ! Make of my
career only a washed fragment in the hartshorn of your
dislike ! Drive your red-hot plowshares, but they shall
not be for me ! May my bones never rest in an English
grave, nor my body feed its worms !"
The livid sentences fell quivering, heavy with virile
emphasis, like the defiance of some scorned augur, in-
voking the Furies in the midnight of Eome.
Hardly a breath or movement had come from those
who heard. They seemed struck with stupor at the
spectacle of this fiery drama of feeling. Lady Caroline
was still standing, the center of the group of imp-pages,
and above her hovered a slate-colored cloud, the smoke
from the effigy crumbling into shapeless ashes. Her
gaze was on the speaker ; her teeth clenched ; the mock-
ery of her face merged into something apprehensive
and terror-smitten.
In the same strained silence, looking neither to right
nor left, Gordon passed to the entrance. Hobhouse
met him half-way and turned with him to Lady Jersey.
Gordon bent and kissed her hand, and as he went slowly
down the stair, Lady Jersey's eyes filled with tears.
THE CASTAWAY 151
The spell was broken by a cry from the stage and
Lady Heathcote's scream. Lady Caroline had swayed
and fallen. The blade of the dagger which she still
held had slipped against her breast as she fell, and blood
followed the slight cut. The crowd surged forward in
excitement and relaxation, while waves of lively orches-
tral music rolled over the confusion, through which
the crumpled figure was carried to a dressing-room.
Only those near by saw the dagger cut, but almost
before Gordon had emerged, into the night a strange
rumor was running through the assembly. It grew
in volume through the after-quadrille and reached the
street.
"Caroline Lamb has tried to stab herself," the whisper
said.
CHAPTER XX
THE EXILE
Fletcher was watching anxiously for his master's
return that night. When he entered, there were new
lines in his face the stigmata of some abrupt and fear-
ful mental recoil.
"Order the coach to be got ready at once/' Gordon
directed, "and pack my portmanteau."
He went heavily into the library, gazing at the book-
shelves with eyes listless and dull. Presently, with the
same nerveless movements, he unlocked a drawer and
took therefrom several small articles: a lock of Ada's
hair a little copy of "Romeo and Juliet" given him
years before by his sister and the black bottle. He
thrust these into his great-coat pocket.
Amid the litter of papers on his desk a document
met his eye : it was the draft of separation submitted by
Sir Samuel Romilly. Through his mind flitted vaguely
his struggle as he had sat with that paper before him.
The struggle was ended; justice was impossible. It
remained only to sign this, the death-warrant of his
fatherhood. He wrote his name without a tremor,
franked it for the post and laid it in plain view, as
Fletcher entered to announce the carriage.
(152)
THE CASTAWAY 153
The deep lines were deeper on Gordon's face as he
went to the pavement; he moved like a sleep-walker,
his body obeying mechanically the mandate of some
hidden, alert purpose working independently of eye and
brain. An inner voice rather than his own seemed to
give the direction a direction that made the coach-
man stare, made Fletcher with a look of dismay seize
coat and hat and climb hurriedly to the box beside him.
Gordon did not see this he saw nothing, knew noth-
ing, save the rush of the coach through the gloom.
When the worn night was breaking into purple fringes
of dawn, Gordon stood on the deck of a packet out-
bound for Ostend, looking back over the wine-dark
water where the dissolving fog, hung like a fume of
silver-gray against the white Dover cliffs, built a glit-
tering city of towers and banners. Under the first
beams the capricious vapors seemed the ghosts of dead
ideals shrouding a harbor of hate. His youth, his
dreams, his triumphs, his bitterness, his rebellion, his
grief, all blended, lay there smarting, irreparable. Be-
fore him stretched wanderings and regrets and broken
tongings.
"Your coffee, my lord!" a familiar voice spoke.
Fletcher stood behind him, tray in hand, trepidation
and resolve struggling in his countenance.
Gordon took the coffee mechanically. "How did you
come here?"
"With the coach, my lord."
"Where are you going?"
The valet's hand shook, and he swallowed hard.
"Your lordship knows best," he said huskily.
154 THE CASTAWAY
Gordon gazed a moment out across the misty channel.
When he set down the cup his face had a look that
brought to the other's eyes a sudden gladness and utter
devotion.
"Thank you, Fletcher," he said gently, and turned
his gaze away.
Presently, as the light quickened, he drew paper
from his pocket, put the copy of "Romeo and Juliet"
beneath it for support, and with the book resting on the
rail, began to write. What he wrote strange that
chance should have furnished for his tablet now a story
of such deathless love! was a letter to Annabel:
"A few final words not many. Answer I do not expect,
nor does it import. But you will at least hear me. I leave
in England but one being whom you have left me to part
with my sister. Wherever I may go and I may go far
you and I can never meet in this world. Let this fact
content or atone, and if accident occurs to me, be kind to
her; or if she is then also nothing, to her children. For
never has she acted or spoken toward you but as your
friend. You once promised me this much. Do not deem
the promise cancelled for it was not a vow.
"Whatever I may have felt, I assure you that at this
moment I bear you no resentment. If you have injured
me, this forgiveness is something; if I have injured you,
it is something more still. Remember that our feelings
will have one rallying point so long as our child lives.
Teach Ada not to hate me. I do not ask for justification
to her this is probably beyond the power of either of us
to give but let her not grow up believing I am a deserv-
ing outcast from my kind, or lying dead in some forgotten
grave. For the one would sadden her young mind no less
than the other. Let her one day read what I have writ-
ten, and so judge me. And recollect that though now it
THE CASTAWAY 155
may be an advantage to you, yet it may sometime come
to be a sorrow to her to have the waters or the earth be-
tween her and her father.
"Whether the offense that has parted us has been solely
on my side or reciprocal, or on yours chiefly, I have ceased
now to reflect upon any but two things that you are the
mother of my child, and that we shall never meet again."
CHAPTER XXI
GORDON SWIMS FOR A LIFE
From London to Ostend, and through Flanders, a
swart shadow trailed George Gordon slowly but un-
erringly. It was the man whose dark, reckless face had
once turned with jealous passion to Jane Clermont as
they had watched a carriage approaching Drury Lane;
he who, on a later night, had pursued the same vehicle,
then a mark for jeers, to Piccadilly Terrace. The ques-
tion he had uttered as he saw Gordon alight alone, had
rung in his brain through his after-search: "Where
has he left her ?" The London newspapers had not been
long in chronicling Gordon's arrival in Ostend, and
thither he followed, making certain that in finding one
he should find the other.
The chase at first was not difficult. Evil report, car-
ried with malicious assiduity by spying tourists and
globe-trotting gossip-mongers, had soon overtaken his
quarry, and Gordon's progress became marked by calum-
nious tales which hovered like obscene sea-birds over the
wake of a vessel. Gordon had gone from Brussels in a
huge coach, copied from one of Napoleon's taken at
Genappe, and purchased from a travelling Wallachian
nobleman. The vehicle was a noteworthy object, and
(156)
THE CASTAWAY 157
early formed the basis of lying reports. A paragraph in
the Journal de Belgique met the pursuer's eye on his
first arrival in Ostend.
It stated with detail that a Flemish coachmaker had
delivered to the milor Anglais a coach of the value of
two thousand eight hundred francs; that on going for
payment, he found his lordship had absconded with the
carriage; that the defrauded sellier had petitioned the
Tribunal de Premiere Instance for proper representa-
tion to other districts, that the fugitive might be ap-
prehended and the stolen property seized. With this
clipping in his pocket the man who tracked Gordon fol-
lowed up the Ehine to the confines of Switzerland.
Here he lost a month, for the emblazoned wagon de
luxe had turned at Basle, and, skirting Neufchatel, had
taken its course to Lake Geneva.
Gordon had travelled wholly at random and paused
there only because the shimmering blue waters, the
black mountain ridges with their epaulets of cloud and,
in the distance, the cold, secular phantom of Mont
Blanc, brought to his jaded senses the first hint of relief.
In the Villa Diodati, high above the lake, the English
milord with the lame foot, the white face and sparkling
eyes, stayed his course, to the wonder of the country
folk who speculated endlessly upon the strange choice
which preferred the gloomy villa to the spires and slate
roofs of the gay city so near. And here, to his surprise,
Gordon found ensconced, in a cottage on the high bank,
Shelley and his young wife, with the black-eyed, Creole-
tinted girl whom the Drury Lane audience had hissed.
So had chance conspired to color circumstance for
the rage of tireless hatred that was following.
158 THE CASTAWAY
The blows that had succeeded the flight of Annabel
with his child had left Gordon stunned. The flaming
recoil of his feeling, in that fierce denunciation at Al-
mack's, had burned up in him the very capacity for
further suffering, and for a time the quiet of Diodati,
set in its grove above the water like a bird's nest among
leaves, was a healing anodyne.
From his balcony Mont Blanc and its snowy aiguilles
were screened, but the sun sank roseate behind the Jura,
and it lifted again over vineyarded hills which echoed
the songs of vine-dressers and the mellow bells of saun-
tering herds. Below, boats swept idly in the sun, or the
long lances of the rain marched and marshalled across
the level lake to the meeting and sundering of the
clouds.
There came a time too soon, when the dulled nerves
awoke, when the whole man cried out. In the sharpest
of these moods Gordon found respite at the adjacent
cottage, where Shelley, whose bright eyes seemed to
drink light from the pages of Plato or Calderon, read
aloud, or Jane Clermont, piquant and daring as of old,
sang for them some song of Tom Moore's. Or in the
long days the two men walked and sailed, under a sky
of garter-blue, feeling the lapping of the waves, living
between the two wondrous worlds of water and ether,
till for a time Gordon laid the troubled specters of his
thoughts in semi-forgetfulness.
One day they drove along the margin of the lake to
Chillon and spent a night beneath the frowning
chateau walls that had entombed Bonnivard. On the
afternoon of their return, sitting alone on the balcony
with the gloom of those dungeons still upon him, gazing
THE CASTAWAY 159
far across the lake, across the mountains, toward that
home from which he had been driven, Gordon, for the
first time since he had left England, found relief in
composition. He wrote of Chillon's prisoner, but the
agony in the lines was a personal one :
"I made a footing in the wall,
It was not therefrom to escape,
For I had buried one and all
Who loved me in a human shape;
No child no sire no kin had I,
No partner in my misery;
But I was curious to ascend
To my barred windows, and to bend
Once more, upon the mountains high,
The quiet of a loving eye."
He wrote in the dimming luster of a perfect day.
Below him rippled the long lake churning an inarticu-
late melody, and a tiny island with trees upon it rested
the eye. As he gazed, beyond the dazzling beryl foliage,
set in the sunset, a spot rivetted his look. A moment
before the white sail of a boat had glanced there ; now a
confused flat blur lay on the water.
Gordon thrust his commonplace-book into his pocket
and leaned forward, shading his eyes from the glow.
The blot resolved itself into a capsized hull and two
black figures struggling in the water, one with difficulty
supporting the other.
The next moment he was dashing down the bank,
hallooing for Fletcher, peeling off coat and waistcoat as
he went.
"There's a boat swamped," he shouted, as the valet
came through the garden. ''Where is the skiff ?"
160 THE CASTAWAY
"Miss Clermont has it, my lord."
Gordon plunged in, while Fletcher xan to summon
the Shelleys. They came hurrying along the vineyard
lane with frightened faces, Mary to watch from the high
bank, and Shelley, who could no more swim than
Fletcher, to stride up and down, his long hair streaming
in the wind. The excitement brought a picturesque
dozen of goitred vine-dressers from the hillside, who
looked on with exclamations.
All were gazing fixedly on the lake, or they might
have seen two men enter the grounds from the upper
road. Of these, one was a Swiss with a severe, thin face
and ascetic brow, the syndic of Cologny, the nearest
town a bigot functionary heartily disliked by the coun-
try people. The other was a Genevan attorney. From
the road they had not seen the catastrophe, and the
overturned boat, the struggling figures, and the swim-
mer forging to the rescue came to their view all at once.
Gordon was swimming as he had never done save once
when he had swum the Hellespont years before, and
in mid-channel a strange, great piebald fish had glided
near him. The lawyer saw him reach and grasp the
helpless man, and, supporting him, bring him to shore.
He sniffed with satisfaction.
"Only one man in the canton can swim like that," he
said, "and that's the one you came to see. No wonder
the peasants call him 'the English fish' !"
The young man whom Gordon had aided wore a
blonde curling beard, contrasting strongly with his older
companion's darker shaven cheeks and bushy black
Greek eyebrows. The unseen spectators on the terrace
saw him drink from his rescuer's pocket-flask saw him
THE CASTAWAY 161
rise and grasp the other's hand and knew that he was
thanking him. As they watched, a servant ran to the
coach-house, and the syndic observed :
"He's sending them into town by carriage. They're
going indoors now. We'll go down presently."
"Take my advice," urged the attorney above the ter-
race, "and let the Englishman alone. Haven't we court
business enough in Switzerland, that we must work for
Flanders ? What have we to do with the complaints of
Brussels coachmakers ? And how do you know it's true,
anyway ?"
The syndic's lips snapped together.
"I know my business," he bridled. "He is a wor-
shiper of Satan and a scoffer at religion."
"And you'd burn him with green wood if you could,
as Calvin did Servetus in the town yonder, eh ?"
"He has committed every crime in his own country,"
went on the other angrily. "He has formed a conspir-
acy to overthrow by rhyme all morals and government.
My brother wrote me from Copet that one of Madame
de Stael's guests fainted at seeing him ride past, as if
she had seen the devil. They say in Geneva that he has
corrupted every grisette on the rue Basse! Do you
think he is too good to be a thief? Murderer or ab-
sconder or heretic, it is all one to me. Cologny wants
none such on her skirts. Let us go down," he added,
rising ; "it will be dark soon."
The counsellor shrugged his shoulders and followed
the other over the sloping terrace.
CHAPTER XXII
THE FACE ON THE IVORY
When Gordon descended the stair he came upon a
striking group at the villa entrance. Shelley, with his
wife beside him, confronted the severe-faced syndic, who
stood stolidly with the comfortably plump avocat. A
look of indignation was on his brow, and Mary's face
was perturbed.
"Here he is," said the functionary in his neighbor-
hood patois, and with satisfaction.
"You have business with me ?" asked Gordon.
"I have. I require you to accompany me at once to
Cologny on a matter touching the peace of this canton."
"And this matter is what ?"
"You speak French," returned the syndic tartly;
"doubtless you read it as well," and handed him a clip-
ping from the Journal de Belgique.
Gordon scanned the fragment of paper, first with sur-
prise, then with a slow and bitter smile. He had not
seen the story, but it differed little from scores of cal-
umnies that had filled the columns of less credulous
newspapers in London before his departure. It was a
breath fresh from the old sulphur bed of hatred, brought
sharply to him here in his solitude.
(162)
THE CASTAWAY 163
"I see," he said; "this states that a certain English
milord had turned highwayman and deprived an honest
Fleming of a wagon ? How does it affect me ?"
"Do you deny that you have the wagon?" demanded
the syndic curtly.
"The wagon ? I have a wagon, yes. One bought for
me by my servant."
"In Brussels?"
"As it happens, in Brussels." The paleness of Gor-
don's face was accentuated now, and his eyes held cores
of dangerous flame. "And because I am an English
milord, and bring a wagon from Brussels, you assume
that I am a robber?"
"You were driven from your own country," menaced
the other. "Do you think we hear nothing, we Swiss?
This canton knows you well enough! Stop those
horses!" he snarled, for the great coach, ready for its
trip to the town, was rolling down the driveway. The
syndic sprang to the horses' heads.
At the same instant the two strangers who had been
in the overturned boat, now with clothing partially
dried, came from the house.
"There!" The syndic pointed to the ornate vehicle.
"Do you deny this is the wagon described in that news-
paper, and that you absconded with it from Brussels ?"
The older of the two strangers turned quick eyes on
Gordon, then on the wagon. Before Gordon could re-
ply, he spoke in nervous French :
"I beg pardon. I was the owner of that conveyance,,
and the one who sold it."
"Maybe," said the functionary, "but you did not sell it
to this person, I have reason to believe."
164 THE CASTAWAY
"No, yonder is the purchaser." He pointed to a pro-
saic figure at the steps.
"His valet !" Shelley thrust in explosively.
"I told you so," grunted the man of law, and stared
with the surprise of recognition, as the syndic, ruffling
with anger, turned on the strangers with sarcasm:
'"Friends of the English milord, no doubt!"
The counsellor laid a hasty hand on his sleeve :
"Stop!" he said. "I think I have had the honor of
meeting these gentlemen in Geneva. Allow me to pre-
sent you, monsieur, to Prince Mavrocordato, minister
of foreign affairs of Wallachia, and" he turned to the
latter's younger companion "his secretary, Count Pie-
tro Gamba, of Eavenna."
The sour-faced official drew back. These were names
whose owners had been public guests of the canton.
This Englishman, evil and outcast as he might be, he
had no legal hold upon. He could scarcely frame a
grudging apology, for the resentment of self-righteous-
ness that was on his tongue, and stalked off up the ter-
race in sullen chagrin not consoled by the chuckles of
the attorney beside him.
Gordon saw them go, his hands trembling. He re-
plied mechanically to the grateful farewells of the two
strangers as they entered the coach, and watched it roll
swiftly down the darkening shore road, a quivering blur
before his eyes. A fierce struggle was within him, the
peace which the tranquil poise of Shelley's creed had
lent him, warring against a clamant rage.
Not only in England was he maligned. Here, on the
edge of this mountain barrier, defamation had followed
him. The pair riding in his own carriage knew who
THE CASTAWAY 165
he was ; the older had spoken his name and title. And
they had not elected to stay beyond necessity. Yet for
their momentary presence, indeed, he should be grate-
ful. But for this trick of coincidence he should now
be haled before a bungling Genevan tribunal, his name
and person a mark for the sparring of pettifogging
Swiss officials !
These thoughts were clashing through his mind as
he turned and walked slowly down to the bank where
Shelley's Swiss servant had moored the stranger's res-
cued boat, bailed out and with sail stretched to dry. The
sunset, as he stood, flamed redly across the lake, its ray
glinting from the rim of a bright object whose broken
chain had caught beneath the boat's gunwale. He
leaned and drew it out.
It was an oval miniature backed with silver the por-
trait of a young girl, a face frail and delicately hued,
with fine line of chin and slender neck, with wistful
eyes the deep color of the Adriatic, hair a gush of
tawny gold, skin like warm Arum lilies, and a string
of pearls about her neck. Evidently it had belonged to
one of the two men with whom the craft had capsized.
It was too late now to overtake the coach; he would
send it after them that evening.
He turned the miniature over. On the back was en-
graved a name: "Teresa Gamba." Gamba? It had
been one of the names spoken by the attorney, that of
the young count for whose rescue he had swum so hard.
He looked again at the ivory. His wife? No, no;
innocence of life, ignorance of its passions and parades
were there. His sister ? Yes. The fair hair and blue
eyes were alike. And now he caught a subtle resem-
166 THE CASTAWAY
blance of feature. She was dear to this brother, no
doubt dear as was his own half-sister to him, well-nigh
the only being left in England who believed in him and
loved him.
He looked up at a hail from the lake. A boat was ap-
proaching, bearing a single feminine rower. As he
gazed, she looked over her shoulder to wave something
white at the porch.
"It is Jane. She has been to the post/' cried Shelley
from the terrace, and hastened down the bank.
Gordon thrust the ivory into his pocket as the skifE
darted in to the landing.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE DEVIL'S DEAL
As he took the two missives the girl handed him
Gordon caught his breath, for one he saw was directed
in Annabel's hand. For a moment a hope that over-
leaped all his suffering rose in his brain. Had those
months wrought a change in her ? Had she, too, thought
of their child? Had the cry he voiced on the packet
that bore him from England struck an answering chord
in her? He opened its cover. An inclosure dropped
out.
He picked it up blankly. It was the note he had
pencilled on the channel, returned unopened.
The sudden revulsion chilled him. He broke the seal
of the second letter and read read while a look of utter
sick whiteness crept across his face, a look of rage and
suffering that marked every feature.
It was from his sister, a letter written with fingers
that soiled and creased it in their agony, blotted and
stained with tears. For the thing it told of was a
dreadful thing, a whispered charge against him so
damning, so satanic in its cruelty, that though lip
might murmur it to a gloating ear, yet pen refused to
word it. The whole world turned black before him, and
(167)
168 THE CASTAWAY
the dusk seemed shot through with barbed and flaming
javelins of agony.
He crushed the letter in his hand, and, with a gesture
like a madman's, thrust it into Shelley's, turning to him
a countenance distorted with passion, gauche, malig-
nant, repulsive.
"Bead it, Shelley," he said in a strangled voice.
<r Read it and know London, the most ineffable centaur
ever begotten of hypocrisy and a nightmare ! Eead what
its wretched lepers are saying! There is a place in
Michael Angelo's Tjast Judgment' in the Sistine Chapel
that was made for their kind, and may the like await
them in that of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ
Amen !"
With this fearful imprecation he flung away from
their startled faces along the winding vineyarded lane,
on into the dusk, lost to a sense of direction, to every-
thing save the blackness in his own soul.
The night fell, odorous with grape-scents, and the
moon stained the terraces to amber. It shone on Gor-
don as he sat by the little wharf where the skiff rocked
in the ripples, his eyes viewless, looking straight before
him across the lake.
For him there was no sanctuary in time or in dis-
tance. The passage he had read at Newstead Abbey in
his mother's open Bible, beside her body, flashed through
his mind : And among these nations shalt thou find no
ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest. . . .
In the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were even!
and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning!
He had found should find no ease nor rest ! The
captive of Chillon had been bound only with fetters of
THE CASTAWAY 169
iron to stone pillars. He was chained with fiery links
of hate to the freezing walls of the world's contumely!
Footsteps went by along the shadowy lane. Shelley's
voice spoke: "He will come back soon, and we must
comfort him if we can."
The words came distinctly as the footsteps died away.
Something clutched tangibly at Gordon's soul. In
that instant his gaze, lifted, rested on a white square in
the moonlight. It was a familiar enough object, but
now it appeared odd and outre. He rose and approached
it. It had been a sign-post bearing an arrow and the
words "Villa Diodati." Now malice had painted out
the name and replaced it with new and staring char-
acters.
"ATHEIST AND FOOL." It glared level at him with
a baleful malevolence that chilled the moment's warmer
softening into ice. Atheist ! Without God. What
need, then, had he for man? Let the moralists have it
so, since they stickled so lustily for endless brimstone.
Fool ? He would be so, then ! His brain should lie fal-
low and untilled he would write no more !
With a quick gesture he drew from his pocket his
commonplace-book. He laid it against the disfigured
sign-board, pencilled a few words on its cover and,
turning, hurled it far from him into the shrubbery.
A twig snapped. He looked around. Jane Clermont
stood near him, her eyes smiling into his, fringed with
intoxication and daring.
"I know," she said; "they are hounding you still.
They hated me, too!" She came quite close to him.
"What need we care ? What are they all to us ?"
It was the Jane of the Drury Lane greenroom he saw
170 THE CASTAWAY
now the Jane whose brilliance and wit had held him
then; but there was something deeper in her look that
he had never seen before: a recklessness, an invitation
and an assent.
"Jane !" he exclaimed.
She touched his hand. "Why should we stay here?
Let us go away from them all where they cannot fol-
low us to sting !"
Gordon stared at her, his eyes holding hers. To go
away with her ? To slip the leash of all that was pa-
gan in him ? What matter ? He was damned anyway
a social Pariah ; why strive to undeserve the reputation ?
His thought was swirling through savage undercurrents
of vindictive wrath, circling, circling like a Maelstrom,
about this one dead center: Civilization had cast him
off. Henceforth his life was his own, to live to himself,
for his own ends, as the savage, as the beast of the field.
To live and to die, knowing that no greater agony than
was meted to him now could await him, even in that
nethermost reach where the lost are driven at the end.
"We must comfort him if we can!" The words Shel-
ley had spoken seemed to vibrate in the stillness like the
caught key of an organ. He turned to where Villa
Diodati above them slept in the long arms of the night
shadows, listening to the contending voices within him.
Comfort? The placid comfort of philosophy for him
whose flesh was fever and his blood quicksilver? In
this girl life and action beckoned to him life full and
abundant forgetfulness, wandering, and pleasure, fleet-
ing surely, but still his while it should last ! And yet
The girl's hand was on the skiff. On a sudden a cry
of fear burst from her lips and she shrank back as a
THE CASTAWAY 171
disordered figure broke from the darkness and clutched
Gordon's arm fiercely.
"Where are you taking her now ?"
Gordon's thought veered. In his numbness of feeling
there scarce seemed strangeness in the apparition. As
he looked at the oriental, mustachioed face, haggard and
haunted, his lips rather than his mind replied :
"Who knows?"
"You lie ! You ruined her career and stole her away
from London and from me ! Now you want to take her
from these last friends of hers for yourself ! But you
can not go where I will not find you ! And where you
go the world shall know you and despise you !"
Jane's eyes flashed upon the speaker. "You!" she
cried in contemptuous anger. "You hated him even in
London; now you have followed him here. It is you
who have set the peasants to spy upon us ! It is you who
have spread tales through Geneva ! You whose lies sent
the syndic to-day !"
Gordon had been staring at the Moorish, theatric
face with a gaze of singular inquiry, his brain search-
ing, searching for a lost clue. All at once the haze light-
ened. His thought leaped across a chasm of time. He
saw a reckless youth, a deserter from the navy, whom
he had befriended in Greece a youth who had vanished
suddenly from Missolonghi during the feast of Eama-
zan. He saw a shambling, cactus-bordered road to the
seashore a file of Turkish soldiers, the foremost in a
purple coat, and carrying a long wand a beast of bur-
den bearing a brown sack
"Trevanion !" he said. "Trevanion by the Lord !"
He burst into a laugh, reechoing, sardonic, a laugh
172 THE CASTAWAY
now of absolute, remorseless unconcern, of crude reck-
lessness flaunting at last supreme over crumbled resolve
the laugh of a zealot flagellant beneath the lash, a
derisive Villon on the scaffold.
"So I stole her from you! You, even you, dare to
accuse me. Out of my sight!" he said, and flung him
roughly from the path.
Gordon held out his hand to Jane Clermont, lifted
her into the skiff, and springing in, sent the slim cockle-
shell shooting out into the still expanse like an arrow
on the air.
Then he took up the oars and turned its prow down
the lake to where the streaming lights of the careless
city wavered through the mists, pale green under the
moonbeams.
The journal which Gordon had hurled from him lay
in the vine-rows next morning when Shelley, with a face
of trouble and foreboding, passed along the dewy lane.
He read the words written on its cover :
"And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to
dusty death. I will keep no record of that same hester-
nal torch-light; and to prevent me from returning, like
a dog, to the vomit of memory, I throw away this vol-
ume, and write in Ipecacuanha: Hang up justice ! Let
morality go beg ! To be sure, I have long despised my-
self and man, but I never spat in the face of my species
.before <0 fool ! I shall go mad !' "
CHAPTEE XXIV
THE MARK OP THE BEAST
"Your coffee, my lord?"
It was Fletcher's usual inquiry, repeated night and
morning the same words that on the Ostend packet
had told his master that his wanderings were shared.
After these many months in Venice, where George Gor-
don had shut upon his retreat the floodgates of the world,
the old servant's tone had the same wistful cadence of
solicitude.
Time for Gordon had passed like wreckage running
with the tide. The few fevered weeks of wandering
through Switzerland with Jane Clermont he scarcely
knew where or how they had ended had left in his
mind only a series of phantom impressions: woods of
withered pine, Alpine glaciers shining like truth, Wen-
gen torrents like tails of white horses and distant thun-
der of avalanches, as if God were pelting the devil down
from Heaven with snowballs. And neither the piping of
the shepherd, nor the rumble of the storm ; not the tor-
rent, the mountain, the glacier, the forest or the cloud,
had lightened the darkness of his heart or enabled him
to lose his wretched identity in the Power and the Glory
above and beneath him.
(173)
174 THE CASTAWAY
In that night at Geneva the tidal wave of execration
which had rolled over his emerging manhood had left
as it ebbed only a bare reef across which blew cool, in-
furiate winds of avid recklessness; and through these
insensate blasts he moved in a kind of waking somnam-
bulism, in which his acts seemed to him those of another
individual, and he, the real actor, poised aloft, watching
with a sardonic speculation.
At Rome his numbed senses awakened, and he found
himself alone, and around him his human kind which he
hated, spying tourists and scribblers, who sharpened
their scavenger pencils to record his vagaries. He fled
from them to Venice, where, thanks to report, Fletcher
had found his master.
But it was a changed Gordon who had ensconced him-
self here, a Gordon to whom social convention had be-
come a sneer, and the praise or blame of his fellows idle
chaff cast in the wind. He ate and drank and slept
not as other men, but as a gormand and debauche.
Such letters as he wrote to his sister, to Tom Moore,
to Hobhouse were flippant mockeries. Rarely was he
seen at opera, at ridoiio, at conversazione. When he
went abroad it was most often by night, as though he
shunned the daylight. More than one cabaret in the
shadow of the Palace of the Doges knew the white
satiric face that stared out from its terrace over the
waterways, where covered gondolas crept like black
spiders, till the clock of St. Mark's struck the third
hour of the morning. And more than one black and
red-sashed boatman whispered tales of the Palazzo
Mocenigo on the Grand Canal and the "Giovannotto
Inglese who spent great sums."
THE CASTAWAY 175
The gondolieri turned their heads to gaze as they
sculled past the carved gateway. Did not the priests call
him "the wicked milord" ? And did not all Venice know
of Marianna, the linen-draper's wife of the street
Spezieria, and of Margarita Cogni, the black-eyed
Fornarina, who came and went as she pleased in
the milord's household? They themselves had gained
many a coin by telling these tales to the tourists from
the milord's own country, who came to watch from
across the canal with opera-glasses, as if he were a rav-
enous beast or a raree-show; who lay in wait at night-
fall to see his gondola pass to the wide outlying lagoon,
haunted the sand-spit of the Lida where he rode horse-
back, and offered bribes to his servants to see the bed
wherein he slept. They took the tourists' soldi shame-
facedly, however, for they knew other tales, too: how
he had furnished money to send Beppo, the son of the
fruit peddler, to the art school at Naples; how he had
given fifty louis d'or to rebuild the burned shop of the
printer of San Samuele.
"Your coffee, my lord?" Fletcher repeated the in-
quiry, for his master had not heard.
"No ; bring some cognac, Fletcher."
The valet obeyed, though with covert concern. He
had seen the inroads that year had made ; they showed in
the lines on the pallid face, in the brown hair now just
flecked with gray, in the increasing fire in the deep
eyes. The brandy sat habitually at his master's elbow
in these days.
It was two hours past midnight, for to Gordon day
and night were one, and sleep only a neutral inertness,
worse with its dreams than the garish day he dreaded.
176 THE CASTAWAY
On the hearth a fire blazed, whose flame bred crimson
marionettes that danced over the noble carved ceiling
panels, the tall Venetian mirrors supported by gilt lions,
the faded furnishings and the mildew-marked canvases
whose portraits looked stonily from the walls.
A gust of voices and the sound of virginals, flung up
from the canal, came faintly through the closed case-
ment. He moved his shoulders wearily. Yesterday had
been Christmas Day. To-night was the eve of St.
Stephen, the opening of the carnival season, with every
corner osteria a symphony of fiddles, when Venice went
mad in all her seventy islands. What were holidays,
what was Christmas to him ?
Even in the warm blaze Gordon shivered. Ghosts
had troubled him this day. Ghosts that stalked through
the confused mist and rose before him in the throngs
that passed and repassed before his mind's eye. Ghosts
whose diverse countenances resolved themselves, like
phantasmagoria, into a single one the pained eager
face of Shelley. The recurring sensation had brought
a sick sense of awakening, as of something buried that
stirred in its submerged chrysalis, protesting against the
silt settling upon it.
But brandy had lost its power to lay those ghosts.
He went to the desk which held the black phial, the tiny
glass comforter to which he resorted more and more
often. Once with its surcease it had brought a splendor
and plenitude of power ; of late its relief had been lent at
the price of distorted visions. As he drew out the thin-
walled drawer, its worm-eaten bottom collapsed and its
jumble of contents poured down on the mahogany.
He paused, his hand outstretched. Atop of the
THE CASTAWAY 177
melange lay a silver-set miniature. He picked it up,
holding it nearer the light. A girl's face, hued like a hy-
acinth, looked out of his palm, painted on ivory. A
string of pearls was about her neck.
For an instant he regarded the miniature fixedly, his
recollection travelling far. The pearls aided. It was the
one he had found in the capsized boat at Villa Diodati !
He had purposed sending it after the two strangers. The
events of that wild night had effaced the incident from
his mind, as a wet sponge wipes off a slate. Fletcher,
finding the oval long ago in a pocket lining, had put it
in the desk drawer for safe-keeping, where until this
moment it had not met his master's eye.
"Teresa." Gordon suddenly remembered the name
perfectly. With the memory mixed a sardonic reflection :
the man who had lost the miniature that day in Switzer-
land had hastened away with clothing scarce dried.
Well, if that brother had deemed himself too good to
linger with the outcast, the balance had been squared.
The sister, perforce, had made a longer stay !
He put down the miniature, found the phial of lauda-
num and uncorked it, but the face drew him back. It
was not the external similitude now, but something
beneath, unobserved the day he had found it the pure
sensibility, shining unsullied through the transparent
media. A delicate convent slip, she seemed, not yet
transplanted to the unsifted soil of the world! A
strange portrait for him to gaze upon here in this
palace of ribaldry him, the moral Caliban, the dweller
in Golgotha on whose forehead was written the hie
jacet of a dead soul !
The antithesis of the picture, bold, Medea-like, tall
178 THE CASTAWAY
as a Pythoness, with hair of night, black flashing eyes
and passion blent with ferocity, projected itself, like a
materialization in a seance, from the air. He turned his
head with a sensation of bodily presence, though he
knew the one of whom he thought was then in Naples.
If she should enter and find him with that ivory in his
hand, what a rare sirocco would be let loose !
He tried to smile, but the old arrant raillery would
not come. The miniature blotted out the figure of the
Fornarina. Against his will, it suggested all the pure
things that he had ever known his youthful romance,
his dreams, Ada, his child !
Holding it, he walked to a folded mirror in a corner
of the wall and opened its panels. There had been a
time when he had said no appetite should ever rule him ;
the face he saw reflected now wore the lines of incorrigi-
ble self-indulgence, animalism, the sinister badge of the
bacchanal.
"Is that you, George Gordon ?" he asked.
The ghosts drew nearer. They peered over his shoul-
ders. He felt their fingers grasping at him. He cursed
them. By what right did they follow him? By what
damnable chance, ruled by what infernal jugglery, came
this painted semblance to open old tombs? Something
had awakened in him it was the side that recollected,
remorseless and impenitent but no longer benumbed,
writhing with smarting vitality. Awake, it recoiled
abashed from the voiceless vade retro of that symbol.
What part had he in that purity whose visible emblem
mocked and derided him? What comradeship did life
hold for him save the hideous Gorgon of memory, the
; IS THAT YOU, GEORGE GORDON?" HE ASKED. /. Z?8.
THE CASTAWAY 179
Cerberus of ill fame, spirits of the dark, garish fellows
of the half-world "they whose steps go down to hell !"
A fury, demoniac, terrible, fell on him. He seized
the miniature, dashed it on the floor, stamped it with
his heel and crushed and ground it into indistinguisha-
ble fragments.
Then he sprang up, and with an oath whose note was
echoed by the tame raven croaking on the landing,
rushed down the stairway and threw himself into his
gondola.
The moon rose red as a house afire. Before it paled,
he had passed the lagoon. In the dim light that pre-
saged the sodden dawn he leaped ashore on the main-
land, pierced the damp laurel thickets that skirted the
river Brenta and plunged into the forest.
CHAPTEE XXV
TERESA MEETS A STRANGER
Through the twittering dawn, with its multitudinous
damp scents, its stubble-fields of maize glimpsed through
the stripped ilex trees, whose twigs scrawled black hiero-
glyphics on the hueless sky, Gordon strode sharply, heed-
less of direction.
The convulsion of rage with which he had destroyed
the miniature had finished the work the latter's advent
had begun. The nerve, stirring from its opiate sleep to
a consciousness of dull pain, had jarred itself to agony.
His mind was awake, but the wind had swept saltly
through the coverts of his passion, and their denizens
crouched shivering.
The sight of a dove-tinted villa guarded by cypress
spears a gray gathering of cupolas told him he had
walked about two miles. This was La Mira, one of
the estates of the Contessa Albrizzi, a great name in
Venice. He turned aside into the deserted olive grove
above the river. A slim walk meandered here, thick
with dead leaves, with a cleared slope stretching down
to where the deep-dyed Brenta twisted like a drenched
ribbon on its way to the salt marshes. Fronting this
breach, Gordon came abruptly upon a wooden shrine,
with a weather-fretted prayer bench.
(180)
THE CASTAWAY 181
He stopped, regarding it half -absently, his surcharged
thought rearranging disused images out of some dusty
speculative storehouse. A more magnificent shrine rose
on every campo of Venice. They stood for a priestly
hierarchy, an elaborate clericalism the mullioned wor-
ship that to his life seemed only the variform expression
of the futile earth-want, the satiric hallucination of
finite and mortal brain that grasped at immortality and
the infinite. This, set in the isolation of the place,
seemed a symbol of more primitive faith and prayer, of
religion rough-hewn, shorn of its formal accessories.
He went a step nearer, seeing a small book lying be-
side the prayer bench. He picked it up. It was a re-
print in English of his own "Prisoner of Chillon," from
a local press in Padua.
A sense of incongruity smote him. It was the poem
he had composed in Geneva. He readily surmised that
it was through Shelley the verses had reached his pub-
lisher in England, to meet his eye a year afterward,
in a foreign dress, in an Italian forest.
He turned the pages curiously, conning the scarce re-
membered stanzas. Could he himself have created
them? The instant wonder passed, blotted out by lines
he saw penned in Italian on the fly-leaf lines that
he read with a tightening at his heart and an electric-
like rush of strange sensations such as he had never felt.
For what was written there, in the delicate tracery of
a feminine hand, and in phrases simple and pure as
only the secret heart of a girl could have framed them,
was a prayer :
"Oh, my God! Graciously hear me. I take encourage-
182 THE CASTAWAY
ment from the assurance of Thy word to pray to Thee
in behalf of the author of this book which has so pleased
me. Thou desirest not the death of a sinner save,
therefore, him whom Venice calls 'the wicked milord'
Thou who by sin art offended and by penance satisfied,
give to him the desire to return to the good and to glo-
rify the talents Thou hast so richly bestowed upon him.
And grant that the punishment his evil behavior has
already brought him be more than sufficient to cover
his guilt from Thine eyes.
"Oh blessed Virgin, Queen of the most holy Rosary!
Intercede and obtain for me of thy Son our Lord this
grace! Amen."
A step fell behind him. He turned half-dazed, his
mind full of conflict. A girl stood near him, delicate
and alert and wand-like as a golden willow, her curling
amber hair loosely caught, her sea-blue eyes wide and a
little startled. She wore a Venetian hood, out of whose
green sheath her face looked, like lilies under leaves.
Gordon's mind came back to the present of time and
space across an illimitable distance.
He stared, half believing himself in some automatic
hallucination. There had been no time to speculate
upon what manner of hand had written those words,
what manner of woman's soul had so weirdly touched
his own out of the void. Knowledge came staggeringly.
Hers was the face of the miniature that his heel had
crushed to powder.
He rioted that her eyes had fallen to the book in his
hand, as mechanically he asked, in Italian :
"This book is yours, Signorina ?"
THE CASTAWAY 183
"Yes." There was a faint flush of color in her cheek,
for she saw the volume was open at the written page.
Gordon was looking at her palely, seeing her face set
in a silver oval. Eyes, hair and lips; there in lifeless
pigments, here in flesh and blood ! The same yet more,
for here were unnunned youth, slumbrous, glorious
womanhood unawaked, stirring rosily in every vein, giv-
ing a passionate human tint to the spiritual impression.
And underneath all, the same unsullied something he
had raged at that black night, even while her prayer for
him lay here dumb at the feet of Our Lady of Sorrows !
His voice sounded unreal to his own ears as he spoke,,
his mind feeling its way through tumbled predisposi-
tions to an unfamiliar goal. "If apology be owed," he
said, "for reading what was intended for purer eyes
than this world's, I most humbly offer it, SignorinaT
I did so quite inadvertently."
He held out the book as he spoke, and her fingers
closed over it, the gesture betraying confusion. Who was
this stranger, with face of such wan luster and gray-
blue eyes so sadly brilliant? Some sense in her dis-
cerned a deeper, unguessed suffering that made her
heart throb painfully.
"If there be an ear which is open to human appeal,"
he added gently, "that prayer was registered, I know !"
He spoke calmly enough, but a hundred thoughts
were ricochetting through his mind. Pulpits had ful-
minated against him, priest and laic had thundered him
down, but when in London, in Geneva, in Venice had
a single disinterested voice been lifted in a prayer for
him before ? And this girl had never seen him.
"If there be!" Her thought stirred protestingly.
184 THE CASTAWAY
"Ah, Signore, surely there is Someone who hears ! How
could one live and pray otherwise ?"
How indeed? To such a one as she, to pray and to
live were one and the same thing. Prayer to her was
not a mental process it was as instinctive and uncon-
scious as breathing. For such as she, shrines like this
were erected; not for him! So, across the riot in his
breast, Gordon's waked habit paused to smile a satire-
smile, at itself, at the new sweet flower that was lifting
head there amidst desert ruins.
The girl caught the mixed feeling in his face. He
was not Italian his accent had told her that. He was
an Englishman, too, perhaps. "Do you know him, Sig-
nore?"
His head turned quickly toward her. In truth, had
he ever really known himself? "Yes," he answered
after a pause. "I know him, Signorina far better than
most of the world."
She was gazing with varied feelings, her heart beating
strangely, curiosity and wonder merging. In her few
short weeks at La Mira, fresh from the convent, the
Englishman of whom all Venice told tales had been but
a dim and unsubstantial figure. She had thought of
the grim Palazzo Mocenigo with a kind of awe, as a
child regards a mysterious cavern bat-haunted and
shunned. Into her poetic world of dreams had fallen
the little book, and thereafter the shadowy figure that
roamed nightly Venice had taken on the brilliant and
piteous outline of a fallen angel. Here, wonderfully,
was a man who knew him, whose speech could visualize
the figure that had grown to possess such fascination.
{Questions were on h er tongue, but she could not frame
THE CASTAWAY 185
them. She hesitated, opening and closing the book in
her hands.
"Is he all they say of him?"
"Who knows, Signorina?"
It was an involuntary exclamation that sounded like
acquiescence. The girl's face fell. In her thought, the
man of her dreaming, lacking an open advocate, had
gained the secret one of sympathy. Was it all true
then? Her voice faltered a little.
"I have not believed, Signore, that with a heart all
evil one could write so !"
Into the raw blend of tangent emotions which were
enwrapping Gordon, had entered, as she spoke, another
well-defined. Never in his life, for his own sake, had he
cared whether one or many believed truth or lie of him.
But now there thrilled in him, new-born, a desire that
this slight girl should not judge him as did the world.
The feeling lent his words a curious energy :
"Many tales are told, Signorina, that are true some
that are false. If he were here and I speak from cer-
tain knowledge of him he would not wish me to ex-
tenuate ; least of all to you who have written what is on
that leaf. Perhaps that has been one of his faults, that
he has never justified himself. By common report he
has committed all crimes, Signorina. He has thought
it useless to deny, since slander is not guilt, nor is de-
nial innocence, and since neither good nor bad report
could lighten or add to his wretchedness/'
The tint of her clear eyes deepened. "I knew he was
wretched, Signore! It was for that reason I left the
prayer here overnight before Our Lady of Sorrows be-
cause I have heard he is an outcast from his own coun-
186 THE CASTAWAY
try and his own people. And then, because of this."
She touched the volume. "Ah, I have read little of all
he has written this is the only poem for I read his
English tongue so poorly; but in this his heart speaks,
Signore. It speaks of pain and suffering and bondage.
It was not only the long-ago prisoner he sang of ; it was
himself ! himself ! I felt it here, like a hurt."
She had spoken rapidly, stumblingly, and ended with
a hand pressed on her heart. Her own feeling, as she
suddenly became aware of her vehemence, startled her,
and she half turned away, her lips trembling.
A sentiment at variance with his whole character was
fighting in Gordon. The Babel he had builded of curses
was being smitten into confusion. Something granite-
like, mural and sealed by time, was breaking and melt-
ing unaccountably away. His face was turned from
hers toward the slope below, where the river bubbled
and sparkled. When he spoke it was in words choked
and impeded :
"I think if he were here this wicked milord he
would bless you for that, Signorina. He has suffered,
no doubt. Perhaps if there had been more who felt
what he wrote as you have felt, if there had been
more to impute good of him rather than evil I am
quite sure if this could have been, Signorina, he would
not now be in Venice the man for whom you have writ-
ten that prayer. I know him well enough to say this. It
is through his wretchedness that I have come to know
him because, like him, I am a wanderer/'
A softer light suffused her cheek. The words smote
her strangely. His pain-engraved face brought a mist
to her eyes. She was a child of the sun, with blood
THE CASTAWAY 187
leaping to quick response, and a heart a well of undis-
covered impulses. The wicked milord's form lost dis-
tinction and faded. Here was a being mysterious,
wretched, too, and alone not intangible as was he of
the Palazzo Mocenigo, but beside her, speaking with a
voice which thrilled every nerve of her sensitive nature.
Unconsciously she drew closer to him.
At that moment a call came under the bare boughs :
"Teresa! Teresa!"
She drew back. "It is la Contessa" she said; "I
must hasten," and started quickly through the trees.
His voice overtook her. "Signorina!" The word
vibrated. "Will you give me the prayer?" He had
come toward her as she stopped. "There is a charm in
such things, perhaps."
The voice called again, and more impatiently: "Te-
resa !"
She opened the book and tore out the leaf with un-
certain fingers. As he took it his hand met hers. He
bent his head and touched it with his lips. She flushed
deeply, then turned and ran through the naked trees
toward the villa shielded in its cypress rows.
The girl ran breathlessly to the terrace, where a lady
leaned from a window with a gently chiding tongue :
"Do they teach you to do wholly without sleep in con-
vents?" she cried. "Do you not know your father and
Count Guiccioli, your lord and master to be, are to ar-
rive to-day from Ravenna? You will be wilted before
the evening."
The girl entered the house.
Under the olive wood a man, strangely moved, a rus-
tling paper still in his hand, walked back with quick
188 THE CASTAWAY
strides to his gondola, striving to exorcise a chuckling
fiend within him, who, with mocking and malignant
emphasis, kept repeating:
"Oh blessed Virgin, Queen of the most holy Rosary !
Intercede and obtain for me, of Thy Son our Lord, this
grace 1"
CHAPTER XXVI
A WOMAN OF FIRE AND DREAMS
From the moment those lips touched her hand in
that meeting at the wood shrine Teresa Gamba felt her
life unfold to rose-veined visions.
Her unmothered childhood and the placid convent
school years at Bagnacavallo, near Ravenna, had known
no mystery other than her day-dreams had fashioned.
She had dreamed much: of the time when she should
marry and redeem the fortunes of her house, which,
despite untainted blood and ancient provincial name,
was impoverished; of the freedom of Italy, the sole
topic, aside from his endless chemical experiments, of,
which her father, now growing feeble, never tired; of
her elder brother, away in Wallachia, secretary to the
Greek Prince Mavrocordato ; of the few books she read,
and the fewer people she met. But these dreams had
not possessed the charm of novelty. Even when, at
eighteen, through family friendship, she became a
member of the Albrizzi household and exchanged the
dull convent walls for the garlanded La Mira even
with those rare days when she saw the gay splendor of
Venice from a curtained gondola even then her mental
life suffered small change.
(189)
190 THE CASTAWAY
The marriage arranged for her with Count Guiccioli,
the oldest and richest nobleman of Kavenna, a miser
and twice a widower, had aroused an interest in her
mind scarce greater than had the tales of the English-
man of the Palazzo Mocenigo. Such marriages were of
common occurrence in the life she knew: the "wicked
milord" was a stranger thing one to speculate more
endlessly upon.
It was Tita, the gigantic black-bearded gondolier and
door-porter, a servant in the Gamba family since she
was born, whom she had brought with her as her own
attendant one who worshiped her devoutly, and in
whose care her father intrusted her more confidently
than to any duenna who had first pointed out to her
the gloomy building which shielded that mysterious oe~
cupant, and had piqued her interest with weird tales:
how in his loneliness for human kind the outcast sur-
rounded himself with tamed ravens and paroquets, and
used for a wine cup a human skull, that of a woman he
had once loved. With her rapt eyes on the palazzo
front, Teresa had wondered and shuddered in never
ending surmise.
The little volume from the Paduan press had deep-
ened her curiosity and given it virgin fields in which to
wander. The English books in her father's library were
prose and for the most part concerned his pet hobby,
chemistry. This volume, given her on a saint's day by
the Contessa Albrizzi, who took pride in her protegee's
scholarship, was her first glimpse of English poetry, and
her pulses had leaped at the new charm. Thereafter the
personality of the contradictory being who had written
it had lived in her daily thought. She retained the
THE CASTAWAY 191
faiths of her childhood unshattered, and the prayer she
had left at the shrine of Our Lady of Sorrows sprang
from an impulse as natural as it was significant.
But that meeting in the wood had turned the course
of her imaginings. "A wanderer like him"; the
words had bridged the chasm between the dreaming and
the real. The secret thought given to the "wicked mi-
lord" found itself absorbed by a nearer object. The
palazzo on the Grand Canal grew more remote, and the
stranger she had seen stepped at a single stride into a
place her mind had already prepared.
The blush with which she had taken the book from
Gordon's hand was one of mere self -consciousness ; the
vivid, burning color which overspread her face as she
ran back through the trees was something very differ-
ent. It was a part of her throbbing heart, of the trem-
ulous confusion that overran her whole body, called into
life by the touch of those palely carved lips upon her
fingers. His colorless face a face with the outline of
the Apollo Belvedere the gray magnetic eyes, the
words he had said and their accent of sadness, all were
full of suggestive mystery. Why was he a wanderer
like that other ? Not for a kindred reason, surely ! He
could not be evil also! Bather it must have been be-
cause of some loss, some hurt of love which time might
remedy.
Her agile fancy constructed more than one hypothe-
sis, spun more than one romance, all of like ending.
A new love would heal his heart. Some time he would
look into a woman's eyes not as he had looked into
hers ; some one would feel his lips not as he had kissed
her hand. She in the meantime would be no longer a
192 THE CASTAWAY
girl ; she would be the Contessa Guiccioli, with a palazzo
of her own in Ravenna, and a husband.
But, somehow, this reflection brought no satisfaction.
The old count she had seen more than once driving by
in state when she played as a child in the convent
woods; and that he with his riches should desire her,
had given her father great pride, which was reflected in
her. Her suitor had brought his age and ailments to
La Mira on the very day she had met the stranger at
the shrine the day her heart had beat so oddly and
with his arrival, her marriage had projected itself out
of the hazy future and become a dire thing of the pres-
ent. She felt a fresh distaste of his sharp yellow eyes,
his cracked laugh. His eighty wiry years seemed as
many centuries. She became moody, put her father off
and took refuge in whims. The contessa advised the
city, and the week's end saw the Albrizzi palazzo thrown
open.
In Venice, Teresa's spirits rose. She loved to watch
the bright little shops opening like morning-glories, the
sky-faring pigeons a silver quiver of wings; to lie in
the gondola waiting while her father drank his brandy
at the piazzetta caffe; to buy figs from little lame Pas-
quale, who watched for her at a shop-door in a narrow
calle near at hand ; to see the gaudy flotillas of the car-
nival, and the wedding processions, fresh from the
church, crossing the lagoon to leave their gifts at the
various island-convents; or, propelled by Tita's swing-
ing oar, to glide slowly in the purpling sunset shadows,
by the Piazza San Marco, around red-towered San
Giorgio, and so home again on color-soaked canals in the
gleaming ruby of the afterglow, through a city bub-
THE CASTAWAY 193
bling with ivory domes and glistening like an opal's
heart under its tiara of towers.
She scarcely told the secret to her own heart that it
was one face she looked to see, one mysterious stranger
whose image haunted every campo, every balcony and ev-
ery bridge. She flushed whenever she thought of that
kiss on 'her fingers ; in the daytime she felt it there like
a sentient thing; at night when she woke, her hand
burned her cheek.
Who was he ? Why had he asked her for the prayer ?
What had he done with it? Was he still in Venice?
Should she see him again? She wondered, as, parting
the gondola tenda, she watched her father cross the
pave for his cognac.
"Are there many English in Venice, Tita?"
The gondolier, lounging like a brilliant-hued lizard,
shrugged his shoulders. "Bellissima, there are hun-
dreds in the season. They come and go. They are all
lasagnoni, these Englishmen !"
Teresa's sigh checked itself. Tita suddenly turned
his head. Across the piazzetta a crowd was gathering.
It centered before the shop at whose front the five-year-
old fig-seller was used to watch for her.
"He fell from the scaffolding !" said a voice.
"If it should be little Pasquale!" cried Teresa, and
springing out, ran quickly forward. Tita waited to
secure the gondola before he followed her.
A sad accident had happened. Before the calle a
platform had been erected from which spectators might
watch the flotillas of the carnival. Little Pasquale's de-
light was a tame sparrow, whose home was a wicker
cage, and climbing to sun his pet when he had been left
194 THE CASTAWAY
to tend the empty shop, the child had slipped and fallen
to the pavement.
Teresa broke through the circle of bystanders and
knelt by the tumbled little body, looking at the tiny
face now so waxen. The neighbors thronged about,
stupefied and hindering. A woman ran to fetch the
mother, gossiping with a neighbor. Another called loud-
ly for a priest.
The girl, looking up, was bewildered by the tumult.
"He must be got in," she murmured, half helplessly, for
the people ringed them round.
A voice answered close beside her : "I will carry him,
Signorina" and a form she kneV bent beside her, and
very gently lifted the small bundle in his arms.
Teresa's heart bounded. Through these days she had
longed to hear that voice again how vainly! Now, in
this moment, she was brought suddenly close to him.
She ceased to hear the sounds about her saw only him.
She sprang up and led the way through the press, down
the close damp calle and to the shop where the child
lived.
"Dog of the Virgin! He need touch no finger to
child of mine!" swore a carpenter from the adjoining
campo.
"Nor mine !"
"Why didn't you carry him in yourself, then?"
growled Giuseppe, the fruit-vender. "Standing there
like a bronze pig ! What have you against the English-
man ? Didn't he buy your brother-in-law a new gondola
when the piling smashed it ?"
"Scellerato!" sneered the carpenter. "Why is his
THE CASTAWAY , 195
face so white? Like a potato sprout in a cellar! He
is so evil he fears the sun !"
The fruit-vender turned away disdainfully. His foot
kicked a shapeless wicker object it was little Pasquale's
cage smashed flat. The sparrow inside was gasping. He
picked up the cage and carried it to the shop.
In the inner, ill-lighted room, Gordon laid the child
on a couch. He had spoken no further word to Teresa.
At the first sight of her, kneeling in the street, he had
started visibly as he had done in the forest of La Mira
when he recognized her face as that of the miniature.
Now he was feeling her presence beside him with a
curious thrill not unlike her own a pleasure deeply
mixed with pain that was almost a physical pang.
Since that dawn walk above the plane-treed Brenta he
had been treading strange ways. In the hours that fol-
lowed, remorse had been born in him. And as the first
indrawn breath racks the half-drowned body with agony
greater than that of the death it has already tasted, so
the man had suffered. During a fortnight, words writ-
ten on a sheet of paper that he carried in his pocket had
rung through his brain. Day after day, as he sat in his
gloomy palazzo, he had heard them; night after night
they had floated with him as his gondola bore him
through the waterways ringing with the estro of the car-
nival. To escape them he had fled again and again to
the black phial, but when he awoke the pain was still
with him, instinct and unrenounceable. It was more
acute at this moment than it had ever been.
Teresa scarcely noted the fruit-vender as he put the
battered cage into her hand just before its feathered
occupant breathed its last. Her look, fixed on Gordon,
196 THE CASTAWAY
was still eloquent with the surprise. She saw the same
pale face, the same deep eyes, the same chiselled curve
of lips. His voice, too, as he despatched the kind-
hearted Giuseppe for a surgeon on the Riva, had the
same cadence of sadness. She had noticed that his step
halted as he walked, as though from weakness. And
surely there was illness in his face, too! Had there
been any tender hands near him as tender as those
with which he now examined the unconscious child ?
As Gordon bent above him, little Pasquale opened his
eyes. His gaze fell first not on the man or on Teresa,
but on the broken cage beside him, where the bird lay
still, one claw standing stiffly upright. He tried to lift
his head, and called the sparrow's name.
There was no answering chirp. The claw was very
still.
Then little Pasquale saw the faces about him and
knew what had happened.
"He's dead !" he shrilled, and burst into tears.
CHAPTEK XXVII
THE EVIL EYE
Tears, too, had rushed to Teresa's eyes, with a sweet,
glad sense of something not akin to grief. Her hand
on the couch in the semi-darkness touched another and
she drew it away, trembling.
Suddenly a wail came from the calle, a hurried step
crossed the shop floor, and the slattern mother burst
into the room. Close behind followed Tita, who, seeing
his mistress, blocked the inner door with his huge frame
against the curious, with whom the place now over-
flowed.
The weeping woman had thrown herself beside the
couch where the child lay, his eyes closed again. All at
once she saw the man who stood above her, and to Te-
resa's astonishment sprang up and spat out coarse im-
precations.
"The evil eye!" she screamed. "Take the Inglese
away and fetch some holy water ! He has the evil eye !"
Teresa saw the spasm of pain that crossed the color-
less face. "No, no !" she cried.
"What did I say !" sneered the carpenter.
Tita's great hand took him by the throat. "Silence,
(197)
198 THE CASTAWAY
devout jellyfish !" he said, "or I crack your skull.
Didn't you hear the signorina ?"
"The evil eye !" wailed the woman, flinging back inky
hair from her brows. "He looked at the heart-of-my-
lif e or he would not have fallen 1"
"For shame!" protested Teresa indignantly. "He
who carried him in his own arms ! Ah, do not listen !"
She turned to Gordon appealingly. "She is mad to say
such things ! Let us go," she added hastily, as mur-
murs swelled from the shop. "We can do no more !"
"Go, son of the Black One!" screamed the woman.
"Go before my child dies !"
Gordon had distinguished in the girl's voice a note
of pity and of fear for his safety, and a flash of smile
softened the bitterness of his lips.
"You are right, Signorina," he answered, and pre-
ceded her. The people parted as they passed, some peer-
ing maliciously, some shame-faced. Tita, bringing up
the rear, glared about him, his fist clenched like a ham-
mer. He knew well enough who the stranger was, but
his signorina walked with him and that was sufficient.
Tita knew what was expected of him.
It was growing dusky as they emerged. The group
before the shop had run to watch the great surgeon
alighting at the water-stairs. The dozen steps that
brought them to the open piazzetta they walked in si-
lence.
There Teresa paused, wishing to say she knew not
what, burning with sympathy, yet timid with confusion.
The street seemed to wear an unwonted, un-everyday
luster, yet she knew that around the corner lay little
Pasquale woefully hurt, in full view Tita was unlash-
THE CASTAWAY 199
ing the gondola, and across the piazzetta she could see
the entrance of the caffe where her father was sipping
his cognac. A fear lest the latter should appear and
find her absent from the gondola mixed with the wave
of feeling with which she held out her hand to the man
beside her.
"Poor little fig-merchant!" she said the scene with
the mother was too painfully recent to touch upon at
once. "He watched for my gondola every day. I hope
he is not badly hurt. What do you think, Signore?"
"No bones were broken," he rejoined. "But as to
internal injury, I could not tell. I shall hope doubly
for him," he added, "since you love him."
Her eyes sought the ground, suddenly shy. "I have
loved him from the first. You know, he cannot play
like other children. He is lame; I think that is why I
love him."
Gordon's lips compressed, his cheeks flushed with an
odd sensitiveness that had long been calloused. But he
saw instantly that the remark had been innocent of al-
lusion. A weird forgotten memory shot jaggedly
through his brain. Years ago how many years ago !
he had overheard a girl's voice repeat a mocking an-
tithesis : "Do you think I could ever care for that lame
boy ?" This girl facing him had the same fair hair and
blue eyes of that boyish love of his. The resemblance
caught him. Was it this that had haunted him in the
miniature? Was this subconscious influence what had
inspired at La Mira his aching desire that she should
not think worse of him than might be ?
Her voice recalled him. She had not understood that
veiled look, but it brought to her lips what had been
200 THE CASTAWAY
nearest to her thought the resentment and regret that
the virago's shrilling voice had roused.
"What must you think of our Venice, S'ignore !" she
said. "But they knew no better those poor people.
They cannot tell evil from good."
"It is no matter, Signorina," Gordon answered. "Do
not give it a thought. It was not unnatural, perhaps."
"Not unnatural I" she echoed. "Natural to think you
evil? Ah, Signore when your every touch was kind-
ness ! Could she not see in your face ?"
She paused abruptly, coloring under his gaze.
The words and the flush had cut him like a knife.
The lines of ravage he had challenged in the mirror
her innocence had misread. In the olive wood she had
seen only wretchedness, here only mercy.
"The face is a sorry index, sometimes, Signorina.
In mine the world may not see what you see."
He had schooled his tone to lightness, but her mood,
still tense-drawn, felt its strain. She spoke impulsive-
ly, bravely, her heart beating hard.
"What I see there it is pain, not evil, Signore; sor-
row, but not all your own; loneliness and regret and
feelings that people like those" she threw out her hand
in a passionate gesture toward the shop "can never
understand !"
"It is not only such as they!" he interposed. "The
world, your world, would not understand, either. It is
only here and there one finds one like you, Signorina
with sympathy as pure as yours."
Her face had turned the tint that autumn paints
wild strawberry leaves, a rich translucent flush that
deepened the light in her eyes. It was a lyric world to-
THE CASTAWAY 201
day ! Just then Tita's voice spoke warningly from the
water-side. She looked around, and through the gath-
ering shadows, saw her father's form standing in the
door of the caffe across the piazzetta.
"Oh!" she said confusedly, and turning, hastily
crossed the pavement to the gondola.
Tita's oar swung vigorously on the return, for
Count Gamba was in haste. He was voluble, but Teresa,
as she looked out through the curtains, was inattentive.
Swiftly as they went, a gondola outstripped them
on the canal. It held the low-browed carpenter whom
Tita had throttled in the shop. In addition to a super-
stitious mind, the carpenter possessed a malicious tongue
and loved a sensation. He knew that the father of
little Pasquale was at work that day on the Giudecca.
As the doctor had driven all save the mother from the
shop, there was little profit to be got by remaining. He
therefore hastened to bear the news to the quay where
the stone masons labored overtime. He had drawn his
own conclusions. The child was mortally hurt dying,
doubtless and as he revolved in his mind the words
with which he should make the announcement to the
father, the wicked milord and his evil eye entered with
all their dramatic values.
Teresa noted the speed of the gondola as it passed to
tie to the rising wall, saw the gesticulations of the blue-
clad workmen as the man it bore told his story. Even
in the failing light she saw the gesture of grief and
despair with which one, the center of all eyes, threw
up his arms and sank down on to the stones, his head
in his hands. As her father's gondola swept by, the
202 THE CASTAWAY
figure sprang up suddenly and his brown hand flew to
liis belt.
"My Pasquale dead !" he shouted; "I'll kill the
Inglese!"
Teresa stifled a cry. Her father had seen and heard
also, though he did not know the explanation. Nor
could he have guessed what an icy fear had gripped the
heart of the girl beside him.
"An ugly look!" he muttered, as the frantic form
scrambled into the carpenter's craft.
Teresa could not speak. Her horrified gaze was on
the sinister face, the red cap like a sans-culotte, the eye
glancing under it tigerishly. Little Pasquale was dead
then! The father blamed the Englishman. His look
was one of murder ! He would kill him of whom she
had thought and dreamed, the man in whose heart had
been only tenderness! Kill him? A panging dread
seized her. She felt as if she must cry out ; and all the
time Tita's oar swept her on through the dusk, further
away from him whom danger threatened him whom,
in some way, no matter how, she must warn !
A strange helplessness descended upon her. She did
not even know his name, or his habitation. To her he
was but one of the hundreds Tita had said were in
Venice. That the gondolier himself could have en-
lightened her did not cross her mind. She felt the im-
possibility of appealing to her father she had not even
dared tell him she had left the gondola. What could she
do ? Trust to Tita to find him ? Could he know every
line of that face as did she? Even in the dark in
crowds she told herself that she would know him,
would somehow feel his presence. But how to do it?
THE CASTAWAY 203
How to elude the surveillance at home? And if she
could do so, where to look for him ?
Her reverie was broken by the gondola's bumping
against the landing. Her father's talk had been run-
ning on like a flowing spout.
"A palazzo in Eavenna finer than this," he was say-
ing, "and you the Contessa Guiccioli ! Shall we not be
proud eh, my Teresa?"
She realized suddenly of what he had been babbling.
As she disembarked at the water-stairs, she looked up
at the balcony. There, beside the stately Contessa Al-
brizzi, an old man was leaning, hawk-eyed, white-haired
and thin. He blew her a kiss from his sallow fingers.
Her nervous tension relaxed in a sudden quiver of
aversion.
"No, no !" she said in a choked voice, with clenched
fingers. "I will not marry till I choose! Why must
every one be in such haste ?"
And with these broken sentences, that left her father
standing in blank astonishment, she hurried before him
into the house.
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE HAUNTED MAN
The majestic gateway of the Palazzo Mocenigo was
dark as Gordon entered save for the single lamp always
lit at nightfall. Fletcher served his master's supper
in the great upper room, but to-night, as too often hap-
pened, it was scarcely tasted. Long after the valet had
retired, his watchful ear heard the uneven step pacing
up and down, up and down, on the echoing floor.
A restless mood was upon Gordon, the restlessness of
infinite yearning and discontent. He was tasting anew
the gall and wormwood of self-reproach.
He had felt the touch of Teresa's hand as it lay
against the couch in that squalid room had known it
trembled and the low words she had spoken in the
street, standing, as it seemed to him, with that forest
shrine ever for background, were still in his ears.
He had seen her but twice, for but a few brief mo-
ments. Once she had come to him on the wings of a
prayer; and again to-day over the hurt body of a child.
Each meeting had touched the raw nerve in him which
had first throbbed to anguish at sight of her miniature.
Each time he had heard a voice call to him as if it were
the ghost of some buried thing he had one day known
and lost, speaking a tongue sweet though untranslatable.
(204)
THE CASTAWAY 205
Hours went by. Gordon's step flagged. He ap-
proached the desk on which were scattered distraught
leaves of manuscript, blotted and interlined. He swept
these into his hand and read for a moment. Beneath
the outer crust of flippancy and satire a strange new
development had begun. But the mental habit had
persisted strong during the moral bouleversement, as
the polar glaze spreads its algid mockery above the
warm currents of an Arctic spring. How his muse had
bemocked him, he thought. A drama of madness,
whose dramatis personae were magicians and spirits of
the nether world stanzas hovering between insane
laughter and heart-broken sobs, between supplications
and blasphemies cantos whose soul was license, though
their surpassing music thrilled like the laughter of a
falling Lucifer !
He flung the sheets down, went to the window and
threw it open, leaning out across the balcony that hung
over the canal. It was a night of Italian sorcery, the
sky an infinite wistaria canopy nailed with white-blown
stars; of musical water shimmering into broken bits of
moon; of misty silver air. Around and beneath him
spread the enchanted city, a marvel of purple and moth-
er-of-pearl, a jewel in verd and porphyry. Gondolas,
dim in the muffled shadow, or ablaze with strung lan-
terns and echoing with tinkling virginals and softer
laughter, glided below, on their way to the masked ball
of the Cavalchina. The fleeting thrill, the bubble pag-
eant ; what did they all what did anything mean now
for him ?
Looking out, Gordon's gaze went far. He had a vi-
206 THE CASTAWAY
sion of England as he had last seen it across the jasper
channel green fields and white cliffs in a smother of
vapors; of London with its pomp, its power, its calum-
nies, its wicked magical vitality. And he spoke to it,
murmuring sentences not sneering now, but broken with
a stranger soft emotion :
"What you have done you island of home! If I
could tell you! I had the immortal flame the touch
of the divine! It was mine all mine, for the world!
You took me my boyhood and embittered it, my youth
and debauched it, my manhood and robbed it! You
jeered my first songs and it stung me, and when I
cried out in pain, you laughed and flattered. When
you tired of me, you branded me with this mark and
cast me out!" He turned again to the desk where lay
the manuscript. "What I write now has the mark of
the beast ! It is the seraph's song with the satyr laugh
cutting up through it, and the cloven hoof of the devil
of hatred that will not down in me ! And yet I wrote
the poem that she loves ! I wrote that I ! My God !
It was only two years ago ! And now shall I never
hear that voice singing in my soul again? Shall I
never write so again ? Never never never ?"
A pungent, heavy smell of flowers filled his nostrils.
He turned from the window, quivering. Fletcher had
entered behind him and was arranging a mass of blooms
in a bowl.
The Fornarina! She had returned from Naples,
then. It was her barbaric way of announcing her com-
ing, for she could not write. She had been absent a
month how much had happened in that month !
The man, with the excoriate surface of recollection
THE CASTAWAY 207
exposed, with the quick of remorse laid open, suddenly
could not bear it. He threw a cloak about him and
went rapidly down to the water-stairs.
The gondolier came running to the steps, catching
up the long oar as he sprang to position.
"Whither, Excellence?" he asked.
A burst of music, borne on the air across roofs and
up echoing canals, came faintly to Gordon from the far-
away Square of St. Mark'.
"To the Piazza," he said.
CHAPTER XXIX
TERESA'S AWAKENING
Teresa, meanwhile, had been facing her problem
how to warn the Englishman of his danger. During
the slow hours while Gordon sat gazing into the dis-
torted mirror of his own thought, she had traversed
every causeway of risk, sounded every well of possibil-
ity. To a young girl of the higher class in Venice, a
night trip, uncavaliered, held elements of grave peril.
Discovery spelled lasting disgrace perhaps, certainly the
anger of her father. All this she was ready to hazard.
But beyond was the looming probability that she could
not find the object of her search after all. However, it
was a chance, and fear, with another sentiment that she
did not analyze, impelled her to take it.
It was an easy task to win Tita, for he would have de-
nied her nothing. To him, however, she told only a
part of the truth that she wished once to see the Pi-
azza by night. Only an hour in the music and lights iu
his care, and then quick and safe return to the Palazzo
Albrizzi. The house servants she could answer for.
Who would be the wiser ?
So, a little while after Gordon had been set down
that night at the Molo, another gondola, lampless and
with drawn tenda, stole swiftly to a side landing, and
(208)
THE CASTAWAY 209
Teresa, closely veiled, with Tita by her side, stepped
into the square, beneath the flare of its flambeaux, into
its currents of eddying maskers where the white fazzioli
of the lower orders mingled with the rich costumes of
patricians, all alike stung by the tarantula of gaiety:
a flashing sea of motion and color surging endlessly be-
neath a sky alive with winged spots of gray and black
the countless pigeons that circled there undisturbed.
She had chosen the Piazza after much deliberation.
It was the last night of the carnival, when all the world
of Venice was on the streets. At the new Fenice Thea-
ter the latest opera of Rossini's was playing, and there
was the ball of the Cavalchina, the final throb before
the dropping of the pall of Lent. The sadness in Gor-
don's face and speech, she felt, had no part in these
things. She felt instinctively that he would be spec-
tator rather than actor, would choose the open air of
the square rather than the indoors. The danger she
feared for him would not seek him in a crowd ; it would
lurk in some silent byway and strike unseen. The
thought made her tremble as she peered about her.
The center of the Piazza was a pool, fed and emptied
by three streams of people : one flowing under the clock-
tower with its blue and gold dial and bronze figures,
one through the west entrance under the Bocca di
Piazza, and still another rounding the Doges' Palace
and meeting the thronged Eiva. It was on the fringe of
this second stream that she saw him, when the hour was
almost ended. He was standing in the shadow of the
pillars, watching, she thought, yet abstracted. With a
whispered word to Tita she ran and touched the move-
less figure on the arm.
219 THE CASTAWAY
Gordon turned instantly, and turning, spoke her name
half -aloud. "Teresa I" The utterance was almost auto-
matic, the lips, startled, voicing the word that was in his
mind at the moment.
She thought he recognized her through the veil, and
answered with a cry expressing at one time her relief
at finding him, and a quick delight that thrilled her at
the sound of her name on his lips. Many things had
wrought together to produce this new miracle of glad-
ness. The strangeness and romance of their first meet-
ing, the tragedy of loneliness she had guessed in the
scene at the shop, her dread and the physical risk en-
tailed in her adventure of this night, all had combined
with cunning alchemy. When he spoke she forgot to be
surprised that he had called her by name, forgot that she
did not know his, forgot everything save his presence
and her errand.
He leaned forward, breathing deeply. It was she!
She put her veil aside quickly her eyes were like
sapphire stones ! and told him hurriedly of the threat
she had heard, of her dread, all in a rush of sentences
incoherent and unstudied.
"And so you came to warn me ?"
"He would do it, Signore ! Ah, I saw his face when
he said it. You must be guarded! You must not go
abroad alone !"
His mind was busy. How much she had jeopardized
to reach him in that fancied danger! She, in Venice,
a young girl of noble rank, with no escort save a gondo-
lier ! Eisk enough for her in any case ; what an endur-
ing calamity if she should be seen and recognized there,
with him!
THE CASTAWAY 211
He led her back between the pillars, put out his hand
and drew the veil again across her face, speaking grave-
ly and gently :
"What you have done is a brave and noble thing ; one
I shall be glad of always. It was no less courageous,
nor am I less grateful, though what you heard was a
mistake. Little Pasquale is not dead. I spoke with the
surgeon here less than a hall-hour ago. He had just
come from the piazzetta. The child will recover."
"Oh, thank God!" she breathed. She clasped her
hands in very abandonment. "The blessed Virgin has
heard me !"
His heart seemed suddenly to cease beating. The ex-
clamation was a revelation far deeper than she divined.
It was not joy at the life of the child that was deepest
in it it was something else: a great relief for Mm!
He felt the blood tingle to his finger-tips. Only one
emotion could speak in such an accent only one !
With an uncontrollable impulse he leaned to her and
clasped both her hands.
"You cared, Teresa/' he said. "You risked so much
for me?"
He had spoken her name again. Again she felt the
stab of that quivering spear of gladness. Her fingers
fluttered in his.
"Yes yes!" she whispered. The shouts, the music,
the surge and laughter around, faded. She felt herself,
unafraid, drifting on a sea of unplummetted depths.
A shock of fright brought her to herself. A man
bent and dressed richly, with an affectation of youth, was
passing, attended by a servant. As they approached,
the keen-eyed servitor had pointed out Gordon. "That
212 THE CASTAWAY
is the evil Englishman, Excellence, of whom you have
heard," he had said, and the old noble he led had set his
keen eyes on the other with a chuckling relish.
Teresa, in the momentary pause they made, hardly
repressed a cry, for that moment discovery seemed to her
imminent. The old man was the Count Guiccioli he
who had leaned that afternoon from the palazzo balcony.
Her pulses leaped to panic. She felt as if that sharp
gaze must go through the veil, and pressed closer to
Gordon.
But master and servant passed on, and her fear faint-
ed out.
The man beside her had felt that quick pressure, and
instinctively the touch of his arm reassured her, though
he had not surmised her alarm. In that instant Gordon
had been thinking like lightning. A temptation had
sprung full-statured before him. In a flash he had
read the dawning secret behind those eyes, the sweet un-
spoken things beneath those trembling lips crimson-
soft as poppy leaves. To possess this heart for his own !
Not to tell her who he was not yet, when her purity
would shrink to nurture this budding regard with
meetings like this, stolen from fate to cherish it till
it burst into flower for him, all engrossing, supreme!
To make this love, fluttering to him unsought in the
purlieus of his soul's despair, his solace and his sanctu-
ary!
Coincidence grappled with him a stealthy persua-
sion. In the crisis of his madness, when at Geneva he
had cursed every good thing, her pictured face had
sought him out to go with him. Into the nadir of his
degradation there in Venice it had dropped like a fall-
THE CASTAWAY 213
ing star to call him to himself. Fate had led him to
her in the woods of La Mira had brought them both
face to face at the shop in the piazzetta and now had
led her to him again here in the midst of the maskers.
It was Kismet !
"I did not think there was more than one in all the
world who would have done what you have to-night!"
he said; "that would have cared if I lived or died!
Why do you care ?"
"Ah!" she answered hurriedly. "Is there one who
would not? I do not know why. One does not reason
of such things. One feels. I know I have cared ever
since that morning in the wood, when you found the
book, when I gave you the prayer !"
He started, releasing her hands. "Intercede and ob-
tain for me of thy Son, our Lord, this grace!" It
seemed to come to him from the air, a demoniac echo to
his desire. His breath choked him. She had prayed
for him, purely, unselfishly. How should he requite?
To-night, for his sake she had risked reputation. How
did he purpose to repay? Would not the doing of
this thing sink him a thousand black leagues below the
sky she breathed? No matter how much she might
come to love, could it recompense for what he would
take away? Between those two lay a gulf as deep
as that which stretched between cool water and a tor-
tured Dives. What had he, George Gordon, dragging
the chain and ball of a life sentence of despair, to do
with her in her purity ? He yearned for her because she
was an immaculate thing; because she reincarnated for
him all the white, unspotted ideals that he had thrown
214 THE CASTAWAY
away, that he longed to touch again. It was the devil
tempting in the plea of an angel!
The mist fell from his eyes.
"Child !" he said. "What you have done to-night I
can never repay. I shall remember it until I die. But
I am not worthy of your thought not worthy of a
single throb of that heart of yours !"
She shook her head protesting.
"That cannot be true," she contended. 4 -But if it
were, Signore, one cannot say 'I will,' or 'I will not care'
when one chooses." Her tone was naive, and arch with
a smiling, shy rebellion.
"Listen," he went on. "Do not think me jesting.
What I say now I say because I must. I want you to
promise me you will do something something only for
your good, I swear that !"
The smile faded from her lips, chilled by his earnest-
ness.
"When you go from here you must forget that day at
La Mira, forget that you came to-night that we have
ever met ! Will you promise this ?"
Her whole mind was a puzzled question now. Did he
mean she should see him no more? Was he quitting
Venice ? The thought came like a pang. But to forget !
Could she if she would ? Why did he say it was for her
good? A fear, formless and vague, ran through her.
"Why do you ask that, Signore ?"
He turned his face away. It was so much harder than
he thought. Must he tell her who he was? Could he
not carry with him this one memory? Must he drink
this cup of abnegation to its last dregs ? The very kind-
ness of silence would be cruelty for her ! The seed fate
THE CASTAWAY 215
had sown, watered by mystery, would germinate in
thorns ! He must tell her tell her now !
The press of maskers flooding the square, circled
nearer, and she drew close. Her hand from under her
cloak, found his own, suddenly fearful, feeling bold
looks upon them.
"Bravo la Fornarina!" rose a jeering cry. An ex-
clamation broke from Gordon's lips. A woman had
burst from the throng like a beautiful embodied
storm. Teresa shrank with a sob of dismay at the vision
of flashing black eyes and dark hair streaming across
jealous brows.
The crowd laughed.
"It is I'Inglese maligno!" said a voice.
Evading Gordon's arm, with a spring like a tiger's,,
the infuriate figure reached the girl, snatching at the
veil.
"So he prefers you for his donna!" she sneered sav-
agely. "Let us see, white face !"
The rent gauze dropped to the ground.
Sudden stillness fell. The jests and jeers hushed.
Teresa stood motionless, her features frozen to sculp-
ture; a passing cloud had slipped from the moon, and
the silvery light above and behind her caught and
tangled to a glistening aureole in her amber hair that
fell in a mist about her shoulders. The illusion of a
halo was instant and awe-inspiring. More than one,
gazing, made the sign of the cross.
There was a cry the Fornarina had flung herself
on her knees on the flagging. A stir came from the
crowd.
L'Inglese maligno! For the girl who stood so
216 . THE CASTAWAY
moveless, the exclamation had blotted joy from the uni-
verse. It was as though all terrors gripped her bodily
in a molten midnight. Dreams, faiths, prayer, and
tender things unguessed, seemed to be shrivelling in her.
She shivered, put out her hands and wavered on her
feet.
"Dio!" she said in a low voice. "You, the wicked
milord 1"
Gordon, in aching misery, stretched out his arms
toward her, though he saw her eyes were closed, with
a broken word that was lost in a tumult, as a gigantic
form plowed through the circle, a form from whose
rush maskers fell away like tenpins.
It was Tita, enraged, bull-like. He gathered the
crumpling, veilless figure in his arms, thrust his burly
shoulder against the crowd and bore her quickly to the
water-stairs where lay the dark gondola.
He set her on the cushions and plied the oar till it
smoked in its socket.
The bright canals fled by she had not moved. By
darker passages he went now and very slowly, threading
stagnant unlighted alleys. The way opened out, a swish
of trailing tendrils swept across the oar they were un-
der a vine-trellised bridge. The lampless gondola crept
along the wall, stole with sudden swiftness across a
patch of moonbeams and darted into the shadowy water-
gate.
Tita had thought the canal quite deserted. But be-
yond the moonlight another craft had been drowsing
by. The old man under its tenda had been musing on
the loveliness of a girl within those walls whom he
should soon possess, and with her a dowry, set aside at
THE ILLUSION OF A HALO WAS INSTANT AND AWE-INSPIRING, p. 21$.
THE CASTAWAY 217
her birth, which the waning fortunes of her family had
preserved intact. He saw the dark bulk shoot into the
gilded water-gate and peered out.
"What was that?" he demanded.
"A gondola, surely, Excellence."
Garden water-gates seldom swung in Venice at night.
For a moment he watched. "Some servant's errand,"
he reflected, and leaned back on the cushions.
In the orchid-scented garden, Tita's brawny arms
lifted Teresa out and set her upon the marble steps.
He was thinking of the Englishman.
"Illustrissima!" he whispered. "Shall I kill him?"
Then something broke in Teresa's breast. She clasped
the broad neck, sobbing :
"No, no, Tita! DearTita! Not that! I would rather
die myself!"
CHAPTER XXX
THE PEACE OF PADRE SOMALIAN
All night Gordon's gondola floated over the dark
lagoon. All night the star-silvered dip of the oar broke
into ripples the glassy surface. All night Gordon sat
silent, gazing out across the low islands that barred the
sea.
Something had touched his life which, sooner met,
might have made existence a boon. A woman's soul had
roused him but only to a rayless memory of what
burned and rankled, as the touch of a hand wakes a
prisoner from nightly lethargy to a sense of bolt and
chain.
Lines from his poem which she loved which had
called forth her prayer recurred to him:
"A light broke in upon my brain,
It was the carol of a bird;
It ceased, and then it came again,
The sweetest song ear ever heard;
And mine was thankful till my eyes
Ran over with the glad surprise,
And they that moment could not see
I was the mate of misery;
But then by dull degrees came back
My senses to their wonted track,
I saw the dungeon walls and floor
Close slowly round me as before."
(218)
THE CASTAWAY 219
So she had come and gone, and his hand* touched
only walls of adamant, his ears heard only an echo roll-
ing across blank infinities !
The moon sank. The great, linked lamps of the heav-
ens burned brighter, faded at length, and a breath of
sea-breeze, harbinger of the dawn, struck coldly on his
cheek. Night became soft twilight, twilight grew to
warm amethyst. Little milky clouds dappled the
zenith, slowly suffused by a flush of rose that grew to
vivid splendor gray-streaked, as the sun's climbing edge
touched the humid horizon.
The occupant of the gondola stirred and looked about
him. The air was full of mewing swallows, and a sandy
island lay before him from which rose clumps of foli-
age and the dim outlines of brown stone walls, gilded
by the growing light. The gondolier's voice broke the
long silence:
"It is the Armenian monastery of Saint Lazarus, Ex-
cellence."
The island lay lapped in quiet. Not a sound or
movement intrenched upon its peace. Only the swal-
lows circled shrilly about slim bell-towers, lifting like
fingers pointing silently. A narrow causeway through
an encircling dike led to the wharf, and beyond, by a
gate, to an orchard where gnarled fruit-trees sniffed the
salt air. From a chimney at one side a strand of smoke
sheered slenderly.
Gordon drew a long breath. "Put me ashore," he
said.
The gondola shot alongside the tiny wharf, and he
stepped on to its stone flags. He stood silent a moment,
feeling the calm upon him like a tangible hand. Far to
220 THE CASTAWAY
the north, half a league's distance, glowing through the
bluish winter haze, shone the towers and domes of
Venice, a city of white and violet, vague and unsub-
stantial as a dream, a field of iris painted upon a cloud.
"Go back to the city."
The servant was startled. "And leave you, Excel-
lence?"
'TTes, I shall send when I need you."
The boatman leaned anxiously on his oar. "When
they question, Excellence?"
"Tell no one but Fletcher where I am. Say to him it
is my wish that he shall not leave the palazzo."
He watched the gondola glide away over the lighten-
ing waters, till it was only a spot on the dimpling la-
goon. He took a black phial from his pocket and threw
it far out into the water. Then he turned his gaze and
walked up the wharf toward the monastery, still sound-
less and asleep.
At the corner of the sea-wall, the stone had been hol-
lowed with the chisel into a niche, in which, its face
iturned seaward, stood a small leaden image of the Vir-
gin. He noted it curiously, with the same sensation of
the unartificial he had felt at sight of the wooden shrine
at La Mira. And yet with all its primitive simplicity,
what a chasm between such a concrete embodiment of a
personal guardianship and that agnostic altar his youth
had erected "to the unknown God" !
He looked up and saw a figure near him.
A man of venerable look stood there, bareheaded,
with a wide gray beard which swept upon his coarse
dark robe. His eyes were deep and pleasant, and his
THE CASTAWAY 221
countenance spiritual, gracious and reserved. An open
gate in the wall showed the way he had come.
For a moment neither spoke. The lucent gaze con-
fronting him seemed to Gordon to possess a strange fa-
miliarity : it was the same expression of unworldly sin-
cerity that had shone in those London days from Dal-
las 5 face.
"What do you seek, my son?"
Perhaps the friar had already had time to study the
visitor. Perchance the clear scrutiny had read some-
thing beneath that cryptic look bent upon the shrine.
What did he not seek, indeed !
When Gordon answered it was simply, in Italian as
direct as the other's question.
"The peace of your walls and fields drew me, Padre.
By your leave, I would rest a while here/'
The friar's look had not wavered. Contemplation
teaches one much. It was easy to read the lines of dissi-
pation, of evil indulgence, that marked the white face
before him ; but the padre saw further to the soul-sick-
ness beneath.
"We are Armenians, Signore," he proffered, "a com-
munity of students, who have poor entertainment; but
to such as we have, the stranger is welcome. He who
comes to us stays without question and fares forth again
at his own will."
As he spoke, a bell's clear, chilly chime rose from
somewhere within the walls. At the note the padre
turned, bowed his knee before the leaden Virgin, and
rising, with arm raised toward the lagoon, blessed the
waters and the land. Then he held out his hand to
Gordon.
222 THE CASTAWAY
"I am Padre Sukias Somalian," he said. "I will go
and inform the prior. I will call you presently."
He disappeared through the wall-gate.
Gordon's eyes, following him, saw the worn motto
deeply cut in the stone above it.
"0 Solitudo, sola Beatitudo."
Was it solitude that had brought that look of utter
peace to the friar's face? Or was it rather the belief
that made him bow before the niche yonder ?
His gaze wandered back to the shrine. Prayer to him
was a fetish a plastic rigmarole of symbols and for-
mulae the modern evolution of the pre-Adamite, an-
thropomorphic superstition. It was far more than that
to the friar. He knelt each day to that little leaden
image. And before such an image she, Teresa, whose
pure soul had been wounded last night, had laid that
written petition.
A singular look stole to his face, half -quizzical, half-
wistful. He took a leaf of paper from his pocket. He
hesitated a moment, folding and unfolding it. He
glanced toward the gate.
Then he went to the niche, stooped and lifted one of
the loose flat stones that formed the base on which the
image rested. He brushed away the sand with his hand,
put the paper in the space and replaced the stone over
it.
As he stood upright, a voice called to him from the
gate. It was the padre, and he turned and followed
him in.
CHAPTEE XXXI
AT THE FEET OP OUR LADY OF SORROWS
George Gordon, at the monastery of San Lazzarro,
looked out of washed eyes upon an altered condition.
He was conscious of new strength and new weaknesses.
The man, emerging from the slough of those months of
lawless impulses and ungoverned recklessnesses, had
found no gradual rejuvenation. After weeks of remorse,
temptation had flung itself upon him full armed. The
memory of a prayer had vanquished it. In that instant
of moral resistance, conscience had been reborn. It was
the sharp sword dividing forever past from present.
The past of debauchery was henceforth impossible to
him. What future was there ? He had not only to bear
unnumbed the despair he had tried to drown, but an
anguish born of the newer yesterday.
The wholesome daily life of the friars, their homely
occupations and studies, varied by little more than ma-
tutinal visits of fish-boats of the lagoon, aided him in-
sensibly. His thought needed something craggy to
break upon and he found it in the Armenian language
which he studied under the tutelage of Padre Somalian,
aiding the friar in turning into its rugged structure
the sonorous periods of "Paradise Lost."
(223)
224 THE CASTAWAY
But from time to time, in this routine, a searing
memory would recur and he would see in shifting chi-
aroscuro, the scene on the Piazza San Marco: the faces
of the maskers, the slight, shrinking form of Teresa,
the angry dark eyes of the Fornarina, a hand snatch-
ing at a veil then the streaming moonlight tangling
to a halo about a girl's shocked face so innocently
touched with horror, a face that would always be dis-
tinct to him !
If he could have spared her the indignity of that one
coarse scene! If he could only have told her himself,
and gently! But even that, Fate had denied him
the dogging Nemesis that stalked him always ! But for
its decree, they had not met that night. He would
have remained in her mind as she had seen him by the
side of little Pasquale a kindly shadow, a mystery
beckoning her sympathy, then haply forgot. Now she
would remember him always. Not as the wretched and
misunderstood being for whom she had prayed at La
Mira, but with shrinking and self-reproach, as a veri-
table agency of evil the true milord maligno, who
liad bought her interest with the spurious coin of hy-
pocrisy. So his tormented thought raced out along the
barren grooves of surmise.
As he walked under the orchard's rosy roof, the prior
called to him:
"A wedding party is coming to the south landing,"
he said. "Our monastery is fortunate this month. This
is the third."
Gordon looked. There, rounding the sea-wall, was
a procession of gondolas, decked superbly, the foremost
draped wholly in white and trailing bright streamers
THE CASTAWAY 225-
in the water, like some great queen bird leading a covey
of soberer plumage. By the richness of the banners
and embroidered tenda, it was the cortege of some noble
bridal. As he gazed, the faint music of stringed instru-
ments drifted across the walls.
Gathering closer the coarse brown monastery robe he
had thrown about him, Gordon followed the padre
through the garden to the further entrance, where the
brethren, girdled and cowled, were drawn up, a benign
row. The bride would wait among the ladies on the
beach, since beyond that portal no woman's foot must
go; the bridegroom would enter, to leave his gifts and
to drink a glass of home-pressed violet-scented wine in
the great hall.
Gordon paused a little way from the water-stairs and
looked down over the low wall at the white gondola.
One day, he mused, Teresa would marry some noble
like this no doubt, for she had rank and station one
whom she would love as she might have loved him.
Perhaps she would celebrate her marriage in the Vene-
tian way, come in a gondola procession maybe to this
very monastery, never guessing that he once had been
within it! In what corner of the world would he be
then?
Under the edge of the tenda he could see the shim-
mering wedding-gown of the bride, cloth of gold heavy
with seed pearls. The gentlemen had already entered
the close. As he gazed, the gondola swung round and
he caught a fleeting glimpse of her face.
"Teresa !" he gasped, and his hand clutched the walL
She so soon! A sudden pain, not vague but defi-
nite, seized him. She had not cared, then. Her heart
226 THE CASTAWAY
had not suffered, after all ! On that night, when she had
swayed forward into the gondolier's arms, it had been
only horror at her discovery, not a nearer grief ! What
for that quivering instant he had thought he read in
her exclamation had not been there. Fool ! To think
his face could have drawn her for an hour! Doubly
fool to sorrow for her hurt ! Better so. She must not
see him; no reminder of shame and affront should mar
this day for her.
He turned, crossed the garden, opened the wall-gate
and came out by the niched shrine upon the shore path
which semi-circled the monastery.
A gust of self-raillery shook him. Inside, the friars
were gravely drinking a health to the bride, in cups
kept burnished for the purpose, made of pure gold. He,
though only a guest, should be among them in robe and
girdle to cheer these nuptials ! He had drunk many a
bumper in such costume in the old Newstead days,
with Sheridan and Tom Moore !
The bitter laugh died on his lips. Why should he
remember so well? In such a gabardine he had drunk
the toast Annabel had heard, the night he had asked
her to marry him. And he had drunk it from a death's-
head! The emblem, truly enough, had typified the
tragedy marriage was to be to him!
He leaned forward, resting his forehead against the
mossed stone, as if its coolness might allay the fever
that held him. Would marriage have meant such for
him if the words that had bound him to Annabel had
linked him to a heart like Teresa's, of fire and snow, of
simple faith, of tenderness and charity? If he could
have loved one like her !
THE CASTAWAY 227
He had no knowledge of how long he stood there. He
was recalled by a voice from the path behind him be-
tween him and the gate, his only way of escape a voice
that held him spellbound.
"Father, give me your blessing !"
With an overmastering sense of the fatality that had
beckoned her to the lagoon path at just this moment to
mistake him for one of the padres, he turned slowly.
She was kneeling, the exquisite fabric of her dress
sweeping the moist shingle, her eyes on the ground,
awaiting the sign.
He reached out his hand with a hoarse cry:
"Not that ! Teresa ! It is I I who should kneel
to you !"
The words broke from him at sight of her bent face,
not as a bride's should be, but weary and listless. Un-
derneath the cry was a quick thrill of triumph. Though
she was that day another man's wife, yet she had suf-
fered! But the thrill died in a pang of reproach. If
she did care, better the harshest thought of him now !
She had sprung to her feet in passionate amaze.
"You !" she exclaimed ; "ah, you !"
In the exclamation there was a great revulsion and
greater joy. Her gaze swept his pallid features, his
costume her sick imagination had pictured him in
scenes of ribaldry, with evil companions! She began
to murmur broken sentences:
"I have wronged you ! That night on the square it
was not the you that I had known ! You had tried to
leave that life behind the past that had given you that
name! You are not what they say, not now! Not
now!"
228 THE CASTAWAY
He stopped her with a gesture.
"It is I who have wronged you," he said in a voice
hard from repression. "Do not judge me by this robe ;
it means less than nothing. I am here by the veriest ac-
cident. Not for penance or shriving."
For an instant she recoiled, instinct groping in the
maze of doubt. What was he, erring angel or masque-
rading devil ? It was the question she had cried to her-
,self all this time, blindly, passionately, her judgment
all astray the query that silence had at last answered
with the conviction in which her long-planned marriage
had seemed as acceptable a fate as any. Now her soul,
wavering anew, spoke its agony in a direct appeal :
"Tell me ! tell me the truth !" she pleaded piteously.
"I have suffered so since that night. I have not known
how could I know ? what to think. I believed what
you said at La Mira, every word! And it is not your
past I think of now ; it is only what you were that very
hour and since, and what you are to-day. Was it only
a play to make me sorry ? Did you pretend it all ?"
"Teresa!" he entreated.
"You said that night that I must forget we had ever
met. Did that mean you merely pitied and spared me ?
That you are still to be all that Venice says ?"
"It was what I had been that counted !"
"No, no !" she protested. "Can't you see that does
not matter to me now ? It is only what you were then
that counts to me! Your voice, your eyes, what you
said you made me care ! Was it all a lie ?"
He felt his heart contract at this visible suffering
whose root was so unselfish a desire. His resolve crum-
Jbled.
THE CASTAWAY 229
"Teresa," he said in a tone as strained as her own,,
"whatever of evil I have done, has not been since I
have known you. You have waked something in me
that would not sleep again. It was this you saw and
heard and felt. I could not hide it. It has stayed with
me ever since ! It will always be with me now, whether
I will or no. I did come here by accident. But I have
stayed because the past Venice and my life there is-
hateful to me! It has been so since that morning at
La Mira I"
"Oh!" she breathed, "then when you asked me for
the prayer you did not you meant "
"It was because it was almost the only unselfish and
unworldly thing I had ever known. Because it was a
thought for the scorned and unshriven; because of the
very hurt it gave ; because it was a prayer of yours for
me!"
While he spoke, a great gladness illumined her face.
"Have you kept it?"
He turned from her instinctively to the shrine, his
hand outstretched to raise the flat stone. But as sud-
denly he paused. He had placed it there in a half-sar-
donic mockery ; not with the pure faith she would infer
from the action. He could not stand in a false light
before her.
He let the stone fall back into its place.
As he turned again to answer, he confronted two
figures coming through the gateway a few paces off.
One was an old man, his bent form dressed gaily. The
other was Padre Somalian. The latter, in advance, had
alone seen the lifted stone.
Both, however, saw the emotion in the two faces be-
230 THE CASTAWAY
fore them. The padre stood still ; the other sprang for-
ward, his posture instinct with an unhealthy passion,
his piercing eyes on the pair with evil inquiry.
The attitude of ownership was unmistakable. Gordon
felt his veins clog with ice. This senile magnifico
Teresa's hushand! This a coerced Venetian mating
of name, of rank, of lands alone for her? The
sight smote him painfully, yet with a strange, bitter
comfort.
There was even more in the old noble's look than
Gordon guessed: more than anger at her presence here,
this young bride of his, apart from the gondolas. He
had recognized the man in the monk's robe. His voice
rose in a snarl:
"Unbaptized son of a dog ! What is he doing on holy
ground ?" He pointed his stick at Gordon. "The aban-
doned of Venice ! Has not his past fame penetrated
here, Padre, that you lend him asylum? Call my gon-
doliers and I will have him flung into the lagoon !"
The friar stood transfixed, shocked and pained.
Never since he had met Gordon on that very spot at
sunrise, had he asked even his name. Suppose the
stranger were all the other said. What difference should
it make? The fixed habit of the monk answered:
"What he has been is of no question here."
The grandee sneered at the padre's answer.
"You left the gondola, to be sure, to pray," he said
to Teresa, then turned to Gordon who waited in con-
strained quiet: "Wolf in sheep's clothing! Did you
come for the same purpose?"
Teresa felt in Gordon's silence a control that stilled
her own violence of feeling. Her husband saw her
THE CASTAWAY 231
glance and a maniacal suspicion darted like lava
through his brain. If this meeting were planned, they
had met before she and this maligno whom he had
seen on the Piazza San Marco. Two hectic spots sprang
into his sallow cheeks. A woman's veiled form had
stood by this man then! He remembered the derisive
story with which the caffes had rung the next day.
That same night the unlighted gondola had crept
through the water-gate into the garden of the Palazzo
'Albrizzi!
He leaped forward and gripped Teresa's wrist with
shaking fingers, as the padre opened his mouth to speak.
He leaned and whispered words into her ear words
that, beside himself as he was, he did not choose that
the friar should hear.
The hazard told. Her color faded. A startled look
sped to her eyes. He knew that she had met Gordon at
night on the square ! She read monstrous conclusions
in the gaze that held her. Innocent as that errand had
been, he would never believe it! A terror struck her
cold. This old man who possessed her, that instant
ceased to be an object of tolerance and became an active
horror, baleful, secretive and cruel. She stood still,
trembling.
The padre had been nonplussed at the quick move-
ment and its result. Gordon could not surmise what
the whispered words had been, but at Teresa's paleness
he felt his muscles grow rigid.
To her accuser her agitation meant but one thing.
He released her wrist with a cracked laugh, distempered
jealousy convulsing his features. He hissed one word
at her "Wanton !"
233 THE CASTAWAY
The syllables were live coals flung upon her breast.
She cried out and put her hands to her ears as if to shut
out the sound.
At that epithet and her cry, Gordon's countenance
turned livid. His fingers hardened to steel. The air
swam red. But the girl divined; she sprang before
him and laid her fingers on his arm. His hands dropped
to his sides; he remembered suddenly that his antago-
nist was aged, decrepit. What had he been about to do ?
For one heart-beat Teresa held Gordon's glance.
When she faced her distraught husband, her eyes were
like blue-tempered metal. Those weeks of baffled quest
had been slipping the leash of girlhood. That one word
had left her all a woman. Her lips were set, and resent-
ment had drenched her cheeks with vivid color.
"Signore," she said, "I would to God it were still
yesterday !"
She turned, and went proudly down the path by
which she had come.
The old man had not moved. Now he raised his stick
and struck Gordon with it across the brow. A white
mark sprang where it fell, but the other did not lift his
hand. Then Teresa's husband, with an imprecation,
spat on the ground at the friar's feet and followed her
toward the gondolas.
The whole scene had been breathless and fate-like.
To the padre, it was a flurry of hellish passions loosed
from the pit. The storm past, still shocked from the
violence of its impact, his mind wrestled with a doubt.
His first glance at the faces of the. man and the woman,
as he emerged from the gate, had been full of sugges-
tion. They had not seemed to spell guilt, yet could he
THE CASTAWAY 233
tell? What had been the husband's whispered charge?
Was the bearing of the woman, which seemed to mirror
innocence, really one of guile? The man here before
him, accused of what specious crimes he could only
guess ! Why had he come to the monastery ? Had there
been, indeed, more than chance in this encounter at the
shrine ?
He looked at Gordon, but the latter, staring out with
a gaze viewless and set across the lagoon, seemed uncon-
scious of the scrutiny. "Be not forgetful to entertain
strangers !" That had been the monastery's creed. Aye,
but if it should be entertaining an angel of evil un-
awares? He thought of the lifted stone the man's
hand had just now dropped it back into place at his ap-
proach. He remembered that when he called Gordon
from the gate on the morning of his coming, he had seen
him bending over the shrine. The fact seemed to dis-
close significance. Had this stranger used that holy
emblem to further a clandestine and sinful tryst? Had
he hidden an endearing message there for the wife to
find to-day if he should be observed ?
Lines of sternness sharpened the friar's features. He
strode forward, caught up the stone and lifted the
folded paper.
The sternness smoothed out as he read the simple
penned sentences, and a singular look crept to his face.
It was more than contrition; it was the self -accusatory
sorrow of a mind to whom uncharity is a heinous sin be-
fore high Heaven.
He turned, flushing painfully. Gordon's back was
still toward him.
Then the padre laid the paper gently back in its place,
234 THE CASTAWAY
reset the stone over it, and silently, with bowed head en-
tered the gate.
That night there were two who did not close eye in
the monastery of San Lazzarro. One was Padre Soma-
lian, who prayed in penance. The other was a stranger
who walked the stone floor of his chamber, the prey to
an overmastering emotion.
That scene on the path, like a lightning flash in a
dark night, had shown Gordon his own heart. He knew
now that a force stronger even than his despair had been
at work in him without his knowledge. A woman's face
cried to him beyond all gainsaying. Teresa's voice
sounded in every lurch of wind against the sea-wall in
every wave that beat like a passing bell upon the mar-
gin-stones.
Far, far deeper than the burn of the white welt on
his forehead throbbed and thrilled a bitter-sweet mis-
ery. In spite of his desire, he had brought shame and
agony upon her and whether for good or ill, he loved
her!
CHAPTER XXXII
THE KESTRAINTNG HAND
An east wind blew from the Adriatic. It churned
the shadow lagoon to an ashen yeast of fury, hurled
churlish waves against the sand-reef of the Lido and
drove fleering rain-gusts over the lonely canals and de-
serted squares of Venice to drench the baffled and be-
draggled pigeons huddled under the columns of the
Doges' Palace. It beat down the early blossoms in the
garden of the Palazzo Albrizzi till they lay broken and
sodden about the arbor and the wet stone benches. It
charged against the closed shutters of the Palazzo Mo-
cenigo, where Fletcher, obedient though foreboding,
awaited the return of his master. The sky was piled
with dreary portents, clouds titanic, unmixed, like ava-
lanches of gray falling cliffs, and beneath it Venice lay
as ghostly and as gray, all its miracle hues gone lack-
luster, its glories palled, its whole face pallid and
corpse-like.
In the old monastery of S'an Lazzarro, in the bare
white-washed room used as a library, with wide windows
fronting the sea, Gordon sat bending over a table. He
had been trying to write, but could not for the thoughts
that flocked between him and the paper.
(235)
236 THE CASTAWAY
They were thoughts of Teresa, of what he had inno-
cently brought upon her. To save her pain he would
himself have gone through immeasurable miseries, but
no pang of his could lighten hers, or ward the jealous
fury that might sting and embitter her life. Where was
she? Behind some cold palazzo walls of Venice, suffer-
ing through him? He knew not even her name now.
Should they never meet again ?
She loved him. When and how she had crossed that
indistinguishable frontier mattered nothing. The fact
remained. When had he ever been loved before, he
thought. Not Lady Caroline Lamb; hers was an aber-
rant fancy, an orchid bred of a hothouse life in London.
Not Annabel, his wife ; she had loved the commiseration
of her world more than she loved him. Not Jane Cler-
mont he shuddered as he thought of her. For he
knew that not for one ephemeral moment of that reck-
less companionship had a real love furnished extenua-
tion.
"Now/ 7 he told himself, "I, who could not love when
I might, may not when I can. Yet in spite of the black
past that bars my life from such as Teresa's I love
her ! In spite of all though for both of us it is an
impossible condition, impossible then since I was chained
to a marriage in England, doubly impossible now since
she is bound by a marriage here. I love her and she
loves me! And our love can be only what the waves
of hell were to Tantalus !"
He struck the littered sheets of paper with his hand,
as a heavier gust of wet wind rattled the casement.
"Darkness and despair !" he said aloud. "That is all my
pen can paint now !"
THE CASTAWAY 237
A door opened and Padre Somalian entered.
The friar surveyed the scene of tempest from the
window a moment in silence ; then approached the table
and sat down.
"You are at work, my son ?" he inquired in English.
The tone was mild as a child's. Since his penance
after that scene by the shrine, the eye of the padre had
seen truer. But he had asked the man before him noth-
ing.
"Only idle verses, Padre."
"Why idle?"
"Because they cannot express what I would have
them."
The friar pondered, his fingers laced in his beard.
To-day, in the dreariness of the elemental turmoil with-
out, he longed intensely to touch some chord in this
lonely man that would vibrate to confidence.
"What would you have them express?" he asked at
length.
"A dream of mine last night, Padre."
A dream ! Dreams were but the reflex of the waking
mind. The friar felt suddenly nearer his goal.
"Will you tell it to me, my son ?"
Gordon rose, went to the window and looked out as
the other had done. His face was still turned seaward
as he began :
"It was a dream of darkness. The sun was extin-
guished, and moon and stars went wandering into space.
It was not the darkness of storm and night, Padre, for
in them is movement. In my dream there was none.
Without the sun, rivers and lakes lay stagnant. The
waves were dead, the tides were in their graves. Ships
238 THE CASTAWAY
rotted on the sea till their inasts fell. The very winds
were withered. Darkness was everything it was the
universe ! That was my dream/'
"There is no darkness in God's universe/' said Padre
Somalian, after a pause. "It is only in the human
heart. 'Men love darkness rather than light/ says the
Book. Did men welcome it in your dream ?"
"Morning came/' went on Gordon; "came, and went,
and came, but it was not day. Men forgot their hates
and passions. They prayed only for light but it did
not come. They lived by watch-fires, and when their
fuel was gone, they put the torch to their own homes to
see one another's faces. Huts and palaces and thrones
blazed for beacons. Whole cities burned at once. The
forests were set on fire and their crackling trunks
dropped and faded hour by hour. As the ember-flashes
fell by fits on the men who watched them, their faces
looked unearthly. Some lay down in the ashes and
howled and hid their eyes. Some rested their chins on
their clenched hands and smiled. Others hurried to and
fro feeding the flames, looking up only to curse the sky
the pall of a past world. Wild birds fluttered on the
baked ground, and brutes crawled tame and tremulous.
Vipers hissed under foot and did not sting. They were
killed for food. War was everywhere, for every meal was
bought with blood, and each man sat apart sullenly, and
gorged himself in the darkness. One thought ruled
death, quick and ignominious. Famine came. Men
died and lay unburied. The starving devoured the
starved. There was no human love left. There was only
one unselfish, faithful thing. It was a dog, and he was
faithful to a corpse. He had no food himself, but he
THE CASTAWAY 239
kept beasts and famished men at bay till he too died,
licking his master's dead hand."
The words had fallen measuredly, deliberately, as if
each aspect of the fearful picture, on the background of
the tempest that gloomed out of doors, stood distinct.
There was a moment's silence. Then the friar asked :
"Was that the dream's end?"
Gordon had turned from the window and picked up
one of the written fragments. He read the last few
lines aloud :
"The crowd was famished by degrees; but two
Of an enormous city did survive,
And they were enemies: they met beside
The dying embers of an altar-place
Where had been heaped a mass of holy things
For an unholy usage; they raked up,
And shivering, scraped with their cold skeleton hands
The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath
Blew for a little life, and made a flame
Which was a mockery; then they lifted up
Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld
Each other's aspects saw, and shrieked, and died
Even of their mutual hideousness they died,
Unknowing who he was upon whose brow
Despair had written 'Fiend.' "
There was no sound for a while when he finished.
The padre sat motionless, his head bent. To him the
picture drawn in those terse lines expressed a black in-
ferno of human hopelessness into which he had never
looked the very apotheosis of the damned. He rose,
came to where Gordon stood, and laid a hand on his
shoulder.
"My son," he said gently, "there was one darkest
240 THE CASTAWAY
hour for the world. But it was in that hour that light
and hope for men were born. Every man bears a cross
of despair to his Calvary. But He who bore the heavi-
est saw beyond. What did He say? Not my will, but
Thine!"
Gordon seemed to hear Annabel's voice repeating an
old question : "What do you believe in that is good, I
should like to know?" The friar had not asked ques-
tions; he had spoken as if voicing a faith common to
them both and to all men.
Padre Somalian said no more. He left the room
slowly.
The man standing by the window had made no re-
ply. In the old days he would have smiled. Now his
brow frowned haggardly. The age-old answer of the
churchman! To what multitudinous human miseries
it had proffered comfort! The sinless suffering and
its promise. What an unostentatiously beautiful belief
if it were only true. // it were only true !
"What an advantage/' he thought, "its possession gives
the padre here! If it is true, he will have his reward
hereafter ; if there is no hereafter, he at the worst can be
but with the infidel in his eternal sleep, having had the
assistance of an exalted hope through life without sub-
sequent disappointment. I have no horror of the awak-
ening. In the midst of myriads of living and dead crea-
tions, why should I be anxious about an atom ? It will
not please the great T that sowed the star-clusters to
damn me for an unbelief I cannot help, to a worse per-
dition than that I walk through now and shall walk
through as long as I live !"
He spoke the last phrase half-aloud. "As long as I
THE CASTAWAY 241
live." Why should it be for long? Here despair;
there no worse, if not a dreamless sleep !
"Why not?" he said to himself with grim humor.
"I should many a good day have blown my brains out
but for the recollection that it would pleasure Lady
Noel, and even then, if I could have been certain to
haunt her !"
He turned and threw the window open and a scurry
of rainy wind whirled the sheets of paper about the
floor. He looked out and down. On that side of the
island the beach had been only a narrow weedy ribbon
soaked by every storm. Now the wind that had driven
the sea into the pent lagoon, had piled it deep in the
turbid shallows, and the wall fell sheer into the gray-
green heave.
"Of what use is my life to any one in the world?"
he argued calmly. "Who is there of all that have come
nearest to me to whom I have not been a curse? I
am bound to a wife who hates me. Years will make
my memory a reproach to my child. Through me my
enemies stabbed my sister. Shelley, my only comrade
in that first year of ostracism, I hurt and disappointed.
Teresa, whom I love, and have no right to love what
have I made her life! It is a fitting turn to such a
page/'
The inner shutter of the window fastened with a mas-
sive iroa bolt. He drew the latter from its place, put
it into nis pocket, and buttoned his coat tightly. A
sentence oddly recurred to him at the moment a verse
from a quaint old epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians,
unknown to the Vulgate, which, written in Armenian,
he had found in the monastery library and translated to
242
THE CASTAWAY
torture his mind to attention : "Henceforth, no one can
trouble me further ; for I bear on my body this fetter/'
A seemly text for him it would be soon !
He approached the window.
There was a step behind him and Padre Somalian's
voice startled him. "My son, a message for you."
Gordon turned heavily, the chill of that intercepted
purpose cold upon him. He took the slender roll of
parchment the friar handed him and opened it. It was
officially ruled and engrossed a baptismal certificate:
AT ST. GILES'-IN-THE-FIELDS, LONDON.
Christian
Name.
Parents'
Christian
Names.
Surname.
Father's
Residence.
Father's
Rank.
By Whom.
Allegra.
Et. Hon.
George
Gordon,
(Reputed)
by Jane.
Clermont.
Travelling
on the
Continent.
Peer.
Percy
Bysshe
Shelley.
The man who read snatched at the top of the paper.
The date was March ninth, 1818. He felt a mist before
his eyes. Almost two years ago, and he had not known !
For two years he had had a daughter from whom he
was not necessarily debarred, whom hatred in England
could not touch. A thrill ran through him. He felt
a recrudescence of all those tender impulses that had
stirred in him when Ada was born. The motner's dis-
like or indifference had doubtless concealed the fact
from him. And indeed, when in that time had he de-
served otherwise? Why was he told now? Who had
brought this record?
THE CASTAWAY 243
The padre, watching him curiously, saw the pang
that shot across his face the pang of the new remorse-
ful conscience.
"The gentleman in the gondola," he said, "asked
to see you."
"I will go down," Gordon answered. He closed the
window, drew the iron bar from his coat and slipped it
back between its staples.
"A wild day to have crossed the lagoon," the friar
observed. "Stay take this." He threw off the outer
robe he wore and held it out. "It will shed the rain."
Gordon went rapidly through the wall-gate to the
wharf where he had first set foot on the island. His
own gondola, battered and tossing, lay there.
He stopped abruptly, for he recognized a figure
standing by it, blue-coated, bareheaded, his long hair
streaming in the wind. It was Shelley. His hand was
outstretched, and with a quick movement Gordon strode
forward and took it. A swift glance passed between the
troubled, hollow eyes under the graying hair, and the
clear, wild blue ones. Shelley's held no reproach, only
comprehension.
"Fletcher told me where to find you," he said; "you
must forgive him."
"Where is the child?"
"In the convent of Bagnacavallo, near Eavenna."
"And Jane?"
"She is with us now in Pisa."
A question he could not ask hung on Gordon's lips
as the other added :
"She is going to America with a troupe of players."
She no longer wished the child, then! Allegra
244 THE CASTAWAY
might be his. His, to care for, to teach to love him,
to come in time to fill a part, maybe, of that void in his
heart which had ached so constantly for Ada, further
from him now than any distance measurable by leagues !
He looked again at the scrap of paper still in his
hand, heedless of the wind that tore at his robe and
lashed him with spume plucked from the tunnelled
waves like spilt milk from a pan. Why had it come at
just that moment to stay his leap into the hereafter?
Was there, after all, deeper than its apparent fatalism,
an obscure purpose in what man calls chance ? Was this
daughter, born out of the pale as he himself was beyond
the pale, to give him the comfort all else conspired to
deny ? A slender hope grew tendril-like in him.
While Shelley waited, Gordon untied the girdle about
his waist, stripped off the brown robe and, folding it,
placed it out of the rain, in the niche where stood the
leaden Virgin. From his pocket he took some bank-
notes all he had with him laid them on top of the
robe and weighted them carefully with fragments of
rock.
Last he lifted the flat stone under which was Teresa's
prayer. The paper was wet and blistered from the
spray. He put it carefully in his pocket. Then with
one backward glance at the monastery, he leaped into
the gondola beside Shelley and signed to the gondolier
to cast off.
For an hour the padre sat alone in the library, mus-
ing, wondering what manner of message had called that
conflict of emotion to the other's face. As he rose at
THE CASTAWAY 245
length, the wind rattled the casement and called his
attention.
He paused before it. "Why did he have the iron
bolt ?" he said to himself. "The window was open, too."
Standing, a thought came that made him start. He
crossed himself and hastened out of the room.
A few moments later he was at the wharf. The
gondola was gone, but by the shrine he found what
Gordon had left.
He lifted the silver crucifix that hung at his girdle
and his lips moved audibly:
"0 Thou who quieted the tempest !" he prayed in his
native tongue. "Thou didst send this racked heart to
me in Thy good purpose. Have I failed in aught to-
ward him ? Did I, in my blindness, offer him less than
Thy comfort? Grant in Thy will that I may once
more minister to him and tfo.t when his storm shall
calm, I may hold before his eyes this symbol of Thy
passion and forgiveness!"
CHAPTEK XXXIII
THE PASSING OF JANE CLERMONT
The storm-clouds were gone. An Italian spring was
painting the hills with April artistry. Myrtle hedges
had waked to childish green, lusty creepers swung callow
tendrils, meadows were afire with the delicate, trembling
anemone, and the rustling olive copses were a silver
firmament of leaves. The immemorial pine woods that
stretched about Eavenna, with the groves and rivers
which Boccaccio's pen had made forever haunted, were
bathed in sun and noisy with winged creatures.
Under the boughs of the balsamic forest, through the
afternoon, from the convent of Bagnacavallo into Ea-
venna, a wagonette had been driven. It had carried
a woman, young, dark-haired and of Spanish type
she who once had ruled the greenroom of Drury Lane.
Time had made slight change in Jane Clermont's pi-
quant beauty. A little deeper of tone and fuller of lip
she was, perhaps a little colder of look; but her black
eyes snapped and sparkled with all their old daring.
The convent road met the highway on the skirt of the
town. At the juncture sat a prosperous osteria half
surrounded by trellised arbors, blowsy with yellow snap-
dragons and gilly-flowers, and bustling all day long
with the transient travel of tourists, to whom Eavenna
(246)
THE CASTAWAY 247
with its massive clusters of wide-eaved houses and dun-
colored churches, its few streets of leisurely business, its
foliaged squares and its colonnaded opera-house, were
of less interest than the tomb of Dante. The inn held
a commanding position. The post-road that passed its
door curved southward toward Pisa; northward, it
stretched to Venice. From both directions through Ea-
venna, lumbered diligence and chaise.
At the osteria the wagonette halted, made a detour
and was finally drawn up in the shadow of the arbors
where it was unobserved from the inn and yet had a
screened view of both roads. For hours the vehicle sat
there while the driver dozed, the occupant nesting her
chin in her gloved hand and from time to time rest-
lessly shifting her position.
Her patience was at last rewarded. Two men on
horseback had paused at the cross-road. One was Shel-
ley, astride the lank beast that had borne him from Pisa
to Venice. The other was George Gordon.
"So he did come !" she muttered, peering through the
screen of silver twigs. "I thought he would. I wonder
what he will say when he finds I have changed my mind
and settled Allegra's affairs another way."
She watched the pair as they parted. The dropping
sun danced in tiny flashes from the brass buttons on
Shelley's blue coat. "Poor philosopher!" she solilo-
quized with pitying tolerance. cr 5Tou are going back to
your humdrum Pisa, your books and your Mary. The
world attracts you no more now with your money than
it did when we found you in the debtors' prison. Well,
every one to his taste! I wonder why you always-
troubled yourself about George Gordon."
248 THE CASTAWAY
Her eyes narrowed as they lingered on the other fig-
ure, turning alone into the forest road from which her
wagonette had come.
"I would like to see your lordship's face when you get
there I" she said half aloud. "My authority is the con-
vent's now. You may take your daughter if you can !"
Not till both riders were out of sight did the wagon-
ette draw into the highway.
Jane Clermont rode on, humming an air, looking
^curiously at the various vehicles that passed her on the
smooth, well-travelled road, thinking with triumph of
the man she had seen riding to Bagnacavallo. She had
guessed the object of Shelley's trip to Venice, but the
knowledge had not at first stirred her natural and self-
absorbed indifference. It was a malicious afterthought,
a gratuitous spice of venom springing more from an
instinctive maleficence than from any deeper umbrage,
that had inspired that parting visit to the convent. The
impulse that had led her to assure herself of Gordon's
fruitless journey was distinctly feline.
A mile from the town her reflections were abruptly
broken. She spoke to the driver and he stopped.
A sweating horse was approaching. Its trappings
were of an ostentatious gaudiness. The face of the man
it carried was swarthy and mustachioed and his bearing
had the effect of flamboyant and disordered braggadocio.
"Trevanion!" she exclaimed, with an accent of sur-
prise. She had not seen him for two years. As she
watched, her face showed a certain amusement.
He would possibly have passed her by, for his gaze
was set straight ahead, but when he came opposite, she
leaned from the carriage and spoke his name.
THE CASTAWAY 249-
His horse halted instantly; a hot red leaped into hi&
oriental cheeks, a look fierce and painful into his eyes.
He sat still, looking at her without a word.
"I thought you were in England/' he said at length.
"So I was till last fall. Since, I've been at Pisa with
the Shelleys. But I find the continent precious dull,
I see you haven't been caught yet for deserting from the
navy. Is that why you don't stay in London? Tell
me," she asked suddenly; "where is George Gordon
now?"
"In Venice."
"Eeally!" Her voice had a kind of measured mock-
ery that did not cloak its satire. "And yet I hear of his
doings in many other places Lucca, Bologna, all the
post-towns. From the descriptions, I judge he has
changed, not only in looks but in habits."
He winced and made no reply.
"Pshaw !" she said, scorn suddenly showing. "Don't
you think I guessed? Gulling a few travellers in the
post-houses with a brawling impersonation! Suppose
a million should think George Gordon the tasteless-
roustabout ruffian you make him out? What do you
gain? One of these days, some tourist friend of his
Mr. Hobhouse, for instance ; he used to be a great trav-
eller will put a sharp end to your play."
"I'll risk that !" he threw her. "And I'd risk more r
"How you hate him !"
He laughed a hard, dare-devil sound. "Haven't I
cause enough ?"
"Not so far as I know. But I wish you luck, if the
game pleases you. It's nothing to me."
"It was something to you, once," he said, "wasn't it ?""
250 THE CASTAWAY
She smiled amusedly. "How tragic you always were !
He was never more to me than that" she snapped her
fingers. "Constancy is too heavy a r61e. I always pre-
ferred lighter parts. I am going to play in America.
Why don't you turn stroller and act to some purpose?
Why not try New York?"
While she spoke her tone had changed. It had be-
come softer, more musical. Her lashes drooped with
well-gauged coquetry.
"Look," she said, in a lower key ; "am I as handsome
as I used to be at Drury Lane when you said you'd
like to see the world with me ?"
A smoldering fire kindled in his eyes as he gazed at
her. He half leaned from the saddle half put out his
hand.
But at his movement she dropped the mask. She
laughed in open scorn. "A fig for your hate !" she ex-
claimed contemptuously. "I have no liking for George
Gordon, but he was never a sneak at any rate !"
The man to whom she spoke struck savage spurs to
his horse. As he wheeled, she swept him a curtsy from
the carriage seat. "Joy to your task!" she cried, and
drove on with her lips curled.
"He doesn't know Gordon is near Ravenna," she
thought presently. "If he gives one of his free enter-
tainments at the inn to-night, there may be an inter-
esting meeting. What a pity I shall miss it!" and she
laughed.
A little further on, the carriage turned to the west-
ward toward the Swiss frontier.
As Trevanion reined the animal he bestrode to its
haunches at the porch of the osteria, where Jane Cler-
THE CASTAWAY 251
mont's wagonette had waited, he looked back along the
road with a muttered curse. Then he kicked a sleep-
ing hound from the step and went in with an assumed
limp and a swagger.
Two hours later, when the early dusk had fallen, and
the ghostly disk that had hung all day in the sky was
yellowing above the olive trees, George Gordon flung
his bridle wearily to a groom at the inn. His face was
set and thwarted. He had been to the convent, to find
that a wall had suddenly reared between him and the
possession of his child. To surmount this would mean
publicity, an appeal to British authority, red tape, a
million Italian delays, perhaps failure then.
As he stood, listening to the stir of the inn he was
about to enter, a low voice suddenly spoke from the
shadow of a hedge : "Excellence !"
Turning he recognized the huge frame of the gondo-
lier who had borne Teresa from the Piazza San Marco
on the night she had come to warn him. His heart
leaped into his throat. Had the man followed him from
Venice? Did he bring a message from her?
"Excellence ! I heard in the town that you were at the
inn. I would like speech with you, but I must not be
seen. Will you follow me ?"
Even in his surprise, Gordon felt an instant's wonder.
He himself had not yet entered the osteria. How had
the other heard of his presence ? The wonder, however,
was lost in the thought of Teresa.
He turned from the inn and followed the figure si-
lently through the falling shadows.
CHAPTER XXXIV
TITA INTERVENES
Under the trees, as Gordon listened to the gondolier,
the night grew deeper. The moonlight that mellowed
over the pine forests spectrally outspread, the burnished
river and the town before them, misted each hedge and
tree with silver. A troubadour nightingale bubbled in
the middle distance from some palazzo garden and from
the nearer osteria came sounds of bustle. Through all
breathed the intimate soft wind of the south bearing
the smell of lime-blossoms and of sleeping bean-fields.
Wonder at Tita's appearance had melted into a great
wave of gladness that swept him at the sudden know-
ledge that she, Teresa, was there in Ravenna near him,
mistress of Casa Guiccioli, whose very portal he had
passed that afternoon. But the joy had died speedily;
thereafter every word had seemed to burn itself into his
heart.
"If he hated her, why did he wish to make her his
contessa? Tell me that, Excellence! It has been so
all these weeks, ever since her wedding. Sometimes I
have heard him sneer at her always about you, Excel-
lence how he knew she ever saw you I cannot tell!
His servants go spying spying, always when she is out
of the casa."
(252)
THE CASTAWAY 253
The man who listened turned his head with a move-
ment of physical pain, as Tita went on, resentfully:
"And she is a Gamba., born to be a great lady! If
she left him, he would bring her back, unless she went
from Italy. And who is to help her do that? Her
brother is in another land. Her father is sick and she
will not tell him anything. There is none but me in
Casa Guiccioli who does not serve the signore too well !
I thought " he finished, twisting his red cap in his
great fingers, "I thought if I told you you would
take her away from him, to your own country, maybe."
Gordon almost smiled in his anguish. To the simple
soul of this loyal servant, on whom conventional morals
sat with Italian lightness, here was an uncomplex solu-
tion! Turn household highwayman and fly from the
states of the Church to enjoy the plunder ! And of all
places to England ! Open a new domestic chapter in
some provincial British country-side as "Mr. Smith,"
perhaps, "a worthy retired merchant of Lima!" The
bitter humor couched in the fancy made sharper his
pang of utter impotence. Italy was not England, he
thought grimly. In that very difference had lain ship-
wreck for them both. Teresa could not leave her hus-
band openly, as Annabel had left him ! The Church of
Rome knew no divorce, and inside its bond only a papal
decree could give her the right to live apart from her
husband under her own father's roof.
Tita's voice spoke again, eagerly: "You will come,
Excellence? The signore is from Ravenna now, at one
of his estates in Romagna you can see her ! None shall
know, if you come with me. You will, Excellence ?"
To see her again ! Gordon had not realized how much
254 THE CASTAWAY
it meant till to-night, when the possibility found him
quivering from his disappointment at the convent. A
stolen hour with her ! Why not ? Yet discovery. Her
husband's servants, spies upon her every moment! To
steal secretly to her thus unbidden and perhaps crowd
upon her a worse catastrophe than that at San Lazzarro !
He shook his head. "No. Not unless she knows I
am here and bids me come."
"I will go and tell her, Excellence !"
"Tell her I did not know she was in Ravenna, but
that that I would die to serve her. Say that !"
"You will wait here, Excellence ?"
"Yes."
Tita swung round and disappeared.
It seemed an immeasurable time that Gordon waited,
striding fiercely up and down, listening to every sound.
At the inn a late diligence had unloaded its contingent
of chattering tourists for the night. He could hear
phrases spoken in English. The words bore a myriad-
voiced suggestion, yet how little their appeal meant to
him at that moment ! All England, save for Ada, was
less to him then than a single house there in Ravenna
and a convent buried in the forest under that moon. On
such another perfect day and amber night, he thought,
he had found Teresa's miniature and had fled with Jane
Clermont. Now substance and shadow had replaced one
another. To-day Jane had touched his life vaguely and
painfully in passing from it ! Teresa was the sole real-
ity. What would she say? What word would Tita
bring ?
Long as it seemed, it was in fact less than an hour be-
fore the gondolier stood again before him.
THE CASTAWAY 255
Ten minutes later they were in the streets of the
town, avoiding its lighted thoroughfares, walking swift-
ly, Tita in the lead. At length, threading a lane be-
tween walled gardens flanking great houses whose fronts
frowned on wider avenues, they stood before a columned
gate. This Gordon's guide unlocked.
"I will watch here," he said. "You will not tell her
I came to you first of my own thought, Excellence ?" he
added anxiously.
"I will not tell her/' answered Gordon.
He entered with a loudly beating heart.
CHAPTER XXXV
IN THE CASA GARDEN
The close was still only ;he flutter of moths and the
plash of a fountain tinkling wetly. Here and there
in the deeper shade of cloistral walks, the moonlight,
falling through patches of young leaves, flecked blood-
less bacchantes and bronze Tritons nestling palely in
shrub tangles of mimosa. This was all Gordon distin-
guished at first as he moved, his hands before him, his
feet feeling their way on the cool sward.
Suddenly a low breath seemed to pierce the stillness.
A sense of nearness rushed upon him. His arm, out-
stretched, touched something yielding.
"Teresa!" he cried, and his hands found hers and
drew her close to him. In that first moment of silence
he was keenly conscious of her breath against his cheek,
hurried and warm.
"I know I know," he said in a choked voice. "Tita
told me all. I would give my body inch by inch, my
blood drop by drop to give back to your life what I have
taken from it !"
She shook her head. "You have taken nothing from
it. Before that night on the square it held nothing I
have learned that since."
She was feeling a sense of exaltation. Since the day
(256)
THE CASTAWAY 257
at San Lazzarro she had never expected to see him
again. To her he had been a glorious spirit, struggling
for lost foothold on the causeways of redemption. In
her mental picture he had stood always as she had seen
him on the monastery path, pale, clad in a monk's coarse
robe, the vesture of earthly penance. This picture had
blotted out his past, whatever it had been, whatever of
rumor was true or false, whatever she may for a time
have believed. Every word he had spoken remained a
living iterate memory. And the thought that her hand
had drawn him to his better self had filled her with a
painful ecstasy.
"Teresa," he said unsteadily, "I long ago forfeited
every right to hope and happiness. And if this were
not true, by a tie that holds me, and by a bond you be-
lieve in, I have still no right to stand here now. But
fate drew me here to-day as it drew me to you that
morning at La Mira. It is stronger than I stronger
than us both. Yet I have brought you nothing but
misery !"
"You have brought me much more than that," she in-
terrupted. "I knew nothing of life when I met you.
I have learned it now as you must have known it to
write as you have. I know that it is vaster than I ever
dreamed more sorrowful, but sweeter, too."
A stone bench showed near, wound with moonbeams,
and she sat down, making room beside her. In the
white light she seemed unreal a fantasy in wild-rose
brocade. A chain of dull gold girdled her russet hair,
dropping a single emerald to quiver and sparkle on her
forehead. Her face was pale, but with a shadowy some-
thing born of those weeks.
258 THE CASTAWAY
What he saw there was awakened self-reliance and
mettle, the birthright of clean inheritance. The wedding
.gondola that had borne a girl to San Lazzarro had car-
ried back a woman, rebellious, agonized, flushed to every
nerve. She had opposed a woman's pride to the hatred
that otherwise would have made the ensuing time a slow
unrolling nightmare; had taken her place passively as
mistress of the gloomy casa with its atmosphere of cold
grandeur and miserliness, thankful that its host was
niggardly of entertainment, enduring as best she might
the petty persecution with which the old count sur-
rounded her. His anger, soured by the acid sponge of
jealousy, had fed itself daily with this baiting. He
believed she had come smirched from the very altar to
his name and place. Yet he had no proof, and to make
the scandal public to put her away would have seared
his pride, laid him open to the wrath of her kin, brought
her brother back to Italy to avenge the slight upon
their house, and most of all to be dreaded, would have
necessitated the repayment of her dowry. A slow and
secret satisfaction was all he had, and under it her spirit
had galled and chafed him. In this strait she had had
no confidant, for her father, aging rapidly and failing,
she would not sadden, and whenever he drove to Casa
Guiccioli from his villa, some miles from the town,
sole relic of his wasted properties, had striven to con-
ceal all evidence of unhappiness. Even when she had
determined on a momentous step a secret appeal to the
papal court for such a measure of freedom as was possi-
ble she had determined not to tell him yet. Grief and
repression had called to the surface the latent capabili-
ties which in the girl had been but promises, and these
COUNTESS TERESA.
THE CASTAWAY 259
spoke now to Gordon in a beauty strong, eager and far-
divining.
"What I have known of life is not its sweets/' he an-
swered in bitterness. "I have gathered its poison-
flowers, and their perfume clings to the life I live now."
"But it will not be so/' she said earnestly. "I believe
more than you told me at La Mira when you said it
had been one of your faults that you had never justified
yourself. You were never all they said. Something
tells me that. If you did evil, it was not because you
chose it or took pleasure in it. For a while I doubted
everything, but that day at San Lazzarro, when I saw
you the moment you spoke it came back to me. No
matter what I might think or hear again, in my heart I
should always believe that now !"
He put out his hand, a gesture of hopelessness and
protest. His mind was crying out against the twin
implacables, Time and Space. If man could but push
back the Now to Then, enweave the There and Here!
If in such a re-formed universe, He and She might this
hour be standing no irrevocable past, only the new
Now! What might not life yield up for him, of its
burgeoning, not of its corruption, its hope, not of its
despair !
"That day !" he repeated. "I saw you in the gondola.
I would have spared you that meeting."
"Yet that was what told me. If I had not seen you
there " She paused.
The chains of his repression clung about him like the
load of broken wings. The knowledge that had come
as he walked the floor of his monastery room with the
burn of a blow on his forehead, had spelled abnegation.
260 THE CASTAWAY
She must never know the secret he carried must in
time forget her own. Once out, he could never shackle
it again. He completed her sentence :
"You would have forgotten the sooner."
"I should never have forgotten," she said softly.
He was silent. He dared not look at her face, but he
saw her hands, outstretched, clasping her knee.
Presently he could not guess the dear longing for
denial that made her tone shake now ! she said :
"Tita told me that when you came to Eavenna you
had not known "
He rose to his feet, feeling the chains weakening, the
barriers of all that had lain unspoken, yet not unfelt,
burning away.
"It was true," he answered, confronting her. "I did
not know it. But if I had known all I know to-night,
I would have crossed seas and mountains to come to
you! Now that I have seen you what can I do?
Teresa ! Teresa !"
The exclamation held trenchant pain something
else, too, that for the life of him he could not repress.
It pierced her with a darting rapture.
Since that hour at the monastery, with its pang and
its reassurance, as she felt budding those new, mysteri-
ous flowers of faith and heart experience, she had felt
a deeper unguessed want. Over and over she had re-
peated to herself the last words he had said before that
painful interruption : "Because it was a prayer of yours
for me." Her soul had been full of a vague, unphrased
yearning for all the meanings that might lie unex-
pressed in the coupling of those two words. So now,
THE CASTAWAY 261
as she heard him speak her name in that shaken accent,
her heart thrilled.
"Ah/' she breathed, "then you care so much?"
His fingers clenched. He was torn with two emo-
tions: self-abasement, and a hungry desire, lashed by
propinquity, to take her in his arms, to defy vow and
present, be the consequence what it might. There came
upon him again the feeling that had gripped him when
she stood with him among the circling maskers, violet-
eyed, lilac-veined, bright with new impulses, passionate
and lovely. He leaned toward her. If she but knew
how he cared !
A sound startled them both. Her hand grasped his
with apprehensive fingers as she listened. "Look!
There beyond the hedge. A shadow moved."
He looked. Only an acacia stirred in the light air.
"It is nothing," he reassured her. "Tita is at the
gate."
"Oh," she said fearfully, "I should not have said
come. There is risk for you here."
"What would I not have risked ?"
"Listen!"
Another sound came to both now, the pounding of
horses' hoofs, borne over the roof from the street the
rumble of heavy coach wheels. It ceased all at once, and
lights sprang into windows across the shrubbery.
She came to her feet as Tita hurried toward them.
"It is the signore," warned the gondolier.
"Dio mio I" she whispered. "Go go quickly !"
He caught her hands. "If only I could help you,
serve you !"
"You can," she said hurriedly. "I have a letter on
262 THE CASTAWAY
which much depends for the Contessa Albrizzi at
Venice. I cannot trust a messenger."
"It shall start to-night."
"It is in my room. I will send it after you by Tita.
Ah hasten !"
He bent and touched his lips to a curl that had blown
like litten gold against her shoulder. Her eyes met his
an instant in fluttering, happy confusion. Then, as he
followed Tita quickly to the gate, she turned and ran
toward the house.
She had not seen a man, crouched in the shadow of a
hedge, who had hurried within doors to greet the master
of the casa so unexpectedly returned. She did not see
the rage that colored her husband's shrunken cheeks in
his chamber as Paolo, his Corsican secretary, imparted
to him two pieces of information: the presence of the
stranger in the garden and the arrival that afternoon
at the osteria of him Venice called "the wicked milord."
The old count pondered, with shaking fingers. He
hated the Englishman of Venice ; hated him for robbing
him of the youth and beauty he had gloated over, for the
arrow to his pride with a hatred that had settled
deeper each day, fanatical and demented. The story of
the garden trespasser inspired now an unholy craving
for reprisal, unformed and but half conceived. He
summoned his secretary.
In a few moments more a half-hour after Teresa's
letter had started on its way to the inn his coach, with
its six white horses, bearing Paolo, and followed by four
of the casa servants afoot, was being driven thither by
a roundabout course.
CHAPTER XXXVI
THE FACE AT THE WINDOW
The osteria, as Gordon approached, seemed gurgling
with hilarity. At its side the huge unhitched diligence
yawned, a dark bulk waiting for the morrow's journey.
Some of the passengers it had carried were gathered on
the porch before the open windows, listening, with pos-
tures that indicated a more than ordinary curiosity and
interest, to sounds from the tap-room. There were
women's forms among them.
Tourists were little to Gordon's liking. They had
bombarded his balcony at Diodati with spy-glasses, had
ambushed him at Venice when he went to opera or
ridotto. To him they stood for the insatiable taboo of
public disesteem the chuckling fetishism that mocked
him still from beyond blue water. He skirted the inn
in the shade of the cypresses and passed to an arbor
which the angle of the building screened from the
group.
On its edge he paused and gazed out over the fields
and further forest asleep. With what bitterness he had
ridden scarce three hours before from those woods!
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264 THE CASTAWAY
Now it was shot through with an arrow of cardinal joy
whose very rankle was a painful delight. In the jar of
conflicting sensations he had not reasoned or presaged ;
he could only feel.
What was the import of Teresa's letter, he wondered.
Much depended on it, she had said in that agitated mo-
ment. A thought flitted to him. The Contessa Al-
brizzi had lived much in Kome was, he remembered,
cousin to a cardinal. Could this message be an appeal
for deliverance from an impossible position? Might
Teresa yet be free ; not from her marriage bond, but at
least from this hourly torture in Casa Guiccioli?
With the quick feeling of relief for her, wound a sharp
sense of personal vantage. For him that would mean
the right to see her often and unopposed. Yet, he
argued instantly with self-reproach, was not this the
sole right he could not possess, then or ever? What
would it be but tempting her love on and on, only to
leave it naked and ashamed at last?
A gust of noise rose behind him. It issued from a
window opening out of the tap-room into the arbor.
On the heels of the sound he caught shattered comments
from the peering group on the front porch feminine
voices speaking English:
"I've always wanted to see him. We watched three
whole days in Venice. How young he looks !"
"What a monster! And to think he is a peer and
once wrote poetry. There! See he's looking this
way!"
Gordon started and half turned, but he had not been
observed; the angle of the wall hid him effectually.
Just then a single vociferate voice rose to dominant
THE CASTAWAY 265
speech in the room a reckless, ribald utterance like
one thickened with liquor. It conveyed an invitation
to everybody within hearing to share its owner's punch.
Laughter followed, and from outside a flutter of with-
drawing skirts and a masculine exclamation of affront.
With a puzzled wonder the man in the arbor listened,
while the voice within lifted in an uncertain song:
"Fare thee well! and if forever,
Still forever fare thee well;
Even though unforgiving, never
'Gainst thee shall my heart rebel."
"Shameless brute !" came from the porch. "I wouldn't
have believed it!"
Smothering a fierce ejaculation, Gordon strode to the
window and gazed into the room. The singer broke off
with a laugh:
"That's the song I always warble, gentlemen, when
I'm in my cups. I wrote it to my wife when I was a
Bond Street lounger, a London cicisbeo and fan-carrier
to a woman."
The man who stared across the sill with a painful
fascination was witnessing a glaring, vulgar travesty of
himself. Not the George Gordon he was, or, indeed,
had ever been, but the George Gordon the world be-
lieved him; the abandoned profligate of wassail and
blackguardism, whom tourists boasted of having seen,
and of whom an eleventh commandment had been pro-
mulgated for all British womankind not to read his
books. And this counterpart was being played by a man
whose Moorish, theatric face he knew a man he had
flung from his path at Geneva, when he stood with
266 THE CASTAWAY
Jane Clermont by the margin of the lake on the night
he and she had fled together. A man who hated him!
The clever effrontery of the deception showed how
deep was that hatred. Gordon understood now how
Tita had heard of his presence at the osteria before he
had entered it. The farceur inside did not know the
man he impersonated was in Eavenna to-night. This,
then, was not the only caravansary at which the bur-
lesque had been played. Nor were these tourists smirk-
ing in the tap-room, or listening open-mouthed outside
to the clumsy farrago, the only ones to return to Eng-
land with clacking tongues. This was how the London
papers had bristled with garbled inventions! This
scene was only a step in a consistent plan to blacken
his name anew throughout the highways of continental
travel !
A guttural whisper escaped his lips. It would be an-
other bar between him and possession of Allegra. And
Teresa ? If these post-house tales reached her ears ! A
crimson mist grew before his eyes.
A more reckless and profane emphasis had come now
to the carouser within. He had risen and approached
the porch window, simulating as he walked an awkward
limp.
"Take a greeting to England, you globe-trotters!
Greeting from Venice, the sea-Sodom, to London ! Hell
is not paved with its good intentions. Slabs of lava,
with its parsons' damned souls for cement, make a bet-
ter causeway for Satan's cor so I"
Again he turned to his fellows in the tap-room:
''When I shuffle off it will be like the rascals to dump
THE CASTAWAY 267
me into Westminster Abbey. If they do, I'll save them
the trouble of the epitaph. I've written it myself:
"George Gordon lies here, peer of Nottinghamshire,
Wed, parted and banished inside of a year.
The marriage he made, being too much for one,
He could not carry off so he's now carri-on!"
"Westminster Abbey !" said a man's bass in disgust.
Gordon's left hand reached and grasped the sill. His
face was convulsed. His right hand went to his breast
pocket.
At that instant, from behind him, a touch fell on
his arm and stayed it. "A letter, Excellence."
He turned with a long, shuddering breath, and took
what Tita handed him.
"I understand, Tita," he answered, with -an effort.
The other nodded and disappeared.
For a moment Gordon stood motionless. Then he
passed from the arbor, through the hedges, to the spot
whither the gondolier had led him two hours before.
He sat down on the turf and buried his face in his
hands.
He had scarcely known what shapeless lurid thing
had leaped up in his soul as he gazed through the win-
dow, but the touch on his arm had told him. For the
moment the pressure had seemed Teresa's hand, as he
had felt it on the path at San Lazzarro, when the same
red mist had swum before his eyes. Then it had roused
a swift sense of shame ; now the memory did more. The
man yonder he had injured. There had been a deed of
shame and dastard cowardice years before in Greece
yet what had he to do with the boy's act? By what
268 THE CASTAWAY
right had he, that night in Geneva, judged the other's
motive toward Jane Clermont? Had his own been so
pure a one then? Because of a fancied wrong, Tre-
vanion had dogged him to Switzerland. Because of a
real one he dogged him now.
After a time Gordon raised his head and stared out
into the moonlight. "It is past/' he said aloud and
with composure. "It shall never tempt me again!
What comes to me thus I myself have beckoned. I will
not try to avert it by vengeance. The Great Mechanism
that mixed the elements in me to make me what I am,
shall have its way !"
He rose slowly and walked back toward the osteria.
A groom was washing out the empty diligence. He sent
him for his horse, and in a few moments was in the sad-
dle, riding toward Venice through the silent, glimmer-
ing streets of Eavenna.
A new, nascent tenderness was in him. He was riding
from her, the one woman he loved to see her when and
where ? Should he ever see her again ? She might have
hope of relief in the letter he carried, but who could tell
if it would succeed? And in the meantime she was
alone, as she had been alone before.
He rode on, his chin sunk on his breast, scarcely ob-
serving a coach with six white horses, that passed him,
driven in the opposite direction.
CHAPTEK XXXVII
TBEVANI01T FINDS AN ALLY
Trevanion, the drunkenness slipped from his face
and the irksome limp discarded, came from the osteria
door. His audience dwindled, he was minded for fresh
air and a stroll. Behind the red glow of his segar his
dark face wore a smile.
Just at the fringe of the foliage two stolid figures in
servant's livery stepped before him. Startled, he drew
back. Two others stood behind him. He looked from
side to side, pale with sudden anticipation, his lips
drawn back like a lynx at bay. He was weaponless.
A fifth figure joined the circle that hemmed him
Paolo, suave, smiling, Corsican.
"Magnificence !" he said, in respectful Italian, "I bear
the salutations of a gentleman of Ravenna who begs
your presence at his house to-night." Without waiting
answer, he called softly, and a coach with six white
horses drew slowly from the shadow.
For an instant Trevanion smiled in grim humor, half
deceived. A simultaneous movement of the four in
livery, however, recalled his distrust.
"Are these his bravos ? " he inquired in surly defiance-
"His servants, Magnificence !"
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270 THE CASTAWAY
"Carry my excuses then and bid him mend the man-
ner of his invitations."
"I should regret to have to convey such a message
from the milord." Paolo opened the coach door as he
spoke. The inference was obvious.
Trevanion glanced swiftly over his shoulder toward
the still hostelry. His first sound of alarm might easily
be throttled. At any rate, he reflected, these were not
the middle ages. To the owner of this equipage he was
an English lord, and lords were not kidnapped and
stilettoed, even in Italy. Some wealthy Kavennese, per-
haps, not openly to flout public disapproval, chose thus
to gratify his curiosity. Anticipating refusal, he had
taken this method of urbane constraint. Well, perforce,
he would see the adventure through ! He shrugged his
shoulders and entered the coach.
Paolo seated himself, and the horses started at a
swinging trot. Through the windows Trevanion could
discern the forms of the men-servants running along-
side. He sat silent, his companion vouchsafing no re-
mark, till the carriage stopped and they alighted at the
open portal of a massive structure fronting the paved
street. It was Casa Guiccioli.
The Corsican led the way in and the servants dis-
appeared. With a word, Paolo also vanished, and the
man so strangely introduced gazed about him.
The hall was walled with an arras tapestry of faded
antique richness, hung with uncouth weapons. Opposite
ascended a broad, dimly lighted stairway holding niches
of tarnished armor. Wealth with penuriousness showed
everywhere. Could this whimsical duress be the audac-
ity of some self-willed dama, weary of her cavaliere
THE CASTAWAY 271
servente and scheming thus to gain a romantic tete-a-
tete with the famed and defamed personage he had cari-
catured that day? Trevanion stole softly to the arras,
wrenched a Malay kriss from a clump of arms, and
slipped it under his coat.
A moment later his guide reappeared. Up the stair,
along a tiled and gilded hall, he followed him to a wide
stanza. A door led from this at which Paolo knocked.
As it opened, the compelled guest caught a glimpse of
the interior, set with mirrors and carven furniture,
panelled and ornate with the delicate traceries of brush
and chisel. In the room stood two figures : a man bent
from age, his face blazing with the watch-fires of an
unbalanced purpose, and a woman, young, lovely, dis-
traught. She wore a dressing-gown, and her gold hair
fell uncaught about her shoulders, as though she had
been summoned in haste to a painful audience. Her
eyes, on the man, were fixed in an expression of fearful
wonder. One hand was pressed hard against her heart.
Trevanion had never seen either before; what did they
want with him ?
<f Your guest," announced Paolo on the threshold.
"What do you mean to do ?" cried the girl in frantic
fear. "He is a noble of England ! You dare not harm
him!"
"I am a noble of Romagna !" grated the old man.
It was the real George Gordon they expected not he !
Trevanion was smiling as Paolo spoke to him. With a
hand on the blade he concealed he strode forward, past
him, into the room.
"Your servant, Signore," said he, as the door closed
behind him.
272 THE CASTAWAY
There was a second of silence, broken by a snarl
from the old count and a cry from Teresa a sob of
relief. She leaned against the wall, in the reaction
suddenly faint. Her husband's summons had filled her
with apprehension for she recalled the sound in the
shrubbery and his announcement, full of menace to
Gordon, had shaken her mettle of resistance. She re-
membered an old story of a hired assassin whispered of
him when she was a child. At the insane triumph and
excitement in his manner she had been convinced and
frightened. Terror had seized her anew the shivering
terror of him that had come to her on the monastery
path and that her after-resentment had allayed.
Now, however, her fear calmed, indignation at what
she deemed a ruse to compel an admission of concern
that had but added to her husband's fury, sent the blood
back to her cheeks. All the repressed feeling that his
cumulative humiliations had aroused burst their bonds.
She turned on him with quivering speech :
"Evviva, Signore!" she said bitterly. "Are you not
proud to have frightened a woman by this valorous
trick? Have you other comedies to garnish the even-
ing? Non importa I leave them for your guest."
Trevanion's face wore a smile of relish as she swept
from the room. He was certain now of two things. The
old man hated George Gordon; the girl was she
daughter or wife? did not. Had he unwittingly
stumbled upon a chapter in the life of the man he
trailed which he had not known? He seated himself
with coolness, his inherent dare-deviltry flaunting to
the surface.
Through the inflamed brain- of the master of the casa,
THE CASTAWAY 273
as- he stared at him with his hawk eyes, were crowding
suspicions. Paolo's description had made him certain
of the identity of the man in the garden. But his com-
mand to his secretary had named only the milord at
the osteria. That the two were one and the same, Paolo
could not have known otherwise he would not have
brought another. But how had he been deceived ? How,
unless the man before him was a confederate had
played the other's part at the inn? It was a decoy, so
the lover of his wife, with less risk in the amour, might
laugh in his sleeve at him, the hoodwinked husband, the
richest noble in Eomagna ! His lean fingers twitched.
"May I ask," he queried, wetting his lips, "what the
real milord who is also in town to-day pays you for
filling his place to-night?"
Possessed as he was, his host could not mistake the
other's unaffected surprise. Before the start he gave,
suspicion of collusion shredded thin.
"He is in Venice," said Trevanion.
"He came to Eavenna this afternoon."
His enemy there ? Trevanion remembered the laugh
of the woman in the wagonette. Jane Clermont had
mocked him ! She lied ! She had come there to meet
Gordon. Vicious passion gathered on his brow, signs
readily translatable, that glozed the old man's anger
with dawning calculation.
"You have acted another's role to-night," Count
Guiccioli said, leaning across the table, "and done it
well, I judge, for my secretary is no fool. I confess to a
curiosity to know why you chose to appear as the milord
for whom I waited."
Trevanion's malevolence leaped in his answer: "Be-
274: THE CASTAWAY
cause I hate him ! And hate him more than you ! In
Italy I can add to the reputation he owns already in
England! I want his name to blacken and blister
wherever it is spoken ! That's why !"
The count made an exclamation, as through his fe-
vered blood the idea of the truth raced swiftly. The
town loungers had gaped at the osteria to see the ca-
rousal of the milord so Paolo had said. Why, it was
as good as a play! He duiiled and thought further:
The Englishman had been in Eavenna and had
eluded his grasp. Here before him was youth, clever
and unscrupulous ; if less cunning, yet bolder a hatred
antedating his own a ready tool. Who could tell to
what use such an ally might be put? The suggestion
fascinated him. He laughed a splintered treble as he
rang the bell sharply for his secretary.
"A bottle of Amontillado!" he commanded. "My
good Paolo, we drink a health to the guest of the casa/'
As the secretary disappeared Trevanion drew the
kriss from beneath his coat and handed it to its owner.
"A pretty trifle," he said coolly; "I took the liberty of
admiring it as I waited. I quite forgot to replace it."
"My dear friend !" protested the count, pushing it
back across the table, "I rejoice that you should fancy
one of my poor possessions ! I pray you accept it. Who
knows? You may one day find a use for the play-
thing!"
They sat late over the wine. They were still con-
versing when a window in the casa overlooking the
garden opened and Teresa's face looked out. Her
straining emotions had left her trembling. Who was
THE CASTAWAY 275
the swarthy, fierce-eyed man ? At the first sight of him
she had felt an instinctive recoil.
But her puzzle fell away as she gazed out into the soft
night with its peace and somnolent incense. From the
garden below, where she and Gordon had sat, came the
beat of a night-bird bending the poppies. Overhead tiny
pale clouds drifted like cherry-blossoms in the breeze.
Far off the moon dropped closer to the velvet clasp of
the legend-haunted hills. To-night, foreboding seemed
treason while her heart held that one meeting, as the
sky the stars, inalienable, eternal. Gordon was safe, on
his way to Venice, and with him was her letter on
which hung her hope for a papal separation, all that
was possible under the seneschalship of Eome.
At length she closed the shutter, knelt at the ivory
crucifix that hung in a corner of the raftered chamber,
and crept into bed.
She fell asleep with a curl the one he had kissed
drawn across her lips.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
THE HEART OF A WOMAN
From the coming of Gordon on that unforgettable
night to the garden, Teresa's pulse began to beat more
tumultuously. To offset the humiliation of her daily
life indoors and the tireless surveillance in the person of
Paolo of well-nigh he'r every excursion, she had the
buoyant memory of that hour and the promise of her
appeal to the Church's favor. The three essentials of
woman's existence love, hope and purpose were now
hers in spite of all.
More than one new problem perturbed her. There was
the swarthy visitor coming and going mysteriously,
closeted with her husband weekly. His strange entrance
into the casa that day of all days the stranger ruse that
had been practised through him upon her seemed to
connect him in some occult, uncanny way with the man
of whom, every hour of day and night, she mused and
dreamed. Thinking of this, and weighing her husband's
hatred, at first she hoped Gordon would not return to
Ravenna.
There had befallen another matter, too, which seemed
to have absorbed much of the old count's attention, and
(276)
THE CASTAWAY 277
which, to her relief, took him from the city for days at
a time.
Teresa knew what this matter was. In every visit to
her father he had talked of it triumphantly the rising
of the Italian peoples and the breaking of the galling
yoke of Austria. During this spring strange rumors had
prevailed. Twice, morning had found placards posted
on the city walls : "Up with the Eepublic !" and "Down
with the Pope !" The foreign police were busy ; houses
were searched and more than one Eavennese was seized
under suspicion of membership in the Carbonari,
whose mystic free-masonry hid the secrets of enrolling
bands and stores of powder. Knowledge of the syco-
phant part her husband was currently suspected of play-
ing came to Teresa bit by bit, in sidelong looks, as her
carriage rolled through the town, and more definitely
from Tita. The Austrian wind blew strongest and
Count Guiccioli trimmed his sails accordingly.
But replete with its one image, Teresa's heart left
small space to these things. Gordon's face flushed her
whole horizon. And as the empty weeks linked on, she
began, in spite of her fears, to long passionately to see
him again. That her letter had reached its destination
she knew, for the Contessa Albrizzi paused an hour for a
visit of state at the casa on her way to Eome. But no
word came from its bearer, and each day Tita returned
from the osteria messageless.
She could not guess the struggle that had torn Gor-
don the struggle between reasoning conscience and un-
reasoning desire or how fiercely, the letter once de-
livered by Fletcher, he had fought down the longing to
return to Eavenna, which held his child, and her. He
278 THE CASTAWAY
had been able to aid her once, prompted Desire; she
might need him again. If he stayed away in her
trouble, what would she deem him ? Suppose by chance
she should hear of the orgy he had witnessed at the
osteria? This reflection maddened him. "Yet," Eea-
son answered, "not to see her is the only safety. She
is unhappy now; but can I because life is ended for
me to bring her present comfort, run the risk of em-
bittering her life further ?" So he had argued.
There came a week for Teresa when Paolo was sum-
moned to Faenza, whither her husband had gone two
days before. The espionage of the casa relaxed, and on
her birthday, with Tita on the box, she drove alone
through the afternoon forest to the Bagnacavallo con-
vent with a gift for the Mother Superior, the only
mother her childhood had known.
When she issued from the gate again she carried her
birthday gift, a Bible, and a German magazine given her
by the nun who had taught her that tongue. In her
heart she bore a far heavier burden, for in that hour she
had held a child in her arms and listened to a story that
had sunk into her soul. Her face was deathly white and
her limbs dragged.
Calling to Tita to wait, she left the road and climbed
a path that zigzagged up a wooded knoll overlooking the
narcissus-scented valley and the hurrying river that
flowed past the convent walls. The briers tore her
hands, but she paid no heed, climbing breathlessly.
The sparser crown of the hillock was canopied by
shaggy vine-festoons and dappled by the shadow-play of
firs, whose aged roots were covered with scalloped fun-
gus growths. As a child this had been her favorite spot.
THE CASTAWAY 279
With one of these giant tree-fungi for a seat she had
loved to day-dream, gazing down across the convent in-
closure and the stream that flowed silverly on, past Ka-
venna, to the sea. She stood a moment knee-deep in the
bracken, her form tense with suffering, then dropped the
books on the ground and throwing herself down, burst
into tears. She wept long and passionately, in utter
desolation.
She had listened to the Superior's story with her face
buried in the child's frock, now burning, now drenched
with cold. The touch had given her a wild delight and
yet an agony unfathomable. As she lay and wept, ten-
derness and torture still mingled inextricably in her
emotions. She knew now why Gordon had been in Ea-
venna that spring day. He had told the truth; it had
been with no thought of her.
A sudden memory of his words in the casa garden
came with sickening force: "By a tie that holds me,
and by a bond you believe in, I have no right to stand
here now." Was this the tie he had meant? Not the
unloving wife in England, but the mother of this child
a later, nearer one ? When he had come that once to
her, was it at best out of pity ? Did he love this other
woman? Was this why she herself had seen him no-
more?
Before the acute shaft of this pain the facts she
had learned of his life in London fell unheeded. They
belonged to that far dim past that he had forsaken
and that had forsaken him ! But the one fact she knew
now had to do with his present, here in Italy the pres-
ent that held her! She was facing for the first time in
her life the hydra, elemental passion jealousy. And
280 THE CASTAWAY
in the grip of its merciless talons everything of truth
in her wavered.
For a moment she lost hold on her own heart, her
instinct, her trust in Gordon's word, the faith that
had returned to her at San Lazzarro. What if all
all what the whole world said, what this magazine
told of him were true after all, and she, desolate and
grieving, the only one deceived? What if it were!
She drew the magazine close to her tear-swollen eyes,
only to thrust it from her desperately.
"No, no !" she said. "Not that ! It is a lie ! I will
not believe it !"
In her anguish she sat up, flinging her hat aside, and
leaned against a tree. Her glance fell on the great saf-
fron fungus that jutted, a crumpled half -disk, above its
roots. Into the brittle shiny surface words had been
etched with a sharp point lines in English, almost
covering it. She began to read the unfamiliar tongue
aloud, deciphering the words slowly at first, then with
more confidence :
"River, that rollest by the ancient walls,
Where dwells the lady of my love when she
Walks by thy brink, and there perchance recalls
A faint and fleeting memory of me "
A color tinged her paleness; she bent closer in a
startled wonder.
"What if thy deep and ample stream should be
A mirror of my heart, where she may read
A thousand thoughts I now betray to thee,
Wild as thy wave, and headlong as thy speed!
THE CASTAWAY 281
What do I say a mirror of my heart?
Are not thy waters sweeping, dark, and strong?
Such as my feelings were and are, thou art;
And such as thou art were my passions long.
And left long wrecks behind, and now again,
Borne in our old unchanged career, we move;
Thou tendest wildly onward to the main,
And I to loving one I should not love!"
She drew herself half-upright with a sob. She was
not mistaken ! No other could have written those lines,
rhythmically sad and passionate, touched with abne-
gation. He had been near her when she had not guessed
had been here, in this very nook where she now sat I
Eecently, too, for new growth had not blotted the char-
acters. Her heart beat poignantly :
"The wave that bears my tears returns no more:
Will she return, by whom that wave shall sweep?
Both tread thy banks, both wander on thy shore,
I near thy source, she by the dark blue deep.
She will look on thee, I have look'd on thee,
Full of that thought: and from that moment, ne'er
Thy waters could I dream of, name or see,
Without the inseparable sigh for her!"
For whom had he longed when he wrote? For the
woman whose child his child, denied 4iim now ! was
hidden in the convent below ? No ! The mist of an-
guish melted. She felt her bitterness ebbing fast away.
What else mattered ? Nothing ! Not what this con-
vent held ! Not all his past, though even the worst of
all the tales she had ever heard were true ; though what
the pamphlet at her feet alleged were true a thousand
282 THE CASTAWAY
times over though it were the worst crime of all man
punished on earth! Nothing, nothing! At this mo-
ment she knew that, for all the dreams of God bred in
her, without him, prayers and faiths and life itself went
for naught as human hearts are made.
Clasping her hands she read to the end :
"Her bright eyes will be imaged in thy stream,
Yes! they will meet the wave I gaze on now:
Mine cannot witness, even in a dream,
That happy wave repass me in its flow!
But that which keepeth us apart is not
Distance, nor depth of wave, nor space of earth,
But the distraction of a various lot,
As various as the climates of our birth.
My blood is all meridian; were it not,
I had not left my clime, nor should I be
In spite of tortures ne'er to be forgot,
A slave again of love, at least of thee!"
Kneeling over the fungus, absorbed, she had not heard
a quick step behind her. She heard nothing in her
abandon, till a voice his voice spoke her name.
CHAPTER XXXIX
BAKEIEES BURNED AWAY
Teresa came to her feet with a cry. Her mingled
emotions were yet so recent that she had had no time to
recover poise. Gordon's face was as strangely moved.
Surprise edged it, but overlapping this was a something
lambent, desirous, summoned by sight of her tears.
In the first swift glimpse, through the fern fronds,
of that agitated form bent above the fungus, he had
noted the tokens of returning strength and knew her
present grief was from some cause nearer than the casa
in Ravenna. These were not tears of mere womanly
sensibility, called forth by the lines written there, for
a shadow of pain was still lurking in her eyes. Was it
grief ior him? He tossed aside gloves and riding-crop
and drew her to a seat on the warm pine-needles before
he spoke :
"I did not imagine your eyes would ever see that!"
She wiped away the telltale drops hastily, feeling a
guilty relief to think he had misread them.
"This is an old haunt of mine," she said. "I loved
it when I was a girl only a year ago, how long it
seems ! in the convent there !"
He started. The fact explained her presence to-day.
She had known those walls that hid Allegra ! It seemed
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284 THE CASTAWAY
to bring them immeasurably nearer. If he could only
tell her ! Reckless, uncaring as she knew a part of his
past had been, could he bear to show her this concrete
evidence of its dishonor ?
Looking up at the pallid comeliness under its slightly
graying hair, Teresa was feeling a swift, clairvoyant
sense of the struggle that had kept him from her, with-
out understanding all its significance.
"I am glad I came in time/' she continued. "A few
iflays and the words will show no longer. I shall not
need them then," she went on, her face tinted. "I shall
know them by heart. As soon as I read the first lines,
I knew they were yours that you had been here."
"I am stopping at Bologna," he told her.
"Ah, Madonna!" she said under her breath. "And
you have been so near Ravenna !"
"Better it were a hundred leagues!" he exclaimed.
"And yet distant or near, it is the same. I think of
you, Teresa! That is my punishment. Every day, as
I have ridden through the pines, every hour as I have
sat on this hill and that has been often I have
thought of you !"
"I knew that" she was gazing past him to the river
and the far dusky amethyst of the hills "when I read
what is on the fungus."
Thereafter neither spoke for a moment. A noisy
cicala droned from a near chestnut bough, and from
somewhere down the slope came the brooding coo of a
wood-dove. At length he said :
"There were tears on your cheek when I first saw you.
They were not for the verses, I know."
She shook her head slowly. "It was something"
THE CASTAWAY 285
she could not tell him all the truth "something I saw
in that." She pointed to the German magazine.
He reached and retrieved it, but she put her hand on
his restrainingly.
"Is it about me?"
"Yes," she admitted; "but "
"May I not see it ?"
"Nothing in it really matters," she entreated. "It
could never make any difference to me now! Not
even if it were true. Your past is as if it belonged to
some other person I never saw and never can know.
You believe that ? Tell me you do !"
"I do," he responded ; "I do \
"Then do not read it."
"But suppose it is false. Either way, I would tell
you the truth."
"That is just it." Her fingers clasped his on the
cover. "I know you would. But I do not believe what
it says ! I cannot ! You can never have done such
things ! Ah, is it not enough that I have that trust ?
even," she ended hurriedly, "though it would make no
difference ?"
His pulses were beating painfully. He drew her fin-
gers gently from their hold and opened the magazine
to a page turned down lengthwise. It was a critique of
his drama of "Cain" sole fruit of that last year in Ven-
ice which he had himself called "a drama of madness"
and in sheer mocking bravado had posted to John Mur-
ray, his publisher. He saw at a glance that the article
was signed with the name of Germany's greatest mind,
the famous Goethe.
She was trembling. "Remember," she said earnestly;
286 THE CASTAWAY
"I have not asked you! I should never have asked
you!"
Gordon translated the cramped text with a strange
lurid feeling, like coming in touch with an ancient past :
"The character of the author's life permits with diffi-
culty a just appreciation of his genius. Scarcely any one
compassionates the suffering which cries out laboriously in
his poems, since it arises from the phantoms of his own
evil acts which trouble him. When a bold and impetuous
youth, he stole the affections of a Florentine lady of qual-
ity. Her husband discovered the affair and slew his wife.
But the murderer on the next night was found stabbed to
death on the street, nor was there any one save the lover
on whom it seemed suspicion could attach. The poet re-
moved from Florence, but these unhappy spirits have
haunted his whole life since."
He raised his eyes from the page. Her face was
turned away, her hand pulling up the grass-spears in a
pathetic apprehension.
"Teresa," he said in a smothered voice; "it is not
true. I have never been in Florence."
"I knew I knew !" she cried, and all her soul looked
into his. She had not really credited. But the tangible
allegation, coming at the moment when her heart was
wrenched with that convent discovery and warped from
its orbit of instinct, had dismayed and disconcerted her.
The balm she had longed for was not proof, it was only
reassurance.
He closed the magazine. The feeling that had choked
his utterance was swelling in his throat. For the rest of
the world he cared little, but for her !
She leaned toward him, her eyes shining. "I know
how you have suffered! You have not deserved it. I
THE CASTAWAY 287
have learned so much, since I saw you last, of yout life
in England!"
His tone shook. "Have you learned all? That my
wife left me in the night and robbed me of my child?
That society shut its doors upon me? That I was
driven from London like a wild beast a scapegoat at
which any man might cast a stone?"
"Yes," she breathed, "all that, and more! I have
not understood it quite, for our Italy is so different.
But you have helped me understand it now! It was
like this."
She picked up the Bible from where it had fallen
and turned the pages quickly. "Listen," she said, and
began to read :
"And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats . . .
But the goat on which the lot fell to be the scape-
goat, shall be presented alive before the Lord, to make
an atonement with him, and to let him go for a scape-
goat into the wilderness.
"And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head
of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities
of the children of Israel and all their transgressions
in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the
goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit
man into the wilderness.
"And the goat shall bear upon him all their ini-
quities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go
the goat in the wilderness."
He had risen and now stood movelessly before her.
She looked up as she finished. "So it was with you."
288 THE CASTAWAY
"Yes," he said in a low voice. "And so I have lived
ever since, a murderless Cain with a mark on my brow !
So shall I live and die, hated and avoided by all men !"
"No!" she contradicted, coming to him. "That will
not be ! I see further and clearer than that ! It is not
for such an end that you have lived and written and
suffered! But for something nobler, which the world
that hates you now will honor ! I see it ! I know it !"
"Stop !" he exclaimed, "I cannot bear it. I am not
a murderer, Teresa, but all of the past you forgive with
such divine compassion, you do not know. There is a
silence yet to break which I have kept, a chapter unlove-
ly to look upon that you have not seen."
"I ask nothing !" she interrupted.
"I must," he went on with dry lips. <c Yon shall see
it all, to the dregs. In that convent, Teresa, "
She put a hand over his lips. "You need not. For
I already know."
He looked in dazed wonder. "You know ? And you
do not condemn ?"
"That other woman do you love her?"
"No, Teresa. I have not seen her for two years."
"Did she ever love you ?"
"Never in her life," he answered, his face again
averted.
Her. own was glowing with a strange light. "Look
at me," she said softly.
He turned to her, his eyes golden-gray like sea-
weed glimpsed through deep water cored with a
hungry, hopeless fire which seemed to transform her
whole frame to thirsty tinder.
FEELING HER FORM SWAY TOWARD HIM WITH FIERCE
TUMULTUOUS GLADNESS. /. 289.
THE CASTAWAY 289
"Ah," she whispered, "do you think it could matter,
then ?"
An overmastering emotion, blent of bitterness and
longing, surged through him, beating down constraint,
blotting out all else, all that thrilled him finding its
way into broken speech. In that moment he forgot
himself and the past, forgot the present and what the
convent held forgot what bound them both forgot
grief and danger. London and Venice, Annabel, the
master of Casa Guiccioli drew far off. There was noth-
ing but this fragrant, Italian forest, this whispering
glade above the blue rushing of the arrowy river, this
sun-drenched afternoon and Teresa there beside him.
With an impulse wholly irresistible he caught her to
him, feeling her form sway toward him with fierce tu-
multuous gladness.
"Amor miol" she breathed, and their lips clung into-
a kiss.
As she strained back in his embrace, letting the tide
of love ripple over her, looking up into his face in
desperate joy, something swift and flashing like a sil-
ver swallow darted through the air.
It sung between them a Malay kriss and struck
Gordon above the heart.
CHAPTER XL
THE OATH ON THE KRISS
Teresa stood chained with horror the cry frozen on
her lips. As the silver flash had flown she had seen a
dark, oriental face disappear between the bracken and
had recognized it.
Gordon had shuddered as the blow struck, then stood
perfectly still, his arms about her. In that instant he
remembered the scene he had witnessed at the Ravenna
osteria, and his heart said within him: "Hast thou
found me, mine enemy?"
Her voice came then in a scream that woke the place
and brought Tita rushing up the path.
When he reached them, her fingers had drawn out the
wet blade and were striving desperately to stanch the
blood with her handkerchief, as, white to the lips with
pain, Gordon leaned against a tree. After that first cry,
in which her whole being had sounded its terror, she
had not spoken. Now she turned to Tita, who stood
dumfounded.
"Tita, quickly! You and I must help his lordship
to the road. He is wounded."
"Teresa," Gordon sought for words through the
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THE CASTAWAY 291
dizziness that was engulfing him, "leave me. My horse
is in the edge of the forest. At Bologna I shall find a
surgeon."
"You cannot ride. It would kill you. My carriage
is near the convent gate."
He shook his head. "You have risked enough for me.
Tita, "
"He can bring the horse around/' she answered.
"Come!" She drew one of Gordon's arms about her
shoulder, feeling him waver. "That is right so !"
With Tita on the other side, they began the descent.
She walked certainly along the difficult path, though
every nerve was thrilling with agony, her mind one in-
cessant clamor. At the expense of his own heart he had
stayed away. And this was what their chance meeting
to-day had brought him. This !
Gordon was breathing hard at the foot of the hill.
He had fought desperately to retain consciousness, but
a film was clouding his eyes.
"It is only a few steps now," she said, "to the car-
riage."
He stopped short.
"You must obey me," she insisted wildly, her voice vi-
brating. "It is the only way! You must go to Ka-
venna !"
"Tita bring my horse !"
It was the last stubborn flash of the will, fainting in
physical eclipse. With the words his hand fell heavily
from her shoulder and Tita caught him in his arms.
At a sign from Teresa, the servant lifted him into the
carriage.
"Home !" she commanded, "and drive swiftly."
292 THE CASTAWAY
Through the miles of rapid motion under the ebon
shadows deepening to twilight she sat chafing Gordon's
hands, her eyes, widened with a great suspense, upon the
broadening stain crimsoning his waistcoat.
In that interminable ride her soul passed through a
furnace of transformation. The touch of his lips upon
hers had been the one deathless instant of life's unfold-
ing. In that kiss she had felt poured out all the virginal
freshness of a love renaissant and complete, no more to
be withheld than a torrent leaping to the sea. But the
awful instant that followed, with its first glimpse into
the hideous limbo of possibilities, showed her all else
that might lie in that love, of the irreparable, the disas-
trous, the infinitely terrifying. Her marriage had been
a baleful bond of ring and book, seasoned with hate,
empty of sanctity. His had been sunk somewhere in the
black slough of the past, a stark dead thing. That they
two should love each other she had imagined no fur-
ther. She had known her own heart, but that hour on
the hill had been the complete surety that Gordon loved
her fully in return.
Born of his extremity, there swelled in her now the
wondrous instinct of the lioness that is a part of every
woman's love. It lent her its courage. All fear, save the
one surpassing dread that gnawed her heart, slipped
from her.
Dark fell before they reached the town, and in the
-quiet street the freight of the carriage was not noted.
Before the entrance of Casa Guiccioli stood her father's
chaise.
Count Gamba met her in the hall, to start at her
.strained look and at the pallid face of the man Tita
THE CASTAWAY 293
carried a face unknown to him. Paolo was behind
him ; by this she knew her husband was returned.
She scarcely heeded her father's ejaculations. "Bring
linen and water quickly to the large chamber in the gar-
den wing/' she directed, "and send for Doctor Aglietti."
Paolo went stealthily to inform his master.
When Count Guiccioli crossed the threshold of the
candle-lighted room he came upon a strange scene. Te-
resa bent over the bed, her face colorless as a mask. Her
father, opposite, to whom she had as yet told nothing,
was tying a temporary bandage. Between them lay the
inert form of the man against whom his own morbid
rage had been amassing. His eyes flared. Where had
she found him? Had Trevanion bungled or betrayed?
Did she guess? And guessing, had she brought him to
this house, in satanic irony, to die before his very sight ?
At the suspicion the fever of his moody eyes flew to
his face. His countenance became distorted. He burst
upon them with a crackling exclamation: "The Vene-
tian dog ! Who has dared fetch him here ?"
"Zitto!" said Count Gamba pettishly. "Don't you
see the man is wounded ?"
"Wounded or whole, by the body of Bacchus! He
shall go back to-night to Bologna !" He took a menac-
ing step forward.
"How did you know he was lodged there ?"
Teresa's steely inquiry stayed him. She had lifted
her face, calm as a white moon. He stopped, non-
plussed.
"You had good reason to know." She drew from her
belt a Malay kriss, its blade stained with red. "This
294 THE CASTAWAY
is what struck him. It belonged to you. Am I to
learn what it means to bear the name of a murderer ?"
Her father stared his amazement. "Dio santissimo!"
he exclaimed. Was this why she had been so pale ?
Before her movement her husband had shrunk invol-
untarily. "I knew nothing of it/' he said in a muffled
fury; "I am just come from Faenza."
"I saw whose hand struck the blow." She spoke with
deadly quietness. "I have seen him more than once un-
der this roof. But whose was the brain? Who fur-
nished him this weapon? It was gone from the arras
the day after you brought him to the casa to be your
sicario to do what you dared not do yourself ! Fool !"
Her voice rose. "Do you think a peer of England com-
mon clay for your clean-handed bravos? Are English
nobles stabbed abroad without an accounting to the last
-soldo? Do you suppose no Romagnan noble ever went
to the fortress with confiscate estates ? Is your reputa-
tion so clean that if he dies you think to escape what I
shall say?"
A greenish hue had overspread the fiery sallow of the
old count's face, ghastly under the candles. She had
touched two vulnerable points at once cupidity and
fear. Something, too, in what she said brought a swift
unwelcome memory. He recalled another a poet, also
Manzoni, the Italian, dead by a hired assassin in
Forli years before; in the night sometimes still that
man's accusing look came before him. Beads of sweat
started on his forehead.
"Cheeks of the Virgin!" cried Count Gamba, who
had maintained a rigid silence. "Have you no word to
this?"
THE CASTAWAY 295
"He was her lover ! She knew where to find him to-
day. It is not the first time. He was her lover before
I married her."
The other's hands clenched. Teresa's accusation had
astonished and shocked him. But as he saw that cower-
ing look, speaking its own condemnation, he credited
for the first time the story of that other slain man. At
this affront, his gaunt, feeble form straightened with all
the dignity and pride of his race.
Teresa's answer rang with a subtle, electric energy.
"That is false ! You never asked you only accused.
Believing all falsehood of me, you have made every day
of my life in your house a separate purgatory. I have
kept silent thus long, even to my father. Now I speak
before him. Father," she said with sudden passion,
"he has believed this since my wedding day. There is
scarcely an hour since then that he has not heaped in-
sult and humiliation upon me. I will bear it no longer !
I have already appealed to the Curia."
Her eyes transfixed her husband. "By the law I may
not leave your roof to nurse this man, so I have brought
him here. What you have believed of myself and of
him is false. But now, if you will hear the truth, I will
tell you ! I do love him ! I love him as I love my life
and more, the blessed Virgin knows! a million times
more !"
As she spoke her passion made her beauty extraordi-
nary. It smote her father with appealing force and
with a pang at his own ambitious part in her wedding.
He had thought of rank and station, not of her happi-
ness.
296 THE CASTAWAY
"You shall answer to me, Count, for this!" he said
sternly.
"No, father!"
Count Gamba looked at her questioningly. He faced
Count Guiccioli as Teresa went on :
"This is what I demand. If he lives he shall stay
here till he is well. Not as a guest ; he would accept no
hospitality from this house. He shall hold this wing
of the casa under rental."
There was a moment's pause.
"So be it/' The assent was grudging and wrathful.
"One thing more. So long as he is in the casa you
will cause him no physical harm neither you nor your
servants."
While he hesitated a sound came from the bed. Gor-
don's eyes were open; they held faint but conscious
knowledge.
From the abyss of nothingness those voices had called
to him, like conversation in a dream. Sight had opened
more fully and he had stared at the gilded rafters, puz-
zled. This was not the Hotel Pellegrino in Bologna.
He stirred and felt a twinge of pain. With the voices
grown articulate, it came flashing back that one kiss ;
the flying dart of agony ; the dizzy descent ; Tita and
Teresa. He suddenly saw a face: the old man at San
Lazzarro, Teresa's husband! He shut his eyes to drive
away the visions, and her clear tones called them wide
again.
He heard fully and understandingly then ; knew that
Trevanion and Count Guiccioli had made common cause ;
realized the courage with which Teresa had brought
him to her husband's casa all with a bitter-sweet pain
THE CASTAWAY 297
of helplessness and protest against the logic of circum-
stances that had thrust him into the very position that
by all arguments looking to her ultimate happiness he
must have avoided. He heard her voice demand that
grudging promise of his safety. It was then he had
moaned less with physical than mental pain.
Teresa leaned to the bed, where Gordon had lifted
himself on his elbow. The effort dislodged the bandage
and its edges reddened swiftly. He strove to speak, but
the effort sickened him and he fell back on the pillows.
Teresa turned again upon Count Guiccioli. "Swear
it, or all I know Ravenna shall know to-morrow !" She
held the kriss toward him, hilt up, like a Calvary, and
half involuntarily his bent fingers touched his breast.
"I swear," he said in a stifled voice.
"Father, you hear?"
"I am witness," said Count Gamba grimly.
CHAPTER XLI
ASHES OF DENIAL
Days went by. Summer was merging into full-
bosomed autumn of turquoise heavens, more luscious fo-
liage and ripening olives.
Gordon's wound had proven deep, but luckily not
too serious, thanks to a rough fragment of stone in his
pocket, which the surgeon declared had turned the heavy
blade, and which Teresa had covered with secret kisses
and put carefully away. But to his weakness from loss
of blood, a tertian ague had added its high temperature,
and strength had been long in returning.
He had hours of delirium when Teresa and Fletcher
whom Tita had brought from Bologna with Gordon's
belongings alternately sat by his bedside. Sometimes,
then, he dictated strange yet musical stanzas which she
was able to set down. It was a subconscious bubbling
up from the silt-choked well of melody within him : a
clouded rivulet, finding an unused way along turgid
channels of fever.
More often Gordon seemed to be fiving again in his
old life with Hobhouse in the Greece that he had
loved in London at White's club with Beau Brummell,
or with Sheridan or Tom Moore at the Cocoa-Tree. At
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THE CASTAWAY 299
such times Teresa seemed to comprehend all his striv-
ings and agonies, and wept tears of pity and yearning.
Often, too, he muttered of Annabel and Ada, and then
the fierce jealousy that had once before come to her as-
sailed her anew. It was not a jealousy now, however,
of any one person; it was a stifling, passionate resent-
ment of that past of his into which she could not enter,
lying instinct and alive in some locked chamber of his
brain to defy and outwit her.
Early in his betterment a subtle inducement not to
hasten the going he knew was inevitable ambushed Gor-
don. He found folded in his writing tablet a six
months' lease of the apartments he occupied. The sig-
nature was his own, added, he readily guessed, during
his fever. The stupendous rental with which the old
count had comforted his covetous soul was a whet to the
temptation. The thought to which he yielded, how-
ever, was the reflection that to depart without show-
ing himself to Ravenna whose untravelled gossips had
made of his illness at the casa a topic of interest would
neither conceal the real situation nor make easier Te-
resa's position. He prolonged his stay, therefore, riding
with her at the hour of the corso in the great coach and
six, and later appearing at the conversazioni of the vice-
legate's and at the provincial opera, to hear the "Barber
of Seville" or Alfieri's "Filippo."
One day a child in Teresa's care rode from the con-
vent of Bagnacavallo to a father whom she had never
seen, and thereafter Gordon saw with less kaleidoscopic
clearness the walls of the fool's paradise fate was rear-
ing, brick by brick.
So the long weeks of convalescence dropped by like-
300 THE CASTAWAY
falling leaves. In spite of the constrained oath he had
heard on a certain night in his chamber, Gordon more
than once wondered grimly what hour a stiletto might
end it all. That Teresa guarded well, he realized once
with a sudden thrill, when he opened the door of his
bedroom in the night to find Tita's great form stretched
asleep across the threshold.
The master of the casa, meanwhile, was seldom to be
seen. When he encountered Gordon, it was with snarling,
satiric courtesy a bitter, armed armistice. Teresa did
not doubt he had been more than once to Home, but what
effect his visit might have on her petition she could not
guess. The Contessa Albrizzi was powerful, but he was
an influential factor also. If her plea were granted,
well and good. If not, at least she was happy now. And
because she was happy now, she thrust away, with a
woman's fatuousness, the thought that there must come
a time when Gordon would go.
Trevanion Gordon met but once, and then with Pa-
olo at the casa entrance. A single steady look had hung
between them. The other's eyes shifted and he passed
in. Teresa was with Gordon at the moment and her
hand had trembled on his arm. She said nothing, but
that night he came upon Tita in his bedroom, oiling his
pocket-pistols which he did not wear.
What he had said once as he fought down the pas-
sion of murder in his soul recurred to him as he laid
them away: "What comes to me thus, I myself have
beckoned. The Great Mechanism shall have its way."
If Trevanion then had seemed the Nemesis of his past,
he seemed doubly so now. The vengeance had fallen just
when the cup of joy was at his lips in that one supreme
THE CASTAWAY 301
moment: fate's red reminder that the moment was not
his, but filched from his own resolve and from Teresa's
peace.
But though he struck not openly, Gordon was soon
to discover that Trevanion's hand was unwearied ; Shel-
ley came to him from Pisa, bringing report of fresh
fictions afloat in the London press: his pasha-like resi-
dence on the island of Mitylene, and his romantic voy-
ages to Sicily and Ithaca. These Gordon heard with a
new sting, named as his companion the Contessa Guicci-
oli, who, it was stated in .detail, had been sold to him by
her husband.
Not that Gordon cared, for himself. Save as they
might have power to hurt her, that kiss on the convent-
hill, when it sweetened the bitterness that had fallen,
in that hour, had burned away the barb from all such
canards. All that signified was Teresa from whom he
must soon part.
Parting : that was the sting ! Coiled in it was a reali-
zation that in every conscious moment since that stab-
bing thrust in the forest had been rankling with grow-
ing pain. It was, that his own weakness had made with-
drawal from her life an infinitely crueler thing, had
made his elimination at one time less possible and more
necessitous. That kiss had changed the universe for
them both. For either of them, bound or free, nothing
could ever be the same again !
Sleepless and battling, the night after Shelley's visit,
Gordon asked himself fiercely why, after all, life might
not go on for them still the same. Was it Ms fault?
Had he created these conditions that separated them?
What did either he or she owe this old man who hated
302 THE CASTAWAY
her and had tried to take his life? Hereafter, would
not her existence alone with him in the casa be a more
intolerable thing than ever? He, Gordon, could rob
him of nothing he now possessed or had ever possessed.
Besides, in time who could tell how soon? changes
must inevitably occur. In the natural course, her hus-
band would die. Then Teresa would, in truth, be free.
He paused in his interminable pace and groaned
aloud. What then? For himself there could be no re-
tracing of steps. Whatever the issues to him and to her,
he could not go back to England, invoke the law and free
himself. When he had quitted London, life the life of
wife and home had seemed ended. He had thought
only of Ada, his child, when he had signed that paper
which put it forever out of his power alone to break the
tie which bound him to Annabel. Between him and
Teresa reared the law, a cold brazen wall between two
hearts of fire. "I cannot !" he said. "The old tie holds.
It is too late! Because one woman's pitiless pureness
has ruined me, shall I ruin another woman's pitying
purity?"
So while the dark wore away to dawn, his thought be-
gan and ended with the same desolate cry.
As the first light came through the windows, he blew
out the candles. He must go though it shut him again
from sight of Allegra though it meant forever.
CHAPTER XLII
GORDON TELLS A STORY
Gordon threw the window wide. The sun had broken
through the mist, the lilies were awake in their beds, and
the acacias were shaking the dew from their solemn har-
monies of green and olive. How sweet the laurel
smelled !
A long time he stood there. At length he turned into
the room. He collected his smaller belongings for
Fletcher to pack, then drew out a portmanteau. It was
filled with books and loose manuscript, gathered by the
valet when he had removed from Venice.
As he re-read the pages, Gordon flushed with a sense
of shame. Full of beauty as they were, would Shelley
have written them? Or would Teresa, who treasured
one book of his and had loved those simple lines etched
on the fungus, read these with like approval ?
An aching dissatisfaction a fiery recrudescent dis-
taste seized him. He rolled the leaves together and de-
scended to the garden. At the base of a stone sun-dial
he set the roll funnel-shape and knelt to strike a light.
He had not seen Teresa nor heard her approach till
she caught his arm.
"What is it you burn ?" she asked.
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304 THE CASTAWAY
"The beginning of a poem I wrote a long time ago,
named 'Don Juan'."
"May I read it first?"
He shook his head. "It is not worthy."
She looked at him seriously, striving to translate his
thought, and with a sudden impulse, stooped and picked
up the roll. "Do not destroy it," she said; "one day
you will finish it more worthily."
He hesitated a moment, then thrust the manuscript
into his pocket and followed her to the bench where
they had sat the night Tita had led him to the columned
gate, and how many gilded days since ! With what words
should he tell her what he must say ?
He saw that she held in her hand a small rough frag-
ment of stone.
"What is that ?" he questioned, trying to speak lightly,
"A jewel?"
A change passed over her face and she raised the stone
to her lips. "Yes" she answered ; "do you not recognize
it?"
As he looked at it curiously, she added : "It was in
your pocket that day on the convent hill. You never
missed it, did you? The kriss" she shuddered as she
spoke "struck it. See here is the mark. It saved
your life."
Wondering, he took it from her hand. "Strange!"
he said, as he handed it back. "It is a piece of the
tomb of Juliet which I got long ago in Verona."
"Juliet ?" she repeated, and dropped the stone on the
bench between them, coloring. "Did you care for
her?"
The feminine touch in tone and gesture brought Gor-
THE CASTAWAY 305
don at one time a smile and a pang. It had not oc-
curred to him that Shakespeare could be unknown to
her. "All Englishmen love her," he said gravely; "she
was one of the great lovers of the world. She died five
hundred years ago."
Her face was flushed more deeply now. "Will you
tell me about her ?"
Sitting there, the revelation of the early morning
enfolding them, he told her the undying story of those
tragic loves and deaths that the great Anglo-Saxon gave
to all ages.
"There were two noble families in Verona," he be-
gan, "who for generations had been at enmity the
Capulets and the Montagues. Juliet was the daughter
of Lord Capulet. She was so beautiful her fame went
throughout the country. Borneo, scion of the house of
Montague, heard of her beauty, and to see it, went
masked to a fete given by her father. Among the Vero-
nese ladies, he saw one who .shone amid the splendor
like a jewel in an Ethiop's ear. They danced together,
and he kissed her hand. Not till they parted did either
know the other was an enemy. That night, Eomeo,
unable to stay from the house where he had left his
heart, scaled the wall of its garden and they plighted
troth upon her balcony. Next day they were secretly
married by a monk whom Eomeo had prevailed upon.
"There had been one, however, who, beneath his mask,
recognized the uninvited guest a nephew of Lord
Capulet himself. He kept silence then, but the day of
the marriage he met Romeo, forced a quarrel, and was
killed by him. For this, Eomeo was sentenced to ban-
ishment. That night he gained Juliet's chamber from
306 THE CASTAWAY
the garden. Only these few hours were theirs ; at dawn
he fled to Mantua, till the monk could make public their
marriage.
"Lord Capulet meanwhile had selected another for
Juliet's husband and bade her prepare for the nuptials.
She dared not tell the truth, and in her extremity ap-
pealed to the monk. He counselled her to consent to her
father's plans, and on the night before the marriage to
drink the contents of a phial he gave her. The potion,
he told her, would cause a death-like trance, in which
apparently lifeless state she should be laid in the family
vault. Thither he would bring Eomeo in the night and
she should awaken in his arms."
Teresa's eyes had grown brighter. The lovers' meet-
ing among the maskers, the garden trothing and the
constrained marriage seemed somehow to fit her own
case. She leaned forward as he paused. "And she
took the potion ?"
"Yes. Love and despair gave her courage. It hap-
pened partly as the monk had said. But unluckily the
news that Juliet was dead travelled to Mantua faster
than his letters. Romeo heard, and heart-broken, came
to Verona at midnight, broke open her tomb and swal-
lowed poison by her side. A few moments later she
awoke, saw the cup in his hand, and, guessing how it
had befallen, unsheathed the dagger he wore and died
also by her own hand. So the monk found them, and
over their bodies the lords of Capulet and Montague
healed the feud of their houses."
The bruised petals of a rose Teresa had plucked flut-
tered down. "How she loved him !" she said softly.
He remembered that among the volumes in the port-
THE CASTAWAY 307
manteau he had opened had been the "Borneo and
Juliet/' which he had put into his pocket the night he
left England. "I have the book/' he said rising; "I
will give it to you/'
He went back under the flowering trees to fetch it.
"This one hour," his heart was repeating; "this last
hour ! Then I will tell her."
He was gone but a few moments. When he came
down the stair she was in the hall. He paused, for a
man who had just dismounted at the casa entrance
stood before her. Gordon saw Teresa sink to her knees,
saw the other make the sign above her head as he hand-
ed her a letter, saw him mount and ride away ; saw her
read and crush it to her breast. What did it mean?
The man had worn the uniform of a nuncio of the papal
see. Had the Contessa Albrizzi succeeded ?
Teresa turned from the entrance and saw him.
"Here is the book," he said.
She took it blankly. Suddenly she thrust the letter
into his hands. "Bead it," she whispered.
It was the pope's decree. Teresa was free, if not
from the priestly bond, at least so far as actions went.
Free to leave Casa Guiccioli and to live under her fa-
ther's roof free as the law of Church and land could
make her. But that was not all. The decree had its
conditions, and one of these contained his own name.
She was to see him only once each month, between noon
and sunset.
Such was Count Guiccioli's sop from Borne.
As Gordon read, he felt a dull anger at the assump-
tion that had coupled his name with hers in that docu-
ment. Yet underneath he was conscious of a painful
308 THE CASTAWAY
relief; fate had partially solved the problem for them.
He raised his eyes as a sob came from Teresa's lips.
She had not thought of possible conditions. A
month how swiftly the last had flown ! seemed sud-
denly an infinity. She had longed for that message,
prayed for it; now she hated it.
Another figure entered at that instant from the
street. It was Tita, just from her father's villa. Count
Gamba had been less well of late, and now the messen-
ger's face held an anxiety that struck through her own
grief.
The news was soon told. Her father had had a syn-
cope at daybreak and the doctor was then with him.
Tita did not tell her the whole : she did not learn till
she reached the villa that Count Gamba, suspected of
fomenting the revolution, had received notice from the
government to quit Romagna within ten days.
CHAPTEE XLIII
ONE GOLDEN" HOUE
"To-day to-day!" Teresa's heart said. "To-day he
will come !"
Just a month ago she had left Casa Guiccioli forever ;
now she sat in the fountained garden of the Gamba
villa, a few miles from Eavenna, rose-pale, cypress-slen-
der, her wanness accentuated by the black gown she
wore the habit of mourning. The sentence of exile
against Count Gamba had never been carried out; a
greater than Austria had intervened. Since that morn-
ing when a servant had found him unconscious among
the cold retorts of his laboratory, clasping the decree
that had broken his heart, he had revived, but only to
fail again. The end had come soon. A week ago
Teresa had followed him to the narrow home over which
no earthly power claimed jurisdiction.
As she sat, drenched with the attar of the September
afternoon, in her lap the "Eomeo and Juliet" which Gor-
don had given her on their last meeting, gladness crept
goldenly through her grief. The book had lain on the
arbor bench during the night, and this morning she had
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310 THE CASTAWAY
found a letter written on its blank title page. For the
hundredth time she perused it now :
"I have found this book in your garden and re-read it
in the moonlight. You were absent, or I could not have
done so. Others would understand these words if I wrote
them in Italian, but you will interpret them in English.
You will recognize, too, the handwriting of one who loves
you and will divine that over any book of yours he can
think only of that fact. In that word, beautiful in all
languages, but most so in yours amor mio is comprised
my existence here and hereafter. My destiny has rested
with you, and you are a woman, nineteen years of age, and
but two out of a convent. Fate has separated us, but to
weigh this is now too late. I love you and cannot cease
to love you. Will you think of me if the Alps and the
ocean divide us? Ah, but they never can unless you
wish it!"
This letter had been wrung from him by the thought
of the loss and loneliness in which he could not comfort
her ; beneath its few words lay the strain and longing of
the old struggle. He had told himself at first that her
separation could make no difference with his going. But
now she was alone, bereft, saddened. If he went, could
she love him any the less ? So he had wrestled as Jacob
wrestled with the angel.
As Teresa read, a moving shadow fell on the page.
She looked up to see him coming between the clipped
yew hedges. In another moment he had caught her
hands in his.
"How you have suffered !" he said, his gaze searching
her face, to which a glad flush had leaped.
She framed his head in her arms, just touching his
strong brown curling hair with its slender threads of
THE CASTAWAY 311
gray. "I knew you cared. I knew you had been near
me often. I found the flowers and this note."
"I have been here in the garden every night. I was
here that one night, too when you were first alone."
Tears gathered in her eyes.
"It was the decree of exile that killed him," she said
slowly. "He loved Italy and hoped for what can never
be. They say the uprising in the north has failed and
all its chiefs are betrayed. That is the bitterness of it:
it was for nothing after all that he died! Italy will
not be free. You believe it cannot, I know."
"Sometime," he answered gently. "But not soon.
Italy's peasants are not fighting men like the Greeks;
they lack the inspiration of history. But no man cham-
pions a great cause in vain. And now," he asked, chang-
ing the subject, "what shall you do ?"
"I have sent the news to my brother Pietro. Cavadja
has lost his principality and Prince Mavrocordato is
in flight from Wallachia. Pietro is with him. My let-
ters must find and bring him soon. Till then I have
Elise she was my nurse. I shall be glad when Pietro
comes. How long it is since I have seen him! He
would not know me now. He has only my convent
miniature to remind him !"
Gordon's thought fled back to a day when he had
swum for the brother's life and found that pictured
ivory. Fate had played an intricate game. He would
more than once have told her of that incident but for
another hounding memory the recollection of the mad
fit of rage in which he had ground the miniature under
his heel. He could not tell her that !
312 THE CASTAWAY
"I know why you have stayed on at the casa," she said ;
"that it is for my sake, to spare me idle tongues. Yet
I have been so afraid for you. You would never go
armed !"
"I am in small danger," he smiled. "Fletcher, and
Tita whom you left me for body-guard, watch zealously.
One or the other is always under foot. One would think
I were Ali Pasha himself."
He spoke half humorously, trying to coax the smile
back to her lips. He did not tell her with what danger
and annoyances his days had been filled: that police
spies, in whose assiduity he recognized the work of her
husband and Trevanion, shadowed his footsteps ; that to
excite attempts at his assassination the belief had even
been disseminated that he was in league with the Aus-
trians. Nor did he tell her that this very morning
Fletcher had found posted in the open market-place a
proclamation too evidently inspired by secret service
agents, denouncing him as an enemy to the morals, the
literature and the politics of Italy. He had long ago
cautioned Tita against carrying her news of these things.
As they strolled among the dahlias, straight and tall
as the oleanders in the river beds of Greece, she told him
of her father's last hours, and her life in the villa,
brightened only by Tita's daily visits from the casa.
"What have you been writing ?" she questioned. "Has
it been T)on Juan ?' n
He shook his head. The hope she had expressed
that he would some day finish it more worthily had
clung to him like ivy. With an instinct having its root
deeper than his innate hatred of hypocrisy, he had for-
warded the earlier cantos whose burning she had pre-
THE CASTAWAY 313
vented to John Murray in London for publication.
This instinct was not kin to the bravado with which he
had sent "Cain" from Venice ; it was a crude but grow-
ing prescience that he must one day stand before the
world by all he had written and that the destruction
even of its darker pages would mutilate his life's vol-
ume. But he had not yet continued the poem. Think-
ing of this he sighed before he asked her :
"Have you read all the books I sent ?"
"Many of them. But I liked this" she touched the
"Borneo and Juliet" "most of all."
"It is scarce a tale for sad hours," he said, laying his
hand over hers on the slim leather.
Her fingers crept into his, as she went on earnestly:
"The stone you brought from Verona makes it seem so
true ! Do you suppose it really happened so ? What do
you think was the potion the monk gave her ?"
"A drachm of mandragora, perhaps. That is said to
produce the cataleptic trance. I wish Juliet's monk
mixed his drafts in Bavenna now," he added with a
touch of bitterness ; "I shall often long for such a nepen-
the before the next moon, Teresa."
He felt her fingers quiver. The thought of the coming
long month shook her heart. "You will go from Ra~
venna before that," she whispered, "shall you not?"
"From the casa, perhaps. Not from near you. The
day you left Casa Guiccioli I had made up my mind to
leave Italy. But now now the only thing I see cer-
tainly is that I cannot go yet. Not till the skies are
brighter for you."
"Can they ever be brighter if you go ?"
"You must not tempt me beyond my strength," he
314 THE CASTAWAY
answered, a dumb pain on his lips. "Ah, forgive me!
I did not mean "
"Tempt you ! Have I done that ?"
"It is my own heart tempts me not you ! It is that
I cannot trust!"
"7 can trust it/' she said under her breath. Her eyes
were luminous and tender. "It is all I have to trust
now."
His strength was melting. He would have taken her
into his arms, but the neigh of his tethered horse and a
familiar answering whinny came across the yews.
"It is Fletcher," he said in surprise. He crossed the
garden to meet him.
"What is it, Fletcher?" he demanded. "Why have
you left the rooms ?"
"My lord!" stammered the valet, "did you not send
forme?"
"No."
Fletcher looked crestfallen.
"Who gave you such a message ?"
"Count Guiccioli's secretary, your lordship."
A disquieting apprehension touched Gordon's mind.
Why had Paolo sent the servant on this sleeveless errand
unless he were wished out of the way? He remem-
bered a packet which Count Gamba, weeks before, had
entrusted to him for safe-keeping. At the time Gordon
had suspected its contents had to do with the Carbonari's
plans. This packet was in his apartments. Found,
might it inculpate the dead man's friends in that lost
cause ?
He rejoined Teresa with a hasty excuse for his return
to the casa.
THE CASTAWAY 315
"You will come back?" She questioned with sudden
vague foreboding.
"Yea, before sunset."
"Promise me promise me I"
For one reassuring moment he put his arm about her,
aching to fold her from all .the world. The past for
them both was a grim mirage, the future a blind dilem-
ma nay, there was no future save as it gloomed, a preg-
nant shadow of this present so wrought of doubt and joy.
CHAPTEE XLIV
BY ORDER OF THE POPE
bearing Casa Guiccioli, Gordon saw a crowd clus-
tering a few paces from the entrance. Servants were
watching from the balcony.
A couple of soldiers cocked their guns and would have
hindered him, but he put them aside. On the pavement
lay a man in uniform, shot through the breast. Over
him bent a beardless adjutant feeling for a pulse, and a
priest muttering a horrified prayer.
He asked a hurried question or two amid the con-
fusion and dismay : The prostrate man was the military
commandant of Eavenna. No one knew whence the
shot had come a full twenty minutes before. Now his
guard stood, with characteristic Italian helplessness, do-
ing nothing, waiting orders from they knew not whom
or where.
Gordon spoke authoritatively to the subaltern, bade
one of the soldiers go for the police, despatched another
with the news to the cardinal and directed two of the
crowd to lift the injured man and carry him to his own
quarters in the casa. This done he sent Fletcher for the
surgeon who had attended his own wound in that same
(316)
THE CASTAWAY 317
chamber, and stationed the remaining soldiers at the
lower doors. When the room was cleared he gave his
attention to the unconscious commandant.
He stood a moment looking fixedly at the hed. It was
this man's spies who had dogged him during the past
month, persecuted his servants and attempted to raise
the Eavennese against his very presence in the city. The
government he served would have rejoiced to see him,
Gordon, lying stretched there in the other's place ; would
have given but lukewarm pursuit to the assassin. Yet
the man before him lay helpless enough now. Presently
the casa would be full of soldiers, dragoons, priests and
all the human paraphernalia of autocratic authority.
Who had fired the shot? And by what strange chance,
almost at his own threshold ?
He crossed the floor, unlocked a drawer and took out
Count Gamba's packet with satisfaction. His foot
struck something on the floor.
He picked it up. It was a small leather letter-case
evidently fallen from the pocket of the wounded com- ,
mandant. He took a step toward the bed, intending to
replace it, and saw Tita at the door.
The latter wore no coat. He was sweaty and covered
with dust. He beckoned Gordon into the next room.
"Excellence," he asked huskily; "will you not open
that portafogli?"
"Why?" "
"Perhaps to know what he knew."
"Why should I wish to know?"
"Because he was on his way here to this casa, Ex-
cellence."
Gordon saw that he was trembling, it seemed with
318 THE CASTAWAY
both fatigue and repressed excitement. "Tell me what
you know/' he said.
Tita spoke rapidly, his words tumbling one against
another :
"I heard Paolo send your valet after you to-day, Ex-
cellence, when no one had come from the villa. It did
not seem right. I watched from the garden. I could
see someone in this room it was locked when you
went. I climbed a tree. The master and one other "
"Trevanion !"
" I could not tell. They were carrying in boxes.
When they left the casa, I got through the window and
broke them open. They held bullets and cans of pow-
der."
Gordon swept a swift glance around the room. He
was beginning to understand. Ammunition, presumably
for the use of the insurrectionists, here in his rooms
evidence of complicity with the Carbonari. A military
search at the proper moment expulsion from Italy !
He distinguished the outlines clearly.
"Yes, yes," he said; "go on."
"I know the police have watched you. I guessed what
it meant. I wanted to get the boxes away, but I could
not the servants would have seen me. I knew the sol-
diers would come soon. I climbed to the casa roof."
The narrator had paused. The paper shook in Gor-
don's hand. "No more, Tita !"
"It was the only way, Excellence!" said Tita, his
features working. "I swore on the Virgin to guard you,
whatever came. The servants ran to the balconies
when it happened. The way was clear. I carried the
THE CASTAWAY 319
boxes down to the garden. There is a covered well.
They are there where no one would look."
Gordon was staring at the letter-case, his mind strug-
gling between revolt at the act itself and a sense of its
motive. So it was for him the shot had been fired!
What a ghastly levity that the wounded man should
now be lying here ! He shuddered. Tita's voice spoke
again:
"Now, Excellence, will you read what may be in that
. portafogli?"
Gordon strode to the window and opened the case.
It contained a single official letter. He unfolded and
scanned it swiftly:
"Rome, Direction-General of Police.
(Most private.)
"Your Excellency:
"The Governor of Rome, in his capacity of Director-
General, forwards the following:
" 'With the approval of Count Guiccioli, her husband,
from whom by papal decree she has been separated, it is
deemed advisable since the death of her father to modify
that decree, and to grant to the Contessa Guiccioli hence-
forth a retreat in the protection of Holy Church. You are
directed herewith to arrange for her immediate convey-
ance to the Convent of Saint Ursula in His Holiness' es-
tates below Rome.
" 'CONSALVI, Cardinal,
" 'Secretary of State to Pius VII.'
"Under direction of the Cardinal of Ravenna, you will
act upon this without delay.
"To the Sub-direction of Police at Ravenna."
Gordon raised his eyes with a start. Teresa to be
shut from the face of the sun, from flowers, from glad-
320 THE CASTAWAY
ness, for years, at least during the lifetime of her hus-
band, perhaps forever? From him? Was this the fate
he, cursed as he was, must bring upon her?
He felt his breath stop. What could he do? Take
her away? How and where? "Her immediate con-
veyance" "act without delay." Those were no am-
biguous words; they meant more than soon. If it
should be to-day! If authority was on its way to her,
even now, while he dallied here !
Tita saw the deathly pallor that overspread his face
like a white wave. "What is it, Excellence ?" he cried.
Gordon made no reply. He dashed the portafogli
on the floor and rushed from the room.
His horse stood at the casa entrance. He pushed
past the stolid sentinel, threw himself into the saddle,
and lashed the animal to an anguish of speed toward the
villa.
CHAPTER XLV
THE SUMMONS
Seated amid the dahlias, Teresa, from speculation as
to what had recalled Gordon to the casa, drifted into a
long day-dream from which a sudden sound awoke her.
Several troopers passed along the roadway; following
were two closed carriages. While she listened the wheels
seemed to stop.
"It is the Mother Superior come from Bagnacavallo,"
she thought. As she sprang up, she heard old Elise call-
ing. Slipping the "Romeo and Juliet" into her pocket,
she went hastily into the house.
Five minutes later she stood dumb and white before
three persons in the villa parlor. Two were nuns wear-
ing the dress of the order of St. Ursula. The other she
had recognized he had visited her father in his illness
as chaplain to the Cardinal of Ravenna. A letter bear-
ing the papal arms, dropped from her hand, lay at her
feet. What it contained but one other in Ravenna be-
sides the cardinal knew : that was the military command-
ant who had furnished the ecclesiastic his escort of troop-
ers disposed outside the villa, and who at that moment
was walking on another errand, straight toward a mus-
ket, filed half down, waiting on a casa roof.
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322 THE CASTAWAY
"We must start without delay, Contessa." The cler-
ical's voice fell half-compassionately. "The villa and its
servants remain at present under the vice-legate's
care. By direction, nothing may be taken with you save
suitable apparel for the journey. We go only as far as
Forli to-night."
Teresa scarcely Heard. Haste when such a little time
before she had been so happy ! Haste to bid farewell
now to the world that held him ? In her father's death
she had met the surpassing but natural misfortune of
bereavement. This new blow brought a terror without
presage or precedent, that seemed to grip her every sense.
The convent of S'aint Ursula ! Not a home such as she
had known at Bagnacavallo, a free abode of benignant
phantom-footed monitors, but a forced retreat, a prison,
secret and impregnable.
What could she do ? What could she do ? The ques-
tion pealed in her brain as she answered dully, conscious
all the time of a stinging sense of detail: the chaplain
facing her; the silent religieuses beside him; the
wrinkled face of Elise peering curiously from the hall ;
out of doors goldening sunlight, men's voices conversing
and the stamping of horses' hoofs. Not even to see him
to tell him !
As she climbed the stair mechanically, a kind of dazed
sickness in her limbs, she pictured Gordon's returning
at the hour's end to find her gone forever. She sat down,
her hands clenched, the nails striking purple crescents
in the palms, striving desperately to think. If she
could escape !
She ran to the window a trooper stood smoking a
THE CASTAWAY 323
short pipe at the rear of the villa. She went to the stair-
ease and called : "Elise !"
A nun ascended the stair. "The servants are receiv-
ing His Eminence's instructions," she explained. "Pray
let me help you/'
Teresa began to tremble. She thanked her with an
effort and automatically set about selecting a few arti-
cles of clothing. The apathy of hopelessness was upon
her.
The chaplain stood at the foot of the stair when they
descended. Seeing him waiting, the sharper pain re-
swept her. Only to bridge that time to see Gordon
again, if but for an instant, before she went. She
stopped, searching his face.
"I should like a little while alone before I go. There
is time for that, is there not ?"
His grave face lighted, the authoritative merged in-
stantly in the fatherly solicitude of the shepherd of
souls. He thought she longed for the supreme consola-
tion of prayer.
"A half -hour if you wish it, my daughter. The chapel
shall it not be ?" He led the way. Elise sat weeping
in a chair; as they passed she snatched Teresa's hand
and kissed it silently.
From the side steps a tunnelled yew walk curved to
a door in one of the villa's narrow wings. This wing,
which had no connection with the rest of the house, had
been added by Count Gamba as a chapel for Teresa's
mother. It was scrupulously kept, and during all the
years since her death bowls of fresh flowers had scented-
it daily and two candles had been kept burning before
the crucifix over its cushioned altar. The attic above
324 THE CASTAWAY
Count Gamba had used as a laboratory for his unending
chemical experiments. It was there the message had
found him which had brought so cruel a result.
The churchman paused at the chapel door, and Teresa
entered alone. He closed it behind her.
CHAPTEE XLVI
THE POTION"
The declining sun shone dimly through the painted
windows. The chapel was in half-dark. Teresa went
slowly to where the two candles winked yellowly. She
had often knelt there, but she brought now no thought
of prayer. Might Gordon come in time? Would his
errand at the casa delay him ? Could fate will that she
should miss him by such a narrow margin? She
crouched suddenly down on the altar cushions, dry, tear-
less sobs tearing at her throat.
She felt the book in her pocket and drew it out.
Only that morning she had found the letter written in
it only an hour ago their hands had touched together
on its cover. How truly now Juliet's plight seemed like
her own! But she, alas! had no friendly monk nor
magic elixir. There were no such potions nowadays.
What was it Gordon had said ? Mandragora a drachm
of mandragora ? If she only had some now !
She caught her breath.
In another minute she was stumbling up the narrow
curling stair to the loft above.
Ten minutes later she stood in the center of the labora-
tory, lined with its shelves of crooked-necked retorts and
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326 THE CASTAWAY
bottles, her search ended, the blood shrinking from her
heart, her hand clutching a small phial.
Gasping, she seized a slender graduated glass and hur-
ried down. She ran to the chapel door and fastened it,
hearing while she slid the bolt, the steps of the cleric
pacing up and down without.
As she stood again at the altar, the phial in her hand,
a bleak fear crossed her soul. What if it had never been
anything but a story? Perhaps Juliet had never
awakened really, but had died when she drank the po-
tion! Suppose it were a poison, from which there was
no awaking!
She shivered as if with cold. Better even that than
life without him!
Perhaps, too, Gordon had jested or had been mistaken.
It might have been some other drug some other quan-
tity.
Another dread leaped upon her out of the shadow.
Suppose it were the right drug that its effect would be
as he had said. What, then? In her agony she had
thought only of escape from the hour's dilemma. There
would be an afterward. And who would know she only
slept? She dared not trust to Elise her fright would
betray her. She dared not leave a writing lest other eyes
than Gordon's should see and understand. Suppose she
did it, and it succeeded, and he came afterward. He
would deem her dead in truth, that was what Romeo
had thought ! a victim of her own despair. They would
bear her to the Gamba vault cold and coffined, to wake
beside her father, without Juliet's hope of rescue. Her
brain rocked with hysterical terror. If Gordon only
knew, she would dare all dare that worst. But how
THE CASTAWAY 327
could she let him know ? Even if he were here now she
would have neither time nor opportunity. Her half-
hour of grace was almost up.
Yet if he saw her lying there, apparently lifeless,
and beside her that book and phial would he remember
what he had said? Would he guess? Oh God, would
he?
A warning knock sounded at the chapel door.
"Blessed Virgin, help me I" whispered Teresa, poured
the drachm and drank it.
Then with a sob she stretched herself on the altar
cushions and laid the "Komeo and Juliet" open on her
breast.
When finally his wonder and indignation having
given place to apprehension the chaplain employed a
dragoon's stout shoulder to force the chapel door, he dis-
tinguished at first only emptiness.
He approached the altar to start back with an ex-
clamation of dismay at what he saw stretched in the
candle-light.
He laid a faltering hand on Teresa's; it was already
chilled. He raised her eyelid the pupil was expanded
to the iris' edge. He felt her pulse, her heart. Both
were still. A cry of horror broke from his lips, as he
saw a phial lying uncorked beside her. He picked it up,
noting the far-faint halitus of the deadly elixir.
His cry brought Elise, with the nuns behind her. The
old woman pushed past the peering trooper and rushed
to throw herself beside the altar with a wail of lamenta-
tion.
The chaplain lifted her and drew her away.
328 THE CASTAWAY
"Go back to the house/' he bade her sternly; "let no
servant enter here till word comes from Casa Guiccioli."
He waved the black-gowned figures back to the thresh-
old. "She is self -slain !" he said.
In the confusion none of them had seen a man enter
the garden from the side, who, hearing the first alarm,
had swiftly approached the chapel. No one had seen
him enter the open door behind them.
The churchman, with that solemn pronouncement
on his lips, stopped short at Gordon's white, awe-frosted
face. There was not true sight but rather a woeful con-
gealed vision in those eyes turned upon the altar; they
seemed those of a soul in whom the abrupt certainty of
perdition has sheathed itself unawares.
The chaplain drew back. He recognized the man who
had come so suddenly to meet that scene. A dark shadow
crossed his face. Then muttering a prayer, he followed
the nuns to the carriages to bear back the melancholy
news to Ravenna.
CHAPTER XLVII
THE COMPLICITY OF THE GODS
"Self -slain !" The words of the priest, as Gordon
stood there, seemed to reecho about him with infinite
variations of agony. He had ridden vacant of purpose,
destitute of plan thrilling only to reach her. Desper-
ate, lawless thoughts had rung through his mind as he
galloped. Entering the garden he had seen the carriages
and heard the chaplain's cry at the same moment. Then,
with the awful instantaneousness of an electric bolt, the .
blow had fallen. It was the last finality the closure
of the ultimate gateway of hope the utter assurance of
the unescapable doom in which all ends save the worm
that dies not and the fire that is not quenched.
He drew closer to the altar, his step dragging as he
walked his infirmity grown all at once painfully ap-
parent and gazed at the mute face on the cushions.
The priest and his escort were forgotten. He knew
nothing save that dreadful assertion that had sent the
nuns hastily from the door, telling their beads, and had
forbidden even the servant to enter.
Self -slain? No, but slain by George Gordon the ac-
cursed bearer of all maranatJia, damned to the last jot
and tittle. He had done her to death as surely as if his
own hand had held the phial lying there to her lips. It
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330 THE CASTAWAY
was because he had stayed in Ravenna that she lay here
dead before the crucifix the symbol that she had sought
at San Lazzarro, that Padre Somalian had prayed to !
Staring across hueless wastes of mental torture to a
blank horizon, something the friar had said came to
him : "Every man bears a cross of despair to his Cal-
vary." What a vacuous futility! Infinity, systems,
worlds, man, brain. Was this the best the aeon-long evo-
lution could offer ? This bloodless image nailed upon a
tree? What had it availed her?
He suddenly fell on his knees beside her. Dead?
Teresa dead ? Why, a few months before, at the monas-
tery, he had regarded death for himself with calmness,
almost with satisfaction. But not for her never for
her. Was she dead, and he to live on never to see her,
to hear her speak, not even to know that she was some-
where in the world ?
He saw for the first time the little book lying open on
her breast in the candle-light. He took it mechanically
and turned its leaves. As mechanically his eye read, not
sensible of what it translated, but. as surcharged agony
unconsciously seeks relief in the doing of simple, habit-
ual things : .
"When presently through all thy veins shall run
A cold and drowsy humor; for no pulse
Shall keep his native progress, but surcease:
No warmth, no breath, shall testify thou livest;
The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade
To paly ashes; thy eyes' windows fall,
Like death, when he shuts up the day of life!
And in this borrowed likeness of shrunk death
, Thou shalt continue two and forty hours,
And then awake as from a pleasant sleep."
THE CASTAWAY 331
The last words of the monk Gordon repeated aloud:
"And then awake as from a pleasant sleep."
A sudden tingling sensation leaped through every
nerve. He snatched at the phial and bent to its label
"Mandragora."
"With an inarticulate cry he sprang up, leaped to
the nearest window and smashed it frantically with
his fist. The splintering glass cut his hand, but he did
not feel it. He caught a fragment as it fell, and in a
second was holding it close over Teresa's parted lips.
He waited a time that seemed a dragging eternity,
then lifted it to the candle-light and looked with fearful
earnestness. The faintest tarnish, light as gossamer
film, clouded it.
The crystal clashed upon the floor. He seized and
emptied one of the rose bowls and rushed out through
the darkening flower-paths to the fountain in the gar-
den. Goldfish flirted and glistened in panic as he filled
the bowl with the icy water. He hurried back, dipped
Teresa's stirless hands into its coldness and dashed it
over her face, drenching her white neck and the dull
gold hair meshed on the velvet.
Three separate times he did this. Then, breathless,
he seized her arms and began to move them as one re-
suscitates a half-drowned person, trying to rouse the
lungs to action to throw off the lethal torpor of the bel-
ladonna-like opiate.
He worked for many minutes, the moisture running
from his forehead, his breath coming in gasps. Labor-
ing, he thought of the dire risk she had run, trusting all
to his promise to return and to his divination. He re-
332 THE CASTAWAY
membered he had said a drachm. To make assurance
doubly sure, might she have taken more?
He kept watching her features the rigor seemed to be
loosening, the marble rigidity softening its outlines. But
heart and pulse were still. In despair he laid his warm
lips close upon her cold ones and filled her lungs with
a great expiration, again and again.
He lifted himself, trembling now with hope. The
lungs, responding to that forced effort, had begun to re-
new their function. Her bosom rose and fell slowly,
but still it was life. He dried her face and chafed her
hands between his own. She commenced to breathe
more naturally and rhythmically; at length she sighed
and stirred on the cushions.
A rush of tears blinded Gordon's eyes the first he
had shed since the night in London when he had bent
above the little empty snow-silent bed that had held
Ada. He dashed them away, seeing that Teresa's eyes
were open.
Her hand, wavering, touched his wet cheek.
"My love !" he said. "My love !"
The first fact that came to her out of the void was
that of his tears. A troubled look crossed her brow.
"All is well. Do you remember?"
Her eyes, roaming at first bewildered, saw the dark
chapel, the flaring, garish candles, caught the expres-
sion of his face, still drawn and haggard, and white with
strain. All came back upon her in a surge. She half
raised herself, his arm supporting her. They two there
alone the priest gone the dusk fallen to night. She
had succeeded ! Gordon had come his arms held her !
In the joyful revulsion, she turned her face to him
THE CASTAWAY 333
and threw her arms about his neck, feeling herself
caught up in his embrace, every fiber shuddering with
the terror passed, weeping with weak delight, clinging
to him as to her only refuge, still dizzy and faint, but
with safe assurance and peace.
Looking down at her where she rested, her face buried
on his breast, her whole form shaken with feeling, mur-
muring broken words, slowly calling back her strength,
Gordon felt doubt and indecision drop from his mind.
The convent was not for her not by all she had suf-
fered that day ! Only one thing else remained : to take
her away forever, beyond the papal frontier with him!
Fate and the world had given her to him now by the re-
sistless logic of circumstance.
He reckoned swiftly :
The news by this time had reached the casa in Ka-
venna. Another half -hour at most and choice would be
taken from their hands. They must lose no time. Yet
whither? Where could he go, that hatred would not
pursue? To what Ultima Thule could he fly, that the
poison barb would not follow to wound her happiness?
Where to live? Never in England! In the East, in
Greece, perhaps, the land -of his youthful dreams? It
was a barbarian pashawlik, under the foot of Ottoman
greed; neither a fit nor secure habitation. In Italy,
where her soul must always be ? Tuscany Pisa, where
Shelley lived was not far distant. They might reach
its borders in safety. There they would be beyond the
rule of Eomagna, out of the states of the Church.
"Dearest," asked Gordon, "are you strong enough to
ride?"
She stirred instantly in his arms and stood up, though
334 THE CASTAWAY
unsteadily. <r 5Tes, yes, some one will come. We must go
quickly/'
"I will saddle and fetch a horse for you to the chapel
door." -
She was feeling the sharp edge of fear again. "I
shall be quite strong presently/' she assured him. "Let
us wait no longer."
He went noiselessly to the stables. He had dreaded
meeting some one, but old Elise, beside herself with
grief, had run to watch for those who should come from
Eavenna, and the rest of the servants, dazed by the ca-
lamity, were huddled in the kitchen. Leading the horse,
Gordon returned speedily.
He put his arms about Teresa in the chapel doorway
for an instant and held her close. He was feeling a call
he had never felt before, the call that nature and
civilization have planted in man deep as the desire for
offspring, the song of the silver-singing goddess, whose
marble image, on the night he had made that fatal
trothing with Annabel, had been blackened by his
thrown ink-well Vesta, the personification of the
hearthstone, of home.
Teresa suddenly meant that to him. Home! Not
such a one as he had known at Newstead Abbey, with
Hobhouse and Sheridan and Moore. Not a gray moated
pile wound with the tragic fates of his own blood a
house of mirth, but not of happiness ! Not like the one
in Piccadilly Terrace, where he had lived with Annabel
that one year of fever and heart-sickness and fading
ideals! No, but a home that should be no part of his
past ; a nook enisled, where spying eyes might not enter,
THE CASTAWAY 335
where he should redeem those barren pledges he had once
made to life, in the coin of real love.
"Teresa," he said, "from the journey we begin this
hour there can be no return. It is out of the world
you have lived in and known ! If there were any other
way for you save that one "
"My life !" she whispered.
The soft-voiced passion of her tenderness thrilled him.
"You go to exile," he went on, "to an alien place "
"There is no exile, except from you, nor alien place
where you are! The world that disowns you may. cast
me out ah, I shall be glad !"
He laughed a low laugh of utter content. Lightly as
if she had been a child, he lifted her into the saddle.
Supporting her at first, he led the horse over the turf
and into the driveway where his own waited.
Then mounting, his hand holding her bridle, they
rode into the velvety dark.
Old Elise, tearfully watching the Eavenna road, heard
horses coming from the villa grounds. From the selvedge
of the hedge, she saw the faces of Teresa and Gordon,
pallid in the starlight.
The old woman's breath failed her. All the servants'
tales of the Englishman, whom she had seen at the casa,
recurred to her superstitious imagination. He was a
fiend, carrying off the dead body of her mistress !
She crouched against the ground, palsied with fright,
till the muffled hoof-beats died away. Then she rose
and ran, stumbling with fear, to the house.
As Gordon and Teresa rode through the azure gloom
of the Italian night, a girlish moon was tilting over
the distant purple of the mountains, beyond whose
336 THE CASTAWAY
many-folded fastnesses lay Tuscany and Pisa. Her
weakness had passed and she kept her saddle more cer-
tainly. The darkness was friendly; before the sun rose
they would be beyond pursuit.
As the villa slipped behind them and the odorous for-
est shut them round, Gordon rode closer and clasped her
in his arms with a rush of joy, straining her tight to
him, feeling the fervid beating of her heart, his own
exulting with the fierce, primordial flame of possession.
"Mine!" he cried. "My very own at last now and
always."
CHAPTER XLVIII
THE ALL OF LOVE
Spring, the flush wooer, was come again. The prints
of gentian showed where his blue-sandalled feet had
trod, and the wild plum and cherry blooms announced
the earth his bride. In the tranquil streets of Pisa,
where the chains of red-liveried convicts toiled not,
young grass sprouted. Beneath a sky serenely, beauti-
fully blue, the yellow Arno bore its lazy sails under
still bridges and between bright houses, green-shut-
tered against the sun. Round about lay new corn-fields
busy with scarlet-bodiced peasants, forests and hills
sagy-green with olive, and further off the clear Carrara
peaks and the solemn hoary Apennines. At night a
breeze fragrant as wood-smoke, cooling the myrtle
hedges flecked with the first pale-green meteors of the
fireflies.
The few English residents had long grown used to the
singular figure of Shelley, beardless and hatless, habited
like a boy in stinted jacket and trousers that mild
philosopher at war with the theories of society ; a fresher
divertissement had stirred them when the old Lan-
franchi Palace, built by Michael Angelo, on the Lung'
Arno, was thrown open in the autumn for a new occu-
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338 THE CASTAWAY
pant a man whose striking face and halting step made
him marked. The news flew among the gossips in a day.
George Gordon was not alone, it was whispered over
indignant tea-cups ; with him was a Eavennese contessa
who had eloped by his aid out of Romagna. Eeport
averred that he had duelled with her husband, and after
spiriting her beyond the frontier, had returned to Ra-
venna to shoot down a military commandant who had
attempted to interfere. Luckily for him, the story ran,
the official had recovered, and the police, relieved to be
quit of him, had allowed the execrated peer to depart
unmolested with his chattels. For a time the Lan-
franchi neighborhood was avoided, but at length, curi-
osity overcame rigid decorum; femininity forgot its
prudence and watched with open eagerness.
Its reward, however, was meager. Except for Shelley
and his young wife, Gordon chose seclusion even from
the Italian circles, where title was an open sesame and
uninsular laxity not unforgiven. This fact became un-
mistakable when a billet from no less a personage than
the grand duchess, a princess of the House of Saxony,
brought from the Lanfranchi Palace a clear declination.
The gossips held up their hands and subsided.
For the primal object of this curiosity the winter,
with its thaws and siroccos, had passed swiftly. In the
present, so full of sweet surprise and unfolding, even
Teresa's long anxiety because of her brother's non-ap-
pearance and the boding with which Gordon watched
for a sign from Trevanion, or from Count Guiccioli
who he knew would read rightly the enigma of her re-
puted death and after disappearance had softened
finally to an undisturbed content.
THE CASTAWAY 339
The full measure of love was theirs. The outer world,
with its myriad intonations, had dulled away, and Pisa
and the old Lanfranchi pile constituted an inner roseate
haven belonging wholly and only to themselves. A clois-
tered city, its old grandeur departed and seemingly but
half inhabited; the river drifting by, the house of the
Shelleys on the opposite bank ; boats and horses ; a gar-
den sweet with orange-trees and gushes of violets along
shady walks ; a few servants marshalled by Fletcher and
Tita ; a study and books and Teresa. It was the home
Gordon had dreamed of when his arms were around her
at the villa chapel, but more satisfying, more complete.
Sometimes, in this Elysian life of theirs, as he felt her
head against his knee while he read her new verses of his,
for now he knew oftener the old melodic pen-mood
that at Venice had seemed vanished forever and that
had first returned in the hour he had etched those lines
on the fungus, he was conscious of a sudden tightening
of the heart. Could it last? The poison of his fame
had gone deep. He lived at peace only by sufferance of
military authority, now busy avenging its late alarm by
the black-sentence and proscription. At any moment
it might recommence in Tuscany the persecution with
which the police of Eomagna had visited him : the yelp-
ing terriers of the Continental press, a upas-growth of
proces-verbal, recrimination, hateful surveillance.
Entering his restful study one day from a gallop with
Shelley, Gordon wondered whether this retreat, too
whether each retreat he might find would in the end
be denied him and he condemned, a modern son of
Shem, to pitch his tent in the wilderness.
For himself it did not matter ; but for her ? She was
340 THE CASTAWAY
happy now only with him, even if beyond the pale.
But could she always remain so? Drop by drop, as
erosion wears the quartz, would not the trickling venom
waste her soul ? Were the specters of that further past
when his life had run, like a burning train, through
wanderings, adventure and passion the ghosts of his
own weaknesses and wilful tempers not laid? Could
they stalk into this halcyon present to pluck them asun-
der?
The ghosts of his own weaknesses! Clarity of vision
had come to Gordon in these months. He had grown to
see his old acts, not gaunt and perverse, projections of
insistent caprice, but luminous with new self-solution.
He had learned himself: what he had never known,
either in his London life of success and failure, or in its
ignoble Venetian aftermath.
Looking out toward the purpling Apennines, where
the sun sank to his crimson covert, he felt a mute aching
wish : an intense desire that the world not his contem-
poraries, but a later generation should be able to look
beneath the specious shadow of opprobrium that covered
him and see the truth.
It could do this only through himself ; through pages
he should write. The journals he had kept in London,
when he had lived centered in a tremulous web of sensi-
tiveness and wayward idiosyncrasy, had recorded his
many-sided, prismatic personality only in fragments,
torn, jagged morsels of his brain. In these memoirs he
should strive to paint justly the old situations for which
he had been judged. And these pages would persist, a
cloud of witnesses, when he was beyond earthly summons
and verdict.
THE CASTAWAY 341
When Teresa entered the room in a mist-white gown,
his face was bent close to the paper, the candles yet un-
lighted. Coming close to him, she seated herself at his
feet. He bent and kissed her in silence; the trooping
visions the writing had recalled made his kiss linger-
ingly tender.
She pointed out of the window, through the million-
tinted twilight.
"Do you remember, dear/' she asked, her voice thrill-
ing him strangely, "when we rode to those mountains,
you and I, from Ravenna ?"
"Yes," he replied, smiling.
She had turned toward him, kneeling, her hands ca-
ressing his clustering brown-gray curls.
"You have never regretted that ride ?"
"Regretted it? Ah, Teresa!"
Her face was looking up into his, a wistful question-
ing in it almost like pain, he thought wonderingly.
"You know all you said that night," she went on hur-
riedly ; "what I was to you ? Is it as true now ?"
"It is more true," he answered. "All I have dreamed,
all I have written here in Pisa and some of it will live,
Teresa has had its source in you. All that I shall ever
write will spring from your love! That began to be
true the day you first kissed me."
"That was when you found me on the convent hill,
when we read from the Bible the day I first knew of
Allegra."
His face was averted, but she could see his shoulders
lift and fall in a deep silent suspiration.
"Your forgiveness then was divine!" he said. Not
342 THE CASTAWAY
such had been the forgiveness of the world ! He clasped
her in his arms. "You are all things to me !"
"Oh," she cried with a broken breath, "can I be all to
you?"
"Wife and home and happiness all !"
" And child ?" She was sobbing now.
He started, feeling her arms straining him, seeing her
blinded with tears. There suddenly seemed a woe-
ful significance in what she had said in her question.
He felt the surging of some unexpected wave of dread
which broke over his heart and washed it up in his
throat.
"Dearest! Two days ago I heard there was fever in
the Bagnacavallo valley. I sent a courier at once. He
has just returned. Gordon how can I tell you ?"
For an instant she was frightened at his stony still-
ness. In the dusk a mortal grayness spread itself over
his features. He pushed back his chair as if to rise, but
could not for her arms. It was not Allegra's illness
it was more, it was the worst ! His arms dropped to his
sides. A shudder ran through him.
"I understand/' he said at length. "I understand.
Say no more."
In the words was not now the arrogant and passion-
ate hostility of the old George Gordon. There was the
deadly quietness of grief, but also something more. In
that moment of numbing intelligence it was borne in up-
on him with searing force, that death, perhaps, had acted
not unkindly, that it had chosen well. What perils
might that young life have held, springing from those
lawless elements compounded in her nature: reckless-
ness, audacity, the roving berserker foot, contempt for
THE CASTAWAY 343
the world's opinion, demoniac passions of hatred and re-
prisal? The subtle, unerring divination of death had
taken her in youthfulness, a heavened soul, from the
precincts of that past of his to which nothing pure
should have a mortal claim.
So he thought, as feeling Teresa's arms about him,
his lips repeated more slowly and with a touch of pain-
ful resignation the first he had felt in all his life :
"I understand !"
That was all. He was looking out across the mistily-
moving Arno, silent, his hand on her bowed head. She
lifted it after a time, feeling the silence acutely. Her
eyes, swimming with changeless love and pitying tender-
ness, called his own.
At the wordless appeal, a swift rush of unshed tears
burned his eyelids. "Death has done his work," he said
in a low voice. "Time, perhaps, may do his. Let us
mention her no more."
Just then both heard a noise on the stairway the
choked voice of Fletcher and a vengeful oath.
Teresa sprang to her feet with a sharp exclamation.
Gordon rose and threw open the door.
CHAPTEK XLIX
"YOU ARE AIMING AT MY HEART!"
two men who burst into the room had been in-
timately yet appositively connected with Gordon's past.
One had tried to take his life with a Malay kriss; the
life of the other Gordon had once saved. They were
Trevanion and Count Pietro Gamba, Teresa's brother.
The former had come many times stealthily to Pisa;
for the master of Casa Guiccioli, cheated of his dearest
plan, had had recourse to the umbrage of Tuscan official-
ism. On this day, as it happened, Trevanion had been
closeted with the police commandant when that official
had been called upon to vise the passports of two stran-
gers: Prince Mavrocordato, a tall commanding Greek,
and a slighter, blond-bearded Italian, at whose name the
listener had started with the leap of a plan to his
brain. Trevanion had followed the young Count Gamba
to his hotel, picked acquaintance and, pretending ig-
norance of the other's relationship, had soon told him
sufficient for his purpose: that the young and lovely
Contessa Guiccioli, lured from Kavenna and her hus-
band, was living at that moment in Pisa the light-of-
love of an English noble whose excesses in Venice had
given him the appellation of the milord maligno.
The story had turned the brother's blood to fire. All he
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THE CASTAWAY 345
demanded was to be shown the man. Trevanion led him
to the palace, where only Fletcher had met their en-
try, and now the opening of a door had brought this
winged vengeance and its object face to face.
The sight of her long-absent brother Trevanion be-
hind him the pistol the former held levelled at Gor-
don's breast froze Teresa with sudden comprehension.
She stood stock-still, unable to utter a word. Trevanion
sprang forward, his finger pointing.
"There he is I" he spat savagely. "There's your Eng-
lishman I"
Gordon had made no move. Unarmed, resistance
would have been futile in presence of the poised weapon.
So this was the way that lurking Nemesis of his past was
to return to him! He was looking, not at Trevanion,
but at his companion, fixedly; recalling, with an odd
sensation of the unreal, a windy lake with that face set-
tling helplessly in the ripples as he swam toward it, the
water roaring in his ears. The outre thought flashed
across him how sane and just the homilists of England
would call it that he should meet his end in such inglo-
rious fashion at the hands of this particular man.
"Yon white-livered fool!" scoffed Trevanion. "Why
don't you shoot?"
His companion had paused, eying Gordon in astound-
ed inquiry. His outstretched arm wavered.
The paralysis of Teresa's fear broke at the instant.
She ran to him, throwing her arms around him, snatch-
ing at the hand that held the pistol.
"Pietro! Pietro!" she screamed. "Ah, God of love!
Hear me, first ! Hear me !"
He thrust her to her knees, and again, as Trevanion
346 THE CASTAWAY
sneered, his arm stiffened. But the negative of that
Genevan picture was before his eyes, too its tones re-
versed. He saw himself rising from the beach clasping
the hand of his rescuer heard his own voice say : "You
have given me my life ; I shall never forget it !"
His arm fell.
"Signore," said Gordon steadily, "I long ago released
you from any fancied obligation."
"Pietro !" Teresa's voice was choked with agony. "It
is not him alone you would kill ! You are aiming at my
heart, too ! Pietro I"
Amazedly, as she staggered to her feet, she saw her
brother hurl the pistol through the open window and
cover his face with his hands.
Trevanion stared, almost believing Gordon an adept
in some superhuman diablerie, by which in the moment
of revenge he had robbed this cat's-paw of courage. Then
laughing shrilly and wildly, he turned and lurched past
Fletcher leaning against the wall, dazed from the blow
that had sent him reeling from the landing down the
stair.
In the street he picked up the fallen pistol. The
touch of the cool steel ran up his arm.' He turned
back, a devilish purpose in his eye. Why not glut his
hate once and for all? He had tried before, and
failed. Why not now, more boldly? Italian justice
would make only a pretense of pursuit. Yet British law
had a long reach. Its ships were in every quarter of the
globe. And Gordon, above all else, was a peer.
A sudden memory made his flesh creep. He remem-
bered once having seen a murderer executed in Eome.
It came back to him as he stood with the weapon in his
THE CASTAWAY 347
hand: the masked priests; the half -naked executioner;
the bandaged criminal ; the black Christ and his banner ;
the slow procession, the scaffold, the soldiery, the bell
ringing the misericordia; the quick rattle and fall of the
ax.
Shuddering, he flung the pistol into the river with an
imprecation.
Looking up he saw a gaitered figure that moved
briskly along the street, to stop at the Lanfranchi door-
way. Trevanion recognized the severely cut clerical
Costume, the clean-shaven face with its broad scar, the.
queerish, insect-like, inquisitive eyes. He glanced down
"the river with absurd apprehension, half expecting to see
His Majesty's ship Pylades anchored in its muddy shal-
lows the ship from which he had deserted at Bombay
once upon a time, at the cost of that livid scar on Dr.
Cassidy's cheek.
He had shrunk from Cassidy's observation in the
lights of a London street; but in Italy he had no fear.
He looked the naval surgeon boldly in the face, as he
passed on to the police barracks.
In the room from which Trevanion had rushed, Te-
resa put her hand on her brother's arm. Back of Gor-
don's only words and his own involuntary and unex-
pected action, she had divined some joyful circumstance
of which she was ignorant. What it was she was too re-
lieved to care.
"Come," she said gently; "we have much to say to
each other."
She sent one swift glance at Gordon; then the door
closed between them.
CHAPTER L
CASSIDT FINDS A LOST SCENT
On Gordon, in the shock of the fatal news Teresa had
brought, the menace of that fateful onslaught had fallen
numhly. No issue at that moment would have mat-
tered greatly to himself. But in her piteous cry : "Yon
are aiming at my heart/' he had awakened. That part-
ing glance, shining with fluctuant love, relief and as-
surance, told him what that tragedy might have meant to
her. Absorbed in his grief he had scarcely cared, had
scarcely reckoned, of her.
As he stood alone the thought stung him like a
sword. He remembered with what tenderness she had
tried to blunt the edge of her mournful message.
His reverie passed with the entrance of Fletcher, still
uncertain on his feet, and with a look of vast relief at
the placid appearance of the apartment. A messenger
brought a request from the Rev. Dr. Nott, a name well-
known to Gordon in London. The clergyman, just ar-
rived in Pisa, asked the use of the ground floor of the
Lanfranchi Palace he understood it was unoccupied
in which to hold service on the following Sunday.
Over the smart of his sorrow, the wraith of a satiric
smile touched Gordon's lips. He, the unelect and unre-
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THE CASTAWAY 349
generate, to furnish a tabernacle for Pisan orthodoxy?
The last sermon he had read was one preached by a
London divine and printed in an English magazine ; its
text was his drama of "Cain/' and it held him up to the
world as a denaturalized being, who, having drained the
cup of sensual sin to its bitterest dregs, was resolved, in
that apocalypse of blasphemy, to show himself a cool,
unconcerned fiend.
And yet, after all, the request was natural enough.
The palace that housed him was the most magnificent in
Pisa, in proportions almost a castle. And, in fact, the
lower floor was empty and unused. Was he to mar this
saner existence, in which he felt waking those old in-
spirations and ideals, with the crude spirit of combative-
ness in which his bruised pride took refuge when popu-
lar clamor thrust him from his kind? If he refused,
would not the very refusal be made a further weapon
against him ?
Had Gordon seen the mottled clerical countenance
that waited for answer- in the street below he might have
read a partial answer to this question.
Cassidy's ship having anchored at Leghorn, he had
embraced the opportunity to distribute a few doctrinal
tracts among the English residents of this near cathe-
dral town. Of Gordon's life in Pisa he heard before he
left the ship. In the Eev. Dr. Nott he had found an
accidental travelling companion with an eye single to the
glory of the Established Church, who was even then be-
moaning the lack of spiritual advantages in the town
to which he was bound. His zealous soul rejoiced in the
acquaintance and fostered it on arrival. The idea of
Sabbath service in English had been the clergyman's;
350 THE CASTAWAY
that of the Lanfranchi Palace as a place wherein to
gather the elect, had been Cassidy's. The suggestion
was not without a certain genius. To the doctor's up-
lifted hands he had remarked with unction that to ask
could do no harm; and the request, even if refused,
might be precious seed sown. Cassidy mentally pre-
saged refusal which should make text and material for
future discourse of his own.
Waiting at the Lanfranchi entrance he remembered
a sermon of which he had delivered himself years be-
fore at Newstead Abbey perched upon a table. He
had never forgotten it. He touched his lips with his
tongue at the pious thought that he who had then been
master of the Abbey host of that harebrained crew who
afterward made him a butt of egregious ridicule in
London was now spurned of the righteous.
Gordon at that hour had no thought of Cassidy, whom
he had not seen in years. "Say to the messenger that
Mr. Nott is very welcome to the use of the floor," was
the answer he gave the valet. ,
A moment later Teresa and Count Pietro Gamba re-
entered. Teresa's eyes were wet and shining. Her
brother's face was calm. He came frankly to Gordon
and held out his hand.
While the two men clasped hands, the naval surgeon
was ruminating in chagrin. Gordon's courteous as-
sent gave him anything but satisfaction. He took it to
Dr. Fott's lodgings.
As Cassidy set foot in the street again he stopped
suddenly and unaccountably. At the Lanfranchi portal
in the dusk he had had a view of a swarthy face that
roused a persistent, baffling memory. The unanticipated
THE CASTAWAY 351
reply to the message he had carried had jarred the
puzzle from his mind. It recurred again now, and with
a sudden stab of recollection. His teeth shut together
with a snap.
He lay awake half that night. At sun-up he was on
his way back to Leghorn, with a piece of news for the-
commander of the Pylades.
CHAPTER LI
DR. NOTT'S SERMON
It was a thirsty afternoon. Teresa and Mary Shelley
the latter, bonneted and gloved sat at an upper win-
dow of the palace, watching through the Venetian blinds
the English residents of Pisa approaching by twos and
threes the entrance below them.
Dr. Nott's service had been well advertised, and a
pardonable curiosity to gain a view, however limited,
of the palace's interior, swelled the numbers. Besides
this, one of the Lanf ranchi servants had had an unlucky
fracas with a police sergeant which, within a few hours
of its occurrence, rumor had swollen to a formidable and
bloody affray : Gordon had mortally wounded two police
dragoons and taken refuge in his house, guarded by bull-
dogs; he had been captured after a desperate resist-
ance; forty brace of pistols had been found in the
palace. These tales had been soon exploded, but the af-
fair nevertheless possessed an interest on this Sunday
afternoon.
The pair at the window conversed on various top-
ics: Pietro, the new member of the household, and his
rescue in Lake Geneva, of which Mary had told Teresa ;
Prince Mavrocordato, his patron, exiled from Wallachia,
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THE CASTAWAY 353
and watching eagerly the plans of the primates, now
shaping to revolution, in Greece, his native country;
Shelley's new sail-boat, the Ariel,, anchored at the river-
bank, a stone's throw from where they sat. As they
talked they could hear from the adjoining study Gor-
don's voice reading aloud and the sharp, eager, explosive
tones of Shelley as he commented or admired.
Both watchers at length fell silent. The sight of the
people below, soberly frocked and coated, so unmistak-
ably British in habiliment and demeanor, had brought
pensive thoughts to Mary Shelley of the England and
Sabbaths of her girlhood. Teresa was thinking of Gor-
don.
Since the hour he had learned that melancholy
news from Bagnacavallo he had not spoken of Allegra,
but there had been a look in his face that told how
sharply the blow had pierced.
If there had been a lurking jealousy of his past in
which she had no part, it had vanished forever when he
had said, with that patient pathos that wrung her heart :
"I understand." The words then had roused in her some-
thing even deeper than the maternal instinct that had
budded when she took him wounded to Casa Guiccioli,
deeper than the utter joy with which she had felt his
arms as they rode through the night from the villa
where he had waked her from that deathlike coma. It
was a sense of more intimate comprehension to which
her whole being had vibrated ever since.
Not but that she was conscious of struggles in him
that she did not fully grasp. But to-day, as she sat
silent by the window, her heart was saying: "His old
life is gone gone! I belong to his new life. I will
354 THE CASTAWAY
love him so that he will forget ! We shall live always in
Italy together, and he will write poems that the whole
world will read. And some day it will know him as I
do!"
The sound of a slow hymn rose from the floor below,
and Teresa's companion stole to the hall where the words
came clearly up the marble staircase :
"O spirit of the living God,
In all Thy plenitude of grace,
Where'er the foot of man hath trod,
Descend on our apostate race."
As Mary listened, Teresa came and stood beside her,
Convent bred, religion to her had meant churchings,
candled processionals and adorations before the crucifix
which hung always above her bed. Her mind direct,
imaginative, yet with a natural freedom from traditional
constraint, suffered for the home-nurtured ceremony left
behind in her flight with Gordon. But her new experi-
ence retained a sense of devotion deeper because more
primitive and instinctive than these: a mystic leaning
out toward good intelligences all about her the pure
longing with which she had framed the prayer for Gor-
don so long ago. She listened eagerly now, not only be-
cause of the priestly suggestion in the sound, but also
from a thought that the ceremony below had been a part
of his England.
This was in her mind as a weighty voice intoned the
opening sentences, to drop presently to the recitation of
the collect for the day.
While thus absorbed, Gordon and Shelley came and
THE CASTAWAY 355
leaned with them at the top of the stair. The congre-
gation was responding now to the Litany:
"From all blindness of heart; from pride, vain-
glory and hypocrisy; from envy, hatred and malice, and
all uncharitableness,
"Good Lord, deliver us."
It was not alone Mary Shelley to whom memories
were hastening. The chant recalled to Gordon, with a
singular, minute distinctness, the dreary hours in the
Milbanke pew in the old church at Seaham, where he
had passed that "treacle-moon" with Annabel. Blind-
ness of heart, hatred, uncharitableness: he had known
all these.
"From lightning and tempest "
One phase of his old life was lifting before him
startlingly clear: the phase that confounded the pre-
cept with the practice and resented hypocrisy by a whole-
sale railing at dogma the sneer with which the philo-
sophic Eoman shrugged at the Galilean altars. The
ancient speculation had fallen in the wreck at Venice
to rise again one sodden dawn in the La Mira forest.
The discarded images had re-arisen then, but with new
outlines. They still framed skepticism, but it was de-
sponding, not scoffing a hopelessness whose climax was
reached in his soul's bitter cry to Padre Somalian at San
Lazzarro : "If it were only true !" Since, he had learned
the supreme awakening of love which had already
aroused his conscience, and now in its development, that
356 THE CASTAWAY
love, lighting and warming his whole field of human
sympathy, made him conscious of appetences hitherto
unguessed.
"That it may please Thee to forgive our enemies, per-
secutors, and slanderers, and turn their hearts ;
"We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord"
Gordon neither smiled now nor frowned.
The chant died while the visitors said their adieus.
The feeling of estrangement had been deepening in
Shelley's fair-haired wife. For a moment she had been
back in old St. Giles'-in-the-Fields, whither she had
gone so often of a Sunday from William Godwin's
musty book-shop. She put her hand on Shelley's arm.
"Bysshe," she whispered, "let us stop a while as we go
down. It seems so like old times. We can slip in at the
back and leave before the rest. Will you ?'*
Shelley looked ruefully at his loose nankeen trousers,
his jacket sleeves worn from handling the tiller, and
shook his tangled hair, but seeing her wistiul expression,
Acquiesced.
"Very well, Mary," he said; "come along." He fol-
lowed her, shrugging his shoulders.
At the entrance of the impromptu audience-room,
Mary drew back uncertainly. The benches had been so
disposed that the late-comers found themselves fronting
the side of the audience and the center of curious eyes.
Shelley colored at the scrutiny, but it was too late to re-
tire, and they seated themselves in the rear.
At the moment of their entry the Kev. Dr. Nott, in
THE CASTAWAY 357
cassock and surplice, having laid off the priest (he was
an exact high-churchman) was kissing the center of the
preacher's stole. He settled the garment on his shoul-
ders with satisfaction. He had been annoyed at the dis-
appearance of Cassidy, on whose aid he had counted for
many preliminary details, but the presence of the author
of "Queen Mab" more than compensated. This would
indeed be good seed sown. He proceeded with zeal to
the text of his sermon :
"Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of
your father ye will do."
A flutter winged among the benches and the blood flew
to Mary's cheek as he doled the words a second time.
With his stay in the town, the clergyman's concern
had grown at the toleration with which it regarded the
presence of this reprobated apostle of hellish unbelief.
The thought had been strong in his mind as he wrote
his sermon. This was an opportunity to sound the
alarum of faith. His face shone with ardor.
The doctor possessed a vocabulary. His voice was so-
norous, his vestments above reproach. He was under the
very roof of Asteroth, with the visible presence of anti-
Christ before his eyes. The situation was inspiratory.
From a brief judicial arraignment of skepticism, he
launched into allusions unmistakably personal, beneath
which Mary Shelley sat quivering with resentment, her
softer sentiment of lang syne turned to bitter regret.
Furtive glances were upon the pair; Pisa the English
part of it was enjoying a new sensation.
A pained, flushing wonder was in Shelley's diffident,
bright eyes as the clergyman, with outstretched arm,
thundered toward them the warning of Paul :
358 THE CASTAWAY
"Beware lest any man spoil you through philoso-
phy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the
rudiments of the world! Their throat is an open
sepulcher ; the poison of asps is under their lips."
Mary's hand had found her husband's. "Let us go,"
he said in an undertone, and drew her to her feet. They
passed to the door, the cynosure of observation, the
launched utterance pursuing them:
"Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness, and
the way of peace have they not known."
In the street Mary turned to him. "Don't mind,
Bysshe," she pleaded.
He half smiled, but his eyes were feverishly bright.
He kissed her as he answered :
"I'm going for a sail. Don't worry if I'm not back
to-night. I'll run up to Via Eeggia. The wind will do
me good."
He crossed the pavement bareheaded and leaped into
his sail-boat. A moment later, from the bridge, she saw
through clouding tears the light craft careening down
the Arno toward the sea.
The agitated ripple of the audience that followed their
exit was not yet stilled when the discourse was strangely
interrupted. From the pavement came the sound of
running feet, a hoarse shout and a shot, ringing out
sharply on the Sabbath stillness.
A second later a man dashed panting into the outer
hall with a British marine at his heels.
CHAPTER LII
TREVANION IN THE TOILS
In sending Trevanion that day to the barracks on the
Lung* Arno whose door Cassidy had once seen him
enter and in whose vicinity the naval surgeon, following
this clue, had posted his squad of tars luck had fallen
oddly. The coursed hare has small choice of burrow.
The Lanfranchi entrance was the quarry's only loophole
and he took it.
As the hunted man sprang across the threshold he
snatched the great iron key from the lock and swung it
on the head of his pursuer. The marine dropped with a
cut forehead, falling full in the doorway of the room
where the service was in progress.
Instantly the gathering was in confusion. The ser-
mon ceased, women screamed and their escorts poured
into the hall to meet Cassidy, entering from the street,
flushed and exultant, with a half-dozen more blue-
jackets.
His foremost pursuer fallen, Trevanion leaped like
a stag for the stair. But half-way up he stopped at
sight of a figure from whom he could hope no grace.
Gordon had heard the signal-shot, armed himself and
hastened to the stairway.
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360 THE CASTAWAY
For once in his life Cassidy was oblivious of things
religious. He had forgot the afternoon's service. He
scarcely saw Dr. Nott's horror-lifted hands as his cas-
sock fluttered between frightened worshipers to the door.
His look did not travel to Gordon or beyond, where Te-
resa's agitated face watched palely. His round, peering
eyes fastened with malignant triumph on the lowering
figure midway of the marble ascent.
"Now, my fine ensign," he said with exultation, "what
have you to say to a trip to the Pylades ?"
Trevanion's dark face whitened. But his hand still
gripped the key.
"I had enough of your cursed ship !" he flung in surly
defiance, "and you'll not take me, either."
Cassidy laughed and turned to the seamen at his back.
They stepped forward.
In Gordon's mind, in that moment of tension, crucial
forces were weirdly contending. Over the heads of the
group below, through the open door, he saw a ship's
jolly-boat, pulling along the Arno bank. Leghorn the
Pylades and years in a military fortress. That was
what it meant for Trevanion. And what for him ? The
peace he coveted, a respite of persecution, for him and
for Teresa the right to live and work unmolested.
It was a lawless act seizure unwarranted and on a
foreign soil; an attempt daring but not courageous
they were ten against one. It was a deed of personal
and private revenge on the part of Cassidy. And the
man had taken refuge under his roof. For any other
he would have interposed from a sheer sense of justice
and hatred of hypocrisy. But for 'him a poltroon, a
skulker, and his enemy?
THE CASTAWAY 361
What right had he to interfere? The manner was
high-handed, but the penalty owed to British admiralty
was just. It was not his affair. The hour he had sat
in the moonlight near the Eavenna osteria, when his
conscience had accepted this Nemesis, he had put away
the temptation to harm him ; though the other's weapon
had struck, he had lifted no hand. He had left all to
fate. And fate was arranging now. He had not sum-
moned those marines !
But through these strident voices sounded a clearer
one in his soul. It was not for that long-buried shame
and cowardice in Greece not for the attempt on his
life at Bagnacavallo, nor for anything belonging to the
present that Trevanion stood now in this plight. It
was ostensibly for an act antedating either, one he him-
self had known and mentally condoned years ago a
boy's desertion from a hateful routine. If he let him
be taken now, was he not a party to Cassidy's revenge ?
Would he be any better than assidy ? Would it be in
him also any less than an ignoble and personal retalia-
tion what he had promised himself, come what might,
he would not seek?
He strode down the stair, p'ast Trevanion, and faced
the advancing marines.
"Pardon me," he said. "This man is in my house.
By what right do you pursue him?"
The blue-jackets stopped. A blotch of red sprang in
Cassidy's straw-colored cheeks.
"He is a deserter from a king's ship. These marines
are under orders. Hinder them at your peril !"
"This is Italy, not the high seas," rejoined Gordon
3G8 THE CASTAWAY
calmly. "British law does not reach here. You may
say that to the captain of the Pylades."
Cassidy turned furiously to his men. "Go on and
take him!" he commanded.
Again they advanced, but they looked full into Gor-
don's pistol and the voice behind it said :
"That, under this roof, no man shall do! On my
word as a peer of England I"
A few moments later, Cassidy, his face purpled with,
disappointment, had led his marines into the street,
the agitated clergyman had gathered his flock again,
and the hall was clear.
A postern gate opened from the Lanfranchi garden
and to this Gordon led Trevanion without a word. The
latter passed out with eyes that did not meet his de-
liverer's.
As Gordon climbed the stairway to where Teresa
waited, shaken with the occurrence, the Rev. Dr. Nott
was rounding the services so abruptly terminated with
the shorter benediction:
"The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love
of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with
us all evermore. Amen."
CHAPTER LIII
THE COMING OF DALLAS
"Go on, Dallas," said Gordon.
He was standing in his study, its windows thrown
open to the stifling air, the blinds drawn against the
pitiless sun that beat hotly up from the sluggish Arno
and loaded the world with fire. In the parched orange-
trees in the garden cicalas shrilled and from the dusty
street came the chant of a procession of religiosi, bear-
ing relics and praying for rain.
The man who sat by the table wore the same kindly,
scholarly face that Gordon had known of old, though
his soft white hair was sparer at the temples. To make
this journey he had spent the last of a check he had
once received for six hundred pounds. His faith in
Gordon had never wavered. Now, as he looked at the
figure standing opposite, clad in white waistcoat and
tartan hussar-braided jacket of the Gordon plaid, young
and lithe, though with brown locks grayed, and with
eyes brilliantly haunting and full of a purpose they had
never before possessed, his own gaze misted with hope
and wistfulness. He had had an especial object in this
long journey to Italy.
"Hobhouse is still with his regiment," he proceeded^
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364 THE CASTAWAY
"He'll be in Parliament before long. We dined together
just a month ago to-night at White's Club. Lord Pe-
tersham is the leader of the dandies now. Brummell
left England for debt."
In that hour's conversation Gordon had seen faded
pictures fearfully distinct. He seemed to be standing
again in his old lodgings in St. James Street a red
carnation in his buttonhole facing Beau Brummell
and Sheridan. He remembered how he had once let the
old wit down in his cocked hat at Brookes' as he had
long ago been let down into his grave ! He smiled pain-
fully while he said with slowness :
"Three great men ruined in one year: Bonaparte,
BrunwneH and I. A king, a cad, and a castaway !" His
eyes were fixed on the empty fireplace as he spoke, but
what they saw was very far away.
"How is Murray ?" he asked presently.
"I visited him a fortnight before I left. He had just
published the first part of 'Don Juan'."
Gordon winced. "Well?" he asked.
"He put only the printer's name on the title-page.
The day it appeared he went to the country and shut
himself up. He had not even dared open Ms letters."
"I can't blame him ;" Gordon's voice was metallic
"Moore wrote me the attorney-general would probably
suppress it."
"I carried him the reviews," continued Daflas.
"I can guess their verdict !"
The other shook his head with an eager smile that
brightened his whole countenance. "A few condemned,
of course. Many hedged. But the Edinburgh Re-
view "
THE CASTAWAY 365
"Jeffrey. What did he say ?"
The answer came with a vibrant emphasis: "That
every word was touched with immortality!"
Gordon turned, surprised into wonder. His ancient'
detractor, whose early blow had struck from the lint
in his soul that youthful flash, his dynamic Satire. The
literary Nero whose nod had killed Keats. Was the
old sneer become praise now? Immortality! not
"damned to everlasting fame"? A glow of color came
to his face.
The older man got up hastily and laid his hand
affectionately on the other's shoulder. It seemed the
moment to say what was on his mind. His voice shook :
"George, come back to England ! Do not exile your-
self longer. It is ready to forget its madness and to
regret. Public feeling has changed ! When Lady Car-
oline Lamb published 'Glenarvon/ her novel that made
you out a man-monster, it did not sell an edition. She
appeared at Lady Jersey's masquerade as Don Juan in
the costume of a Mephistopheles, and the crowd even
hissed. London is waiting for you, George! All it
gave you once shall be yours again. You have only to
come back!" *
It was out at last, the purport of his journey.
Gordon felt his muscles grow rigid. The meaning of
other things Dallas had told gossip of society and the
clubs was become apparent. Could the tide have
turned, then? Could it be that the time had come
when his presence could reverse the popular verdict,
cover old infamy and quench in renewed reputation
the poisoned enmity that had poured desolation on
his path ? The fawning populace that had made of his
366 THE CASTAWAY
domestic life only a shredded remnant, hounded him
to the wilds and entombed him in black infamy did it
think now to reestablish the dishonored idol on its ped-
estal?
For an instant the undiked memory of all he had
undergone swept over him in a stifling wave. The
months of self-control faded. The new man that had
been born in the forest of La Mira fell away. The old
rage rose to clutch at his throat the fiery, ruthless
defiance that had lashed his enemies in Almack's As-
sembly Rooms. It drove the color from his face and
lent flame to his eyes as he answered hoarsely:
"No ! Never never again ! It is over forever. When
I wrote then, it was not for the world's pleasure or
pride. I wrote from the fullness of my mind, from pas-
sion, from impulse. And since I would not flatter their
opinions, they drove me out the shilling scribblers and
scoundrels of priests, who do more harm than all the
infidels who ever forgot their catechisms, and who, if
the Christ they profess to worship reappeared, would
again crucify Him! Since then I have fed the lamp
burning in my brain with tears from my eyes and with
blood from my heart. It shall burn on without them
to the end !"
His old tutor's hand had dropped from his shoulder.
Dallas was crestfallen and disconcerted. He turned
away to the window and looked out sadly over the
Arno, where a ship's launch floated by with band in-
struments playing.
For Gordon the rage passed as quickly as it had come.
The stubborn demon that had gnashed at its fetters fell
back. A feeling of shame suddenly possessed him.
THE CASTAWAY 367
"Scoundrels of priests!" He thought of Padre So-
malian with a swift sense of contrition that his most
reckless phraseology had never roused in the old days.
Standing there, regaining his temperate control, a
sound familiar, yet long unheard, floated in from out
of doors. It was a strain belonging to the past that
had come so sharply home to him the sound of the
music on the launch in the river playing "God save the
King."
It fell on Gordon's ear with a strange thrill. A tinge
of softer warmth crept back slowly to his cheeks. For
the first time in these years the hatred of his country
that had darkled in the silt of ignominy vanished and
a tenderer feeling took its place. It was the inalien-
able instinct of the Englishman, the birthright of
English blood, transmitted to him through long lines
of ancestry, from Norman barons who came with Wil-
liam the Conqueror, welling up now, strong and sweet
and not to be denied. England! He had loved it
once! In spite of a rebellious birth, an acid home, a
harsh combative youth, he had loved it ! How often he
had heard that air at Vauxhall in the Mall on the
Thames! It brought back the smell of primroses, of
blossoming yellow thorn and hazel-catkins quivering in
the hedges. Some lost spring of recollection, automat-
ically touched, showed him the balcony of his house on
Piccadilly Terrace on the regent's birthday below,
the rattling of curbs and scabbards, the Hussar band
playing that tune he himself sitting with Annabel,
and in her arms, Ada, his child ! There were questions,
unvoiced as yet, which he had longed but dreaded to
ask. His hand strayed to his breast. There, always
308 THE CASTAWAY
worn, was a tress of baby's hair. What might his re-
habilitation have meant to her, as she grew and took
her place in the world?
He approached the window and touched the man who
looked out.
"Dallas!" he said. "Dallas!"
The other turned. His eyes were moist. He saw the
alteration in Gordon's mood.
"George," he urged huskily, "do you not owe it to
some one else ?"
There was some one else not the one Dallas meant
some one he had not seen ! Gordon's gaze turned, too,
to the river, flowing now like liquid lead with an oily
scum under a smoky char that, while they talked, had
been swiftly rising to paint out the quivering track of
the sun. The launch was speeding for the opposite
landing, the musicians covering their instruments.
Even if all Dallas said were true ! Go back and leave
Teresa? For Ada's sake, who would live to bear his
name, to return to an empty reinstatement, and stifle
with the pulpy ashes of dead fires this love that warmed
his new life! For Ada's sake go back, and leave
Teresa?
The visitor spoke again. When he had asked that
question, a child not a woman had been in his thought.
He had not told all he had come to say.
"I have been to Seaham, George; I went to Lady
Noel's funeral."
His hearer started. "You saw Ada?" he asked, his
features whitening. "You saw her?" He clutched
Dallas' wrist. "She is six years old. Did she speak my
name, Dallas ? What do they teach her of me ?"
THE CASTAWAY 369
The other's tone was almost as strained; the story
he had to tell was a hard one.
"Your portrait, the large one painted the year you
were married, hung above the mantelpiece. It was
covered with a heavy curtain. Lady Noel's will for-
bade that the child should see it before her twentieth
year. Laddie, Ada has never heard your name!"
Dallas stopped abruptly at the look on Gordon's face.
No anger showed there, only the dull gray of mortal
hurt. A curious moaning sound had arisen, forerunner
of the sultry tempest that had been gathering, rapid
as anger. The cicalas had ceased shrilling from the
garden. A peculiar warm dampness was in the air
and a drop of rain splashed on the marble sill.
"Do you wonder," Dallas continued after a pause,
"that I want you to go back ?"
Gordon made no reply. His eyes were focused on a
purple stain of storm mounting to the zenith, like some
caryatid upholding a caldron of steam, all ink and
cloud color, while before it slaty masses of vapor fled
like monstrous behemoths, quirted into some gigantic
sky-inclosure.
Dallas pulled the window shut.
With the action, unheralded as doom, a great violet
sword of lightning wrote the autograph of God across
the sky, and a shock of thunder, instantaneous and
crashing like near ordnance, shook the walls of the pal-
ace. It loosed the vicious pandemonium of the tropic air
into tornado, sudden and appalling.
While the echoes of that detonation still reverberated,
into the room, as though hurled from the wing of the
370 THE CASTAWAY
unleashed wind, came Mary Shelley, drenched with the
rain, bareheaded, gasping.
"Shelley's boat has not returned!" she wailed. "He
is at sea in the storm. Oh, I am afraid afraid
afraid !"
Teresa entered at the moment with a frightened face,
loose-haired and pale, and Mary ran to her, sobbing.
Gordon had turned from the window, but his coun-
tenance was void and expressionless. "Shelley?" he
repeated vacantly, and sat down heavily in the nearest
chair.
Teresa suddenly put the arms of the weeping girl
aside and ran to him.
"Gordon!" she cried, as Dallas hurried forward in
alarm. "Gordon, what is it?"
"England Teresa " he said. Then his head fell
forward against her breast.
For twelve hours, while the wild, typhoon-like storm
raved and shrieked over Pisa, Gordon lay seemingly in
a deep sleep. He did not wake till the next dawn was
breaking, wetly bright and cool. When he woke, it was
to healthful life, without recollection of pain or vision.
And yet in those hours intervening, strange things
happened hundreds of leagues away in England.
Has genius, that epilepsy of tie soul, a shackled
self, which under rare stress can leave the flesh for a
pilgrimage whose memory is afterward hidden in that
clouded abyss that lies between its waking and its
dreaming? Did some subtle telepathy exist between
his soul in Italy and the soul that he had transmitted
to his child? Who can tell?
THE CASTAWAY 371
But that same afternoon, while one George Gordon
lay moveless in the Lanfranchi library, another George
Gordon wrote his name in the visitor's book at the
king's palace, in Hyde Park, London. Lady Caroline
Lamb, from her carriage seat, saw him entering Palace
Yard and took the news to Melbourne House. The next
morning's papers were full of his return.
That night, too, she who had once been Annabel Mil-
banke woke unaccountably in her room at Seaham, in
the county of Durham, to find the trundle-bed in which
her little daughter Ada slept, empty.
She roused a servant and searched. In the drawing-
room a late candle burned, and here, in her night-
gown, the wee wanderer was found, tearless, wide-awake
and unafraid, gazing steadfastly above the mantel-
piece.
The mother looked and cried out. The curtain had
fallen from its fastenings, and the child was looking
at her father's portrait.
CHAPTER LIV
THE PYEE
Over the hillocks, tinder the robed boughs of the
Pisan forest, went a barouche, drawn by four post-
horses ready to drop from the intensity of the noonday
sun. In it were Gordon and Dallas. They had been
strangely silent during this ride. From time to time
Dallas wiped his forehead and murmured of the heat.
Gordon answered in monosyllables.
They had reached a lonely stretch of beach-wilder-
ness, broken by tufts of underwood, gnawed by tempests
and stunted by the barren soil. Before it curved the
blue windless Mediterranean, cradling the Isle of Elba.
Behind, the view was bounded by the Italian Alps, vol-
canic crags of white marble, white and sulphury like
a frozen hurricane. Across the sandy extent, at equal
distances, rose high, square battlemented towers, guard-
ing the coast from smugglers.
Gordon's gaze, though it was fixed on the spot they
were approaching, saw only a woman's desolated form
clasped in Teresa's sympathizing arms.
At a spot marked by the withered trunk of a fir-
tree, near a ramshackle hut covered with reeds a flimsy
shelter for night patrols the vehicle stopped and Gor-
(372)
THE CASTAWAY 373
don descended. A little way off was pitched a tent, by
which stood a group of mounted dragoons and Italian
laborers, the latter with mattocks in their hands. A
single figure came from the group and greeted him.
It was Trevanion. Gordon had not seen him since
the hour of that Sabbath service from which Shelley
had fled to the fatal storm whose wrecks strewed the
sand where they now stood. Since Mary Shelley had
rushed into the Lanfranchi Palace with that cry of
terror and foreboding, days had passed: days of sick
search, hurrying couriers, wild speculation and fearful
hope. All this had ended with the message from Tre-
vanion which had sent the laborers and brought the
barouche to-day to the lonely spot where the sea had
given up its dead.
The man who had sent this message was unkempt
and unshaven, his swarthy face clay-pale, his black eyes
bloodshot. He had searched the coast day and night,
sleepless and savage. There had been desperation in his
toil. In his semi-barbaric blood had raged a curious
conflict between his hatred of Gordon and something
roused by the other's act in delivering him from Cas-
sidy's marines. He was by instinct an Oriental, and
instinct led him to revenge; but his strain of Welsh
blood made his enemy's magnanimity unforgeftable and
had driven him to this fierce effort for an impersonal
requital. Because Shelley had been the friend of the
man he hated but who had aided him, the deed in some
measure satisfied the crude remorse that fought with
his vulpine enmity.
Almost touching the creeping lip of surf, three wands
stood upright in the sand. Trevanion beckoned the
374 THE CASTAWAY
laborers and they began to dig in silence. At length
a hollow sound followed the thrust of a mattock.
Gordon drew nearer. He heard leadenly the mut-
tered conversation of the workmen as they waited, lean-
ing on their spades saw but dimly the uniforms of the
dragoons. He scarcely felt the hot sand scorching his
feet.
Was the object they had unearthed that whimsical
youth whom he had seen first in the Fleet Prison ? The
unvarying friend who had searched him out at San
Lazzarro true-hearted, saddened but not resentful for
the world's contumely, his gaze unwavering from that
empyrean in which swam his lustrous ideals? This
battered flotsam of the tempest could this be Shelley ?
From the pocket of the faded blue jacket a book pro-
truded. He stooped and drew it out. It was the "CEdi-
pus" of Sophocles, doubled open.
"Aidoneus! Aidoneus, I implore
Grant thou the stranger wend his way
To that dim land that houses all the dead,
With no long agony or voice of woe.
For so, though many evils undeserved
Upon his life have fallen,
God, the All- Just, shall raise him up again!"
He lifted his eyes from the page as Trevanion spoke
his name. He followed him to the tent. Beside it the
laborers had heaped a great mass of driftwood and
fagots gathered from a stunted pine-growth.
Shuffling footsteps fell behind him he knew they
were bearing the body. He averted his eyes, smelling
the pungent, aromatic odors of the frankincense, wine
and salt that were poured over all.
THE CASTAWAY 375
Trevanion came from the tent with a torch and put it
into his hands. Gordon's fingers shook as he held it to
the fagots, but he did the work thoroughly, lighting all
four corners. Then he flung the torch into the sea,
climbed the slope of a dune and sat down, feeling for
an instant a giddiness, half of the sun's heat and half
of pure horror.
The flames had leaped up over the whole pyre, glisten-
ing with wavy yellow and deep indigo, as though giving
to the atmosphere the glassy essence of vitality itself.
Save for their rustle and the shrill scream of a solitary
curlew, wheeling in narrow fearless circles about the
fiery altar, there was no sound.
Sitting apart on the yellow sand, his eyes on the
flame quivering upward like an offering of orisons and
aspirations, tremulous and radiant, the refrain of Ariel
came to Gordon:
"Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls, that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange."
Had Shelley been right? Was death, for Christian
or pagan, only a part of the inwoven design, glad or
sad, on that veil which hides from us some high reality ?
Was Dallas was Padre Somalian nearer right than
his own questioning that had ended in negation? Had
Sheridan found the girl wife he longed for beyond
the questioning and the stars? And was that serene
soul, whose body now sifted to its primal elements,
walking free somewhere in a universe of loving intelli-
376 THE CASTAWAY
gence which to him, George Gordon, had been at most
only "The Great Mechanism" ?
At length he rose. The group in the lee of the tent
had approached the pyre. He heard wondering excla-
mations. Going nearer, he saw that of Shelley's body
there remained only a heap of white ashes and the
heart. This the flames had refused to touch.
He felt a strange sensation dart through every nerve.
Trevanion thrust in his hand and took it from the em-
bers.
Gordon turned to the barouche, where Dallas leaned
back watching, pale and grave. He had brought an
oaken box from Pisa, and returning with this to the
beach, he gathered in it the wine-soaked ashes and laid
the heart upon them. His pulses were thrilling and
leaping to a wild man-hysteria.
As he replaced the coffer in the carriage he saw Tre-
vanion wading knee-deep in the cool surf. He settled
the box between his knees and the horses toiled labori-
ously toward the homeward road.
A sound presently rose behind them. It was Tre-
vanion, shouting at the curlew circling above his head
a wild, savage scream of laughter.
Gordon clenched his hands on the edge of the seat
and a great tearless sob broke from his breast. It was
the release of the tense bow-string the scattering of
all the bottled grief and horror that possessed him.
He became aware after a time that Dallas was read-
ing aloud. The latter had picked up the blistered copy
of the "CEdipus" and was translating.
As he listened to the flowing lines, a mystical change
was wrought in George Gordon. With a singular ac-
THE CASTAWAY 377
curacy of estimation, his mind set the restless cravings
of his own past over against Shelley's placid tempera-
ment his long battle beside the other's acquiescence.
He had been the simoon, Shelley the trade-wind. He
had razed, Shelley had reconstructed. His own doubts
had pointed him where? Shelley had been meditat-
ing on immortality when he met the end.
The end? Or was it only the beginning? "God, the
All- Just, shall raise him up again!" the phrase was
running in his mind as they reentered the palace that
afternoon.
Fletcher handed him a card in the library.
"The gentleman came with Prince Mavrocordato," he
said. "They wished me to say to your lordship they
would return this evening."
The card read :
' LIEUTENANT EDWARD BLAQUIERE
The Greek
Revolutionary Committee LONDON
CHAPTER LV
THE CALL
In the Lanf ranch! library with Gordon four men
were seated in attitudes of interest and attention. Dal-
las' chair was pushed far back in the shadow and his
hand shaded his eyes from the early candles. Opposite
was Count Pietro Gamba, his alert profile and blond
beard looking younger than ever beside the darker
Asiatic comeliness of Mavrocordato. At the table, a
map spread before him, his clean-cut, wiry features
full in the light, sat the stranger who had left the card
Lieutenant Blaquiere, of London, spokesman of the
Greek Revolutionary committee. The latter went ofl
now, with a certain constrained eagerness, his hand
thrown out across the mahogany:
"The standard was raised when Hypsilantes invaded
Wallachia and declared Greece free. The defeat of his
ten thousand means little. The spirit of the na-
tion is what counts, and that, my lord, through all the
years of Turkish dominion, has never died."
For an hour the visitor had talked, sketching graph-
ically and succinctly the plans and hopes of the revolu-
tionists in Greece, the temporary organization effected,
the other juntas forming, under the English commit-
(378)
THE CASTAWAY ' 379
tee's leadership, in Germany and Switzerland. He was
deliberate and impressive. Pietro, enthusiastic for the
cause of his patron, Mavrocordato, had been voluble
with questions. Even Dallas had asked not a few. Gor-
don, the host, had been of them all most silent.
He had felt an old vision of his youth grow instinct
again. Blaquiere's words seemed now not to be spoken
within four walls, but to ring out of the distance of
an uncouth shore, with strange stern mountains rising
near, a kettle simmering on a fire of sticks, and calm
stars looking down on a minaretted town.
"The mountains look on Marathon
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone,
I dreamed that Greece might still be free!"
The verse hummed in his mind. Was it years ago he
had written that ? Or only yesterday ? A dream that
had been all ! It had faded with his other visions, one
day when he had waked to fame, when he had bartered
them for the bubble of celebrity, the flitter-gold of ad-
miration! In those old days, he thought with bitter-
ness, he would have been an eager spirit in the English
movement. Then he had sat in Parliament; now he
was an expatriate adventurer, a disqualified attache of
the kingless Court of Letters !
One thing he still could do. Eevolution needed muni-
tions, parks of artillery, hospital stores. Money could
furnish these it was the sinews of war. If such were
the object of Blaquiere's visit, he should not be disap-
pointed. He possessed, unentailed, Newstead Abbey,
the seat of his ancestors, to whose memory he had clung
380 THE CASTAWAY
fondly through all his ostracism and there were his
coal lands of Kochdale. The latter could be realized on
without difficulty. His sister had a private fortune of
her own. Ada, his child, had been provided for at her
birth. Eochdale should bring close upon thirty thou-
sand pounds.
He spoke to Blaquiere:
"Lieutenant, Greece had my earliest songs. She
shall have what she can use to far better advantage now.
Mr. Dallas, who starts for London to-morrow, will take
back my authority for the sale of certain properties
whose proceeds shall be turned over to your committee
there/'
Mavrocordato's face flushed with feeling. He turned
his eyes on Blaquiere. A glance of understanding passed
between them, and the latter rose.
"Your lordship/' he said, "the thanks of our commit-
tee are small return for such a gift. The gratitude of
Greece will be an ampler recompense. But I am
here to ask yet more than this."
As Gordon gazed inquiringly, he laid two documents
before him on the table :
"Will your lordship read?"
Gordon took up the first. A tremor leaped to his
lips. He saw his own credentials, signed by the full
committee in London, as their representative in
Greece. His eye caught the well-known, cramped chi-
rography of John Hobhouse among the signatures.
For a moment his heart seemed to stop. He looked
at the second, glancing at the names affixed: "Alex-
ander Hypsilantes" "Marco Botzaris" a dozen Greek
THE CASTAWAY 381
primates and leaders. The name of one man there
present had been added Mavrocordato.
As he read, the room was very still. The deep breath-
ing of the men who waited seemed to fill it. He heard
Blaquiere's voice piercing through:
"The revolution needs now only a supreme leader.
Your lordship is known and loved by the Greek people
as is no other. The petty chieftains, whose inveterate
ambitions now embroil a national cause, for such a
rallying-point would lay aside their quarrels. With
your great name foreign loans would be certain. Such
is the unanimous opinion of the committee in London,
' my lord/'
Dallas' snuff-box dropped to the floor. Gamba made
a sudden movement, but Mavrocordato's hand, laid on
his knee, stilled him.
A flush, vivid on its paleness, had come to Gordon's
cheek an odd sensation of confusion that overspread
the instant's elation. If the Greek people loved him,
it was for what he had written years ago, not for
what he was now, a discredited wanderer among the
nations! With what real motive did the committee in
London place this great cause in his hand? Did they
offer it in sincere belief, as to one whom England had
misjudged and to whom she owed restitution a lover of
liberty, one capable of a true deed, of judgment, dis-
cernment and high results? A tingling pang went
through him. No. But to one whose name was famed
how famed! whose attachment to the revolution
would draw to the struggle the eyes of the world, to
assure foreign loans!
He rose and walked to the window, his throat tighten-
382 THE CASTAWAY
ing. No one spoke, though young Gamba stirred rest-
lessly. Dallas was peering into his recovered snuff-box,
and Blaquiere sat movelessly watching.
As Gordon looked out into the dimming dusk and the
sky's blue garden blossoming with pale stars, the new
self that had been developing in conscience gained its
ascendancy. What should it matter to him, why or
how the opportunity came? To Hobhouse, at least,
it had been an act of faith and friendship. As a body,
the committee had considered only its object, political
advantage to England the success of the Greek revo-
lutionary arms. Why should he ache so fiercely for
that juster valuation which would never be given?
Was it not enough that the cause was one which had
been the brightest dream of his youth ; that sober opin-
ion deemed his effort able to advance it?
His mind overran the past years. He saw himself
putting away the old savage indifference and insolent
disdain, and struggling for a fresh foothold on life.
The malice that had pursued him in Trevanion he had
accepted unresistingly, as part of an ordained necessity.
But with the unfolding of the new conception and char-
acter he had come to realize that, as the most inti-
mate elements of his own destruction had lain within
himself, so only to himself could he look for self-re-
trieval.
And was that retrieval to be found in the fatu-
ous passiveness behind which he had intrenched him-
self? If there were an appointed destiny, it could not
lie that way, but rather in the meeting of the issues fate
offered, the doing of a worthy deed for the deed's own
sake, the making real of an heroic dream putting aside
THE CASTAWAY , 383
the paltry pride that cavilled how or why that issue was
presented without reckoning save of the final outcome.
He thought of an oaken box now on its way to a cem-
etery in Rome. What would the man whose ashes it
held have replied ? He needed no answer to that !
As he pondered, from the shadowy garden, under the
orange trees woven with the warm scents of summer,
rose a soft strain. It was Teresa, singing to her harp,
her voice burdened to-night with the grief of Mary
Shelley the song Gordon had long ago written to a
plaintive Hindoo refrain.
Low as the words were, they came clearly into the
silence :
"Oh! my lonely lonely lonely Pillow!
Where is my lover? Where is my lover?
Is it his bark which my dreary dreams discover?
Far far away! and alone along the billow?
Oh! my lonely lonely lonely Pillow!
Why must my head ache where his gentle brow lay?
How the long night flags lovelessly and slowly,
And my head droops over thee like the willow!"
Gordon's gaze had turned- in the direction of the
Round. He could see her sitting in her favorite spot,
her hair a dusk of starlight, leaning to her harp. If
she only had not sung that now !
"I do not ask a hasty answer, " Blaquiere was speak-
ing again, "it is not a light proposal. Your lordship
will wish time "
The man to whom he spoke put out his hand with a
sudden gesture. <r Wait," he said.
What need of time ? Would a day, a week, make him
384 THE CASTAWAY
more able? Through the turmoil of new emotions he
reasoned swiftly.
There were two to consider: the woman he loved,
whose singing voice he heard, and Ada, his child. If
for Teresa's happiness he put aside this call, what
then? A continuance of life in this fond refuge he
had found here in Italy in time, peace and quiet,
perhaps. But a happiness cankered for them both by
the recollection of what he might have done, but would
not. And for Ada? The knowledge that he had once
failed a supreme cause.
The song rose again. Pietro Gamba's face turned
suddenly tender.
"Oh! thou, my sad and solitary Pillow!
Send me kind dreams to keep my heart from breaking,
In return for the tears I shed upon thee waking;
Let me not die till he comes back o'er the billow!"
If he went and did not return.
To die worthily, for a great cause though he be but
one of the many waves that break upon the shore before
the tide can reach its mark. To forward the splendid
march of freedom against the barbarian. To lead
Greece toward its promised land, even though he him-
self be, like Moses, destined to see it but afar off. The
world could sneer or praise, as it chose. It might at-
tribute to him the highest motives or the most vain-
glorious. Some time it would understand. It would
have his Memoirs, his final bequest to Ada.
He thought of a picture in England, hidden behind
a curtain lest his daughter should grow up to know the
features of her father. "By their deeds ye shall know
THE CASTAWAY 385
them" the saying possessed him. Far kinder his going
for her memory of him !
Better for Teresa. Her brother remained to care
for her. She had in her own right only the dowry
returned to her from the Guiccioli coffers with her
papal separation. But by selling Newstead Abbey
Dallas could arrange that he could put her beyond
the reach of want forever. Better far for her! In
her recollection it would cover the stain of that life in
Venice from which her hand had drawn him, and leave
her love a higher, nobler thing.
He lifted his head suddenly and addressed Blaquiere :
*'I will go/' he said.
CHAPTER LVI
THE FAREWELL
In the garden the roses were as fragrant, the
orange trees as spicy-sweet as ever, every sound and
scent as in so many evenings past. Yet Teresa's eyes
were heavy, her heart like lead within her breast.
Since the hour she had sung to her harp it lay beside
her now when Gordon had found her there and tcld
her the outcome of that library conference in which she
had had no part, it seemed as though dreary decades had
passed. She had lain in his arms at first breathless,
stricken with a weight of voiceless grief, while he
spoke, hopefully, calmly, of the cause and his determi-
nation. The great cry into which her agony bled at
length had gripped his soul. She had felt his heart leap
and quiver against her, shaken with her sobs, and knew
he suffered with her in every pang. It was a reali-
zation of this that had finally given her self-control and
a kind of calmness.
In the time that followed: weeks of preparation,
correspondence with the Revolutionary Committees and
with Mavrocordato, who had preceded Gordon to Greece,
selection of stores, the chartering and freighting of the
brig Hercules at Genoa all the minutias that visual-
(386)
THE CASTAWAY 387
ized the departure that must come the two sides of
her love had struggled together.
Sometimes the smaller, the less unselfish personal
passion, gained temporary mastery. What was she to
him if she were not more than everything else? What
was Greece to her ? Once he had said that all he should
ever write would spring from her love. Was that love
fit only to inspire poems upon paper ? Now he left her
and forsook that love to go to a useless danger and she
had given him all! The thought sobbed in her. She
was a woman, and she struggled with a woman's an-
guish.
Then her greater soul would conquer. She would
remember that night on the square in Venice, the
glimpse of his tortured self -amendment at San Lazzarro>
and the calmer strength she had felt growing in him
from the day their lips met on the convent hill. Her"
instinct told her this determination of his was only a
further step in that soul-growth whose first strivings
she had herself awakened. This gave her a melancholy
comfort that was sometimes almost joy. In his face
of late she had distinguished something subtle and
significant, that carried her back to the night she had
left his book at the feet of Our Lady of Sorrows. It
was the veiled look she had then imagined the object
of her petition, the fallen angel sorrowing for his lost
estate, would wear the patience and martyrdom of
renunciation.
These struggles of hers had been the ultimate re-
vealment, as the hour she had held Gordon's bleeding
body in her arms had been life's primal comprehension.
That had shown her love's heights and depths; this
388 THE CASTAWAY
taught her all its breadth, its capacity for self-abnega-
tion, its wild, unselfish yearning for the best good of
the thing beloved.
As she and Fletcher prepared the bare necessities
he was to take with him, his buried London life had
risen before her. The woman who should have loved
him most his wife had sent him into a cruel ostra-
cism, hating and despising him. She whom the law's
decree forbade that he should love, was sending him
away, too, but to a noble cause and with a breaking
heart. She had made his present better than his past.
Should not his future be even more to her than the
present ?
AH had at last been put in readiness. Waiting the
conversion of his English properties, Gordon had util-
ized all his Italian funds. Ammunition, horses from
his own stable, field-guns and medicines for a year's
campaign had been loaded under his tireless super-
vision. Lastly, he had taken abc/ard with his own
hands ten thousand crowns in specie and forty thousand
in bills of exchange. Pour days before, with himself
and Fletcher aboard, the brig had sailed from Genoa,
whence swift couriers had daily brought Teresa news,
for he had small time for pen work. To-day the ves-
sel had cast anchor at Leghorn, her final stop, only a
few hours away. To-night, since she put to sea with the
dawn-tide, Gordon was to come for a last farewell.
As Teresa sat waiting in the garden, she tried not
to think of the to-morrow, the empty, innumerable
to-morrows. It was already quite dark, for there was
no moon ; she was thankful for this, for he could not so
readily see her pallor. He should carry away a re-
THE CASTAWAY 389
collection of hope and cheerfulness, not of agony or
tears. With a memory of what she had been singing the
night of Blaquiere's coming, she lifted her harp and be-
gan softly and bravely, her fingers finding their way on
the strings by touch:
"Then if thou wilt no more my lonely Pillow,
In one embrace let these arms again enfold him,
And then expire of the joy but to behold him!
Oh! my lone bosom! oh! my lonely Pillow!"
The effort was too great. The harp rebounded
against the ground. She bowed her head on the arm
of the bench and burst into sobbing.
The twang of the fallen harp called loudly to one
whose hand was on the postern gate while he listened.
H came swiftly through the dark.
She felt his arms close about her, her face, torn with
crying, pressed against his breast. So he held her till
the vehemence of her weeping stilled, and her emotion
appeared only in long convulsive breaths, like a child's
after a paroxysm of grief.
When Gordon spoke, it was to tell of sanguine news
from the English Committee, of the application of
French and German officers to serve under him, cheer-
ful detail that calmed her.
A long pause ensued. "What are you thinking?"
he asked at length.
She answered, her eyes closed, a mere murmur in his
ear: "Of the evening you came to the garden at Ra-
venna."
"It was moonlight/' he replied.
390
THE CASTAWAY
"You kissed a curl of my hair," she whispered. "I
slept with it across ray lips that night."
He bent and kissed her eyelids, her mouth, her fragile
fingers. "My love !" he exclaimed.
"I wanted to be strong to-night/' she said piteously.
"You are strong and brave, too ! Do I not know how
you brought me to the casa how you drank the man-
dragora ?"
She shivered. "Oh, if it were nothing but a potion
to-night to drink, and to wake in your arms! Now I
shall wake alone, and you "
"I shall be always with you," he answered. "By day,
on the sea or in the camp. At night I shall wander
with you among the stars."
"I shall ask the Virgin to watch over you. Every
hour I shall pray to God to have you in His keeping, and
to guard you from danger."
His arms tightened. He seemed to hear a chanted
litany climbing a marble staircase:
"From lightning and tempest; from plague, pesti-
lence, and famine; from battle and murder, and from
sudden death;
"Good Lord, deliver us"
Had he ever prayed? Not to the God of the ortho-
dox Cassidy, of the stern ecclesiastics who had in-
veighed against him. Not to the beneficent Father that
Dallas and Padre Somalian believed in. Never in his
life had he voiced a petition to a higher power. All he
had known was that agnostic casuistry of his youth,
"The Unknown God" that fatalistic impersonality of
SHE BOWED HER HEAD ON THE ARM OF THE BENCH, p, 380
THE CASTAWAY 391
his later career, "The Great Mechanism." He thought
of lines Teresa's hand had penned, that since a gray
dawn when he read and re-read them to the chuckling
of a fiend within him had never left his breast. They
had opened a spiritual chasm that was ever widening
between the old and the new.
"Dearest/* he said, "I would not exchange a prayer
of yours for all else life could give. You prayed for
me before you ever saw me, when others gave me bitter-
ness and revilings."
"You never deserved that !"
"You forgave because you loved," he answered gently.
"Your love has been around me ever since. I was un-
worthy of it then I am unworthy now."
"England never knew you," she protested, "as I know
you. Your soul is good ! Whatever your acts, I know
it has always been so !"
He sighed. "My soul was full of glorious dreams,
once this dream of Greece's freedom was its dearest.
But they were tainted with regnant passion and foolish
pride and ingrain recklessness. When the world flat-
tered me, I threw away all that could have helped me
rise. I sold my birthright for its mess of pottage. When
it turned, I scoffed and hated it and plunged further
away from all that was worthy. Men do more harm to
themselves than ever the devil could do them. I sunk
my soul deeper and deeper in the mire because I did
not care, because I had nothing and no one to care for
till you found me, Teresa, that day in the wood at La
Mira ! You pointed me to myself, to all I might and
should have been. You taught me first remorse, then
the idle indolence of regret ; now, at last, the wish to do,
392 THE CASTAWAY
to be! Neither success nor failure, praise nor scorn,
could do this. If there is anything good in me now, it
is because of that, Teresa ! If the future ever forgets to
know me as wicked and wastrel, and remembers better
things I have done or tried to do "
''You are the noblest man in the world !"
A quick spasm crossed his face in the darkness.
Noble! Yet how little popular esteem seemed to him
at that moment! He went on hurriedly, for what he
had to say must be in few words:
"Always whatever happens you will remember
what I have said, Teresa ?"
Whatever happens! She threw her arms about his
neck, mute with the anguish that was fighting with her
resolution.
" that you are all to me. That I love you you only ;
that I shall love you to the end."
"If I forgot that, I could not live!" she said
chokingly.
The great clock struck ponderously from the palace
hall a clamorous reminder that he must hasten, for
the night was almost without a star, and a wreathing
nebulous mist forbade rapid riding. Through all his
preparations this hour had reared as the last harbor-
light of home. It had come and gone like a breath on
glass. In the still night the chime sounded like a far
spired bell. Some banal freak of memory brought to
Gordon's mind the old church dial jutting over Fleet
Street in London, and the wooden wild men which had
struck the hour with their clubs as he issued from John
Murray's shop the night of his maiden speech in Par-
liament.
THE CASTAWAY 393
The strokes counted twelve midnight. She shud-
dered as he rose to his feet.
"My love my life !" he said, and clasped her close.
"God keep you !" she breathed.
He left her and went a few steps into the darkness.
She thought him gone. But he came back swiftly, his
hands groping.
He heard a shuddering sob tear its way from her
heart, but she stood motionless in his arms, her cheek
grown suddenly cold against his own.
In that moment a strange feeling had come to her
that they clasped each other now for the last time. It
was as though an iey hand were pressed upon her heart,
stilling its pulsations.
She felt his arms again release her and knew she was
alone.
It- lacked an hour of day when Gordon rode into Leg-
horn, and the first streak of dawn strove vainly to shred
the curdled mist as he stepped from a lighter aboard the
Hercules. The tide was at full and a rising breeze
flapped the canvas.
Standing apart on her deck, his mind abstracted,
though his ears were humming with the p*rofane noises
of creaking cordage, windlass and capstan, he felt as if
the fall of the headsman's ax had divided his soul in two.
He saw his past rolled up like a useless palimpsest in
the giant hand of destiny his future an unvexed scroll
laid waiting for mystic characters yet unformed and un-
imagined. Beneath the bitterness of parting, he felt,
strangely enough, a kind of peace wider than he had
394 THE CASTAWAY
ever known. The hatred that tracked, the Nemesis that
had harassed, he left behind him.
Absorbed in his reflections, he did not hear the
bawled orders of the ship's mate, nor the spitting
crackle of musketry from some ship's hulk near by in
the foggy smother. The brig was lifting and pushing as
she gained headway. The captain spoke at his elbow.
"Begging your lordship's pardon, a man has just
come aboard by the ship's bow-chains. He had a tough
swim for it and a bullet through the forearm. Says he
was shanghaied by the Pylades. If we put about, we'll
lose the tide. What are your lordship's orders ?"
"Is he Italian?"
"No, sir. He says he's an Englishman, but he looks
Lascar."
"His name ?" the demand fell sharply.
"Trevanion, your lordship."
As Gordon stood there, breathing deeply, Teresa, at
home in her room, stretched at the foot of the crucifix,
was crying in a voice of anguish, that icy hand still
pressed upon her heart : "0 God ! help me to remember
that it is for Greece ! and for himself most of all ! Help
me not to forget not to forget !"
For only an instant Gordon hesitated. "Let him
stay/' he said then to the captain, and turned away to
his cabin.
CHAPTER LVII
THE MAN" IN THE BED UNIFORM -
From a vessel lying beyond the shallows that stretched
three miles from the Greek shore, a puff of smoke broke
balloon-like, to be followed, a moment after, by a muf-
fled report.
The crowds of people clustered along the town's front
cheered wildly. Every day for weeks they had been
watching: blue-eyed, dusky Albanians, with horse-hair
capotes and pistoled girdles ; supple lighter complexioned
Greeks in the national kirtle; Suliotes, whose moun-
tain wildnesses were reflected in their dress ; and a mis-
cellaneous mixture of citizens of every rank and age.
For this vessel bore the coming savior of the Grecian
nation, the great English peer whose songs for years
had been sung in their own Eomaic tongue, whose com-
ing had been prated of so long by their primates -he
who should make them victorious against the Turk.
Was it not he who, in Cephalonia, on his way hither,
had fed from his own purse the flying refugees from
Scio and Patras, and sent them back with arms in their
hands? Was he not the friend of their own Prince
Mavrocordato, who in this same stronghold of Misso-
longhi had fought off Omer Pasha with his twenty
thousand troops, and now controlled the provisional
government of Western Greece ? Was it not he who had
sent two hundred thousand piastres to outfit the fleet
(395)
396 THE CASTAWAY
before whose approach Yussuff Pasha's squadron had
withdrawn sullenly to Lepanto ?
They had known of Gordon's departure from Cepha-
lonia from the forty Mariotes he sent ahead to be his own
body-guard, and who strutted it about the fortifications,
boasting of the distinction. His consort vessel had ar-
rived, after narrowly escaping capture. His own brig,
chased by the Turks, had been driven on the rocky coast.
This they had learned from a surly Arab-like English-
man, his arm in a sling from an unhealed bullet-wound,
who had been in the vessel and had found a footsore
way overland.
The metropolitan had called a special service in the
church for his lordship's deliverance. Now his ship,
escaping rocks and the enemy, had anchored safely in
the night, and the roar of salutes from the Speziot
brigs-of-war that lay in the harbor had waked the sleep-
ing port. Since daylight the shore had been a moving
mass, sprinkled with brilliant figures: soldiery of for-
tune, wearing the uniform of well-nigh every European
nation.
There was one who watched that pushing, staring
multitude, who did not rejaice. As he listened to the
tumult of gladness, Trevanion's heart was a fiery fur-
nace. His hatred, fostered so Ictag, was the "be-all and
end-all" of his moody existence, and the benefit Gordon
had conferred when he delivered him from Cassid/s
marines, had become at length insupportable. With a
perversion of reasoning characteristically Asiatic, he had
chosen to wipe it from the slate and make the favor
naught. He went to Leghorn and to the amaze of Cas-
sidy, surrendered himself to the Pylades.
THE CASTAWAY 39?
This voluntary act, perhaps, made vigilance lighter.
He watched his chance, leaped overboard in the foggy
morning, and would have got safe to shore but for one
well-aimed musket. Chance put the departing brig in
his way. He had been delirious in the forecastle for
days from his wound, and knowledge of Gordon's pres-
ence and mission had not come to him till the Grecian
shore was in sight.
In his durance on the Pylades his hair and beard had
grown ; he fancied himself unrecognized. Hour by hour,
watching Gordon covertly, seeing him living and sleep-
ing on deck in all weathers, eating the coarse fare and
enduring every privation of his sailors, Trevanion's
blood inflamed itself still more. He owed the other
nothing now ! He raged within himself at the celebrity
the expedition and its leader acquired at Cephalonia.
In the pursuit of Gordon's vessel by the Turks he had
hoped for its capture. When she ran upon the rock&
he deemed this certain, and forsook her jubilantly.
He had no fear of making his way afoot to Missolonghi ;
strangely enough, years before, during the Feast of
Eamazan, he had fled over this same path to escape a
Mohammedan vengeance, and pursued by the memory
of a Greek girl abandoned to the last dreadful penalty
because of him a memory that haunted him still.
To-day, as Trevanion saw the vessel that held his
enemy, his eyes gleamed with a sinister regard.
"Bah!" sneered a voice behind him in the Eomaic
tongue. "An English noble ! Who says so ? Mavrocor-
dato. There are those who say he is a Turk in disguise
who will sell the country to the sultan."
398 THE CASTAWAY
The man who had spoken wore the dress of a chieftain
of lower rank. His comrade answered with an oath :
"Or to the English. Kalon malubdi! Give me a
chief like Ulysses ! In six months he would have gained
the whole Peloponnesus, but for the coming of this for-
eigner may a good ball find him !"
To Trevanion the malediction was as grateful as a
draft of cool beer to the scorched palate of a waking sot.
He spoke in the vernacular: "There are English, too,
who would drink that toast ! Who is Ulysses ?"
His faded sailor's rig had been misleading. Both
clapped hands to their belts as, "One who will sweep this
puppet of Mavrocordato's into the gulf!" the first re-
plied fiercely.
"May I be there to help !" exclaimed Trevanion, sav-
agely. "Take me to this leader of yours !"
The two Suliotes looked at him narrowly, then con-
ferred. At length the chief came closer.
"If you would serve Ulysses," he said, "meet me be-
yond the north fortifications at sunset."
Trevanion nodded, and they turned away, as a shout
went up from the assembled people. A boat had swung
out from the brig's davits. It carried a flag a white
cross on a blue ground the standard of New Greece.
The man with the disabled arm flushed suddenly, for
his dark, sullen gaze had fallen on the sea-wall, where
stood His Highness, Prince Mavrocordato, with Pietro
Gamba. The latter had followed Gordon to Cephalonia
and from there had come on the Hercules' consort. A
slinking shame bit Trevanion as he recalled the day
when his poisoned whisper would have fired that young
THE CASTAWAY 399
heart to murder; he wheeled and plunged into the hu-
man surge.
The couple on the sea-wall watched eagerly. The low-
ered boat had been rapidly manned. A figure wearing
a scarlet uniform took its place in the stern-sheets. The
crowd buzzed and dilated.
The prince lowered his field-glass. "Thank God, he
is safe!" he exclaimed in earnest Italian. "We have
been in desperate straits, Pietro. With the General As-
sembly preparing to meet, when all the western country
is in such disorder, with these untamed mountain chiefs
flocking here with their clans, with Botzaris killed in
battle, and only my paltry five thousand to keep dis-
sensions in check, I have been prepared for the worst.
Now there is hope. Look !"
He stretched his hand toward the teeming quay.
"They have waited for him as for the Messiah. All the
chiefs, except Ulysses, who has always plotted for con-
trol and his spies are in the town at this moment !
will defer to him. With a united front what could
Greece not do! The Turk could never enslave her
again. With no supreme head, her provinces are like
the untied bundle of sticks easily broken one at a
time !"
They watched in silence while the rowers drew nearer
across the shallows.
"I did not hope to see you here, Pietro," Mavrocor-
dato said affectionately, as they started toward head-
quarters.
Gamba answered simply: "She sent me to guard
him if I could."
Ten minutes more and the boat was at the landing.
400 THE CASTAWAY
The instant its bow touched the masonry before line*,
of picked troops, a single bell rang out from the Greek
church. Other iron tongues took it up. The walls
shook with rolling salvos of artillery, the firing of mus-
kets and wild music, as the man in the scarlet uniform,
colorless and strangely composed amid the tossing agi-
tation, stepped on shore to grasp the hand of Prince
Mavrocordato, standing with a long suite of European
and Greek officers.
As his gaze swept over the massed soldiery, the frantic
people, the women on roofs and balconies, the houses
hung with waving carpets, a rainbow motley of color,
a great shout rolled along the embankments, a tu-
mult mingled with hand-clapping like a silver rain, that
drowned all words. Women in the multitude sobbed,
and on the balconies little children were held up in
stronger arms to see their deliverer. Every eye was on
that central figure, with face like the Apollo Belvedere
and a step that halted as if with fatigue, but with a look
clear and luminous and the shadow of a smile moulding
his lips.
"Panayeia keep him !" sobbed a weeping woman, and
threw herself between the lines of soldiers to kiss the
tassel of his sword.
The metropolitan, his robes trailing the ground, lifted
before him a silver eikon glittering in the sun.
The soldiers presented arms.
The bells broke forth again, and amid their jubilant
ringing the wearer of the red uniform passed slowly,
with Prince Mavrocordato by his side, into the stone
building which rose above the quay the military head-
quarters of the revolutionary forces of Western Greece.
CHAPTEK LVIII
THE AECHISTEATEGOS
Missolonghi had become the center of European at-
tention. The announcement of the English Committee
which followed Blaquiere's return to England was on
every tongue.
The Courier had printed a single sneering paragraph
in which had been compressed the rancor of William
Godwin, the bookseller. This stated that George Gor-
don was not even in Greece, that he was in reality living
in a sumptuous villa on one of the Ionian Islands, with
the Contessa (kiiccioli-, writing a companion poem to
"Don Juan." But before the stringent disapproval with
which this bald fabrication was received, the Courier
slunk to shamefaced silence.
Thereafter, in' the columns of newspaper, pamphlet
and magazine, there was to be distinguished a curious
tension of reserve. It was the journalistic obeisance to a
growing subterranean yet potent revulsion of feeling.
Dallas had soon found himself the recipient of invita-
tions from influential hosts desirous to hear of his
visit to Italy. In the clubs the committee's bulletins
were eagerly discussed. The loan it solicited found
subscriptions and the struggle of the Cross with the
Crescent the cause whose beating heart was now Mis-
(401)
40 THE CASTAWAY
solonghi began to draw the eyes not of London but of
England ; not of England but of Europe ; not of Europe
but of the world.
To the company gathered in the citadel of this little
marshy port on the Greek sea-shallows, where freedom
stirred in the womb of war, outer comment came only
after multiplied reverberations. They toiled ceaselessly
a nucleus of hard-working general officers culled from
everywhere planning, drilling, gathering stores, pre-
paring for the inevitable attack of the Turkish armies
massing at'Lepanto, trying to knit into organization
the tawdry elements of brigandage to which centuries of
Turkish subjection had reduced a great nation. They
labored under a single far-sighted leadership : that of the
archistrategos of the Greek forces, whose eye seemed
sleepless and his brain indefatigable.
Gordon foresaw that Greece's greatest enemy was not
the Turks, but her own dissensions. Unification of spirit
and authority was necessary before all. When Ulysses,
the recalcitrant, sent him an obsequious embassy it bore
back a terse answer: "I come to aid a nation, not a
faction." Ulysses cursed in his beard and sent Trevan-
ion, for whom he had found more than one cunning
use, to seduce the Suliote forces camped within the in-
surgent lines.
Meanwhile, the money Gordon had brought melt-
ed rapidly. He had contributed four hundred pounds
a week for rations alone, besides supporting batteries,
laboratories and an entire brigade, settling arrears and
paying for fortification. However large his private re-
sources, they must soon be exhausted. Could the Eng-
lish loan fail? And if not, would it come in time? If
THE CASTAWAY 403
it was too long delayed, disaster must follow. Discipline
would lapse. The diverse elements on the point of co-
alescing, would fly asunder. The issue would be lost.
This thought was a live coal to him night and day.
The rainy season set in with all its rigors. Missolonghi
became a pestilential mud-basket beside which the dikes
of Holland were a desert of Arabia for dryness. An un-
known plague fastened on the bazaar and terrified the
townspeople. But in all conditions, Gordon seemed
inspirited with a calm cheerfulness.
He thought of Teresa continually. Oddly enough, she
stood before him always as he had once seen her on a
square in Venice, with moonlight tangling an aureole in
her gold hair, her face now not frozen with mute horror
that picture had vanished forever! but serene with
love and abnegation. This face lighted the page as he la-
bored with his correspondence. It went with him on the
drenching beach when he directed the landing of cannon
sent by the German committee more dimly seen this
day, for a peculiar dizziness and lethargy which he had
battled for a fortnight, was upon him.
As he rode back through the rain and the bottomless
quagmire, Prince Mavrocordato and Pietro Gamba sat
waiting in his room at headquarters. They had been
talking earnestly. The outlook was leaden. There had
been as yet no news of the expected loan. The lustful
eyes of foreign ministers were watching. Ulysses had
seized the acropolis of Athens, and his agents were every-
where, seeking to undermine the provisional govern-
ment. The Suliotes, whose chiefs swarmed in Misso-
longhi, had begun to demand money and preferment.
But these things, serious as they were, weighed less
404 THE CASTAWAY
heavily upon Prince Mavrocordato's mind than the
health of the man he now awaited in that cheerless
chamber.
"Another post would do as well," the Greek said
gloomily. "Higher ground, out of the marshes. He
stays here only at risk to himself. Yet he will listen
to no proposal of removal."
"What does he say?" asked Gamba.
"That Missolonghi is the center of Western Greece,
the focus-point of European observation. And he ends
all discussion by the question: 'If I abandoned this
castle to the Turks, what would the partizans of Ulysses
say?'"
Gamba was silent. Mavrocordato knit his bushy
brows. He knew the answer only too well. And yet
the safety of this single individual had come to mean
everything. Without him Greece's organization would
be chaos, its armies, rabbles.
While he pondered, Gordon entered. He had thrown
off his wet clothing below. The shepherd-dog crouched
by the door, sprang up with a joyful whine as the new-
comer dropped a hand on his head.
Pietro had a sudden vision of his sister as she placed
upon him her last injunction to guard this man's life.
He had done all he could. Yet to what avail ? Watch-
fulness might ward steel and lead, but what could com-
bat the unflagging toil, the hourly exposure, the stern
denial of creature comfort ? His eyes wandered around
the damp walls hung with swords, carbines and pistols,
to the rough mattress at one side, the spare meal laid
waiting the occupant's hasty leisure. In his mind ran
the words with which Gordon had replied to one of his
THE CASTAWAY 405
protests : "Here is a stake worth millions such as I am.
While I can stand at all, I must stand here." Gamba's
thought returned to what the prince was saying :
"Allow me at least to furnish this chamber for your
lordship. A bed "
"Our Suliotes spread their mats on the ground," was
the reply, "or on the dirt floor of their miserable huts.
I am better couched than they."
"They are used to it," protested the Greek. "They
have never known better. They are proof against marsh
fever, too." He paused an instant, then added : "I
have just learned that the wines I have ordered sent
you, have on each occasion been returned to the com-
missariat."
Gordon's gaze had followed the other's. The food
spread there was of the meanest: goat's meat, coarse
peasant's bread, a pitcher of sour cider. He was fight-
ing back a vertigo that had been misting his eyes.
"My table costs me exactly forty-five paras. That is
the allowance of each Greek soldier. I shall live as
they live, Prince, no worse, no better."
His voice broke off. He reeled. Mavrocordato sprang
and threw an arm about him. Pietro hastened to send
Fletcher to the improvised hospital for the physicians.
They came hastily, to find Gordon in a convulsion
of fearful strength, though it lasted but a moment.
Leeches were put to his temples and consciousness re-
turned. He opened his eyes upon an anxious group of
surgeons and staff-officers.
A commotion arose at the instant from the court-
yard. Mavrocordato stepped to the window. He made
an exclamation. The place was filling with Suliotes
406 THE CASTAWAY
they were dragging its two cannon from their stations
and turning their muzzles against the doors.
An orderly burst into the room. "They are seizing
the arsenal I" he cried.
With an oath a Swedish officer leaped down the stair,
drawing his sword as he ran. He fell stunned by the
blow of a musket-butt.
Wild figures, their faces and splendid attire splashed
with mud, gushed in, choked the stairway, and poured
into the narrow apartment to waver and halt ab-
ruptly, abashed.
This was not what Trevanion had craftily told them
of not the abode of soft luxury and gem-hung mag-
nificence affected by the foreign archistrategos whose
wealth was limitless and who sipped wines of liquid
pearls, while they, their payments in arrears, drank
sharp raisin-juice. What they saw was at strange vari-
ance with this picture. A chill stone chamber, a meager
repast, uncarpeted floors. A handful of men, each
with a drawn sword. These and a form stretched on
a rough mattress, an ensanguined bandage about his
forehead, a single gray-haired servant kneeling by his
side.
The man on the couch rose totteringly, his hand on
his servant's shoulder. He was ghastly white, but his
eye flashed and burned as it turned on those semi-bar-
baric invaders.
Gordon began to speak not in the broader Eomaic,
but in their own mountain patois, a tongue he had not
recalled since long years. The uncouth vocabulary,
learned in his youthful adventurous journey for very
lack of mental pabulum, had lain in some brain-corner
THE CASTAWAY 407
to spring up now with the spontaneity of inspiration.
At the first words they started, looked from one to an-
other, their hands dropped from their weapons. His
voice proceeded, gathering steel, holding them like bayo-
nets.
"Am I then to abandon your land to its enemies,
because of you, heads of clans, warriors born with arms
in your hands, because you yourselves bring all effort
to naught? For what do you look? Is it gold? The
money I brought has purchased cannon and ammuni-
tion. It has furnished a fleet. It has cared for your
sick and set rations before your men. Do you demand
preferment? You are already chiefs, by birth and by
election. Have I taken that away? Rank shall be
yours but do you hope to earn it idly in camp, or fight-
ing as your fathers fought, like your own Botzaris, who
fell for his country ? Is it for yourselves you ask these
things now, or is it for Greece ?"
Of the staff officers there gathered none knew the
tongue in which he spoke. But they could guess what
he was saying. They saw the rude chieftains cower be-
fore his challenge. Then, as he went on, under that
magnetic gaze they saw the savage brows lighten, the
fierce eyes soften and fall.
Gordon's tone had lost its lash. His words dropped
gently. He was speaking of those old days when he had
slept beneath a Suliote tent and written songs of the
freedom for which they now strove. The handful be-
side him had put up their swords. For a moment not
only individual lives, but the fate of Greece itself had
hung in the balance. They watched with curious in-
tentness.
408 THE CASTAWAY
As the speaker paused, a burly chieftain, built like
a tower, thrust up his hand and turned to the rest,
speaking rapidly and with many gesticulations. He
pointed to the rough couch, to the coarse fare on the
table. The others answered with guttural ejaculations.
All at once he bared his breast, slashed it with his
dagger, and touched knee to ground before Gordon's
feet. The rest followed his example. Each as he rose,
saluted and passed out. Before a dozen had knelt, the
rumble of wheels in the courtyard announced that the
cannon were being dragged back to their places.
The last Suliote chief retired and Gordon's hand
fell from Fletcher's shoulder. The headquarters' sur-
geon broke the tension:
"His lordship must have quiet !" he warned.
The whiteness had been growing upon Gordon's face.
As the officers retired, he sank back upon the couch.
Mavroeordato held brandy to his lips, but he shook his
head.
He lay very still for a while, his eyes closed, hearing
the murmuring voices of the prince and Gamba as they
stood with the physicians, feeling on the mattress a
shaking hand that he knew was Fletcher's.
A harrowing fear was upon him. The mutiny that
had been imminent this hour he had vanquished; he
might not succeed again. With resources all might be
possible, but his own funds were stretched to the last
para. And the English loan still hung fire. If he but
had the proceeds of a single property of Kochdale,
which he had turned over to the committee in London
he could await the aid which must eventually come.
Lacking both, he faced inaction, failure; and now to
THE CASTAWAY 409
cap all, illness threatened him. He almost groaned
aloud. Greece must not fail !
There was but one way to fight and fight soon. In-
stead of waiting till famine made ally with the enemy,
to attack first. To throw his forces, though undisci-
plined, upon the Turks. Victory would inspirit the
friends of the revolution. It would knit closer every
segment. It would hasten the loan in England. Might
the assault be repelled? No worse, even so, than a de-
feat without a blow the shame of a cowardly disinte-
gration !
"Prince " Gordon summoned all his strength and
sat up. "May I ask you to notify my staff-officers to
meet me here in an hour? We shall discuss a plan of
immediate attack upon Lepanto."
CHAPTER LIX
IN WHICH TERESA MAKES A JOUBNET
"Help me to remember that it is for Greece and for
himself most of all!" That was Teresa's cry through
those dreary weeks alone. The chill instinct that had
seized her as Gordon held her in that last clasp had
never left her. She struggled always with a grim sense
of the inevitable. At times she fought the desire to
follow, even to Greece, to fold him in her arms, to en-
treat: "Give up the cause! Come back to me to
love!" Her sending of Pietro had given her comfort.
She subsisted upon his frequent letters, upon the rarer,
dearer ones of Gordon, and upon the remembrance of
the great issue to which she had resigned him.
One day a message came from a great Venetian bank-
ing-house. It told of a sum of money held for her
whose size startled her. She, who had possessed but a
slender marriage-portion, was more than rich in her
own right. An accompanying letter from Dallas told
her the gift was Gordon's. A wild rush of tears blurred
the page as she read.
That night she dreamed a strange dream; yet it was
not a dream wholly, for she lay with open eyes star-
ing at the crucifix that hung starkly, a murky outline,
(410)
THE CASTAWAY 411
against the wall. Suddenly she started up in the bed.
Where the ivory image had glimmered against the ebony
was another face, colorless, sharp-etched-, a wavering
light playing upon it. It was Gordon's, deep-lined,
haggard, as though in mute extremity. His eyes looked
at her steadily, appealingly.
She held out her arms with a moan. Then the light
faded, the phantom merged again into the shadow, and
in the darkness she hid her eyes and swayed and wept.
She slept no more. A blind terror held her till dawn.
At noon Tita brought her a Pisan paper, with a col-
umn of Greek news. It stated that the English loan,
on which depended the hopes of the revolutionists, was
still unsubscribed in London. The measure would
doubtless be too late to stay the descent of Yussuff
Pasha's armies. Dissensions were rife at Missolonghi.
At Constantinople the sultan, in full divan, had pro-
claimed George Gordon an enemy to the Porte and
offered a pashawlik and the three-horse-tailed lance for
his head.
The English loan too late ! Its speedy coming had
been a certainty in Gordon's mind before his departure.
Was it the agony of failure she had seen on the face
that looked at her from the darkness ? Was he even now
crucified on the cross of a despairing crisis ?
A quick thought came to her. The sum he had made
hers a fortune, almost a hundred thousand pounds of
English money! Might not that serve, at least until
the loan came ? If she could help him thus !
There was no time for correspondence, banking rou-
tine no time for delays of any sort. It must go now!
A daring plan was born in her mind. She could take
412 THE CASTAWAY
it herself, direct to his necessity. Why not? Such a
brig as Gordon had chartered was no doubt to be found
at Leghorn. Yet she could not make the voyage with
but a single servant for escort. To whom could she ap-
peal ? To whom else could that far-away cause be near ?
A figure flashed before her with the directness of a
vision a man she had seen but once, when with her
husband, he had confronted her on a monastery path
one dreadful buried day. The friar of San Lazzarro!
She recalled the clear deep eyes, the venerable head, the
uncompromising honesty of the padre's countenance.
He had known the man she loved had seen his life
in that retreat. Was he still there ? Would he aid her ?
An hour more and she was riding with Tita toward
Leghorn harbor. By the next sunrise she was on her
way to Venice. Three days later Tita's oar swung her
gondola to the wharf of the island of Saint Lazarus.
She stepped ashore and rang a bell at the wall-door
beside which, in its stone shrine, stood the leaden im-
age of the Virgin, looking out across the gray lagoon.
The place was very still. Peach-blooms hung their
glistening spray above the orchard close, and swallows
circled about a peaceful spire from which a slow mellow
note was striking. It seemed to Teresa that only yes-
terday she had stood there face to face with Gordon.
With a sudden impulse she sank to her knees before the
shrine.
When she rose she was not alone; he who she had
prayed might still be within those walls stood near
the same reverend aspect, the benignant brow, the coarse
brown robe.
THE CASTAWAY 413
"What do you seek, my daughter?"
As Teresa told her errand, looking into the soluble
eyes bent on her, the breeze stirred the young leaves,
and the tiny waves lapped the margin-stones in a golden
undercurrent of sound. Her words, unstudied and tense
with feeling, acquired an unconscious eloquence. A
great issue in perilous straits; she, with empty afflu-
ence that might save it but alone, without companion
for such a journey.
The friar listened with a growing wonder. In the
seclusion of that solitude he had long since heard of
the Greek rebellion had yearned for its success. But
it had been a thing remote from his lagoon island. He ?
To leave the peace of his studies to accompany a woman,
to a land in the throes of war? A strange request!
Why had she come to him?
"Have I ever seen you before, my daughter ?"
Her heart beat heavily. "Yes, Father."
She was leaning against the rock, her face lifted to
his. The posture, the pathetic purity of her features,
brought recollection.
Padre Somalian's eyes lighted. Since that unfor-
gotten scene on the path, he had often wondered what
would be this woman's wedded life, so tragically begun.
By her face, she had suffered. Her husband had been
old then doubtless was dead. It was a mark of grace
that she came now to him a holy man before others.
If, alone in the world, she chose to consecrate her wealth
thus nobly, well and good. If there had been fault back
of that rich marriage, such an act would be in the line
of fitting penance.
If there had been fault! The friar's eyes turned
414 THE CASTAWAY
away. He was thinking of the stranger whose brow her
husband's blow had marked of the paper he himself
had lifted from beneath the stone. Since the gusty
day when he found the abandoned robe, he had prayed
unceasingly for that unknown man's soul.
"You will go ?"
The question recalled his thought, gone afar.
"My daughter/' he demurred, "who am I, bred to
quiet and contemplation, to guide you in such an enter-
prise ?"
Tears had come to Teresa's eyes. "Then the hope of
Greece will perish ! And he its leader, who has given
his all will fail!"
The padre's look clouded. It was the undying war
of Christendom against the idolater, the fight the
church militant must wage daily till the reign of the
thousand golden years began. Yet noble as was the Gre-
cian struggle, to his mind it had been smirched by a
name famed for its evil.
"I would so fair a cause had a better champion !"
he said slowly.
Her tears dried away. "And you say that?" she
cried, her tone vibrating. "You who saw him, and with
whom he lived here? you?"
He thought her distrait. "He here? What do you
mean?"
"Do you not know ? Father, he who leads the Greeks
is the man with whom I stood that day beside this
shrine !"
The friar started. Rapid emotions crossed his face.
For many a month a sore question had turned itself
over and over in his mind. Had he stumbled in his
THE CASTAWAY 415
duty to that man who had come in hopelessness and
departed with despair unlightened ? Day after day he
had seen the misery reflected in the countenance. He
knew now that he had been witnessing the efforts of a
fallen soul to regain its lost estate a soul that was now
fighting in the ranks of the Cross ! In his own self-re-
proach he had prayed that it might be given him again
to hold before his eyes the symbol of the eternal suffer-
ing. Was this not the answer to that prayer?
His eyes suffused.
"Wait for me here, my daughter," he said. "I shall
not be long. We go together. Who knows if the sum-
mons you bring be not the voice of God !"
CHAPTER LX
TBIED AS BY FIRE
The night was still, the air sopped with recent rain,
the sky piled with sluggish cloud-strata through whose
rifts the half-moon glimpsed obliquely, making the sea-
beach that curved above Missolonghi an eerie checker
of shine and shade.
Between hill and shore a lean path, from whose edges
the cochineal cactus swung its quivers of prickly arrows,
shambled across a great flat ledge that jutted from the
hill's heel to break abruptly above a deep pool gouged
by hungry tempests. On the reed-clustered sand be-
yond the rock-shelf were disposed a body of men splen-
didly uniformed, in kirtle and capote, standing by their
hobbled horses. On the rocky ledge, in the flickering
light of a torch thrust into a cleft, were seated their two
leaders conversing.
They had ridden far. The object of their coming
was the safe delivery of a letter to the one man to
whom all Greece looked now. The message was mo-
mentous and secret, the errand swift and silent. In
Missolonghi, whose lights glowed a mile away, clang-
ing night and day with hurried preparation, none knew
of the presence of that company on the deserted shore,
(416)
THE CASTAWAY 417
save one of its own number who had ridden, under cover
of the dark, into the town's defenses.
"This is a journey that pleases me well, Lambro,"
averred one of the primates on the rock. "I wish we
were well on our way back to the Congress at Salona,
and the English lordos leading us. What an entry that
will be! But what if he doubts your messenger sus-
pects some trickery of Ulysses? Suppose he will not
<3ome out to us?"
"Then the letter must go to him in Missolonghi,"
said the other, "Mavrocordato or no Mavrocordato. He
will come properly guarded," he added, "but he will
come."
"Why are you so certain?"
"Because the man I sent to him an hour since is one
he must trust. It was his sister the Excellency saved
in his youth from the sack. Their father was then a
merchant of the bazaar in this same town. Do you not
know the tale?" And thereupon he recited the story
as he had heard it years before, little dreaming they
sat upon the very spot where, on that long ago dawn,
the Turkish wands had halted that grim procession.
"I would the brother," he closed, "might sometime
find the cowardly dog who abandoned her !"
They rose to their feet, for dim forms were coming
along the path from the town a single horseman and
a body-guard afoot. "It is the archistrategos" both
exclaimed.
The younger hastily withdrew; the other advanced
a step to meet the man who dismounted and came for-
ward.
Gordon's face in the torchlight was worn and hag-
418 THE CASTAWAY
gard, for the inward fever had never left him since that
fierce convulsion nature's protest against unbearable
conditions. Day by day, with the same unyielding will
he had fought his weakness, pushing forward the plans
ior the assault on Lepanto, slaving with the gunners,
drilling musket-men, much of the day in the saddle,
and filching from the hours of his rest, time for his
committee correspondence, bearing always that burn-
ing coal of anxiety the English loan which did not
come.
The primate saw this look, touched with surprise as
Gordon caught the stir of horses and men from the
further gloom. He bowed profoundly as he drew forth
a letter.
"I regret to have brought Your Illustrious Excel-
lency from your quarters," he said in Komaic, "but my
orders were specific."
Gordon stepped close to the torch and opened the
letter. The primate drew back and left him on the
rock, a solitary figure in the yellow glare, watched from
one side by two score of horsemen, richly accoutred,
standing silent on the other by a rough body-guard
of fifty, in ragged garments, worn foot-wear, but fully
armed.
Once twice three times Gordon read, slowly,
strangely deliberate.
A shiver ran over him, and he felt the torchlight on
his face like a sudden hot wave. The letter was a sum-
mons to S'alona, where assembled in Congress the chiefs
and primates of the whole Morea but it was far more
than this ; in its significant circumlocution, its meaning
THE CASTAWAY 419
diplomatic phrases, lay couched a clear invitation that
seemed to transform his blood to a volatile ichor.
Gordon's eyes turned to the shadow whence came the
shifting and stamping of horses then to the lights of
the fortifications he had left. He could send back these
silent horsemen, refuse to go with them, return to Mis-
solonghi, to his desperate waiting for the English loan,
to the hazardous attack on Lepanto, keeping faith with
the cause, falling with it, if needs be ; or he could wear
the crown of Greece!
The outlines of the situation had flashed upon him
as clearly as a landscape seen by lightning. The letter
in his hand was signed by a name powerful in three
chanceleries. The courts of Europe, aroused by the ex-
periment of the American colonies, wished no good of
republicanism. Names had been buzzing in State
closets: Jerome Bonaparte, Leopold of Saxe-Coburg.
But Greece had gone too far for that ; if a foreign ruler
be given her, he must be one acceptable to the popular
mind. Governmental eyes turned now to him! He,
the despised of England, a king! The founder of a
fresh dynasty, the first emperor of New Greece !
Standing there, feeling his heart beat to his temples,
a weird sensation came to him. There had been a time
in his youth when he had camped upon that shore,
when on that very rock he had struck an individual
blow against Turkish barbarity. Now the hum of the
voices beyond turned into a wild Suliote stave roared
about a fire and he felt again the same chill, prescient
instinct that had possessed him when he said: "It
is as though this spot that town yonder were tan-
gled in my destiny!" Was this not the fulfilment,
420 THE CASTAWAY
that on the spot where he had permed his first im-
mortal lines for Greece, should be offered him her
throne ?
A mental barb stung him. It was for Greek free-
dom he had sung then the ancient freedom tyranny
had defiled. And would this mean true liberty? The
Moslem would be cast out, but for what? A coup
d'etat! A military dictatorship, bolstered by suzerain
arms! The legislative government, with the hopes of
Mavrocordato, of all the western country, fallen into
the dust! Greece a puppet kingdom, paying compen-
sation in self-respect to self-aggrandizing cabinets.
But a Greece with himself upon the throne !
Far-off siren voices seemed to call to him from the
darkness. What would be his? World-fame not the
bays he despised, but the laurel. A seat above even
social convention, unprecedented, secure. A power na-
tionally supreme, in State certainly, in Church per-
haps power to override old conditions, to re-create his
own future. To sever old bonds with the sword of royal
prerogative. Eventually, to choose his queen!
A fit of trembling seized him. He felt Teresa's arms
about him warm, human, loving arms her lips on
his, sweet as honeysuckle after rain. For a moment
temptation flung itself out of the night upon him. Not
such as he had grappled with when she had come to him
on the square in Venice. Not such as he had felt when
Dallas told him of the portrait hidden from Ada's eyes.
It was a temptation a thousandfold stronger and more
insidious. It shook to its depths the mystic peace that
had come to him on the deck of the Hercules after that
THE CASTAWAY 421
last parting. It was as though all the old craving, the
bitterness, the cruciate longing of his love rose at once
to a combat under which the whole mind of the man
bent and writhed in anguish.
Gordon's face, as it stared out from the torch-flare
across the gloomy gulf, showed to the man who waited
near-by no sign of the struggle that wrung his soul, and
that, passing at length, left him blanched and exhausted
like one from whose veins a burning fever has ebbed
suddenly.
The primate came eagerly from the shadow as Gor-
don turned and spoke:
"Say to those who sent you that what they propose
is impossible "
"Illustrious Excellency I"
" that I came hither for Greek independence, and
if this cause shall fall, I choose to bury myself in its
ruins."
The other was dumb from sheer astonishment. He
knew the proposal the letter contained. Had not he,
Lambro, primate of Argos, nurtured the plan among
the chiefs ? Had not the representative of a great power
confided in his discretion when he sent him with that
letter? And now when the whole Morea was ready
when prime ministers agreed the one man to whom
it might be offered, refused the crown! He swallowed
hard, looking at the letter which had been handed back
to him.
Before he recovered his wits, Gordon had walked un-
certainly to his horse, mounted, and was riding toward
the town, his body-guard streaming out behind him,
running afoot.
422 THE CASTAWAY
As his fellow officer approached him, Lambro swore
an oath:
"By the Virgin ! You shall return to Salona without
me. I stay here and fight with the English lordos!"
He rode into Missolonghi that night, and with him
were twenty of his men.
CHAPTER LXI
THE RENUNCIATION
Gordon entered his bleak room with mind strangely
numbed. Gamba, now acting as his adjutant, was wait-
ing, and him he dismissed without dictating his usual
correspondence. The struggle he had fought had bitten
deeply into his fund of physical resistance. A tremor
was in his hands a cold sweat on his forehead.
Riding, with the ashes of denial on his lips, it had
come to him that in this temptation he had met his last
and strongest enemy. It had found him in his weak-
ness, and that weakness it would not be given him to
surmount. The sword was wearing out the scabbard.
His own hand should never lead the Greece he loved to
its freedom should never marshal it at its great in-
stallation. None but himself knew how fearfully ill-
ness had grown upon him or with what difficult pain
he had striven to conceal its havoc. Only he himself
had had no illusions. He knew to-night that the final
decision had lain between the cause and his life itself.
The one thing which might have knit up his ravelled
health the abandonment of this miasma-breeding town
for the wholesome unvitiated hill air of Salona, of the
active campaign for passive trust to foreign dictation
(423)
424 THE CASTAWAY
he had thrust from him. And in so doing, he had made
the last great choice.
"Lyon !" he said "Lyon !" The shepherd-dog by the
hearth raised his head. His eyes glistened. His tail
beat the stone. He whined uneasily as his master be-
gan to pace the floor, up and down, his step uneven,
forcing his limbs to defy their dragging inertia.
As the long night-watch knelled wearily away, drop
by drop Gordon drank this last and bitter cup of re-
nunciation. Love and life he put behind him, facing
unshrinkingly the grisly specter that looked at him from
the void.
He thought of Teresa singing to her lonely harp in
a far-off fragrant Italian garden. His gaze turned to a
closet built into the corner of the room. In it was a
manuscript five additional cantos of "Don Juan" writ-
ten in that last year at Pisa, the completion of the poem,
on which he had lavished infinite labor. He remem-
bered an hour when her voice had said : "One day you
will finish it more worthily." Had he done so ? Had
he redeemed those earlier portions which, though his
ancient enemy had declared them "touched with im-
mortality," yet rang with cadences long since grown
painful to him ? The world might judge !
He thought of his Memoirs, completed, which he had
sent from Italy by Dallas for the hand of Tom Moore
in London. These pages were a brief for the defense,
submitted to the Supreme Bench of Posterity.
"For Ada !" he muttered. "The smiles of her youth
have been her mother's, but the tears of her maturity
shall be mine!"
His life for Greece ! And giving it, it should be his
THE CASTAWAY 425
to strike at least one fiery blow, to lead one fierce clash
of arms ! He looked where a glittering helmet hung on
the wall, elaborately wrought and emblazoned, bearing
his own crest and armorial motto: "Crede Gordon"
a garish, ostentatious gewgaw whose every fragile line
and over-decoration was a sneer. It had been brought
him in a satin casket by the hand of the suave Paolo,
the last polished sting of his master, the Count Guic-
cioli. He would bring to naught that gilded mockery
of hatred that scoffed at his purpose! A few more
hours and preparations would be completed for the at-
tack on Lepanto. To storm that stronghold, rout the
Turkish forces, sound this one clear bugle-call that
would ring on far frontiers and so, the fall of the cur-
tain.
At length he sat down at the table and in the candle-
light began to write. What he wrote in that hour has
been preserved among the few records George Gordon
left behind him at Missolonghi.
"My days are in the yellow leaf;
The flowers and fruits of love are done;
The worm, the canker and the grief
Are mine alone!
The hope, the fear, the jealous care,
The exalted portion of the pain
And power of love, I cannot share.
I wear the chain.
Yet see the sword, the flag, the field!
Glory and Greece around me see!
The Spartan, borne upon his shield,
Was not more free.
426 THE CASTAWAY
Awake! (not Greece she is awake!)
Awake my spirit! Think through whom
Thy life-blood tracks its parent lake,
And then strike home!
Up to the battle! There is found
A soldier's grave for thee the best;
Then look around and choose thy ground,
And take thy rest!"
The pen fell from his fingers. A sudden icy breath
seemed to congeal from the air. He rose tried to walk,
but felt his limbs failing him. He fixed his eyes upon
a bright spot on the wall, fighting desperately against
the appalling faintness that was enshrouding him. It
gyrated and swam before his vision a burnished hel-
met. Should the battle after all evade him? Was it
denied him even to fall upon the field ? A roaring rose
in his ears.
He steadied himself against the table and shut his
teeth. The quiver of convulsion was upon him again
and the movement against Lepanto began to-morrow!
It must not come not yet, not yet! The very life of
the cause was wound in his. He would not yield!
The shepherd-dog had risen whining from the
hearth; Gordon felt the rough tongue licking his hand
felt but could not see. He staggered toward the
couch. Darkness had engulfed him, a black giddiness
from whose depths he heard faintly a frantic barking
and hurried footsteps on the stair.
CHAPTER LXII
GORDON GOES UPON A PILGRIMAGE
Easter afternoon and all Missolonghi was on the
streets. But there were no festivities, no firing of guns
nor decorations. A pall had settled on the town, a pall
reflected in a sky dun-colored and brooding storm.
To-day had been fixed upon for the march against
Lepanto, but now war was forgotten. The wheels of
movement had stopped like those of some huge machine
whose spring of action has lost its function. Silent
soldiers patrolled the empty bazaar and the deserted
docks. The crowds that thronged the pavements Su-
liotes, their wild faces softened by grief unconcealed,
gloomy officers of infantry and artillery, weeping
women, and grave priests of the Greek church con-
versed in low tones. Even the arrival of a new vessel
in the harbor had gone unnoticed. Observation cen-
tered on the stone building fronting the shallows, from
whose guarded precincts from time to time an aide is-
sued with news which spread speedily through the de-
sponding populace the military headquarters where
the foreign archistrategos lay sick unto death.
Through the crowds, from the wharf, three figures
passed in haste. One was a gigantic Venetian servant,
staggering beneath the burden of an iron-bound chest.
(427)
428 THE CASTAWAY
Small wonder its weight taxed even his herculean
strength, for besides bills of exchange for the sum nine
times over, it contained ten thousand pounds in English
sovereigns. His huge form made a way for the two
who followed him: a venerable Armenian friar, bare-
headed and sandalled, and a woman heavily veiled,
whose every nerve was strung with voiceless suffering.
Mercifully a portion of the truth had come to Teresa
.at Zante, and in the few intervening hours, an eternity
of suspense, she had gained an unnatural self-control.
Up to the last moment of possibility she had fought the
dread sense of the inevitable that was rising to shut out
her whole horizon of future; but before the ominous
hush of the multitudes, hope had died within her. She
seemed to hear Mary Shelley crying through the voice
of that Pisan storm : "0, I am afraid afraid afraid !"
Yet, even in her despair, as she threaded the press
with the friar, she felt an anguished pride and thank-
fulness. The man on whose life these awe-struck thou-
sands trembled the all that he had been to her ! And
she had not come too late.
In the cheerless stone room, Mavrocordato, Pietro
Gamba and the men of medicine watched beside the
couch on which Gordon lay. After a long period of un-
.consciousness he had opened his eyes.
A moment he looked about the familiar apartment,
slowly realizing. He saw the tears on Gamba's cheeks,
the grave sorrow that moulded the prince's face. In
that moment he did not deceive himself.
His look drew Mavrocordato a look in which was a
question, but no fear.
THE CASTAWAY 429
The other bent over him. "An hour, they think,"
he said gently.
Gordon closed his eyes. Such a narrow span between
this life and the unbridged gulf, between the old ques-
tioning and the great solution. An hour, and he should
test the worth of Dallas' creed, should know if the
friar of San Lazzarro had been right. An hour, and
life would be behind him, with its errors ended, its
longings quenched.
Its largest endeavor had been defeated: that was the
closest sting. In his weakness all else sank away beside
the thought that he had tried and failed. Even the
one blow he might not strike. The nation was in straits,
the loan delayed, the campaign unopened. He caught
the murmurs of the crowds in the courtyard. His lips
framed words : "My poor Greece ! Who shall lead you
now?"
Yet he had done his best, given his all, even his love.
She, Teresa, would know and hold his effort dear be-
cause she loved him. But there was another woman
in England who had hated and despised him. He had
piled upon her the mountain of his curse, and that
curse had been forgiveness. Must her memory of him
be always bitterness ? In the fraying fringe of life past
resentments were worn pitifully small. Should he go
without one tenderer word to Annabel ?
He tried to lift himself. "Fletcher !" he said aloud.
The old valet, shaken with emotion, came forward as
the others turned away.
"Listen, Fletcher. You will go back to England.
Go to my wife you will 'see Ada tell my sister
say "
430 THE CASTAWAY
His voice had become indistinct and the phrases ran
together. Only fragmentary words could be distin-
guished: "Ada" "my child" "my sister" "Hob-
house." His speech flashed into coherence at last as he
ended : "Now I have told you all."
"My dear lord," sobbed the valet, "I have not under-
stood a word !"
Pitiful distress overspread Gordon's features. "Not
understood?" he said with an effort. "Then it is too
late !" He sank back. Fletcher, blind with grief, left
the room.
A subdued commotion rose unwontedly beneath the
windows. Mavrocordato spoke hurriedly to an orderly
who had just come to the door. "Have they not been
told?" he whispered. "What is the matter?"
Through the closing darkness, Gordon's ear caught
a part of the low reply. "What did he say ?" he asked.
Mavrocordato approached the couch. "Some one has
come in a vessel bringing a vast fortune for Greece."
The dimming eyes flared up with joyful exultation.
The cause was not lost then. The armament could go
on the fleet be strengthened, the forces held together,
till the loan came till another might take his place.
A sound of footsteps fell on the stair there was a
soft knock. The orderly's voice demanded the pass-
word.
If there was reply, none of the watchers heard it.
Gordon had lifted himself on his elbow, his head turned
with a sudden, strange expectancy. "The password?"
he said distinctly, "it is here!" He laid his hand
upon his heart.
THE CASTAWAY 431
A sobbing cry answered, and a woman crossed swiftly
to the couch and knelt beside it.
A great light came to Gordon's countenance. "Te-
resa I" he gasped. "Teresa my love !"
The effort had brought exhaustion. He sank back,
feeling his head pillowed upon her breast. He smiled
and closed his eyes.
A friar had followed her into the room. Mavrocor-
dato beckoned the wondering surgeons to the door.
They passed out, and young Gamba, after one glance at
his sister, followed. The friar drew near the couch,
crucifix in hand, his lips moving silently. The door
closed.
After the one cry which had voiced that beloved
name, Teresa had made no sound. She cradled Gor-
don's head in her arms, watching his face with a fear-
ful tenderness. From the court came the hushed hum
of many people, from the stair low murmur of voices;
behind her she heard Padre Somalian's breathed
prayer. Her heart was bleeding with a bitter pain.
Now and again she touched the damp brow, like blue-
veined marble, and warmed the cold hands between her
own as she had done in that direful ride when her arms
had held that body, bleeding from a kriss.
The day was declining and the air filled with shad-
ows. The storm that had hung in the sky had begun to
mutter in rolling far-off thunder, and the sun, near to
setting, made a lurid flame at the horizon-bars. Gordon
stirred and muttered, and at length opened his eyes
upon the red glare. He heard the echoes of the clouds,
like distant artillery.
With the energy of delirium he sat up. He began to
432 THE CASTAWAY
talk wildly, in a singular jumble of languages: "For-
ward! Forward! Courage strike for Greece! It is
victory !"
The hallucination of weakness had given him his su-
preme desire. He was leading the assault on Lepanto.
"My son/' the friar's voice spoke "there are other
victories than of war. There is that of the agony and
the cross."
The words seemed to strike through the delirium of
the fevered fantasies and calm them. The dying man's
eyes fastened on the speaker with a vague inquiry.
There was silence for a moment, while outside the
chamber a grizzled servant knelt by a group of officers,
his seamed face wet with tears, and from the courtyard
rose the plaintive howl of a dog.
Through the deepening abyss of Gordon's senses the
crumbling memory was groping for an old recollection
that stirred at the question. Out of the maze grew sen-
tences which a voice like that had once said: "Every
man bears a cross of despair to his Calvary. He who
bore the heaviest saw beyond. What did He say ? "
The failing brain struggled to recall. What did He
say ? He saw dimly the emblem which the friar's hand
held an emblem that had hung always somewhere,
somewhere in a fading Paradise of his. It expanded, a
sad dark Calvary against olive foliage gray as the ashes
of the Gethsemane agony the picture of the eternal
suffering of the Prince of Peace.
"Not my will, but Thine !"
The words fell faintly from the wan lips, scarce a
murmur in the stirless room. Gordon's form, in Te-
resa's clasp, seemed suddenly to grow chill. She did
THE CASTAWAY 433
not see the illumination that transformed the friar's
face, nor hear the door open to her brother and Mavro-
cordato. She was deaf to all save the moan of her
stricken love, blind to all save that face that was slip-
ping from life and her.
Gordon's hand fumbled in his breast, and drew some-
thing forth that fell from his nerveless fingers on to the
bed a curling lock of baby's hair and a worn frag-
ment of paper on which was a written prayer. She un-
derstood, and, lifting them, laid them against his lips.
His eyes smiled once into hers and his face turned
wholly to her, against her breast.
"Now," he whispered, "I shall go to sleep."
A piteous cry burst from Teresa's heart as the friar
leaned forward. But there was no answer. George
Gordon's eternal pilgrimage had begun.
THE GREAT SILENCE
Blaquiere stood beside Teresa in the windowed cham-
ber which had been set apart for her, overlooking the
courtyard.
All in that Grecian port knew of her love and the pur-
pose that had upheld her in her journey. To the forlorn
town her wordless grief seemed a tender intimate token
of a loss still but half comprehended. It had surrounded
her with an unvarying thoughtfulness that had fallen
gently across her anguish. She had listened to the muf-
fled rumble of cannon that the wind brought across the
marshes from the stronghold of Patras, where the Turks
rejoiced. She had seen the palled bier, in the midst of
Gordon's own brigade, borne on the shoulders of the offi-
cers of his corps to the Greek church, to lie in state be-
side the remains of Botzaris had seen it borne back to
its place amid the wild mourning of half-civilized tribes-
men and the sorrow of an army.
The man she had loved had carried into the Great Si-
lence a people's worship and a nation's tears. Now as
she looked out across the massed troops with arms at
rest across the crowded docks and rippling shallows to
the sea, where two ships rode the swells side by side, she
(434)
THE CASTAWAY 435
hugged this thought closer and closer to her heart. One
of these vessels had borne her hither and was to take
her back to Italy. The other, a ship-of-the-line, had
brought the man who stood beside her, with the first in-
stallment of the English loan. It was to bear to an Eng-
lish sepulture the body of the exile to whom his country
had denied a living home. Both vessels were to weigh
with the evening tide.
Blaquiere, looking at the white face that gazed sea-
ward, remembered another day when he had heard her
singing to her harp from a dusky garden. He knew that
her song would never again fall with such a cadence.
At length he spoke, looking down on the soldiery and
the people that waited the passing to the water-side of
the last cortege.
"I wonder if he sees if he knows, as I know, Con-
tessa, what the part he acted here shall have done for
Greece ? In his death faction has died, and the enmities
of its chiefs will be buried with him forever !"
Her eyes turned to the sky, reddening now to sun-
set. "I think he knows," she answered softly.
Padre Somalian's voice behind them intervened : "We
must go aboard presently, my daughter."
She turned, and as the friar came and stood looking
down beside Blaquiere, passed out and crossed the hall
to the room wherein lay her dead.
She approached the bier a rude chest of wood
upon rough trestles, a black mantle serving for pall.
At its head, laid on the folds of a Greek flag, were a
sword and a simple wreath of laurel. A dull roar shook
the air outside the minute-gun from the grand bat-
tery, firing a last salute and a beam of fading sun-
436 THE CASTAWAY
light glanced through the window and turned to a fiery
globe a glittering helmet on the wall.
Gently, as though a sleeping child lay beneath it, she
withdrew the pall and white shroud from the stainless
face. She looked at it with an infinite yearning, while
outside the minute-gun boomed and the great bell of the
Greek church tolled slowly. Blaquiere's words were in
her mind.
"Do you know, my darling?" she whispered. "Do
you know that Greece lives because my heart is dead ?"
She took from her bosom the curl of flaxen hair and
the fragment of paper that had fallen from his chilling
fingers and put them in his breast. Then stooping, she
touched in one last kiss the unanswering marble of his
lips.
At the threshold she looked back. The golden glimmer
from the helmet fell across the face beneath it with an
unearthly radiance. A touch of woman's pride came
to her the pride that sits upon a broken heart.
"How beautiful he was!" she said in a low yoice.
"Oh, God ! How beautiful he was !"
CHAPTER LXIV
"OP HIM WHOM SHE DENIED A HOME, THE GRAVE"
Greece was nevermore a vassal of the Turk. In. the
death of the archistmtegos who had so loved her cause,
the chieftains put aside quarrels and buried private am-
bitions all save one. In the stone chamber at Misso-
longhi wherein that shrouded form had lain, the Suliote
chiefs swore fealty to Mavrocordato and the constitu-
tional government as they had done to George Gordon.
Another had visited that chamber before them. This
was a dark-bearded man in Suliote dress, who entered it
unobserved while the body of the man he had so hated
lay in state in the Greek church. Trevanion forced the
sealed door of the closet and examined the papers it con-
tained. When he took horse for Athens, he bore with
him whatever of correspondence and memoranda might
be fuel for the conspiracy of Ulysses and a roll of
manuscript, the completion of "Don Juan/' which he
tore to shreds and scattered to the four winds on a flat
rock above a deep pool a mile from the town. He found
Ulysses a fugitive, deserted by his faction, and followed
him to his last stronghold, a cavern in Mount Parnas-
sus.
But fast as Trevanion went, one went as fast. This
(437)
438 THE CASTAWAY
was a young Greek who had ridden from Salona to Mis-
solonghi with one Lambro, primate of Argos. Beneath
the beard and Suliote attire he recognized Trevanion,
and his brain leaped to fire with the memory of a twin
sister and the fearful fate of the sack to which she had
once been abandoned. From an ambush below the en-
trance of Ulysses' cave, he shot his enemy through the
heart.
On the day Trevanion's sullen career was ended, along
the same highway which Gordon had traversed when he
rode to Newstead on that first black home-coming, a
single carriage followed a leaden casket from London to
Nottinghamshire.
In its course it passed a noble country-seat, the her-
mitage of a woman who had once burned an effigy be-
fore a gay crowd in Almack's Assembly Booms. Lady
Caroline Lamb, diseased in mind as in body, discerned
the procession from the terrace. As the hearse came op-
posite she saw the crest upon the pall. She fainted and
never again left her bed.
The cortege halted at Hucknall church, near New-
stead Abbey, and there the earthly part of George Gor-
don was laid, just a year from the hour he had bidden
farewell to Teresa in the Pisan garden, where now a
lonely woman garnered her deathless memories.
At the close of the service the two friends who had
shared that last journey Dallas, now grown feeble, and
Hobhouse, recently knighted and risen to political
prominence stood together in the lantern-lighted
porch.
<r What of the Westminster chapter?" asked Dallas.
"Will they grant the permission ?"
THE CASTAWAY 439
A shadow crossed the other's countenance. Popular
feeling had undergone a great revulsion, but clerical
enmity was outspoken and undying. He thought of a
bitter philippic he had heard in the House of Lords
from the Bishop of London. His voice was resentful as
he answered:
"The dean has refused. The greatest poet of his age
and country is denied even a tablet on the wall of West-
minster Abbey!"
The kindly eyes under their white brows saddened.
Dallas looked out through the darkness where gloomed
the old Gothic towers of Newstead, tenantless, save for
their raucous colonies of rooks.
"The greatest poet of his age and country!" he re-
peated slowly. "After all, we can be satisfied with that.'*
AFTERMATH
Springs quickened, summers sped their hurrying-
blooms, autumns hung scarlet flags in the coppice, win-
ters fell and mantled glebe and moor. Yet the world
did not forget.
There came an April day when the circumstance of a
sudden shower set down from an open carriage at the
porch of Newstead Abbey a slender girl of seventeen,
who had been visiting at near-by Annesley.
Waiting, in the library, the passing of the rain, the
visitor picked up a book from the table. It was "Childe
Harold's Pilgrimage."
440 THE CASTAWAY
For a time she read with tranquil interest then sud-
denly startled :
"Is thy face like thy mother's, my fair child!
Ada! sole daughter of my house and heart?
When last I saw thy young blue eyes they smiled,
And then we parted, not as now we part,
But with a hope. "
She looked for the name of its author and paled.
Thereafter she sat with parted lips and tremulous, long
breathing. The master of the house entered to find an
unknown guest reading in a singular rapt absorption.
Her youth and interest beckoned his favorite topic.
He had been one of the strangers who, year by year in
increasing numbers, visited the little town of Hucknall
travelers who, speaking the tongue in which George
Gordon had written, trod the pave of the quiet church
with veneration. He had purchased Newstead and had
taken delight in gathering about him in those halls
mementoes of the man whose youth had been spent
within them.
While the girl listened with wide eyes on his face, he
told her of the life and death of the man who had writ-
ten the book. He marvelled while he talked, for it ap-
peared that she had been reared in utter ignorance of
his writings, did not know that he had lived beneath
that very roof, nor that he lay buried in the church
whose spire could be seen from the mole. He waxed elo-
quent as he told her how the gilded rank and fashion of
London had found comfort in silence how Tom Moore,
long since become one of its complacent satellites, had
read its wishes well : how he had stood in a locked room
THE CASTAWAY 441
and given the smug seal of his approbation while secret
flame destroyed the self-justification of a dead man's-
name, the Memoirs which had been a last bequest to a
living daughter.
The shower passed, the sun came out rejoicing still
the master of the Abbey talked. When he had finished
he showed his listener a portrait, painted by the Amer-
ican, Benjamin West. When she turned from this, her
face was oddly white ; she was thinking of another por-
trait hidden by a curtain, which had been one of the un-
solved mysteries of her childhood.
On her departure her host drove with her to Huck-
nall church, and standing in the empty chancel she read
the marble tablet set into the wall :
IN THE VAULT BENEATH
LIE THE REMAINS OF
GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON
THE AUTHOR OF "CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE".
HE WAS BORN IN LONDON ON THE 22nd OF
JANUARY, 1788.
HE DIED AT MISSOLONGHI IN WESTERN GREECE,
ON THE 19th OF APRIL, 1824,
ENGAGED IN THE GLORIOUS ATTEMPT TO
RESTORE THAT
COUNTRY TO HER ANCIENT FREEDOM AND
RENOWN.
HIS SISTER PLACED THIS. TABLET TO HIS
MEMORY.
A long time the girl stood silent, her features quiver-
ing with some strange emotion of reproach and pain.
Behind her she heard her escort's voice. He was repeat-
442 THE CASTAWAY
ing lines from the book she had been reading an hour
before :
"My hopes of being remembered are entwined
With my land's language: if too fond and far '
These aspirations in their scope inclined
If my fame should be, as my fortunes are,
Of hasty blight, and dull Oblivion bar
My name from out the temple where the dead
Are honored by the nations let it be
And light the laurels on a loftier head!
Meantime, I seek no sympathies, nor need;
The thorns which I have reaped are of the tree
I planted. They have torn me and I bleed.
My task is done my song hath ceased my theme
Has died into an echo; it is fit
The spell should break of this protracted dream.
The torch shall be extinguished which hath lit
My midnight lamp and what is writ, is writ
Farewell! a word that must be, and hath been
A sound which makes us linger; yet farewell'
Ye! who have traced the pilgrim to the scene
Which is his last, if in your memories dwell
A thought which once was his, if on ye swell
A single recollection, not in vain
He wore his sandal-shoon, and scallop-shell!"
Could he whose ashes lay beneath that recording
stone have seen the look on the girl's face as she listened
could he have seen her shrink that night from a wom-
an's contained kiss he would have known that his lips
had been touched with prophecy when he said :
"The smiles of her youth have been her mother's, but
the tears of her maturity shall be mine !"
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