Two days later Maria received a letter from Naples, addressed in a round, commercial handwriting. It came with two or three others, of which she guessed the contents, and she opened it first from mere curiosity. No one had ever written her a business letter from Naples.

The envelope contained two sheets of paper. She spread out one of them to read, but at the first glance she uttered an exclamation of horror; what she saw was a photographed copy of one of Castiglione’s letters to her. Her fingers relaxed and the first sheet fluttered to the floor.

The second lay on the writing-table, and when she could collect her senses she saw that it was a typewritten communication demanding the immediate payment of one hundred and fifty thousand francs, failing which, the photographed copies of seven letters written to her by the Conte del Castiglione would be reproduced and published simultaneously in two newspapers, in Rome and in Naples. The money was to be forthcoming within exactly eight days in the form of a cheque to the bearer from the National Bank, to be addressed to Signor Carlo Pozzi at the General Post Office in Palermo, not registered. If it was not received within eight days, the Countess would be informed of the fact, and a duplicate of the cheque was to be sent, not registered, to Signor Paolo Pizzuti at the General Post Office in Messina. If this were not received, the writer would take it for granted that the money had not been sent, and the letters would appear. The photographs were in safe hands, and would inevitably be published at once if any attempt were made to arrest the persons who applied for the letters at the two post offices named, or if, subsequently, any steps were taken to trace the writer, either through the police or otherwise.

Maria’s first impulse was to send the money at once. She had been alone in the world so long that she was used to keeping her own accounts, and she knew that she possessed more than the sum demanded, in the form of Government bonds. To take these to the National Bank and get a duplicate cheque in exchange for them would be a simple matter, and the affair would be at an end. For her, the amount was a large one, but since she had come back to her husband she had little use for her own fortune, and did not spend her income. She would certainly not miss the sum. Immediate surrender would save Montalto all anxiety and annoyance.

But two objections to this course presented themselves almost immediately, the one of a moral nature, the other practical. Since she had told her husband everything, he had a right to be consulted. The original letters were in his possession, and no longer in hers; he had trusted her, and she must now go to him for advice, even if it troubled him, as it would, for if she did not consult him he would be justified in resenting her want of confidence in him.

The second consideration was that Leone might some day need her money, for she had not the least idea of the contents of her husband’s will. Under Italian law he could not altogether disinherit a child born in wedlock, and even that moiety of his fortune which must come to Leone would be very large. But Maria felt sure that he was aware of the truth, and that many others suspected it; and there were several collateral heirs to the Montalto estates, who would not hesitate to claim much more than the law would ever give them. Besides, there was Leone himself; who could tell by what ill chance he might some day learn the story of his birth? If he ever did, she guessed the man from the boy, and guessed that her son would not keep an hour what was not universally admitted to be his. He would have nothing, then, but what she could leave him.

Yet, if only this second reason had influenced her, she would not have hesitated to pay blackmail and be free. In the course of a few years, by spending little on herself, her fortune would recover from the sudden demand on it. On the other hand, if she hid the truth from her husband, even to save him, and if he ever discovered it, he might resent the concealment bitterly.

It was morning, and she went to his study at once, taking the papers with her, and she told him how Schmidt had stolen the letters and kept them some time, and how she had caught him just when he was bringing them back. It had never occurred to her that he had copied them, still less that he had photographed them. She begged her husband to let her send the money at once and end the matter.

He had listened with a look of increasing annoyance, and she laid the sheets on the table before him when she had finished; but he pushed them back to her without glancing at them, for if he had done so he could hardly have helped reading some words of Castiglione’s letter.

‘It is very well done,’ he said. ‘Schmidt is a clever fellow. But if you had told me at once, he would have been in prison by this time. He disappeared on the third day after you found him in the chapel. You must not send the money on any account.’

Maria saw that he was more displeased than alarmed at a possible danger which looked very serious to her.

‘I am very sorry,’ she said penitently. ‘What is to be done?’

‘I cannot tell. It is a matter, too, on which I cannot ask advice. There are things of which one does not wish to speak, even to a lawyer.’

He was evidently very much annoyed; but she saw that she had done right in coming to him, though it was perhaps too late.

‘But something must be done!’ she protested.

‘Of course we must do something,’ he answered, with manifest impatience. ‘But it is worse than useless to act hastily. Give me time! I shall find a way.’

The words were not unkind, but his manner was petulant, like that of a nervous man who is interrupted when very busy, and is made to take a great deal of trouble against his inclination. Montalto had always been inclined to procrastinate, though he could show a good deal of energy when forced to act.

‘Let me send the money, Diego,’ said Maria earnestly.

‘Certainly not. I forbid you to send it! Do you understand?’

Maria shrank a little, for she was hurt by the words and the tone. Was not her money her own, to use as she pleased? She checked a quick reply that rose to her lips.

‘I shall obey you,’ she answered, an instant later, as quietly as she could.

He was moving his papers nervously and aimlessly from place to place on the table, arranging and disarranging them, but he looked up quickly now.

‘I did not mean to speak as I did, my dear,’ he said. ‘Your money is yours, and you will never need it again. You have a right to use it as you will. The truth is, I am occupied with a very complicated question. Forgive me, if I was rude.’

‘Diego!’ She stretched her hand out on the smooth table, instantly reconciled.

He patted it twice, and smiled rather absently. But he was evidently preoccupied, and she rose to go.

‘We will talk over this unfortunate affair after luncheon,’ he said. ‘Will you take me for a drive? It will be easy to talk in the carriage.’

‘Yes, we will go for a drive,’ she answered.

Standing by the table, and watching his nervous hands that were busy with the papers again, she unconsciously read the clearly engrossed superscription on a heavy lawyer’s envelope:—

The Will of His Excellency Don Diego Silani,
Count of Montalto

Maria bit her lip as she turned away, realising what that meant. It was no wonder that her husband was preoccupied just then, for she could not help suspecting that he had been in the act of drafting a new will when she had interrupted him, and she guessed that its tenor would be very different from that of the old one which lay before him, and which must have been made a good many years ago, for the thick envelope had the unmistakable, faded look of a document long put away with others. He had just said, too, that she would never need her own money again; but he had also told her that the matter was very complicated.

As she moved away he rose quickly to open the door. That was one of those formal little acts of courtesy which he had rarely omitted since they had been married.

She went back to her own room much more disturbed than when she had left it ten minutes earlier. Her knowledge of her husband’s mind and character told her that he would find arguments for putting off anything like real action until it might be too late to act at all; and yet her own ultimate advantage was doubtless the very reason why he had resented being disturbed.

It was not her fault if another image rose before her mental vision just then; but she drove it away so fiercely that it disappeared at once.

That afternoon, when they were driving together, they came to no conclusion. Montalto was afraid of being overheard by the men on the box, and he talked in French. But he was less at home in that language than most Romans are, and found it much more easy to say what he knew how to say, than to express what he really meant. Maria did not know Spanish, which he now spoke better than Italian, from having lived in Spain and spoken it with his mother during so many years. Maria chafed as she felt that precious time was passing, and that such a wretched obstacle as a servant not quite certainly within hearing was making it impossible to talk freely.

In the evening he was tired, and at first almost refused to refer to the subject. He said at last, however, that Schmidt was evidently in collusion with the South Italian gangs of malefactors, with the Camorra of Naples and the Mala Vita of Palermo. The letter showed this plainly enough, he said, and those people were capable of anything, especially including murder. To try and catch Signor Carlo Pozzi or Signor Paolo Pizzuti would be folly; no such persons existed, and if any one representing himself as either at a post office were actually arrested, it would be impossible to extract a word from him. Those men would go silently to prison for years, rather than betray an accomplice and be knived or shot in the back for it within twenty-four hours. There were many instances of this, Montalto said, and Schmidt had given another proof of his intelligence in demanding that the money should be paid through the Camorra or the Mala Vita. He added petulantly that he wished Schmidt were with him still, because only Schmidt could be clever enough to catch himself.

Maria tried to laugh, and this put her husband in a better humour. He said the simplest thing was to have a circular note from the Chief of Police sent to the Italian press, informing all the responsible editors of the dailies that an outrageous plot was on foot to attack the reputation of a lady of Rome by offering for publication certain alleged reproductions of letters already in the possession of her husband, who would bring an action, in the most public way, against any newspaper that even alluded to them. Maria answered that such a plan would succeed admirably with the respectable papers; but that, unfortunately, there were some which were just the contrary, and whose owners desired nothing better in the way of an advertisement than to be sued for libel, for collusion in forgery accessory after the fact, or for any other scandalous offence, because nothing would delight a certain class of their readers and increase their circulation so much as to see the name of the Countess of Montalto or any other Roman lady dragged through the mud.

This was unfortunately true, for Rome was much disturbed at that time by a revolutionary element of the most despicable sort, which was stirring up strife in every way, and was at the bottom of the frequent strikes, almost every one of which led to some open disturbance little short of a riot. That was the public that supported the disreputable papers, Maria said, and it would treble the circulation of any one of them that published a scandalous attack on decent people.

Maria knew far more about the condition of Rome and Italy than Montalto. He had exiled himself from his country for years, and had taken little interest in what happened there, whereas his wife had always been on intimate terms with Giuliana Parenzo, whose husband was now Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs, after having been connected with the Government ever since he had left the University of Bologna.

It did not occur to Montalto to smile at the thought of having spent some time every evening in giving Maria a summary of the news he gathered chiefly from the Vatican newspapers. On the contrary, he felt quite sure that he understood the situation much better than she did, and he suddenly forgot the matter in hand and tried to launch upon one of those arguments in favour of the restoration of the Temporal Power, in which he delighted to engage with Monsignor Saracinesca.

But Maria refused to be led so far, and only said it was a matter she did not understand. She saw it was useless to bring him back to the point just then, so she listened quietly while he talked alone, till it was much later than usual. Then he solemnly conducted her to her own door, kissed her hand with a formal bow, while pressing it affectionately, and bade her good-night.

She felt almost desperate for a little while after she had dismissed her maid, for the first of the eight days was gone, and she saw no reason why Montalto should be any nearer to a conclusion a week hence than now. When he thought that a question concerned his conscience or the welfare of his soul, even in the most distant manner, she knew that he could make up his mind in twenty-four hours as to what was right, and would certainly act on his decision at once. But in other matters eight days would seem to him as good as a year, and having generously accepted Maria’s assurance that the letters were in themselves perfectly innocent, he could hardly believe that there was any real danger. It seemed almost certain that he would reach no conclusion, and that they would be published before he could be induced to take any steps.

Again, as she lay awake in the quiet night, Maria saw Castiglione’s resolute face before her as clearly as if he had been standing in the room. She always slept in the dark, but she sat up in bed and covered her eyes with both her hands, and prayed aloud that the vision might not disturb her. She was so sure that he would have known what to do at once, and would have done it with ruthless energy.

Her prayers, or her will, or both, drove away the thought of him, and by and by she fell asleep in spite of her trouble, and did not wake till daylight.

She would not go to her husband’s study again in the morning, for he was without doubt still busy over the drafting of his will, and it would be foolish to run the risk of disturbing him. She felt very helpless. She had last seen the letters on that night in the chapel, when she had hastily glanced over them to be sure that nothing was missing; for when she had gone back to her room she had resolutely locked them up. That had been the night following the day of her meeting with Castiglione in the lift, when she had struggled so hard with herself, and had made her great resolution to put away his memory for the rest of her life.

The phrases came back to her now, some vividly, some only very vaguely; but there was the photograph of a part of one to help her. She tried to think of herself as another woman coming to her for help, in order to judge coldly of the effect such words must make on any one who should read them without knowing the truth she had called innocent; and in an instant it was dreadfully clear to her that they could only be interpreted in one way. Castiglione had never had the gift of writing; he had not been able to speak eloquently and convincingly of a spiritual love in which he could not believe. He had only found words to tell her that he loved her, that she was his queen of love, his idol, the saint on the altar of his heart, that he would do his best to be what she wished him to be, and that he honoured and respected her above and beyond all things visible and invisible.

Would any one believe that such language was innocent? Would any one but her husband have believed her when she said it was? Giuliana Parenzo had told her plainly that such a relation as she had dreamt of was impossible; so had Monsignor Saracinesca; and the implacable Capuchin had refused his absolution so long as she even entertained the thought of it. The world would most assuredly not believe that she had been without fault during those weeks; it was both futile and foolish to hope that it would.

The day passed as she had expected. She met Montalto at luncheon, and Leone was at the table as usual, so that it was impossible to allude to the subject. Her husband looked at the handsome boy affectionately from time to time, and then at Maria, and talked of little matters; Leone chattered of horses, and Maria encouraged him, because she herself could find so little to say.

‘Why don’t you have a racing stable, papa?’ he asked at last. ‘You know quite enough about it, I’m sure; and when I’m a little bigger I could be your jockey! It would be such fun, and between us we should win everything!’

Maria laughed a little. Her husband smiled kindly and shook his head.

‘My dear little man,’ he said, ‘when you are the master of Montalto and have a boy of your own, you may keep a racing stable if you like and let your son ride races for you. But I am not going to encourage you to break your neck! Do you remember that poor lad who was killed at the Capannelle?’

‘Yes,’ Leone answered, growing suddenly grave, for he had been taken to the races for the first time on that day, and had seen the fatal accident. ‘But I shall never be the master, papa, you know.’

Maria’s face changed, and she looked down at her plate.

‘Why not?’ asked her husband, smiling again.

‘Because I couldn’t be, unless you were dead. And that’s ridiculous!’

‘We shall see, my boy, we shall see,’ answered Montalto. ‘At all events we need not talk about dying yet. You are quite right about that.’

The words made a deep impression on Maria, who knew that he was making a new will. He could only mean that Leone was to have Montalto, which it would have been in his power to leave to another branch of his family, or indeed to any one he pleased; and Montalto meant everything. She could not doubt that he knew perfectly well what he was doing; he had added one more generous deed to the many he had done in the course of that large forgiveness that had brought him back to her.

He could do such things as this, and yet he could not lift his hand to hinder a disaster that might wreck the honour of his name, with her own, and Leone’s. He went out after luncheon, saying that he had an appointment, and she did not see him till dinner-time, when Leone always had his supper with them, unless some one came to dine. And later he was in the loving mood she dreaded most. The second of the eight days had passed and nothing had been done yet. After two or three more like these, the situation would become absolutely desperate.

Maria made up her mind that night that if her husband came to no decision in twenty-four hours, she would go to the National Bank and buy the cheques. After all it was better to disobey Montalto’s express injunction, if obedience was to mean ruin.

She longed intensely for help, but there was none in sight. She could not tell Giuliana all that had passed between her husband and herself to bring about the present situation; still less could she appeal to Monsignor Saracinesca, who knew very little of the truth.

On the next day Montalto talked again about a circular notice to the press, saying there was plenty of time, because the blackmailer’s letter did not say that the letters would be published in eight days, but that if the money had not been received by that time a second demand would be sent to Maria, on the supposition that the first draft might have been lost, which would mean a lapse of several days more.

‘Let us go together to the Chief of Police,’ entreated Maria. ‘We need only say that it concerns certain old letters, in your possession, which might compromise me.’

‘That is quite impossible, my dear, without very mature reflection,’ answered Montalto, with exasperating calm.

‘But surely we have been reflecting these three days! If you do not go to the police, how can you ever get a circular sent to the press?’

‘But, my dear child, there is really no such hurry!’

He did not often call her his ‘dear child’; it was one of his small ways of showing that he was impatient, and she understood at once that it was of no use to insist.

‘Diego,’ she said, ‘unless you can find some better way, I shall send the money to-morrow, although you forbade me to do so, and I promised to obey you.’

‘My dear Maria,’ he cried, almost angrily, ‘how you take up every word I say! I certainly apologised to you for using such an expression as “forbid,” so, for heaven’s sake, let us say no more about it! I only beg you not to submit to this outrageous extortion. I entreat you not to send the money. That is all I mean to say.’

‘I’m very sorry,’ Maria answered; ‘but unless some better way can be found, I shall have to pay.’

‘It is madness,’ said Montalto; ‘pure madness!’

And, to her great surprise, he got up abruptly and left the room without another word, evidently much displeased.

For the third time she saw Castiglione’s resolute face before her, as distinctly as if he had been in the room, and the vision came so unexpectedly that she felt her heart leap, and drew a sharp breath. It was so sudden that a few seconds passed before she made that honest effort of will that was necessary to drive away the thought of him. When it was gone she felt more desperate than before. She went and stood at a window that looked over the square; it was past eleven o’clock in the morning, the day was rainy, and the square was almost empty. Three cabs were on the stand, and the huge umbrellas concealed the dozing cabmen. The horses in their shiny waterproofs hung their heads far down, as if they were contemplating their more or less broken knees, a melancholy sight indeed.

Here and there a stray pedestrian came in sight for a few moments, hurrying along by the wall and presently disappearing into a side street; a poor woman with a torn green shawl over her head dripping with water, a student with an umbrella and some books under his arm, a policeman in an indiarubber hood and cloak, a priest in a long black overcoat and shoes with silver buckles. He had no umbrella, and he made straight for one of the three cabs, diving in under the hood and apron with more agility than dignity. Maria watched the dismal scene with a sort of depressed interest. Nothing made any difference, till she could see clearly what was right, for she was sure that the question of right and wrong was involved. Would it be wrong to pay no attention to her husband’s entreaty that the money should not be sent? Or would it be right? Or would it be neither, and yet be a mistake? She groped for some answer and could find none. She wanted some strong and energetic friend to help her, some one with decision and character, even if not very wise, some man who would fight for her or tell her how to defend herself.

She crossed the room and came back aimlessly, and looked out once more. Her husband would have told her that even if she could not be seen from below, a Roman lady must never look out of a window in town. She could hear him say it! But when she looked this time, another of the cabs was gone. Her old travelling clock on the writing-table struck eleven and chimed the quarter; she turned and looked at it, and her mind was made up. There was still one cab left on the stand, and there was still time. Three minutes later she was downstairs and under the dripping hood, with the leathern apron hooked up as high as her chin.

‘What address, Excellency?’ inquired the porter, respectfully.

‘The Capuchins, in Piazza Barberini.’

The porter repeated the words to the cabman in his sternest tones, as if he were ordering that her Excellency should be taken directly to prison, and the cab rumbled out from under the deep archway.

She was not going for the sake of confession, for she was not conscious of having anything on her conscience, but it would be just as well to go through what would be little more than a form, in order to ask what her duty was. That seemed to be the point. At a very critical juncture in her life she turned neither to Giuliana Parenzo, her intimate friend, nor to Don Ippolito Saracinesca; he was Montalto’s friend, and she could not put him in the position of advising her to do what was precisely contrary to her husband’s wishes; and, moreover, courageous as he was, she did not feel that he was a fighting man. She went to the grim, uncompromising old monk; according to his lights he would tell her what he thought, without the slightest regard for her feelings.

Maria would not have admitted that Montalto’s hesitation filled her with contempt. How could she despise the husband who overwhelmed her with undeserved kindness and almost fantastic generosity?

I once knew a most refined and cultivated epicure who sometimes felt an irresistible craving for a piece of coarse dry bread and a raw onion, and would go out secretly and buy those things, and eat them greedily in the privacy of his own dressing-room, after locking the door lest his own servant should catch him. I have also heard of women who would rather be beaten black and blue by their husbands than be treated with indifference.

At that juncture Maria’s conscience and heart craved stronger and rougher stuff than was to be found in her husband’s nervous and hesitating character. She wanted some one to direct her authoritatively, even rudely, and she went to the Capuchin because she recognised in him the born fighting man as well as the uncompromising ascetic. If he thought she ought to defend herself energetically, he would tell her that she must fight, or be guilty of the mortal sin of sloth; if he believed that mortification of the flesh was necessary to the salvation of her soul she was sure that he would order her to walk barefoot from Rome to Naples, and would be very much surprised if she objected to such a penance. He had not outlived the thirteenth century, in which his Order had been founded. What had been good for sinners then was excellent for them now. If civilisation was to extend to morality and change the soul’s requirements, then the Church must change too, and as this was manifestly impossible, the hypothesis was contrary to sense. His reasoning was sound, though his application of the truth he demonstrated was sometimes severe to the point of being quite impracticable. He shook his head, for instance, when he was told that various bacilli flourished on the pavement of his church, and that it was not hygienic for penitents to kiss the stones twenty-five times between the door and the altar rail. He said there had been no bacilli when he was young, and that the floor was swept every day.

Maria asked for Padre Bonaventura. The lay brother did not know whether he was in the monastery at that hour. Would he kindly go and ask? Certainly, but would the lady kindly give her name? Maria hesitated.

‘Please say that a Roman lady is here who confessed to him ten days ago, and also last May.

The lay brother hastened away, slapping the damp marble pavement with his wet sandals, and the Countess did not wait long. The monk appeared almost immediately, and went before her to a confessional box, just bending his head a little as he passed her, but not even glancing at her unveiled face. Her message had explained enough, and he had no wish to discover her identity. He probably thought she had already failed in her good resolution and had come to tell him so.

But he was mistaken; though he asked her several searching questions, she answered them all without hesitation, and then told him the story of the letters and spoke of her husband’s hesitations and of her own fears; and at last she put the case directly: Would it be wrong to act contrary to his expressed wish or not? That was what she had come to ask.

The monk was silent for a few moments, and then asked her a question in his harsh, unforgiving tone.

‘What is the character of the man who wrote those letters? Is he what is called a man of honour?’

Maria, on the other side of the perforated brass plate, straightened herself unconsciously as if she had been offended in the street.

‘He is brave and honourable,’ she answered proudly, after an instant.

‘Very well. I suppose he is a gentleman at large, a noble without occupation in life, is he not?’

‘On the contrary, he is an officer in active service.’

‘Very good. So much the better.’

She thought the old monk’s voice softened a little. She was quite sure it was less harsh. He had pronounced the words ‘a noble without occupation’ with an accent of profound contempt, and Maria did not see how the fact of being an officer in the Italian Army could be a recommendation in the eyes of a bare-footed friar whose political opinions might reasonably be thought to be those of Gregory Seventh or Pope Alexander Third. But Maria said nothing, and waited for another question. It came, in a kindly tone.

‘If you thought I could help you in your trouble, should you have any objection to telling me the officer’s name?’

Maria was so much surprised that she did not answer at once. In all her experience of confessors—and her life had brought her to many—none had ever inquired the name of any person she spoke of.

‘Not yours,’ the monk added, before she spoke. ‘I do not know who you are, and I never shall try to find out. But if you will tell me the name of the officer, I think I can help you, provided you will trust me. I cannot advise you to send money to the thief, any more than I can suggest any other plan of action for you. I can only offer my own help.’

‘But what can you do?’ Maria asked in a puzzled tone.

‘Have you finished your confession?’

‘Yes.’

‘Say the Act of Contrition.’

Maria obeyed, and immediately the monk pronounced the words of absolution. When all was finished, and after a short pause, he spoke again.

‘This matter on which you have consulted me has nothing to do with the confessional,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you would like to go and sit down quietly for a few minutes and think it over. I will wait in the chapel, by the door of the sacristy. If you decide to trust me, come back and tell me the officer’s name and give me some address where I may find him, for I must see him alone. If you decide not to do this, you need only leave the church without coming back to me. I shall understand.’

‘Yes. Thank you. I will go and collect my thoughts.’

She rose, went to a little distance, and sat down on a straw chair. It was all very strange, but the stern old Capuchin inspired her with respect and confidence. She could trust him at least not to lead her into doing anything wrong, and if it were not wrong that he should go from her to the man she loved, she could allow herself to believe that a sort of link was made which was better than utter estrangement. Even that did not seem to be quite without danger, but the monk was there between them, austere and unforgiving. She left her chair very soon and went back to the chapel, where he was kneeling on the step of the altar. As she came near he rose slowly to his feet, and she looked at his face attentively for the first time. He had a rough-hewn head, with great gaunt features that made her think of an old eagle. She came to him, and looked up trustfully as she spoke.

‘His name is Baldassare del Castiglione, and he is a captain in the Piedmont Lancers. I do not know where he lives.’

‘I can get his address from the barracks. Will you come here to-morrow evening, towards twenty-three o’clock or half-past?’

‘Yes, I will be here. Thank you.’

She had a very vague idea as to what time twenty-three o’clock might be, for she belonged to the younger generation, and she was going to ask him to tell her, but he left her without waiting for her to speak again, and disappeared into the sacristy.

As she went out of the church she heard the midday gun, and all the bells began to ring. It was still raining, and she trod daintily and packed herself into the dripping cab and went home, wondering whether any woman she knew had lived a life so strange as hers, or had ever accepted help from such an unlikely quarter.

After all, it was but to wait one day more, and that would be the fourth, and the draft could still reach Palermo in time.