Two days later Montalto informed Maria after luncheon that he had an appointment with the Chief of Police at three o’clock, and had decided to lay the whole matter before him and to leave it altogether in his hands. It had taken Montalto almost a week to reach this final decision, and Maria had devoutly hoped that he would never act at all. She thought it would be like him to put off doing anything till he convinced himself that the blackmailer’s letter had been an idle threat, never to be put into execution; but she was mistaken in this, for Montalto never left quite undone what he believed that it was his duty to do, and in the present case, though he had been so slow, he was really in much greater apprehension of a scandal than Maria understood.

The people who are the hardest to live with are often those who speak the truth, and nothing but the truth, but not the whole truth. It is never possible to be sure what they are hiding from us out of prudence or shyness, prudishness or delicacy; it is the most difficult thing in the world to find out precisely what they know and what they do not know, without putting direct questions which would be little short of insulting.

Montalto was such a man. His power of keeping his own counsel without telling an untruth was amazing; and his own counsel was not always wise. It was this characteristic of his which had twice suggested to Maria, in moments of despair, that he had come back to revenge himself upon her by systematically torturing her to death. Mediocrity is never so exasperating as when it affects to be inscrutable.

‘I have not thought it best to talk much with you about the letters, my dear,’ Montalto said. ‘In such cases it is the man’s business to act.’

Maria smiled faintly. She foresaw much useless trouble if he carried out the intention he had been so long in formulating, though she knew nothing of the ways of the police. For two whole days she had lived in the certainty that she was safe, and the thought that the whole story was to be told again, to a stranger and by her husband, was very disturbing. On the other hand it seemed all but impossible to show Montalto the blackmailer’s confession, written in Castiglione’s handwriting, and signed by him as a witness.

‘Perhaps,’ she suggested, ‘since it is already so near the eighth day, we had better wait until they write a second time, as the letter said they would.’

Montalto looked at her in surprise, and paused in the act of reconstructing one of his Havana cigarettes.

‘Why, my dear?’ he asked. ‘You yourself urged me to act, before I had time to form an opinion, and you seemed distressed because I took a day or two to think it over; and now you suddenly advise me not to act at all. This is very strange. I do not understand you.’

He waited for her to answer him, and he saw that she hesitated.

‘You must have some very good reason for changing your mind so unexpectedly,’ he said, in a discontented tone, and resumed the rolling of his cigarette.

Maria felt the difficulty of the situation, for which she was not in the least prepared; she had been very sure that he would not do anything in the matter, because she hoped that he would not.

‘Also,’ he continued, ‘why do you speak of more than one person?’

‘More than one?’

‘You said: until “they” write a second time. What reason have you to suppose that any one is concerned in this but Schmidt?’

She had been thinking of the wording of the paper, of Blosse and his ‘accomplices.’

‘The letter mentioned two other names,’ she said.

‘I have no doubt that Schmidt goes by twenty,’ returned her husband testily. ‘You know very well that Pozzi and Pizzuti both stand for Schmidt!’

He lighted his cigarette, and smoked in silence for some moments.

‘I cannot understand why you have changed your mind,’ he repeated at last. ‘You must have some reason.’

Maria attempted a little diplomacy.

‘Don’t you think a second letter, if it should come, might give a better clue for the police to work on, or might—what do they call it?—strengthen the evidence against Schmidt?’

‘There is evidence enough already to send him to penal servitude, if we can catch him,’ answered Montalto. ‘I really cannot see what more is needed!’

‘Except that—to catch him,’ suggested Maria. ‘I really think that another letter——’

‘Absurd!’ Montalto was seriously annoyed with her by this time. ‘Something has happened to make you change your mind. Am I right or not?’

Maria turned a little pale and bit her lip. But she would not tell an untruth.

‘Yes, something has happened,’ she answered.

‘What?’ The single word was pronounced with a good deal of sharpness.

Maria turned to him.

‘I would rather not tell you,’ she said gently. ‘It is quite useless for you to go to the police, for the letters will not be published.’

She spoke in a tone of perfect certainty that surprised him.

‘You seem very sure,’ he said.

‘I am quite sure.’

‘And you object to telling me why you are. Very strange!’

‘I don’t “object,” Diego. I only say I would rather not. I ask you not to question me.’

‘My dear,’ answered Montalto, ‘only reflect upon what you are saying. In the first place, you are a woman, and you may be mistaken.’

‘I am not. I assure you I am not.’

If she had been less anxious to pacify him she would have asked if men never made mistakes.

‘I confess I should like to judge of that, considering that the honour of my name is at stake,’ said her husband.

‘Your name is safe, and mine too. Please, please don’t ask me to tell you!’

‘Maria, there is some mystery about all this, and I cannot consent to let it go on. It must be cleared up. It is my duty to ask what you have done to stop the publication of those letters.’

She made a last appeal.

‘You have forgiven me so much, Diego. You have trusted me so much! I only ask you to trust me now—there is nothing to forgive!’

‘You may as well say at once that you have sent a cheque to that scoundrel,’ said Montalto angrily. ‘You have thrown it away. He still has the photographs, and as soon as he wants more money he will threaten us again. I warned you not to do that!’

Maria hoped desperately that if she remained silent he would continue in this belief. But the obstinacy of an over-conscientious person who has a ‘duty’ to perform is appalling.

‘Have you sent the money?’ he asked severely, as soon as he was sure that she did not mean to say anything in reply.

‘No.’

‘Then you are ashamed of what you have done. There is no other explanation of your silence, my dear. You yourself must see that.’

He said ‘my dear’ in a tone that exasperated her.

‘No,’ she cried vehemently, ‘I have done nothing to be ashamed of! You must find some other explanation of my silence, if you insist on having one!’

‘Your conduct is so extraordinary,’ Montalto replied, in an offended tone, ‘that I can only account for it in one way. Instead of trusting to me, you have allowed some one else to help you, and you are ashamed to tell me who the person is.’

‘I am not ashamed!’ Maria drew herself up now, and her dark eyes gleamed a little. ‘But I will not tell you!’

‘There is only one name you would be ashamed to let me hear in this matter. If you persist in your silence I shall know that you have been helped by Castiglione.’

Montalto’s eyes were a little bloodshot, and fixed themselves on hers. She did not hesitate any longer.

‘I never lied to you, and I am not ashamed of the truth,’ she answered proudly. ‘Baldassare del Castiglione has helped me.’

Until she had actually told him so, in plain words, Montalto had wished not to believe what he had guessed. His face had been changing slowly, and now she saw once more, after many years, the look it had worn when he had first accused her, and she had bowed her head. When he spoke again she remembered the tone she had not heard since then.

‘As you are not ashamed to say so, I suppose you will not mind telling me what he did.’

‘You shall see for yourself.’

She left the drawing-room, and he sat quite still during the few seconds that elapsed; quite still, staring at the seat that she had left. For he loved her. When she came back she stood before him. He took the paper from her hand and read it with difficulty, though he had known the handwriting well enough in old times. He read it all, to the name of the regiment after Castiglione’s signature. Then he handed back the paper.

‘I have been mad,’ he said slowly and almost mechanically.

She misunderstood him.

‘You see that I was right,’ she said. ‘Your honour is safe.’

His face changed in a way that frightened her. She thought he was choking. An instant later he sprang to his feet and left her side, pressing both his hands to his ears like a man raving. His voice rang out with a mad laugh.

‘My honour!’

Maria laid one hand on the back of the chair he had left, to steady herself, for the shock of understanding him was more than she could bear. Scarcely knowing that her lips moved she called him back.

‘Diego! Diego! Hear me!’

‘Hear you? Have I not heard?’ He turned upon her like a madman. ‘Have I not heard and remembered every word you have spoken, those eight months and more? How you would tear the memory of that man from your heart? How you called God to witness that you would forget him? How you and he took an oath never to meet again? Have I not heard you, and forgiven, and believed, and trusted, and loved you like the miserable fool I am? And you ask me to hear you again? Oh, never, never! You have promised and you have lied to me, you have called God to witness and you have blasphemed, you have asked for trust and you have betrayed me with that man—and now you tell me he has saved my honour. My honour! My honour!’

Maria closed her eyes and grasped the chair. But she would not bend her head to the storm as she had bowed it long ago.

‘I am innocent. I have done none of these things.’

She could find no other words, and he would not have listened to more, for he was beside himself and began to rave again, while she stood straight and white beside the chair. Sometimes his voice was thick, as his fury choked him, sometimes it was shrill and wild, when his rage found vent. But each time, as he paused, exhausted, to draw breath, her words came to him calm and clear in the moment’s stillness.

‘I am innocent.’

His madness subsided by slow degrees, and then changed all at once, and he was again in the mood she remembered so well. He came and stood still two paces from her, his eyes all bloodshot but his face white.

‘How dare you say you are innocent?’ he asked.

She held out the envelope in which Castiglione’s writing had come to her.

‘It is addressed to my confessor, who gave it to me,’ she said.

He came nearer and steadied his eyes to read the name, for his sight was not very good.

‘Do you think such a trick as that can deceive me?’ he asked with cold scorn.

‘Send for him,’ said Maria. ‘Your carriage is at the door, for you were going out. Go and bring him here, for he will come.’

Montalto looked at her with a strange expression.

‘Go to the Capuchins,’ she said calmly. ‘Ask for Padre Bonaventura, and bring him back in the carriage. He will not refuse you.’

‘Padre Bonaventura? Old Padre Bonaventura?’ He repeated the name in a dazed tone, for he knew it well, as many Romans did.

‘Bring him here,’ Maria said. ‘He will tell you that it was he who went to Baldassare del Castiglione and asked his help and received this paper from him on the evening of the same day. He will tell you, too, that at the very moment when it was placed in his hands I came for the answer, and we met, face to face, and looked at each other; but we did not speak, and Castiglione went away at once. Giuliana Parenzo was with me, and was waiting for me inside the door; she saw him go out a moment after we had come. Will you believe her? If you still think I am not telling the truth, will you believe my confessor?’

While she was speaking she looked at him with calm and clear eyes in the serenity of perfect innocence. And all at once he broke down and cried aloud with a wail of agony.

‘Maria! What have I done?’

Then he was at her feet, his arms round her body, his face buried against her, sobbing like a woman, as she had never sobbed, rocking himself to and fro like a child, as he had rocked himself when he had first come back to her, kissing her skirt frantically. And his unmanly tears ran down upon the grey cloth.

She felt a little sick as she bent and tried to soothe him, forcing herself to lay kind hands upon his head, and then gently endeavouring to lift him to his feet, while he clasped her and implored her forgiveness in broken words. But she was very brave. He must not guess what she felt, nor feel that the hand that smoothed his hair grew cold from sheer loathing of what it touched.

There are women living who know what that is, and are brave for honour’s sake; but none are braver than Maria was on that day. She would not leave him for a moment, after that, until it was past seven o’clock. Little by little, as she talked and soothed him, she brought him back to himself, with the patience that angels have, and never need where all is peace.

She had a respite then, and Giuliana Parenzo and Monsignor Saracinesca came to dinner, which made it easier. Afterwards, too, Montalto and his friend talked as usual and argued about Church and State, and no one would have suspected that the grave and courteous host, with his old-time formalities of manner and his rather solemn face, had raved and wept and dragged himself at his wife’s feet that very afternoon.

The Marchesa was still inclined to show Maria a little cool disapproval when she came. The younger woman felt it in the almost indifferent touch of her hand, and in the distinctly airy kiss that did not come near the cheek it was meant for. The two had not seen each other since they had gone to the Capuchin church together; but Giuliana, who was just and sensible, had made several reflections in the meantime, and had come to the conclusion that, after all, Maria and Castiglione might have met by chance, though why in the world a man who believed in nothing should happen to be in a church, and in that particular one precisely at that hour, was more than she could explain. It was very odd, but perhaps Baldassare was converted; and the good Marchesa said a little prayer, quite in earnest, asking that he might be. Possibly, she thought immediately afterwards, Maria had converted him, and she hoped this might be the case, as it would explain so many things. Giuliana herself had once attempted to influence him, out of sheer goodness of heart, long ago, and had talked religion to him in a corner after a dinner party for a whole evening, a proceeding which might have started a little gossip about any other woman. She had tried to expound the Nicene Creed to him, article by article, but just as she reached the ‘Life of the World to come’ he fell sound asleep before her eyes, after one of the most puzzling and painful experiences in his recollection, for he had been in the saddle all day at a review, and the room was so warm that it made him understand the Descent into Hell in the only sense the words had ever conveyed to him.

Confidence was presently restored between the friends and Giuliana began to talk about the news of the hour; about strikes, as regarded from the ministerial point of view; about the probability that the Ministry would fall before Lent, merely on general principles, because that seems to be the critical time of year in politics, as it is for gouty patients; and, lastly, about Teresa Crescenzi.

‘I am not given to prying into other people’s affairs,’ Giuliana said, ‘but I should really like to know the truth about her and de Maurienne.’

‘I fancy she will marry him in the end,’ observed Maria, rather indifferently, for she was still thinking of the strikes and the disturbances in the streets, and wondering whether there was any risk in sending Leone all the way to school at the Istituto Massimo every morning, though his tutor took him there and brought him home.

‘De Maurienne has left Rome very suddenly,’ said Giuliana, ‘and I am inclined to think that Teresa is to be an “unprotected widow” a little longer.’

‘She must be growing used to it!’ Maria laughed a little.

‘The French Ambassador told Sigismondo that de Maurienne had asked for leave very suddenly, and that, as he seems to think that diplomacy consists in the study of etchings, no objection had been made. Teresa is evidently furious. She says he told her that he was going to Paris in order to be present at an art sale, but that she believes he has run away from a duel. Have you not heard that?’

Giuliana looked at Maria quietly, but saw no change in the warm pallor of her friend’s face, nor the least quivering of the eyelids.

‘No,’ Maria answered, unsuspectingly. ‘I have heard nothing. Does Teresa say who it was that wanted to fight with him?’

‘Yes, but I don’t believe a word of it. She says it was Balduccio.’

‘Why in the world should he quarrel with Monsieur de Maurienne?’ Maria turned innocent eyes to meet Giuliana’s.

‘Teresa does not explain that,’ laughed the Marchesa, ‘but she darkly hints that the affair which did not come off concerned herself!’

‘How silly she is!’

Indeed, the absurdity of the story was so apparent, that Maria would not ask any more questions. She was continually doing her best to keep Castiglione out of her thoughts, and the painful scene with her husband during the afternoon made it all the harder for her. She changed the subject.

‘Giuliana,’ she asked, ‘shall you let your boys walk to school or even go in the tram while the strike lasts?’

‘Oh, yes!’ answered the Marchesa. ‘But the trams have stopped this afternoon. Have you not been out? The boys walk in the morning, for there is never any disturbance till much later. All good anarchists dine comfortably, and often too well, before they go out to howl in the streets.’

She laughed carelessly.

‘I daresay you are right,’ Maria answered. ‘I never let Leone be out in the city on foot or in trams after luncheon. Three or four times a week he rides with Diego in the Campagna, and they generally go as far as one of the city gates in a cab, but I always send Diego’s little brougham to fetch them. I’m afraid they may both catch cold in a cab after riding.’

‘Your husband is very fond of it, is he not?’

‘Yes, and he rides well, and looks well on a horse—particularly on that lovely little Andalusian mare he brought from Spain.’

‘The one the Duca di Casalmaggiore is so anxious to buy?’ inquired Giuliana.

‘The Colonel of the Piedmont Lancers?’ Maria wondered whether her friend was trying to lead the conversation back to Castiglione again. ‘I did not know he wanted her.’

‘My dear! He thinks of nothing else! He would like to make it an affair of State. The other day he came to see Sigismondo and talked about the mare for three-quarters of an hour, trying to induce him to use his influence with me, to use my influence with you, to use your influence with your husband, to induce him to sell the Andalusian for twenty thousand francs! I think he must be quite mad! It is an enormous price for a saddle-horse, and he has offered it through half a dozen people. I wonder that Diego should not have spoken of it to you.’

‘He never tells me anything,’ Maria replied. ‘But I can guess what he must have answered. He probably said that the Count of Montalto buys horses but does not sell them!’

Giuliana laughed.

‘I did not know you could be so malicious, Maria! That is precisely what he did say.’

‘I did not mean to say anything disagreeable, I’m sure,’ returned Maria. ‘That is Diego’s way; he is old-fashioned. The idea that a Count of the Holy Roman Empire could possibly sell anything never occurred to him.’

‘My father is just like him in that,’ observed Giuliana.

‘So was mine! It is the reason why he left me only just enough to live comfortably, instead of several millions. If I had not been his only child we should have starved!’

‘We were ten, and nine of us are alive.’ Giuliana laughed. ‘When my father and mother were sixty—you know they are just the same age—there were thirty-two at table, between us and our children!’

‘Look at the Saracinesca family,’ said Maria. ‘Old Prince Giovanni was an only son, I believe, and now they are like the sands by the sea! As far as numbers go, there is no fear of the old Roman families dying out!’

‘Your husband was an only son, was he not?’ Giuliana asked.

‘Yes.’

‘And you have only——’ The Marchesa checked herself—‘yes,’ she concluded with that extreme vagueness that comes over us all when we have half said something quite tactless.

But Maria chose to complete the thought.

‘Yes,’ she said quietly, but not at all vaguely. ‘Do you wonder that I am anxious about letting my only child go about on foot when there are strikes?’

‘No, dear, I don’t wonder at all, though I do not think there is any real danger.’

‘I suppose presentiments are very foolish,’ Maria observed thoughtfully. ‘Do they ever trouble you, Giuliana?’

‘Not often. But I remember once being oppressed with the certainty that Sigismondo was going to die in the course of the winter. It haunted me day and night for weeks and weeks. I used to dream that he was lying dead on the dining-room table. It was always the dining-room table, and at last I got nervous about sitting down at it.’

‘Well? Did anything happen?’ Maria seemed interested.

‘Oh, yes! The children had the mumps.’ She spoke thoughtfully.

Very sensible people who are by no means stupid sometimes say things that would disgrace an idiot child. But Maria did not laugh.

‘The other night, after I had left you,’ she said, ‘there was some sort of demonstration in the Piazza di Venezia, and the carriage stopped a moment before turning another way. A man looked through the window, trying to see me in the dark. I could see him plainly under the electric light. It was a horrible face, flattened against the pane, and though I did not pay much attention to it at the time, it comes back to me and frightens me when I know that Leone is out in the streets with his tutor. Perhaps he is only going to have the mumps!’

She tried to laugh now.

‘A tutor is generally supposed to be a sufficient protection for a boy,’ observed Giuliana, not much impressed. ‘Yours is a good-sized man too, and Sigismondo always says that keeping order in a city depends on the delusion that big men are more dangerous than short men. At all events most people think they are, and your tutor looks like an ex-carabineer.’

‘I’m sure he is a coward,’ said Maria nervously. ‘He would think only of saving himself if there were any danger! I’m sure of it.’

‘It’s all imagination, my dear,’ said the practical Marchesa. ‘Your love for the boy makes you fancy that all sorts of impossible things are going to happen to him.’

‘Giuliana—perhaps I’m very foolish to be made wretched by a presentiment, but if any harm came to Leone——’

She stopped short. The conventional phrase ‘I should die’ was on her lips, but before it was spoken she realised that it meant nothing to her, and checked herself.

‘Of course, of course!’ answered Giuliana in a motherly tone. ‘I quite understand that. I’m fond of my children, too; I know just what you feel.’

‘It’s not the same for you, Giuliana,’ said Maria in a low tone. ‘I’ve only Leone, you know.’

‘Leone and your husband,’ corrected Unassailable Virtue.

‘Yes, Leone and my husband.’

Maria did not resent the correction. Even Giuliana did not suspect that she was desperately unhappy in more ways than one, and it was better so; but she silently thought of what her life would be if Leone were taken and her husband were left.