No less than three springs had come and gone since the autumn of 1855 without bringing to the banks of the Ticino that mustering of armies and of banners that the Italians had expected. In February, 1859, all were convinced that a fourth spring could not pass thus. Great events, duly pre-announced by a splendid comet, were approaching. The old world was quivering and creaking inwardly, as does a frozen river on the eve of a thaw. That deadly cold and awful silence which had lasted ten years, was about to disappear, to be swept away amidst the clamour of strife and destruction, by new currents, warm and brilliant. Carlascia was playing the braggart, and would talk to his guards (who made no comments) of an impending military expedition to Turin. Signor Puttini had never entirely recovered from the shock he had received on that memorable morning; and the lawyer's treachery, the tragic end of the top-hat, the comic end of the tail-coat, had deeply affected him, and he had lost all respect for patriots. Dr. Aliprandi was already in Piedmont. A veteran subaltern of the army of Napoleon, who lived in Puria, was secretly furbishing up his old uniform, with the intention of presenting himself before the French Emperor when he should enter Italy. Whenever Intrioni, the curate of Castello, met Don Giuseppe Costabarbieri, he would remind him of a certain rhyme of 1796 which he, Don Giuseppe, had gone about repeating in 1848, but which he had soon hidden away again.

Don Giuseppe, greatly alarmed, would cry: "Hush! Hush!"

Meanwhile the violets continued to grow as peacefully on the slopes of Valsolda as if nothing were happening. On the evening of the twentieth of February, Luisa carried a bunch to the cemetery. She was still in mourning. Pallid and emaciated, her eyes had become larger, and there were many silver threads in her hair. She seemed to have grown twenty years older since her bereavement. Upon leaving the cemetery she turned towards Albogasio, and joined some women from Oria, who were going to recite the Rosary in the parish church. She no longer seemed the same dark phantom that had laid the violets on Maria's grave. She talked calmly, almost gaily, first with one, then with another of the women; inquired after a sick animal, praised and caressed a little girl who was going to the Rosary with her grandmother, and told her to sit very still in church, as her Maria had always done. She said this and mentioned Maria very quietly, but the women shuddered and were filled with astonishment, for Luisa herself never went to church now. She asked one of the girls if the young men were going to act a play as usual, and if her brother was to take part. Upon receiving an answer in the affirmative she offered to help with the costumes. She left the others on the church-place of the Annunciata, and as she went down the Calcinera alone her face once more resumed its spectral appearance.

She was on her way to Casarico to see the Gilardonis, who had been married three years. The professor's happiness and his adoration of Ester would deserve to be told in verse! Uncle Piero said of him that he had grown feeble-minded. Ester feared he might become ridiculous, and would not allow him to assume certain ecstatic poses before her when there was anyone present. The only person in whose presence she did not insist upon the observance of this rule was Luisa. But Gilardoni always showed the greatest deference for Luisa; to him she was still a superhuman being; to his respect for the woman herself had been added his respect for her grief, and in her presence his behaviour was always most circumspect. Luisa had been going to Casa Gilardoni almost every evening for about two years now, and if anything could have troubled the couple's happiness it would have been these visits.

Indeed, their motive was a strange one, and one repugnant to Ester, but Ester's affection for her friend, and her pity for her bereavement, were so great, while her heart was so full of remorse for not having looked after Maria more carefully on that terrible day, that she did not dare to resolutely oppose her wishes, or dissuade her husband from gratifying them. She expressed her disapproval to Luisa, and begged her at least to maintain secrecy concerning the nightly doings in the professor's study, but she went no further. The professor, on the contrary, would have enjoyed these sÉances had it not been for his wife's disapproval. It was already dark when Luisa rang the bell at the little door of Casa Gilardoni. Ester herself opened it. Luisa did not return her greeting, which she felt was full of embarrassment. She simply looked at her, but when they reached the little parlour on the ground-floor where Ester was in the habit of spending her evenings, she embraced her so passionately that Ester burst into tears. "Have patience with me!" Luisa said. "It is all that is left me!" Ester tried to comfort her, telling her that happier times were coming for her; that she and Franco would soon be reunited. In a few months Lombardy would be free, and Franco would come home. And then—and then—so many things might happen! Perhaps Maria might return! Luisa started violently and caught her friend's hands. "No!" she cried. "Do not say such things! Never! Never! I am all hers! I belong to Maria alone!" Ester could not answer, for at that point the smiling professor came bustling into the room.

He saw that his wife's eyes were wet with tears and that Luisa was greatly excited. He greeted her very quietly and sat down in silence beside Ester, in the belief that they had been discussing the usual subject, which was so painful to his wife. She would have liked to send him away and resume her conversation with Luisa, but did not venture to do so. Luisa was shuddering at that spectre of future danger which would sometimes stand vaguely outlined before her mind's eye, but which she had always banished with horror, never pausing to examine it, and which now, evoked by her friend's words, rose before her, naked and distinct. After a long and painful silence Ester sighed, and said in a low voice:

"You may go if you like. Go, both of you."

Luisa, moved by an impulse of gratitude, fell on her knees before her friend and buried her face in her lap. "You know," she said, "I no longer believe in God. At first I thought there must be a cruel God, but now I do not believe in the existence of any God. But if a loving God, such as He in whom you believe, did really, surely exist, He would not condemn a poor mother who has lost her only child, and who is struggling to persuade herself that a part of that child still lives!"

Ester made no reply. Almost every night for two years Luisa and her husband had evoked the spirit of the dead child. Professor Gilardoni, in whom there was a strange mingling of the free-thinker and the mystic, had read with great interest the marvellous tales that were told concerning the Fox sisters—Americans—and the experiments of Eliphas Levi, and had closely followed the spiritualistic movement which had spread rapidly in Europe, in the form of a mania that upset both heads and tables. He had spoken to Luisa about this movement, and Luisa, possessed and blinded by the idea that she might ascertain if her child did still exist, in which case she might in some way be able to communicate with her, seeing nothing else in all the marvellous facts and strange theories save this one luminous point, had besought him to make some experiments with Ester and herself. Ester believed in nothing supernatural outside the doctrines of Christianity, and did not, therefore, take the matter seriously. She willingly consented to place her hands on a small table, in the company of her friend and her husband, who, on the contrary, exhibited great zeal, and had faith in their chances of success. The first experiments were disappointing. Ester, who found them tedious, would have liked to discontinue the attempts, but one evening, after twenty minutes of waiting, the little table tipped to one side, lifted a leg in the air, righted itself, and then tipped again, to Ester's great chagrin, but to the great joy of Luisa and the professor. The next night five minutes sufficed to make the table move. The professor taught them the alphabet, and then tried to summon a spirit. The table responded, knocking with its leg upon the floor according to the alphabet that had been arranged. The spirit evoked gave its name: Van Helmont. Ester was frightened and trembled like a leaf; the professor was trembling also, but with excitement. He wished to tell Van Helmont that he had his works in his library, but Luisa besought him to inquire where Maria was. Van Helmont answered: "Near!" Then Ester rose, as pale as a ghost, protesting that she would not continue, and neither Luisa's tears nor entreaties could move her. It was sinful, sinful! Ester's religious sense was not deep, but she had a wholesome fear of hell and the devil. For some time it had been impossible to resume the sÉances—she had a horror of them, and her husband did not venture to oppose her wishes. It was Luisa who, by dint of prayers and entreaties, at last obtained a compromise. The sÉances were resumed, but Ester took no part in them.

She did not even wish to know what took place. Only, whenever her husband seemed worried or preoccupied, she would throw out an uneasy allusion to the secret dealings in the study. Then he would be troubled, and offer to desist, but Ester had not the courage to face Luisa. For she had discovered indirectly that Luisa really believed she held communication with the child's spirit. Once she had said: "I shall not come to-morrow night because Maria does not wish it." At another time she had said: "I am going up to Looch because Maria wants a flower from her grandmother's grave." To Ester it seemed incredible that a head so clear and strong could be thus deluded. At the same time she realised the extreme difficulty of convincing her by gentle means, and all the cruelty of using harsh measures with her.

The professor lit a candle and went upstairs to the study, followed by Luisa. We are acquainted with this study that was like a ship's cabin, its shelves filled with books, its little fireplace, its windows overlooking the lake and the armchair in which Maria had gone to sleep one Christmas Eve. The room now contained something else. Between the fireplace and the window stood a small round table, with one central leg only, that branched out into three feet, about a hand's breadth from the floor.

"I am very sorry to cause Ester so much pain," said the professor as they entered the room. He placed the light on the writing-desk, but instead of preparing the little table and the chairs as usual he went to look out of the window at the pale light on the water and in the sky, amidst the surrounding shadows of night. Luisa stood motionless, and suddenly he faced about as if some magnetism had revealed her anguish to him. He saw appalling anguish on her face, and understood that she believed he had made up his mind to stop the sÉances, whereas he had only been tempted to do so, and, greatly moved, he seized her hands, telling her that Ester was good, that she loved her so much, that neither he nor she would ever willingly cause her suffering. Luisa did not answer, but the professor had all he could do to prevent her kissing his hand. While he was arranging the little table and the two chairs in the centre of the floor, she sank into the armchair, in a state of great depression.

"There!" said the professor.

Drawing a letter from her pocket Luisa handed it to him.

"I need Maria and you so much to-night," said she. "Read that. It is from Franco. You can begin with the fourth page." The professor did not hear these last words, but going to the light, began to read aloud:

The reader's voice trembled, broke, and was lost in a sob. Luisa hid her face in her hands. He placed the letter on her knees, saying with difficulty: "Donna Luisa, can you hesitate?"

"I am wicked," Luisa murmured. "I am mad!"

"But do you not love him?"

"Sometimes I think I love him very much, at other times not at all."

"My God!" the professor exclaimed. "But now? Are you not moved by the thought that you may never see him again?"

Luisa was silent, she seemed to be crying. Suddenly she started to her feet, pressing her hands to her temples, and fixed her eyes on the professor's face, eyes in which there were no tears, but in which there shone a sinister and angry light. "You don't know," she cried, "what there is here in my head! What a mass of contradictions, how many opposite thoughts that are struggling together, and always changing places with each other! When I received the letter I cried bitterly, and said to myself. 'Yes, my poor Franco, this time I will go!'—And then there came a voice that spoke here in my forehead, and said: 'No, you must not go because—because—because——'"

She ceased speaking, and the professor, terrified by the flashes of madness he saw in those eyes that were fixed on his, did not dare to ask for an explanation. The eyes, which still stared into his, gradually softened and became veiled with tears. Luisa took his hands, and said gently, timidly: "Let us ask Maria."

They sat down at the table and placed their hands upon it. The professor sat with his back to the light, which fell full upon Luisa's face. The little table was in the shadow. After eleven minutes of profound silence, the professor murmured:

"It is beginning to move."

In fact the table was gradually leaning over to one side. Presently it righted itself, and knocked once, lightly. Luisa's face brightened.

"Who are you?" said the professor. "Answer with the usual alphabet."

There came seventeen, then fourteen, then eighteen knocks, and then one alone. "Rosa," said the professor softly. Rosa was a little sister of his wife's who had died in infancy, and the table had knocked out this name on several previous occasions. "Go away," said Gilardoni. "Send Maria to us."

The table soon began to move again, and knocked out the words:

"It is I, Maria!"

"Maria, Maria, my own Maria!" whispered Luisa, her face assuming an expression of intense joy.

"Do you know the contents of the letter your father has written to your mother?" Gilardoni inquired.

The table answered:

"Yes."

"What is your mother to do?"

Luisa was trembling from head to foot in anxious suspense. The table did not move.

"Answer," said the professor.

This time the table moved, but knocked out only an incomprehensible confusion of letters.

"We do not understand. Repeat."

The little table did not move again. "Repeat, I tell you!" said the professor, rather sharply.

"No, no!" begged Luisa. "Don't insist. Maria does not wish to answer." But the professor was bound to insist. "It is not admissible that a spirit should not answer. You know very well we have often before been unable to understand what they said."

Luisa rose, greatly agitated, saying that rather than force Maria she should prefer to cut the sÉance short. The professor remained seated, lost in thought. "Hush!" said he at last.

The table moved and once more began to knock.

"Yes!" exclaimed Gilardoni, his face radiant. "I inquired mentally if you should go, and the table has answered 'yes.' Now you yourself must ask aloud."

Five or six minutes passed before the table began to move. In answer to Luisa's question: "Shall I go?" there came first thirteen, then fourteen knocks. The answer was "no."

The professor turned pale, and Luisa questioned him with her eyes. He was silent for some time, and then said with a sigh:

"Perhaps it was not Maria. Perhaps it was a lying spirit."

"And how can we find out?" Luisa inquired anxiously.

"We cannot find out. It is impossible."

"Then how about the other communications? Is there never any certainty?"

"Never."

She lapsed into terrified silence. Then presently she murmured: "It was bound to end thus. This also was to be taken from me."

She rested her forehead upon the table. The candle light fell upon her hair, upon her arms and hands. She was motionless, nothing moved in the room save the little flickering flame of the candle. Another little flame, the last light of hope and of comfort, was dying out in this poor head which had gone down before the onslaught of a bitter and invincible doubt. What could Gilardoni do or say? He saw that Ester's wish would soon be gratified, but not by his means. Three or four minutes later they heard Ester's voice, and steps on the floor below. Luisa rose slowly.

"Let us go," said she.

"Perhaps we should pray," Gilardoni observed without rising. "Perhaps we should ask the spirits if they confess Christ."

"No, no, no!" Luisa exclaimed in an undertone, at the same time protesting with a hostile gesture. The professor silently took up the candle.

On her way back to Oria Luisa went up to the gate of the cemetery. Resting her forehead against it she sent a stifled good-bye towards Maria's grave, then she went down the hill again. On reaching the church-place she crossed over to the parapet and gazed down upon the lake sleeping in the shadow. She stood there some time, letting her thoughts roam at will. Placing her elbows on the parapet, she leaned forward and rested her face upon her hands, still gazing at the water, the water that had taken Maria. Her thoughts were beginning to take a definite shape, not within her, but down there in the water. She contemplated this shape. To die, to end it all! She was familiar with the thought, she had seen it once before when gazing into the water thus, long ago, before the experiments with the professor began. After that it had disappeared. But now it had returned again. It was a sweet and merciful thought, full of rest, of self-surrender, and of peace. It was good to gaze upon it now that her faith in the spirits was gone also. To die, to end it all! On that former occasion the image of her old uncle had been strong in helping to dispel the fascination. Now it was not so strong. Since Maria's death Uncle Piero had lapsed into a state of almost complete silence which Luisa believed to be the beginning of the apathy of old age. She did not understand that in the old man's soul profound disapproval was mingled with grief, nor did she understand how great was his aversion to these daily and repeated visits to the cemetery, the flowers, the mysterious journeys to Casarico, and above all, how he regretted her complete abandonment of the church. If she had not been so engrossed in her dead child she might have understood her uncle better, at least on this last point, the church, for now the silent old man himself went to Mass oftener than before, his heart returning to the religion of his father and mother, which, heretofore, he had practised coldly, from habit, and out of respect for family traditions. It seemed to Luisa that he had grown very dull, and that if only his personal needs were attended to, he would be quite content. Cia was there to attend to his comforts, and the means that had sufficed for three would be more than sufficient for two. Luisa thought she saw the water rise a hand's breadth. And Franco? Franco would be in despair, would mourn for a few years, and then he would be happier than ever. Franco knew the secret of speedy consolation. The water seemed to rise another hand's breadth.

At the same moment in which she had approached the parapet, Franco, passing the church of S. Francesco di Paolo in Via di Po, had seen lights and heard the organ. He went in. Hardly had he said a short prayer when the one dominant thought took possession of him once more; the sound of the organ became the noise of trumpets and drums, the clash of arms; and while a hymn of peace was rising from the altar, he, in imagination, was furiously charging the enemy. Suddenly he saw before his mind's eye the image of Luisa, pale, and dressed in mourning. He began to think of her, to pray for her with intense fervour.

Then, standing there on the church-place of Oria, she turned cold and was filled with dread, while the tempting thought gradually vanished. She tried to recall it, but could not. The water subsided. An inward voice said to her: "What if the professor be mistaken? What if it be not true that the table answered first yes and then no? what if it be not true about the lying spirits?" She drew back from the parapet, and with slow steps, went up to her house.

She found her uncle in the kitchen sitting in the chimney-corner, the tongs in his hand, and his glass of milk beside him. Cia and Leu were sewing.

"Well," said Uncle Piero, "I have been to the Custom-House. The Receiver is in bed with the jaundice, but I spoke with the Sedentario."

"What about, uncle?"

"About Lugano. About your journey to Lugano on the twenty-fifth. He has promised to close an eye and let you pass."

Luisa was silent, and stood thoughtfully watching the fire. Presently she gave Leu some orders for the next day, and then begged her uncle to come into the parlour with her.

"What for?" said he, with his habitual simplicity, "You can't have any great secrets to tell. Let us stay here where the fire is."

Cia lit a candle. "We will go out," said she.

The uncle made his usual grimace, expressive of compassion for the weaknesses of others, but remained silent. Draining his glass of milk, he passed it to Luisa. She took the glass, and said softly: "I have not decided yet."

"What?" the uncle exclaimed sharply. "What is it you have not decided?"

"Whether I shall go to Isola Bella."

"Now what the deuce——?"

Uncle Piero was utterly incapable of grasping such a thing as this.

"And why should you not go?"

She answered calmly, and as if stating a perfectly obvious fact:

"I am afraid I shall not be able to leave Maria."

"Oh, come now!" Uncle Piero exclaimed. "Sit down over there," and he pointed to a bench in the chimney-corner opposite him. Then he said, in that serious, honest voice of his, which seemed to come from his heart:

"My dear Luisa, you have lost your bearings!"

And raising his arms, he uttered a long "Ah!" and then let them fall upon his knees once more.

"Lost your bearings completely!" he repeated. He sat silent for a time, his head bent, while behind his pursed lips there was the rumbling of words in course of formation, which presently burst forth.

"I would never have believed it! It does not seem possible! But when," and here he raised his head and looked Luisa straight in the face, "but when we once begin to lose our bearings it is all up with us. And you, my dear, began to lose yours a long time ago."

Luisa shuddered.

"Yes indeed!" Uncle Piero cried in a loud voice. "You began losing yours a long time ago. And now this is what I wish to say to you. Listen. My mother lost children, your mother lost children, I have seen many mothers lose children, but not one of them acted as you act. What can you expect? We are all mortal, and must adapt ourselves to our circumstances. Other mothers become resigned, but you do not. And this running two, three, and even four times a day to the cemetery! And the flowers, and I know not what all besides! Oh, dear me! And all that foolishness at Casarico with that other poor imbecile, which you think is such a secret, while every one is talking of it, even Cia. Oh, dear me!"

"No, uncle," said Luisa, sadly but calmly. "Don't talk of these things. You cannot understand them."

"Exactly!" the uncle retorted with all the irony of which he was capable. "I cannot understand! But there is something else. You no longer go to church. I have never mentioned this to you because I have always made it a rule to let people do as they like, but when I see you losing your good sense, losing your common-sense even, the least I can do is to remind you that this is all you do by turning your back on the Almighty. And now this idea of not going to see your husband, under similar circumstances! It is past belief. Well, well," he said after a short pause, "I will go myself."

"You?" Luisa exclaimed.

"Why not? Yes, I. I had intended to accompany you, but if you will not go I must take the journey alone. I will go and tell your husband that you have lost your head, and that I hope I may soon be called to join poor Maria."

No one had ever heard such bitter words from Uncle Piero's lips. Perhaps it was for that reason, perhaps it was the authority of the man, perhaps it was Maria's name pronounced in that way, but at any rate Luisa was conquered.

"I will go," she said, "but you must stay here."

"Most certainly not!" cried Uncle Piero, greatly pleased. "It is forty years since I saw the islands. I must avail myself of this opportunity. And who knows but what I may enlist in the cavalry?"

"Well?" said Cia, when the uncle had gone to bed. "Does my master really intend to go? For the love of Heaven, don't let him, my dear!" And she told Luisa that two hours before he had rolled his eyes in a strange manner, letting his head sink upon his breast, and when she had called to him he had not answered. Presently he had recovered, and had been provoked at her anxious questions, protesting that he had not been ill, that he had simply felt rather sleepy. Luisa listened to her, standing with her candle in her hand, her eyes glassy, and her attention divided between the words she was hearing and another very different thought, a thought very far removed from Uncle Piero, from the house, from Valsolda.