The Guests Of Hercules Part 54

"In November, just before she left the convent. She went and stayed with an aunt a few weeks in London, and then came here. She wrote me about you, and I recognized you from her description. That's why I----"

"Forgive me. I believe you can be of the greatest service to Mary, and to me." He glanced at Americo, who held the door open. "Let us walk in the woods, if you aren't afraid of damp. I've something important to say."

They went down the steps and out of the gate together, like old acquaintances. Peter had no longer any doubt that the "family trouble"

concerned Mary; but it was easy to see that whatever it might be, Prince Vanno was on her side. Peter admired him, and burned to serve her friend.

"There has been an abominable lie told," Vanno began, as soon as they were outside his brother's gate. "I must explain to you quickly what's happened, if you're to understand. I went to Rome to tell my father of our engagement. I left Mary with my brother and sister-in-law. I had two happy letters from her. This morning I arrived here in the Rome express.

I came straight to Cap Martin, expecting to find Mary. Instead I found my brother and his wife alone. My sister-in-law, I must say in justice, seemed terribly grieved at what had happened. She could or would tell me nothing. But Angelo--my brother--began some rigmarole about Mary having run away from her convent-school years ago with a man, and--but I won't repeat the story. I refused to listen. I can never forgive my brother."

"Good for you!" exclaimed the American girl. "But I see the whole thing, and you needn't even try to repeat the story. I know it without your telling. It happened to another girl with a name almost exactly like Mary's. That's how the mistake must have come about. The girl who ran away disappeared about four years ago. _My_ Mary was at the convent till last fall. I can prove everything I say."

"Will you see my brother and his wife now, and tell them what you know?"

"With the greatest pleasure."

"Thank G.o.d you came! In another minute I should have been gone. And I don't know where to look for Mary."

"You don't know? Didn't she write? Or did she expect you to believe things against her?"

"I could hardly have blamed her if she had expected it, for--I failed her once. But that was before I knew her. Nothing could make me doubt her now. She did write to me. I found a letter waiting at the villa this morning--a letter postmarked Monte Carlo, to say I mustn't look for her--that all is over for ever and ever."

"But you're going to look for her all the same?"

"And to find her. I won't rest till I've got her back."

"You're the right sort of man, though you aren't an American."

"My mother was one."

"So much the better. Let's go into the house, and I'll soon make your people swallow any words they've said against Mary."

Americo was still at the door, or had returned there. "Highness," he said, "the Princess wishes me to make you come in. She has to talk. She send me in woods, but I not go, because of young lady with you. I wait here. Princess in yellow saloon, by her lone."

"Come," Vanno said to Peter. "We'll speak to her, and find out what she wants. Then my brother shall come and hear your story."

"Go first and explain me, please," Peter said.

Vanno would have obeyed, but Princess Della Robbia gave him no time. She was wandering restlessly about the room, too impatient to sit down. When she saw Vanno at the door, she went to him swiftly. "I'm so glad Americo found you," she cried. "I need to have a word with you alone. Angelo is so hard! He wouldn't let me see Mary before she went, or even write her a line of love and sympathy. I've hardly eaten or slept since that awful afternoon. If you could know how ill I am, you wouldn't blame me so much! I love Mary. My heart's breaking for her trouble. But I can do nothing, except send a letter for you to give, in case you find her.

Please take it--I've written it already, in case--and don't tell Angelo."

"I've brought a friend of Mary's who can prove to you both that she isn't the heroine of that story you and my brother were so quick to believe," Vanno broke in, lacking patience to hear her through.

With a faint "Oh!" Marie shrank back, looking suddenly smaller and older. The pretty hand which had pressed Vanno's sleeve dropped heavily as if its many rings weighed the fingers down. Sickly pale, she fixed her eyes upon him, unable to speak, though her lips fell apart, seeming to form the word "Who?"

Vanno waited for no further explaining, but called Peter, who hovered outside the open door. "Miss Maxwell, will you come?"

Peter appeared instantly, but seeing the Princess, stopped on the threshold, with the face of one who meets a ghost. "Marie Grant!" she exclaimed, the two short words explosive as revolver shots.

The figure in white collapsed like a tossed bundle, into a chair. It seemed that the woman ceased to breathe. In a second the peculiar freshness of her beauty had shrivelled as if scorched by a rus.h.i.+ng flame. Only her eyes were alive. They moved wistfully from Peter to Vanno, and from Vanno to the half-open door, as if seeking mercy or escape. She looked agonized, broken, like a fawn caught in a trap.

Peter turned to Vanno. "This is the girl who ran away from our convent with a man," she said crudely. "As she's here in the house, how did Mary come to be suspected?"

"That is my sister-in-law, Princess Della Robbia," Vanno answered. As he spoke his forehead flamed, and his eyes grew keen as swords. His look stripped Marie's soul bare of lies.

She held out her hands, but there was no mercy for her then in either heart. In a moment the two had judged her, with the unhesitating cruelty of youth. Peter's eyes narrowed in disgust, as if the white thing cowering in the chair were a noxious animal, a creature to be exterminated.

"I understand too, very well," she said slowly. "Horrible, wicked woman!

You put the blame of your own sins on my Mary, to save yourself, and like the saint she is, she let you do it. But I won't. G.o.d sent me here, I see now. You've got to confess, and right my girl."

Tears fell from Marie's eyes. Her face quivered, then crinkled up piteously as a child's face crinkles in a storm of weeping. "Shut the door," she stammered between sobs. "For G.o.d's sake, shut the door! If Angelo should come!"

Neither Vanno nor Peter moved. They wished Angelo to come. Seeing them stand there, rigid, relentless, Marie realized as she had not fully realized before that they were her enemies, that no softness or prettiness, no agony of tears could turn their hearts. She sprang up with a choking cry, and stumbled toward the door. Vanno, thinking she meant to run away, took two long steps and placed himself before her.

"Angel with the flaming sword!" were the words that spoke themselves in Peter's mind. But she had no pity yet for Marie.

"I--I only want to shut the door--that's all--because you wouldn't," the Princess faltered. "Just for a few minutes. It's all I ask. Give me a little time."

Vanno closed the door without noise, and stood in front of it like a sentinel. "You may have a few minutes," he said. "Then I shall call Angelo to hear the truth from you or from me. It's for you to choose which."

"Haven't you any mercy in your heart?" she wailed. "I'm only a woman.

I'm your brother's wife. He loves me."

"I love Mary," Vanno said.

"It was Mary who spared me. She saw it was worse for me than for her, because I'm married to Angelo. My whole life's at stake. That's why she sacrificed herself. I----"

"The more you say, the worse you make us hate you," Peter cut her short.

"You were always selfish. Even when I liked you, I used to think you just like a white Persian cat. When you were petted, you purred. When things went wrong, you scratched. You don't deserve the name of woman.

What you've done is as bad as murder."

"I did it for Angelo," Marie pleaded. "I love him so! I couldn't lose his love."

"So you flung Mary to the wolves!" Vanno said. He had not believed that he could see a woman cry without pitying and wis.h.i.+ng to help her. But his heart felt hard as stone as he watched Marie's streaming tears. All the brutality of his fierce ancestors had rushed to arms in his nature.

The fancy came to his mind that he would still be hard and cold if he had to see her flogged. Then at the suggested picture, something in him writhed and revolted. He was not so hard as he had thought. He had to steel himself against her by thinking of what she had done to Mary.

"You deserve to die!" said Peter.

"I want to die," Marie answered pitifully. She stood supporting herself with an arm that clung to the high straight back of a Florentine chair.

"If you will only not tell Angelo till I am dead, that's all I'll ask.

Please wait--a little while. I couldn't live and look him in the face if he knew, so I would have to kill myself before you told. I'm too unhappy to be afraid of dying--for my own sake. I've suffered such agonies of fear, nothing could be worse. But there's a reason why it would be wicked to die just now--of my own accord. There's a child coming--in a few months. Afterward, I'll swear to you to kill myself, and then you can tell Angelo everything. Won't you wait till then--only till the end of the summer? Mary would say yes, if she were here."

The one weapon by which she could defend herself against their justice, she had drawn, and stood weakly on guard, her strength spent.

Vanno and Peter looked at one another in silence, in the eyes of each the same question. "Is this the truth?"

Marie read their faces. "Angelo knows that there will be a baby," she whispered. "Indeed it's true. As soon as my child is born, I'm ready to die."

"No one wants you to die!" Peter said sharply.