The Net Part 50

"What then?"

"He is a fine man. I think you could hear an echo to the love you cherished for Martel, if you but listened."

Vittoria gazed at her foster-sister with a look half tender and half stern. Her voice had lost some of its languid indifference when she replied:

"Any feeling I might have would indeed be no more than an echo. I--am not like other women; something in me is dead--it is the power to love as women love. I am like a person who emerges from a conflagration, blinded; the eyes are there, but the sight is gone."

"Perhaps you only sleep, like the princess who waited for a kiss--"

Vittoria interrupted impatiently: "No, no! And you mistake his feelings. I attract him, perhaps, but he loves Miss Warren and has asked her to marry him. What is more, she adores him and--they were made for each other."

"She adores him!" echoed the other. "Che Dio! She only plays at love.

Her affections are as s.h.i.+fting as the winds."

"That may be. But he is in earnest. It was he who gave her this social triumph--he made her Queen of the Carnival. He even bought her dresses. It was that which caused her to send for me this afternoon.

Heaven knows I was in no mood to listen, but she chattered like a magpie. As if I could advise her wisely!"

"She is very dear to you," Oliveta ventured.

"Indeed, yes. She shares with you all the love that is left in me."

"I think I understand. You have principles, my sister. You have purposely barred the way to your fairy prince, and will continue sleeping."

Vittoria's brow showed faint lines, but whether of pain or annoyance it was hard to tell.

Oliveta sighed. "What evil fortune overhangs us that we should be denied love!"

"Please! Let us speak no more of it." She turned her face away and for a long time her companion soothed her with silent ministrations.

Meanwhile the dusk settled, the golden flames died out of the western windows, the room darkened. Seeing that her patient slept, Oliveta arose and with noiseless step went to a little shrine which hung on the wall. She knelt before the figure of the Virgin, whispering a prayer, then lit a fresh candle for her sister's pain and left the room, partly closing the door behind her.

She had allowed the maid-servant to go for the afternoon, and found, upon examination, that the day's marketing had been neglected. There was still time, however, in which to secure some delicacies to tempt Vittoria's taste so she flung a shawl over her dark hair and descended softly to the street.

A little earlier on this same afternoon, as Norvin Blake sat at work in his office, the telephone bell roused him from deep thought. He seized the instrument eagerly, hoping for any news that would relieve the tension upon his nerves. For uncertainty as to Maruffi's whereabouts had weighed heavily upon him, especially in view of the possible danger to the woman he loved and to her devoted companion.

The voice of O'Neil came over the wire, full-toned and distinct:

"h.e.l.lo! Is this Blake?"--and then, "We've got Maruffi!"

"When? Where?" shouted Norvin.

"Five minutes ago; at his own house. Johnson and Dean have been watching the place. He went with them like a lamb, too. They've just 'phoned me that they're all on their way here."

"Good! Do you need me?"

"No! See you later. Good-by!"

The Acting Chief slammed up his receiver, leaving his hearer stunned at the suddenness of this long-awaited denouement.

Maruffi taken! His race run! Then this was the end of the fight! A ferocious triumph flooded Norvin's brain. With Belisario Cardi in the hands of the law the spell of the Mafia was broken. Savigno and Donnelly were as good as avenged. He experienced an odd feeling of relaxation, as if both his body and brain were cramped and tired with waiting. Then, realizing that the Countess and Oliveta must have suffered an even greater strain, he set out at once to give them the news in person.

As he turned swiftly into Royal Street he encountered O'Connell, who, noting his haste and something unusual in his bearing, detained him to ask the cause.

"Haven't you heard?" exclaimed Norvin. "Maruffi's captured at last."

"You don't mean it!"

"Yes. O'Neil told me over the wire not ten minutes ago."

O'Connell fell into step with him, saying, incredulously: "And he came without a fight? Lord! I can't believe it."

"Nor I. I expected trouble with him."

"Sure! I thought he was a bad one, but that's the way it goes sometimes. I reckon he saw he had no chance." The officer shook his red head. "It's just my blamed luck to miss the fun." O'Connell was one of the few who had been first trusted with the news of Maruffi's ident.i.ty, and for the past fortnight he had been casting high and low for the Sicilian's trail. Ever since that October night when he had supported Donnelly in his arms as the life ebbed from the Chief, ever since he had knelt on the soft banquette with the sting of powder smoke in his nostrils, he had been obsessed by a fanatical desire to be in at the death of his friend's murderers. He left Blake at his destination and hurried on toward St. Phillip Street in the vague hope that he might not be too late to take a hand in some part of the proceedings.

Blake's hand was upon Oliveta's bell when the door opened and she confronted him. Her start, her frightened cry, gave evidence of the nervous dread under which she labored.

"Don't be afraid, Oliveta," he said, quickly. "I come with news--good news."

She swayed and groped blindly for support. He put out his hand to sustain her, but she shrank away from him, saying, faintly: "Then he is captured? G.o.d be praised!"

In spite of the words, her eyes filmed over with tears, a look of abject misery bared itself upon her face.

"Where is the Countess?"

"Above--resting. Come; she, too, will rejoice."

"Let me take her the news. You were going out, and--I think the air will do you good. Be brave, Oliveta; you have done your share, and there's nothing more to fear."

She acquiesced dully; her olive features were ghastly as she felt her way past him; she walked like a sick woman.

He watched her pityingly for a moment, then mounted the stairs. As he laid his hand upon the door it gave to his touch and he stood upon the threshold of the parlor. Vittoria's name was upon his lips when, by the dim evening light which came through the drawn curtains and by the faint illumination from the solitary shrine candle, he saw her rec.u.mbent form upon the couch.

She was lying in an att.i.tude of complete relaxation, her sun-gilded hair straying in long thick braids below her waist, Those tawny ropes were of a length and thickness to bind a man about the body. Her lips were slightly parted; her lashes lay like dark shadows against her ivory cheeks.

He was swept by a sudden awed abashment. The impulse to retreat came over him, but he lacked the will. The longing which had remained so strong in him through years of denial, governing the whole course of his life, blazed up in him now and increased with every heartbeat. He found that without willing it he had come close to the couch. The girl's slim hand lay upon the cus.h.i.+ons, limply upturned to him; it was half open and there sprang through him an ungovernable desire to bury his lips in its rosy palm. He knelt, then quailed and recovered himself. At the same instant she stirred and, to his incredulous delight, whispered his name.

A wild exultation shot through him. Why not yield to this madness, he asked himself, dizzily. The long struggle was over now. For this woman's sake he had repeatedly played the part of bravery in a fever of fear. He had done what he had done to make himself worthy of her, and now, at the last, he was to have nothing--absolutely nothing, except a memory. Against these thoughts his notions of honorable conduct hastily and confusedly arrayed themselves. But he was in no state to reason. The same enchantment, half psychic, half physical, ethereal yet strongly human, that had mastered him in the old Sicilian days, was at work upon him now. Dimly he felt that so mighty and natural a thing ought not to be resisted. He stood stiffly like a man spellbound.

It may have been Oliveta's accusation that affected the course of the sleeping woman's thoughts, it may have been that she felt the man's nearness, or that some influence pa.s.sed from his mind to hers. However it was, she spoke his name again, her fingers closed over his, she drew him toward her.

He yielded; her warm breath beat upon his face; then the last atoms of self-restraint fled away from him like sparks before a fierce night wind. A fiery madness coursed through his veins as he caught her to him. Her lips were fevered with sleep. For a moment the caress seemed real; it was the climax of his hopes, the attainment of his longings.

He crushed her in his arms; her hair blinded him; he buried his face in it, kissing her brow, her cheek, the curve where neck and shoulder met, and all the time he was speaking her name with hoa.r.s.e tenderness.

So strangely had the fanciful merged into the real that the girl was slow in waking. Her eyelids fluttered, her breast rose and fell tumultuously, and even while her wits were struggling back to reality her arms clung to him. But the transition was brief. Her eyes opened, and she stiffened as with the shock of an electric current. A cry, a swift, writhing movement, and she was upon her feet, his incoherent words beating upon her ears but making no impression upon her brain.

"_You_! G.o.d above!" she cried.

She faced him, white, terror-stricken, yet splendid in her anger. She was still dazed, but horror and dismay leaped quickly into her eyes.

"Margherita! You called me. You drew me to you. It was your real self that spoke--I know it."