The American Baron Part 26

"Have you found out who that fellow is?"

"What fellow?"

"Why that yellow Italian that goes prowling around after my wife."

"Oh yes; I heard something or other today."

"What was it?"

"Well, it seems that he saved her life, or something of that sort."

"Saved her life!" Dacres started. "How? where? Cool, too!"

"Oh, on the Alps somewhere."

"On the Alps! saved her life! Come now, I like that," said Dacres, with bitter intonation. "Aha! don't I know her? I warrant you she contrived all that. Oh, she's deep! But how did it happen? Did you hear?"

"Well, I didn't hear any thing very definite. It was something about a precipice. It was Lady Dalrymple that told me. It seems she was knocked over a precipice by an avalanche."

"Was what? Knocked where? Over a precipice? By a what--an avalanche?

Good Lord! I don't believe it. I swear I don't. She invented it all.

It's some of her infernal humbug. She slid off over the snow, so as to get him to go after her. Oh, don't I know her and her ways!"

"Well, come now, old man, you shouldn't be too hard on her. You never said that flirtation was one of her faults."

"Well, neither it was; but, as she is a demon, she's capable of any thing; and now she has sobered down, and all her vices have taken this turn. Oh yes. I know her. No more storms now--no rage, no fury--all quiet and sly. Flirtation! Ha, ha! That's the word. And my wife! And going about the country, tumbling over precipices, with devilish handsome Italians going down to save her life! Ha, ha, ha! I like that!"

"See here, old boy, I swear you're too suspicious. Come now. You're going too far. If she chooses, she may trump up the same charge against you and the child-angel at Vesuvius. Come now, old boy, be just. You can afford to. Your wife may be a fiend in human form; and if you insist upon it, I've nothing to say. But this last notion of yours is nothing but the most wretched absurdity. It's worse. It's lunacy."

"Well, well," said Dacres, in a milder tone; "perhaps she didn't contrive it. But then, you know," he added, "it's just as good for her. She gets the Italian. Ha, ha, ha!"

His laugh was forced, feverish, and unnatural. Hawbury didn't like it, and tried to change the subject.

"Oh, by-the-way," said he, "you needn't have any further trouble about any of them. You don't seem inclined to take any definite action, so the action will be taken for you."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that they are all going to leave Naples."

"To leave Naples!"

Dacres uttered this in a voice of grief and surprise which astonished Hawbury and touched him.

"Yes," he said. "You know they've been here long enough. They want to see Rome. Holy-week, you know. No end of excitement. Illumination of St. Peter's, and all that sort of thing, you know."

Dacres relapsed into sombre silence. For more than half an hour he did not say a word. Hawbury respected his mood, and watched him with something approaching to anxiety.

"Hawbury," said he at last.

"Well, old man?"

"I'm going to Rome."

"You--to Rome!"

"Yes, me, to Rome."

"Oh, nonsense! See here, old boy. You'd really better not, you know.

Break it up. You can't do any thing."

"I'm going to Rome," repeated Dacres, stolidly. "I've made up my mind."

"But, really," remonstrated Hawbury. "See here now, my dear fellow; look here, you know. By Jove! you don't consider, really."

"Oh yes, I do. I know every thing; I consider every thing."

"But what good will it do?"

"It won't do any good; but it may prevent some evil."

"Nothing but evil can ever come of it."

"Oh, no evil need necessarily come of it."

"By Jove!" exclaimed Hawbury, who began to be excited. "Really, my dear fellow, you don't think. You see you can't gain any thing. She's surrounded by friends, you know. She never can be yours, you know.

There's a great gulf between you, and all that sort of thing, you know."

"Yes," repeated Dacres, catching his last words--"yes, a great gulf, as deep as the bottomless abyss, never to be traversed, where she stands on one side, and I on the other, and between us hate, deep and pitiless hate, undying, eternal!"

"Then, by Jove! my dear fellow, what's the use of trying to fight against it? You can't do any thing. If this were Indiana, now, or even New York, I wouldn't say any thing, you know; but you know an Indiana divorce wouldn't do _you_ any good. Her friends wouldn't take you on those terms--and she wouldn't. Not she, by Jove!"

"I _must_ go. I must follow her," continued Dacres. "The sight of her has roused a devil within me that I thought was laid. I'm a changed man, Hawbury."

"I should think so, by Jove!"

"A changed man," continued Dacres. "Oh, Heavens, what power there is in a face! What terrific influence it has over a man! Here am I; a few days ago I was a free man; now I am a slave. But, by Heaven! I'll follow her to the world's end. She shall not shake me off. She thinks to be happy without me. She shall not. I will silently follow as an avenging fate. I can not have her, and no one else shall. The same cursed fate that severs her from me shall keep her away from others.

If I am lonely and an exile, she shall not be as happy as she expects.

I shall not be the only one to suffer."

"See here, by Jove!" cried Hawbury. "Really. You're going too far, my dear boy, you know. You are, really. Come now. This is just like a Surrey theatre, you know. You're really raving. Why, my poor old boy, you _must_ give her up. You can't do any thing. You daren't call on her. You're tied hand and foot. You may wors.h.i.+p her here, and rave about your child-angel till you're black in the face, but you never can see her; and as to all this about stopping her from marrying any other person, that's all rot and bosh. What do you suppose any other man would care for your nonsensical ravings? Lonely and an exile! Why, man, she'll be married and done for in three months."

"You don't understand me," said Dacres, dryly.

"I'm glad that I don't; but it's no wonder, old man, for really you were quite incoherent."

"And so they're going to Rome," said Dacres. "Well, they'll find that I'm not to be shaken off so easily."

"Come now, old man, you _must_ give up that."