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"It's a lie!" the Gadfly cried out with blazing eyes. "And the bishopric?" "The bishopric?" "Ah! you've forgotten that? It's so easy to forget! 'If you wish it, Arthur, I will say I cannot go. I was to decide your life for you I, at nineteen! If it weren't so hideous, it would be funny." "Stop!" Montanelli put up both hands to his head with a desperate cry.
For a moment everything was dead with silence, and then Montanelli knelt down and hid his face on the Gadfly's breast. When he raised his head the sun had set, and the red glow was dying in the west. They had forgotten time and place, and life and death; they had forgotten, even, that they were enemies. "Arthur," Montanelli whispered, "are you real? Have you come back to me from the dead?"
"But it's not on the way to anywhere." "It's not far out of the way to Rome, and many of the Easter Pilgrims are going round to hear Mass there." "I d-d-didn't know there was anything special in Brisighella." "There's the Cardinal. Don't you remember his going to Florence to preach last December? It's that same Cardinal Montanelli. They say he made a great sensation."
I can't have you rushing off in that way. It is Saturday, and quite time for you to leave off work till Monday morning. Stop and have supper with me, now I have kept you so late. I am quite alone, and shall be glad of company." His manner was so bright and pleasant that Arthur felt at ease with him at once. After some desultory conversation, the Director inquired how long he had known Montanelli.
"I don't understand you," Montanelli said coldly, taking up a pencil and twisting it between his fingers. "Surely Your Eminence has not forgotten old Diego, the pilgrim?" He suddenly changed his voice and began to speak as Diego: "I am a miserable sinner " The pencil snapped in Montanelli's hand. "That is too much!" he said.
"It was never found, was it?" "No; it must have got washed out to sea; but they thought there was a chance. I was alone in my room and the servant came up to say that a 'reverendissimo padre' had called and she had told him my father was at the docks and he had gone away. I knew it must be Montanelli; so I ran out at the back door and caught him up at the garden gate.
Surely there was no other misery like this to be willing to forgive, to long to forgive; and to know that it was hopeless that he could not, dared not forgive. Montanelli rose at last, made the sign of the cross, and turned away from the altar.
This kind of morbid fancifulness was so foreign to Montanelli's character that Arthur looked at him with grave anxiety. "Padre, I am sure you are not well. Of course you must go to Rome, and try to have a thorough rest and get rid of your sleeplessness and headaches." "Very well," Montanelli interrupted, as if tired of the subject; "I will start by the early coach to-morrow morning."
Arthur, for his part, noticed, hardly understanding it, the subtle change in the Padre's manner; and, vaguely feeling that it had some connection with the vexed question of the "new ideas," avoided all mention of the subject with which his thoughts were constantly filled. Yet he had never loved Montanelli so deeply as now.
"At what time does Your Eminence wish to visit the prisoner?" he asked. "I will go to him at once." "As Your Eminence pleases. If you will kindly wait a few moments, I will send someone to prepare him." The Governor had come down from his official pedestal in a great hurry. He did not want Montanelli to see the straps. "Thank you; I would rather see him as he is, without preparation.
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