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Updated: June 3, 2025
"From the dead " the Gadfly repeated, shivering. He was lying with his head on Montanelli's arm, as a sick child might lie in its mother's embrace. "You have come back you have come back at last!" The Gadfly sighed heavily. "Yes," he said; "and you have to fight me, or to kill me." "Oh, hush, carino! What is all that now?
Montanelli's personal reputation stood too high for any lampoon, however witty, seriously to injure it, but for a moment the tide almost turned against him. The Gadfly had known where to sting; and, though eager crowds still collected before the Cardinal's house to see him enter or leave his carriage, ominous cries of "Jesuit!" and "Sanfedist spy!" often mingled with the cheers and benedictions.
"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.
He possessed the gift of slipping into graceful attitudes; and when his face was in shadow no one would have guessed through what deep waters he had been passing. But, as he looked up, the clear evening light showed how haggard and colourless he was, and how plainly the trace of the last few days was stamped on him. Montanelli's anger died away. "I am afraid you have been terribly ill," he said.
A FEW days later, the Gadfly, still rather pale and limping more than usual, entered the reading room of the public library and asked for Cardinal Montanelli's sermons. Riccardo, who was reading at a table near him, looked up. He liked the Gadfly very much, but could not digest this one trait in him this curious personal maliciousness.
Arthur looked at him, wondering. "You had something to tell me?" he said. "No, no; nothing more nothing of any consequence." There was a startled, almost terrified look in his face. A few days after Montanelli's departure Arthur went to fetch a book from the seminary library, and met Father Cardi on the stairs. "Ah, Mr. Burton!" exclaimed the Director; "the very person I wanted.
The Gadfly obeyed silently; then lay back on the pallet with closed eyes. He himself could have given no explanation of what had happened to him when Montanelli's hand had touched his cheek; he only knew that in all his life there had been nothing more terrible. Montanelli drew his chair closer to the pallet and sat down.
But the secret was not his to tell; and he merely answered: "What special danger should there be?" "Don't question me answer me!" Montanelli's voice was almost harsh in its eagerness. "Are you in danger? I don't want to know your secrets; only tell me that!" "We are all in God's hands, Padre; anything may always happen.
"Do you mean, then, that this thing this feeling is quite irrevocable? Arthur, have you thought what you are saying?" Arthur turned round and looked straight into Montanelli's eyes. "Padre, you asked me if I could trust you. Can you not trust me, too? Indeed, if there were anything to tell, I would tell it to you; but there is no use in talking about these things.
Nothing in it had been changed since his arrest; Montanelli's portrait was on the table where he had placed it, and the crucifix stood in the alcove as before. He paused a moment on the threshold, listening; but the house was quite still; evidently no one was coming to disturb him. He stepped softly into the room and locked the door. And so he had come to the end.
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