Volume Ii Part 6 (2/2)

But after a while the sobs grew quieter: she still knelt, gazing straight before her with an expression of sweet and ardent belief upon her tear-stained face. The words he had spoken at the church door had come back to her. '_You know I never meant to hurt you, dear. Italia, you do know that I love you._' She said them over in a whisper, like a prayer, looking up at the little picture of the Madonna above her bed.

No other words would come, but surely our pitiful Lady of Sorrows would hear and understand.

She was not altogether to be pitied, this grief-stricken Italia. For to her, at least, in time, could come that great reward,--the sense of having lived a faithful life; in which the first indeed could be the last; a life wherein no loved thing has been forgotten, and memory and belief are alike sacred.

When Drea came home from his morning's work he found everything in order. His dinner was ready for him beside the fire. He ate it in silence; seeming to take very little notice of his daughter's white cheeks and heavy-lidded eyes. But as he sat smoking his pipe after dinner, he put out his rough hard hand as she pa.s.sed by in front of him, and drew her down gently upon his knee.

'Don't fret, my little girl; don't fret now,' he said tenderly, and stroked her ruffled hair.

Then he added cheerfully. 'Come now! you said the young Padrone was going to make me a present. Let us hear about it. Good Lord, it must be a matter of twenty years since any one has thought of making me a present.--And I'll tell you what, my girl. It's full moon to-night.

If you like, I will take you out in the boat with me, when I go to look after the nets. And so courage, my little one, courage! Lord bless you! it's only in a storm one can find out who's a good sailor. And so cheer up for--what's an old father good for if it isn't to keep those pretty eyes from getting red with crying? And the good G.o.d lets a man do, but He doesn't let him overdo. He's no fool, is Dino. We're not at the end of the matter yet.'

CHAPTER VI.

ON THE BUOY.

There was no difficulty in arranging for that journey to Pisa. As soon as it was settled that they were to go by water, to row themselves the fifteen miles of the old disused ca.n.a.l, Dino volunteered to have the skiff in readiness at a moment's notice. 'I want to be away from here.

The sooner we start, the sooner it's all over, the better pleased I shall be,' the young man insisted impatiently.

Ever since his return from Monte Nero he had done nothing but urge upon Valdez the necessity of some immediate action; if it were only to go on this trip to the next town to secure the purchase of the revolver, at least that would be something accomplished. A curious restless gloom had fallen upon Dino's open countenance. It was as if he could never quite free himself from the scathing bitterness of old Andrea's reproaches. He longed for action, definite action, however distasteful. Each slow bright day which pa.s.sed seemed a long s.p.a.ce of painful suspense until he stood cleared in the old fisherman's eyes.

'He may think me a madman if he pleases. He can never think of me again as a coward,' the young man told himself bitterly. Valdez could understand nothing of this sudden change in him.

'You puzzle me, lad--and you lack patience.'

'Patience!' repeated Dino, 'and what for pray? I have read in some book that it is faith, and not prudence, which has power to move mountains. What does anything else matter so long as we have the faith?'

Valdez looked at him very gravely.

'You are sneering, my Dino. And I find that, as a rule, people who distrust or deny their own emotions are justified by many of their subsequent actions in the lack of faith. Don't do it, boy. Not to believe in others,'--the old republican's eye flashed,--'not to trust in others, is to reduce life to a mean habit,' he said.

They were sitting in Dino's own room, and the young man's gaze wandered restlessly over the walls; it seemed as if he were trying to learn by heart the position of each small familiar object.

'Why, it is like a bit of the old days back again, Valdez, to hear you lecture one!'

'Ay, lad.'

The elder man was following out his own train of thought. 'Perhaps I ought not to be so much surprised at the way it is taking hold of you.

Until one is two or three and twenty one thinks of oneself: after that one is preoccupied with life, its combinations and its issues. And life is the bigger thing of the two.'

He stood up and laid his sensitive, long-fingered, musician's hand upon Dino's shoulder. 'Then that is settled. Bring the boat around to-night; and we start early in the morning,' he said slowly. He looked hard into Dino's face, and his lips worked as if on the point of adding something. But whatever it was the words remained unspoken. He turned away, and a moment later Dino heard him wis.h.i.+ng Sora Catarina a grave '_Buon giorno!_' as he pa.s.sed through the outer room.

Later in the day Dino had spoken to his mother about his intention of absenting himself for an expedition of two or three days to Pisa. To his surprise Sora Catarina made not the least objection.

He postponed telling her until the last possible moment, acting in this on the opinion he had once heard Drea express about an angry woman's scolding. 'When a woman's got a tongue in her head, the wise man never speaks to her until he's putting his hat on; for it's no matter how hard the wind blows so long as it blows from astern.' But Catarina had not justified this prevision.

It was easy to see that she had something on her mind from the anxious glances which she kept casting in her son's direction, but it was not until he was just at the door and ready to start that she laid down her knitting resolutely, and said:

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