The Valley of Decision

gold-barred gate, behind which Fulvia, pale and disordered, st

e lines of sunlight. It was day, then! He sprang out of bed and flung open the shutters. Beneath him lay the piazza of Vercelli, bathed

himself the victim of a conspiracy which in some occult manner was forever forcing him to outrage and betray the two beings he most longed to serve. The idea of a conspiracy flashed a sudden light on his evening's diversion, and he sprang up wit

aliere? After keeping the carriage two hours at the door Cantapresto had ventured to send it back to the stable; but the horses should instantly be put to, and within an hour they would be well for

avagely. "Traitor-s

g man that his self-betrayal must confirm the others' suspicions. His one hope of protecting his friends was to affect indifference to what had happened; and this was made easier, by the reflection th

ing that meanwhile the soprano should purchase the handsomest set of filigree ornaments to be foun

travellers had set out that morning for Lombardy. His natural activity of mind was hampered by a leaden sense of remissness. With what anguish of spirit must Vivaldi and Fulvia have awaited him in that hour of dawn behind the convent! What thoughts must have visited the girl's mind as day broadened, the city woke, and peril pressed on them with every voice and eye! And when at length they saw that he had failed them, which way did their hunted footsteps turn? Perhaps they dared not go back to the friend who had taken them in f

d his reach. It was clear that if they were still in Vercelli they did not mean to make their presence known to him, while in the event of their escape he was without means of tracing them farther. He knew indeed that their destination was Milan, but, should they reach there safely, what hope was there of finding them in a city of strangers? By a stroke of folly he had cut himself off from all communication with them, and

o Pontesordo. At Valsecca, the regular posting-station between Vercelli and Pianura, he sent Cantapresto forward to the capital, and in a stormy yellow twilight drove alone across the waste land that d

key laden with mulberry-shoots. He stared for a moment a

ute?" said he indignantly. The other turned a dull f

ears you used to box when you were a lad. Must you always be pummelling some

ency's pardon for not knowing him, but that as for the ass it was a st

ion for the sufferings of the farm-animals suddenly revivin

nnozzo sulkily; "and as for its being hungry,

in showed through the rents in her unbleached shift. At sight of Odo she pushe

Filomena," said Odo; and she flu

knees in the mud, kissing his hands and calling down blessings on him. "And as for you, Giannozzo, you curd-faced fool, quick, see that his excellency's horses ar

d than ever, but the hearth was cold, and he noticed that no supper was laid. Filomena led him into the bailiff's parlour, where a mortal chill seized him. Cobwebs hung from th

n Sundays, and drunk aquarolle with their supper; but since the new taxes it was as much as the farmers could do to feed their cattle, without having a scrap to spare for themselves. Jacopone, she continued, was bent double with the rheumatism, and had not been able to drive a plough or to work in the mulberries for over two years. He and the farm-lads sat in the cow-stables when their work was over, for the sa

t what was any philandering with reform to this close contact with misery? It was as though white hungry faces had suddenly stared in at the windows of his brightly-lit life. Wha

Pontesordo; for though Giannozzo was a man grown, and did a man's work, he still danced to the tune of his mother's tongue. It was from her that Odo, shivering over the smoky hearth, gathered the details of

chase; but now a man dare not pluck a handful of weeds there, or so much as pick up a fallen twig; though the deer may trample his young wheat, and feed off the patch of beans at his very door. They do say the Duchess has a kind heart, and gives away money to the towns-folk; but we country-people who spend our lives raising fodder for her game never hear of

but when he named Momola she fell silent, and Giannozzo

to the other. "She's

. "Can one tell, excellency? It m

es? How lo

he stable is locked and his excellency's horses bedded down." He slu

remember when

day she was here, the next she was gone-clean gone, as a nut drops from the tree-and I that had given the blood of my veins to nourish

of neglect perhaps, or ill usage-and that they feared to own it. His heart swelled, but n

round the keep stretched the new-ploughed fields and the pollarded mulberry orchards; but these, with the clustered hovels of the village, formed a mere islet in the surrounding waste of marsh and woodland. The scene symbo

s started out in the slant of the sunrise like dead faces floating to the surface of a river. Dead faces, yes: plaintive spectres of his childish fears and longings, lost in the harsh day

n in a decent black dress and three-cornered hat. There was something familiar in the man's gait, and in the shape of his large head, poised

e hunchback, turning on him a thin face lit by the

esting that you might continue your way more comfortably in my carriage

his affable rejoinder, had the sheepish air

I daresay the jolting of your carriage might seem to me more unpleasant than t

amusement, "you will have the additional meri

e," he retorted, "that I should sacrifice to your pleasure even t

give me the opportunity of naming myself.-If you are indeed Carlo Ga

e cried. "I had heard that you were expected." He

future. It is more than doubtful if I am ever able to offer you a seat i

am grateful for a friend's kindness," he said

no more escape doing so than you can escape spending your life in the company of an ill

flushing red, laid a ha

e blessings my unknown parents bequeathed to me; and I confess I had heard of you as one

had heard of you as something of a philosopher, and here I find you not only taki

coach; "but as to philosophy, the only claim I can

nd as the carriage lumbered slowly toward Pianura he had time not only to recou

to hang about the palace and earn his keep by doing the lacquey's errands. The Duke's attention having been called to him as a lad of parts, his Highness had given him to the Marquess of Cerveno, in whose service he remained till shortly before that young nobleman's death. The hunchback passed hastily over this period; but his reticence was lit by the angry flash of his eyes. After the Marquess's death he had lived for a while from hand to mouth, copying music, writing poetry for weddings and funerals, doing pen-and-ink portraits at a scudo apiec

u are of a studious habit. Though I suppose," he tentatively added, "the library

since I have been somewhat deeply engaged in the study of these writers, and my dearest wish is to continue while

tranger; but the sense of peril made him the more eager to procl

s met in one of those revealing glances

most Christian state. Indeed," he added, "not only must the library be free from heretical works, but the librarian clear of heretical leanings; and since you have honoured me with your confidence I will own that, the court having got wind of m

o you speak of the court

Egyptian priesthood and an adept of the higher or secret doctrines of Neoplatonism. These three, however, though ostensibly rivals for the Duke's favour, live on such good terms with one another that they are suspected of having entered into a secret partnership; while some regard them all as the emissaries of the Jesuits, who, since the suppression of the Society, are known to have kept a footing in Pianura, as in most of the Italian states. As to the Duke, the death of the Marquess of Cerveno, the faili

tion? In some states where liberty of thought is forbidden th

d the state of passive ignorance in which they have kept the people has bred in the latter a dull resignation that is the surest obstacle to reform. Oh, sir," he cried, his eyes darkening with emotion, "if you could see, as I do, the blind brute misery on which all the magnificence of rank and

make some impulsive answer; but as he did so he caught sight of the towers of Pianura rising above the orchards and market-gardens of the

ted gates, with their Etruscan bas-reliefs, and the motto of the

e ducal palace and the centre of the town, Odo caught sight of a strange procession advancing from that direction. It was headed by a clerk or usher with a black cap and staff, behind whom marched two bare-foot friars escorting between them a middle-aged man in the dress of an abate, his hands bound behind him and his head surmounted by a paste-board mitre inscribed with the titl

n Pianura?" Odo asked, turning ironically to Gam

tow grace only when the penitent has enriched the treasury. The fellow," he added, "is a man of some learning and of a retired and orderly way of living, and the charge was brought against him by a jeweller and his wife, who owed him a sum of money and are said to have chosen this way of evading payment. The priests are always glad to