Really, that's what I came here for--to tell you that no one in our group believes a word of it."
"Gemma!
But it's--it's true!"
She shrank slowly away from him, and stood quite still, her eyes wide and dark with horror, her face as white as the kerchief at her neck.
A great icy wave of silence seemed to have swept round them both, shutting them out, in a world apart, from the life and movement of the street.
"Yes," he whispered at last; "the steamers-- I spoke of that; and I said his name--oh, my God! my God!
What shall I do?"
He came to himself suddenly, realizing her presence and the mortal terror in her face.
Yes, of course, she must think------
"Gemma, you don't understand!" he burst out, moving nearer; but she recoiled with a sharp cry:
"Don't touch me!"
Arthur seized her right hand with sudden violence.
"Listen, for God's sake!
It was not my fault; I----"
"Let go; let my hand go!
Let go!"
The next instant she wrenched her fingers away from his, and struck him across the cheek with her open hand.
A kind of mist came over his eyes.
For a little while he was conscious of nothing but Gemma's white and desperate face, and the right hand which she had fiercely rubbed on the skirt of her cotton dress.
Then the daylight crept back again, and he looked round and saw that he was alone.
CHAPTER VII.
IT had long been dark when Arthur rang at the front door of the great house in the Via Borra.
He remembered that he had been wandering about the streets; but where, or why, or for how long, he had no idea.
Julia's page opened the door, yawning, and grinned significantly at the haggard, stony face.
It seemed to him a prodigious joke to have the young master come home from jail like a "drunk and disorderly" beggar.
Arthur went upstairs.
On the first floor he met Gibbons coming down with an air of lofty and solemn disapproval.
He tried to pass with a muttered
"Good evening"; but Gibbons was no easy person to get past against his will.
"The gentlemen are out, sir," he said, looking critically at Arthur's rather neglected dress and hair. "They have gone with the mistress to an evening party, and will not be back till nearly twelve."
Arthur looked at his watch; it was nine o'clock.
Oh, yes! he would have time--plenty of time------
"My mistress desired me to ask whether you would like any supper, sir; and to say that she hopes you will sit up for her, as she particularly wishes to speak to you this evening."
"I don't want anything, thank you; you can tell her I have not gone to bed."
He went up to his room.
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.
There was nothing to think or trouble about; an importunate and useless consciousness to get rid of--and nothing more.
It seemed a stupid, aimless kind of thing, somehow.
He had not formed any resolve to commit suicide, nor indeed had he thought much about it; the thing was quite obvious and inevitable.
He had even no definite idea as to what manner of death to choose; all that mattered was to be done with it quickly--to have it over and forget.
He had no weapon in the room, not even a pocketknife; but that was of no consequence--a towel would do, or a sheet torn into strips.
There was a large nail just over the window.
That would do; but it must be firm to bear his weight.
He got up on a chair to feel the nail; it was not quite firm, and he stepped down again and took a hammer from a drawer.
He knocked in the nail, and was about to pull a sheet off his bed, when he suddenly remembered that he had not said his prayers.
Of course, one must pray before dying; every Christian does that.
There are even special prayers for a departing soul.