"Because he told me so."
"HE told you?
Montanelli?
Gemma, what do you mean?"
She pushed the hair back from her forehead and turned towards him.
They were standing still again, he leaning on the balustrade and she slowly drawing lines on the pavement with the point of her umbrella.
"Cesare, you and I have been friends for all these years, and I have never told you what really happened about Arthur."
"There is no need to tell me, dear," he broke in hastily; "I know all about it already."
"Giovanni told you?"
"Yes, when he was dying.
He told me about it one night when I was sitting up with him. He said---- Gemma, dear, I had better tell you the truth, now we have begun talking about it--he said that you were always brooding over that wretched story, and he begged me to be as good a friend to you as I could and try to keep you from thinking of it.
And I have tried to, dear, though I may not have succeeded--I have, indeed."
"I know you have," she answered softly, raising her eyes for a moment; "I should have been badly off without your friendship. But--Giovanni did not tell you about Monsignor Montanelli, then?"
"No, I didn't know that he had anything to do with it.
What he told me was about--all that affair with the spy, and about----"
"About my striking Arthur and his drowning himself.
Well, I will tell you about Montanelli."
They turned back towards the bridge over which the Cardinal's carriage would have to pass.
Gemma looked out steadily across the water as she spoke.
"In those days Montanelli was a canon; he was Director of the Theological Seminary at Pisa, and used to give Arthur lessons in philosophy and read with him after he went up to the Sapienza.
They were perfectly devoted to each other; more like two lovers than teacher and pupil.
Arthur almost worshipped the ground that Montanelli walked on, and I remember his once telling me that if he lost his
'Padre'--he always used to call Montanelli so --he should go and drown himself. Well, then you know what happened about the spy. The next day, my father and the Burtons--Arthur's step-brothers, most detestable people--spent the whole day dragging the Darsena basin for the body; and I sat in my room alone and thought of what I had done----"
She paused a moment, and went on again:
"Late in the evening my father came into my room and said:
'Gemma, child, come downstairs; there's a man I want you to see.'
And when we went down there was one of the students belonging to the group sitting in the consulting room, all white and shaking; and he told us about Giovanni's second letter coming from the prison to say that they had heard from the jailer about Cardi, and that Arthur had been tricked in the confessional.
I remember the student saying to me:
'It is at least some consolation that we know he was innocent' My father held my hands and tried to comfort me; he did not know then about the blow.
Then I went back to my room and sat there all night alone.
In the morning my father went out again with the Burtons to see the harbour dragged.
They had some hope of finding the body there."
"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.
When I said:
'Canon Montanelli, I want to speak to you,' he just stopped and waited silently for me to speak.
Oh, Cesare, if you had seen his face--it haunted me for months afterwards!
I said:
'I am Dr.
Warren's daughter, and I have come to tell you that it is I who have killed Arthur.'
I told him everything, and he stood and listened, like a figure cut in stone, till I had finished; then he said:
'Set your heart at rest, my child; it is I that am a murderer, not you.
I deceived him and he found it out.'
And with that he turned and went out at the gate without another word."
"And then?"
"I don't know what happened to him after that; I heard the same evening that he had fallen down in the street in a kind of fit and had been carried into a house near the docks; but that is all I know.
My father did everything he could for me; when I told him about it he threw up his practice and took me away to England at once, so that I should never hear anything that could remind me. He was afraid I should end in the water, too; and indeed I believe I was near it at one time.
But then, you know, when we found out that my father had cancer I was obliged to come to myself--there was no one else to nurse him.