The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-11-29
Published By Special ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 1885, A Rights Reservedl
DON
,.-copyrighsed 1885; An Rights Reserved.l
A SKETCH BY "OUIDA."
Author of UNDER Two FLAGS" 1.-TWO LITTLE WOODEN SHOES" "PUcK" "STRATHMoRE'
"CHANDos" "a RAINY DAY IN JUNE" and Other Popular Novels
PART III.

PAh1
The winter passed away, and with February
The corn spread a green carpet everywhere; the
almond trees blossomed on the hillsides, the vio-
lets opened the ways for the wind flowers, and
the willows budded beside the water-mill. There
were braying of bugles, twanging Of lutes, crack
ing of shots, drinking of wines on the farms and
In the village as a rustic celebration of carnival.
Not much Of it, for times are hard and mems
hearts heavy in these days, and the sunlit grace
and airy gayety natural to it are things forever
dead in Italy, like the lex forests and the great
gardens that have persisted forever and aye.
Lent same, with its church bells sounding in
melancholy iteration over the March fields,
where the dafodils were blowing by millions,
and the Parocco of San Bartolo tasted, and
prayed, and mortified his flesh in every way
that his creed allowed, and hoped by such miser-
les, pains and penances to attain grace in
heaven, if not on earth, for Generosa in her
misery. All through lent he wearied the ear of
God with incessant supplication for her.
Day and night he racked his brain to discover
any evidence as to who the assassin had been.
He never once doubted her; If the very apostles
and saints of his church had all descended on
earth to witness against her, he would have cried
30 them that she was innocent.
The sickening suspicious, the haunting, ire
pressible doubts which now and then came over
the mind of her lover as he walked to and fro by
the edge of the river at night, looking up at
what had been the easement of her chamber, did
not assail for al instant the stronger faith of
Gesualdo, weak as he was in body and, in some
ways, weak in character.
The truth might remain in horrid mystety, in
impenetrable darkness forever; it would make
no difference to him; he would be always con-
WINGED that she had been innocent. Had he not
known her when she was a little, barefooted child,
coming flying through the shallow green pools,
and the great yellow grasses, and the sunny
sanebreaks of Becco d'Arno.
Most innocent, indeed, had been his relations
with the wife of Tassilo, but to him it seemed
that the interest he had taken in her, the
pleasure he had felt in converse with her, had
been criminal There had been times when his
eyes. which should have only seen in her a soul
to save, had become aware Of her mere bodily
beauty, had dwelt on her with an awakening of
sarnal admiration. 1t suficed to make him
guilty in his own sight. This agony, which he
felt for her, was the sympathy of a personal
affection. He knew it, and his consciousness of
1t flung him at the feet of his crucifx in tortures
Of conscience.
He knew. too, that he had done her harm by
Che incoherence and the reticence of. his testi-
mony, by the mere vehemepce with which he
had unwisely striven to affirm an innocence
which he had no power to prove; even by that
natural impulse of humanity which had moved
him to bring her husbands corpse under the roof
Of the church and close the door upon the clam
oFous and staring throng who saw in the tragedy
INT a pastime. He. more than any other, had
helped to cast on her the darkness Of suspicion;
be, more than any other, had helped to make
earthly peace and happiness forever denied to
her.
Even if they acquitted her in the house of law
yonder, she would be dehonored for life. Even
her lover, who loved her with all the hot. coarse
srdor of a young mans uncontrolled desires, had
declared that he would be ashamed to walk be-
side her in broad day so long as this slur of pos
sible, if unproven, crime were on her; until his
sensitive soul began to take alarm lest it were
not o hind of sin to be so occupied with the fate
of one to the neglect and detriment of others.
Candida saw him growing thinner and more
shadow-like every day with ever.increasing
anxiety. To fast she knew was needful above
all for a priest in Lent, but he did not touch
what he might lawfully have eaten, the new
laid eggs and the crisp ~lettuces of her providing
failed to tempt him; and no mortal man, she told
him, could live on air and water as he did.
''There should be reason in all piety," she
faid to him, and he assented.
But he did not change his ways, which were
rather those Of a monk of the Thebaid than of
% vicar of a parish. He had the soul in him of
st. Anthony, of q st. Francis, and he had been
born too late; the world as it is was too coarse
and too incredulous for him, even in a little
rustic primitive village hidden away from the
eyes of men under its millet and its fg-trees.
The people of Marca noticed the great change
in him. Pale he had always been, but now he
was the color of his own ivory Christ; t~aciturn
like, too, he had always been. yet he had ever
lad playful words for the children, kind words
for the aged; these were silent now. The list
less and mechanical manner with which he went
" through the Offices of the church contrasted with
the passionate and despairing cries which seemed
to come from his very soul when no preached.
and which vaguely frightened a rural congrega-
tion who were wholly unable to understand
them.
zone would think the good Parocco had some
awful sin on his soul, said a woman to Candida
one evening.
Nay, nay; he is as pure as a lamb, said Cam
dida, twiring her distaff. But he was always
helpless and c~hildlike, and too much taken up
with heavenly things-may the saints forgive
me for saying so. He should be in a monastery
along with s. Romolo and S. Francis"
Buyet the housekeeper, though loyalty it
self, was. in her own secret thoughts, not a little
troubled at the change she saw in her master.
She put it down to the score of his agitation at
the peril Of Generosa Fe;-but this in itself
seemed to her uniting in one of his sacred call
ing. A mere light-o'love and saucebox, as she
had always herself called the miller's wife, was