Springfield globe-republic. (Springfield, Ohio) 1884-1887, 1885-01-04
CHAPTER XIII.
A TERRIBLE CONFESSION.

. TERRIBLE CONFESSION.
Ceneri, having made this astounding
announcement, threw his wasted arms
across the rough table and laid his head
upon them with gesture of despair.
l sat like one stupetied, repeating me-
chanically: ..Pauline's brother-Antho-
ny MarchH' Every vestige of the black
lie was swept away from my mind; but
the crime in which Ceneri had been
concerned assumed more fearful pro-
portions. 1t was more dreadful than I
had suspected. The victim a near blood
relation-his own sisters child! Moth
ing, l felt, could be urged to excuse or
palliate the crime. Even had he not
ordered and planned it, he had been
present; had assisted in hiding all
traces of it; had been, until recently,
on terms of friendship with the man
who had struck the blow. 1 could
scarcely control the loathing and con-
tempt felt for the abject wretch before
me. My burning indignation would
scarcely allow me to ask him. in intel
ligible speech, the object of the cruel
deed. But for once and all must have
everything made clear to me.
was spared the necessity of asking
the question was trying to force to my
lips. The convict raised his head and
looked at me with miserable eyes.
You shrink from me. No wonder
Yet am not so guilty as you think"
''Tell me all, first; the excuses may
come afterward, if anything can be
urged in excuse of the crime"
spoke as l sternly and con-
temptuously.
'None can be urged for the murder
er. For me, God knows i would will
ingly have let that bright boy live. He
forsook and forgot his country, but that
l forgave"
His country! his fathers country
was Englandr'
His mothers was Italy," replied
! Cener, almost fiercefy He had our
blood in his veins. His mother was a
true Italian. She would have given
fortune, Ife--aye, even honor, fox
asly."
sNo matter Tell me the whole ter
rible stors"
He told me. In justice to peniteni
man, do not use his own words in re-
telling it. Without his accent and stress
they would sound cold and unemotion-
al. Criminal he had been, but not so
utterly black as my fancy had painted
him. His great fault was that in the
cause of liberty any weapons were al
lowable, any crimes We're pardonable-
We Englishmen, whose idea of tyranny
and oppression is being debarred from
the exercise of the franchise. can neither
understand nor sympathize with man
of his type. We may call the Govern
ment righteous or corrupt as we are
Wings or Tories, and one side happens
to be in or out; but, at least, we are
ruled by our countrymen, elected by
some of US for that purpose. Let us be
for years and years at the mercy OF a
foreigner, and we may understand what
/ patriotism in Ceneri's sense means.
He and his sister were respectable
| middle-class people - not noble IS
Macari asserted. He had been given
liberal education, and adopted the pro-
fession of doctor. His sister, from whom
Pauline inherited her great beauty
/ lived the life of an ordinary Italian
girl-a duller life, perhaps. than many
of them led, as, following her brothers
example, she refused to share the gay
CIlCS W lllSI LILO WhilC-SoabSo Aoo AAASN
the land. No doubt she would have
been faithful to her mourning for her
country had not love came upon the
scene. An Englishman named March
saw the fair Italian girl, won her heart,
and carried her away in triumph to his
native land. Ceneri never quite for
gave his sister for her desertion and
detection; but the prospects opened
! before her by the marriage were so
great that he made but little opposition
to it. March was . very rich man.
He was the only son of an only son,
which fact accounts for Pauline having,
so far as CeDeri knew, no near relatives
on her fathers side. For several years
the young husband and his beautiful
dark-eyed wife lived with great hap
pinesS. Two children, a son and
daughter, were born to them. When
the son was twelve and the daughter
ten years old the father died. The
widow, who had made few close friends
in England, and only loved the country
d, for her husbands sake, flew back to
, her native lard. She was cordially
welcomed back by her old friends. She
was considered fabulously wealthy. Her
husband, in the first flush of his passion,
had made a will bequeathing every
thing he possessed to her absolutely.
Although children have since came, SO
perfectly did he trust her that no
change had been made as to the dis
position of his property. So, with such
fortune at her command, Mrs. March
was honored and courted by all.
She had. until she met her future hus-
band, loved her brother above every one
in the world. She had echoed mis- pa
triotism, sympathized with him in his
schemes, and listened to the wild plots
he was always planning. He was some
years older than she was, and upon her
return to Italy she found him, out
wardly, nothing more than quiet,
lard-working, ill-paid doctor. She mar
veled at the change from the head
strong, visionary, daring young man
she had left 1t was not until he was
certain her heart had not forsaken her
country that Ceneri allowed her to see
that under his prosaic exterior lurked
one of the subtlest and ablest minds
of all those engaged in working out the
liberation of Italy. Then all his old sway
caine Dack. one tulnlleu, aiihoSI "ol-
SHIPPED him. She, too, was ready to
make any sacrifice when the time should
came.
What she would have done had she
been called upon, it is impossible to say;
but there is little doubt but her fortune
and her children's fortune would have
been freely spent in the good cause.
As it was she died long before the pear
was ripe, and when she died, such was
her faith in her brother, everything was
left in his hands as sole trustee for her
children. In her last moments the
thought of her husbands decided En-
glish proclivities made her exact q
promise that both the boz ADD Lns giri