Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1899-09-24
CHAPTER xXXIII.
CORRESPONDENCE BY PROXY.

found any more than Luigi Torreani
1t is supposed that the latter has got
clear out of the country, though as yet
no certainty of this has reached the au-
thorities at Rome, so adroitly had the
artist, and his equally compromised
fellow fugitive managed their departure
by the Messageries steamer. The
friend, a young gentleman of wealth,
CHANGED at the time to have his purse
well filled, which made their embarka-
ton easy in DISCUSSES furnished by a
sympathising citizen of Civita Vecchia.
What became of either only their own
intimate associates could tell; and not
even these till after some time had
elapsed, and their fight ceased to oc-
cupy public attention. For Rome, long
under the incubus of rule which held
her people dumb, and as if dead, be-
gins to feel the touch of new life,
and events of a stirring kind crowd
quick upon one another.
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.
Count Guardiola continues to search
for the contadina zealously, undespair-
ingly. Every time his fancy calls up
her grandly beautiful image it gives
a fresh flip to his zeal, as prize
worth all the pains he has taken, or can
kake but, despite all, weeks, even
months, pass, and he receives no intel
ligence of her. His spies cannot dis
cover trace of her anywhere, much less
light upon her place of abode. Nor is
he himself more fortunate, though he
gives much of his time to making per-
sonal explorations. He has visited
every Riona of Rome-every corner
and suburb where such as she might be
supposed to dwell All in vain. Alike
bootless have been his frequent visits
to the Via Margutta, and the abandoned
studio of the artist-the first place at
which search had been made. The
padrona knows nothing about any of
them, only that the pittore went away
without giving her any warning, and
stranger to her, representing himself
to be the artists father, came and car
ried off all his things, leaving the
rooms empty and herself without a
she is sorry to say. AS for
ndina, no, she knows nothing
kdt any such person. Those model
girls are not of the most modest kind,
and she never takes any notice of their
comings and goings.
Sage dame! she knows well where
the contadina dwells; sees her at least
twice a week. Knows also where Luigi
Torreani is, and that the elderly gentle
man who cleared the studio was the
Sindico of Val di Orno, his father;
fact fortunately unknown to Guardi-
ola. She has, besides, an intimate I'M
Outstanding of other circumstances,
hardly to be looked for in letter Of
lodgings-this compromising things
political For the good padrona has
herself a son affiliated with the same
society which brought trouble to her
tenant. Just for this reason shows she
so stolid and stupidity ignorant under
the cross-questioning of Count Guardi-
ola
So often baff1ed he gives up going to
the Via Margutta or elsewhere, hence
forth entrusting the search to his sa-
tellites, OF whom he employs a goodly
staff, some of them the sharpest-witted
within the walls of Rome. But, with
all their prying capabilities, not one
succeeds in discovering Camilla Buono-
fanti. Her disappearance from the
holy city seems as strange as the mode
by which her lover left it, and far more
of a mystery.
In fine, Captain Guardiola is forced
to the conclusion that she, too, must
have taken flight-in all probability
returned to her native place upon the
Liri. If so, she is now on Neapolitan
soil and beyond his jurisdiction.
This belief is very bitterness to him,
and to assuage it, as he now sits in his
quarters, he is swallowing glass after
glass of strong Oporto wine, at the same
time pulling hard at his Havana. AS
his spirits rise under the combined
stimulus of alcohol and nicotine, the
contadina's face appears in fancy before
him, not smiling but darkly scowling,
as wen she caught hold of his arm and
thwarted the thrust of his sword. What
would he not give to have herself beside
him, not in shadowy dream, but the
substantial reality of her grand, almost
masculine form, yet still feminine
beauty? All! if she were there, Heaven
itself would be beside him, and not all
the powers of earth or hell should res
cue her from his grasp again. But she
it not there, and that is an end of it.
Why should he let the thing go on tear
ing his heart? In all likelihood, he
will never set eyes on her again, and
why not pluck her out of it?
Thus interrogating himself with
II, off ON, at nation 40