The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1903-02-04

cousin, the Due oil RaVelo, sent III
crowd to keep each other company at the
bottom of the Mediterranean few days
ago. You look startled. You didn't guess
that you We're talking to relative? Why
should you? Pah! I'm not proud Of the
relationship. But you see now that the |
crime which has stained you with blood
has not left me without q foul splash or
two. Now, listen. I am going to tell you
what know. and then I may ask you a |
few questions, which shall not only adj |
wise but command you to answer. After |
that will go on to tell you exactly what
I want you to do. But you look little
upset. You are going to hear certain
things which will upset you still more.
There is d chair exactly. I should say, two
feet behind you-a trifle to the left. You
had better sit down.
stefano di Dorrebianca obeyed, moving
step backward, and dropping rather than
sitting In the chair indicated.
II shall begin my story at a time a
good many years ago. Dick went on,
which l believe is considered an old
fashioned form Of narratives; nevertheless
I hardly think it will bore you. Thirty
years ago your father was merely very
poor relation Of the Due di Ravello, but he
was a. friend of the powers that were,
| while the Due was an ardent Catholic,
furious at what he thought the insults put
| upon the pope and spending his fortune
in conspiring against the Italian govern
1nent. Your father first won his conf
dence and then betrayed it. The Due
then only 25 was banished from Italy,
his estates and the titles which went with
them taken from him and bestowed on
| your father, who was the next Of kin.
| Your father was engaged to be married
| to a cousin Of his. who was also a cousin
Of the banished Due. She was a clever
girl, with the blood of Catherine de Med
lei in her veins. and something Of Cath
crimes knowledge of strange poisons. She
had cared for the Due, and schemed to
marry him. but he had an aversion for
her; and finally, seeing that there was no
| hope Of winning the man she loved, she
| consented to engage herself to your father.
who expected to come into his banished
cousins money with the estates But the
Due had known that he was in danger of
| losing everything in case his 'conspiracies
against the government were discovered,
and he had invested all of his. fortune
which could possibly be- realized in, Eng
lish securities just before the crash. The
| estates were comparative barren. Your
! father had no capital of his own. and as
| the banished Due had been popular and
he was known to have betrayed him, his
position was not as enviabe as he had
hoped.
| Meanwhile the Due had cursed Italy,
| which once he had loved so we'll, and be-
| came q Man Without Country. He had
! also vowed to be revenged upon your faith
er for his treachery, if it took him twenty
| years to accomplish it. Just before his
Punishment he had fallen in love with a
| beautiful Irish girl living abroad, named
| Eve Desmond. He had meant to ask her
to be his wife when the crash came. Then
as she was Protestant. although Irish.
they quarreled and parted, he thinking
that she considered him disgraced, she
believing that he did not care for her. He
lived q wandering life, spending a few
months here, few months there. A year
after seeing the, last Of Eve Desmond he
heard that she was engaged to marry a
rich Englishman named Markham. He
could not bear the thought of losing her
for ever. but going to England from
France, where he then was, begged the
girl to throw over her English lover and
1 marry him. She confessed that she loved
him, but would not consent to break her
word, though perhaps she would have
been less firm if it had not been for her
aunt, who hated the Due di Ravello and
liked Sir Peter Markham.
mo one knew that the Due was in Eng
land. He was staying in London incog.,
and if he ever visited Miss Desmond it
was secretly. But the night before she
was to marry Sir Peter Markham he went
to the fiat where the girl lived with her
aunt. and once more implored her to lis
ten to her own heart and go away with
him. She still refused. though with tears
and he was determined to have her at
all costs he seized her round the waist
pressed handkerchief soaked with chlor-
oform over her face, and held her till she
| was unconscious, while her aunt-as he
, thought-fainted with terror in her chair
: So the Due carried the girl away in a