The San Francisco call., 1905-04-30
CHAPTER xLIII.
One Golden Hour.

One Golden Hour.
"To-day-to-day" Teresa's hear
said. To-day he will come"
Just month ago she had left Casa
Guiccioi forever; now she sat in the
fountained garden of the GAMBIA villa.
a few miles from Ravenna. rose-pale
cypress slender, her wanness accentu-
ated by the black gown she wore-the
habit of mourning. The sentence OF
exile against Count Gambia had never
been carried out; a greater than Aus
tria had intervened Since that morn
ing when servant had found him un-
conscious among the cold retorts of his
laboratory. clasping the decree that
had broken his heart, he had revived,
but only to fail again. The end had
come soon. A week ago Teresa had
followed him to the narrow home over
which no earthly power claimed juris-
diction.
AS she sat. drenched with the altar,
of the Septenber afternoon, in her lap
the Romeo and Juliet which Gordon
had given her on their last meeting,
gladness crept goldenly through her
grief. The book had lain on the arbor
bench during the night, and this morn
ing she had found letter written on
its blank page. For the hundredth time
she perused it.now:
II have found this book in your gar
den and reread 1t in the moonlight
You were absent, or I could not have
done so. Others would understand these
words II | wrote them in Italian, but
you will interpret them in English. You
will recognize, toe, the handwriting of
one who loves you and will divine that
over any. book of yours he can think
only of that fact. In that word, beau
tiful in all languages, but most so IN
your-anlcr miO-is comprised my ex-
istence here and hereafter. My destiny
has rested with you, and you are
woman, nineteen yearstof age, and but
two out of convent. Fate has sepa-
rated us. but to weigh this is now too
late. love you and cannot cease to
love you. Will you think of me If the
Alps and the ocean divide us? Ah-but
they never can unless YOU wish It,"
This letter had been wrung from him
by the thought of the loss and loneli-
ness in which he could not comfort her;
beneath its few words lay the strain
and longing of the old struggle. He had
told himself at first that her separation
could make no difference with his go
Ing. But now she was. alone, bereft,
saddened. If he went, could she love
him any the less? So he had wrestied
as Jacob wrestled with the angel.
AS Teresa read, a moving shadow fell
on the page. She locked up to see him
coming between the clipped yew
hedges. In another moment he had
caught her hands in his.
How you have suffered he said,
his gaze searching her face, to which
glad flush had lea ped.
She framed his head in her arms, just
touching his strong brown curling
hair with its slender threads of
gray. II knew you cared knew you
had been near. me often. / found the
howers-and this note
Il have been here in the garden every
night Twas here that one night. too
when you were first alone
Tears gathered in her eyes.
1t was the decree of exile that killed
him." she said slowly. He loved Italy
and hoped for what can never be. They
say the uprising in the north has failed
and all its chiefs are betrayed. That is
the bitterness of it; 1t Was for nothing
after all that he died, Italy will not
be free. You believe it cannot, l know
Some time" he answered gently.
But not soon. Italy's peasants are not
fighting men like the Greeks; they lack
the inspiration of history. But no man
champions a great cause in vain. And
nuw," he asked. changing the subject,
what shall we do?"
Il have sent the news to my brother,
Pietro. Cavadja has lost his princi-
pality and Prince Mavrocordato is in
flight from Wallachia. Pietro is with
him. My letter must find and bring
him soon. Till then ] have Elsie-she
was my nurse. / shall be glad when
Pietro comes. How long it seems since
i have seen him! He would not know
me now. He has only my convent
miniature to remind him,''
Gordon's thought fled back to a day
L. L, 81. -
life and found that pictured ivory. Fate
had played an intricate game. He
would more than once have tcld her
of that incident but for another hound
ing memory-the recollection of the
mad fit of rage in which he had ground
the miniature under his heel. He could
not tell her that.
II know why you have stayed On at
the casa she said; that it is for nay
sake, to spare me idle tongues. Yet l
have been so afraid for you. You would
never go armed"
i am in small danger" he smiled
Fletcher, and Tita, whom y, u left me
for bodyguard, watch zealously. One
or the other is always under foot One
would think I were Ali Pasha himself"
He spoke half hunorously. trying to
coax the smile back to her lips. He
did not tell her with what danger and
that police spies, in whose assiduity he
recognized the work of her husband
and Treya nion. shadowed his foot
steps; that to excite attempts at his
assassination the belief had even been
disseminated that he was in league
with the Austrians. Nor did he tell her
that this very morning Fletcher had
found posted in the open marketplace
a proclamation too evidently inspired
by secret service agents denouncing
him as an enemy to the morals, the
literature and the politics of Italy.
He had long ago cautioned Tita against
carrying her news of these things.
As they strolled among the dahlias,
and tall as the oleanders in
the river beds of Greece, she told him
of her fathers last hours and her life
in the villa, frightened only by Tita's
daily visits from the casa.
What have you been writing?" she
questioned Has 1t been Don Juan?"
He shook his head. The hope she had
he would some day fin
ish 1t more werthily-had clung to him
like ivy. With an instinct having its root
deeper than his innate hatred of hy-
pocrisy, he had forwarded the earlier
cantos whose burning she had pre-