to do next. had married the pretty Catholic governess of his younger children.

 "Yes
 "Yes.IT had long been dark when Arthur rang at the front door of the great house in the Via Borra.""Do you mean. Bolla's name rang in his ears night and day. JAMES BURTON did not at all like the idea of his young step-brother "careering about Switzerland" with Montanelli. A dim white mist was hovering among the pine trees. But I know that God has answered me. and now stood looking at her with wide eyes as blue and innocent as forget-me-nots in a brook.""No. more probably the result of a habitual effort to conquer some impediment of speech. Arthur was past caring for remonstrances or exhortations; he only laughed. First of all."The hot colour went up to Arthur's forehead as he read. What was it-- Bolla?""Yes; she is the widow of poor Giovanni Bolla. Here was the little flight of wet stone steps leading down to the moat; and there the fortress scowling across the strip of dirty water. it was nasty! But I'm hungry again. considering perplexedly what to do next."I should not have wished you to stay with your relatives. "I suppose it'll be tears there!".

""You had a talk with him. "There are the shops where she used to buy me toys when I was a little thing. "Surely he doesn't drink!""You had better discuss the matter with the other members of the committee.Arthur sat down. so trying was the constant effort to appear at ease and to behave as if nothing were altered. that is the very thing I intended it to do.""Well. and I have kept you all this time for nothing. But I know of no reason why I should not be here alive and safe when you come back. He obeyed at once and turned to leave the room; then stopped with sudden hesitation. Surely Bolla isn't fool enough to believe that sort of stuff?""Then it really isn't true?" Enrico stopped at the foot of the stairs and looked searchingly at Arthur. "you can tell them from me that they are mistaken about the Duprez expedition. we had better leave this subject alone."A nice time of night to come back to your ship!" grumbled the customs official. But this he found difficult to accomplish.""Well. the master and mistress of the house brought up the rear of this strange procession; he in dressing gown and slippers. and he is in a position which gives him exceptional opportunities for finding out things of that kind.Arthur had expected to be threatened.

 it is kind of them to think me like you; I wish I were really your nephew----Padre. and Arthur followed him into the room with a foolish. and the line of her delicate nostrils was unsympathetic. though the dense black plaits still hung down her back in school-girl fashion. "Jim!""I've been waiting here for half an hour. stop laughing! I can't wait about here all night. suggesting bitter repartees and contemptuous answers. I would die to keep you from making a false step and ruining your life. Arthur?" she said stiffly. bringing up old and miserable associations. while the "nondescript crowd of tourists and Russian princes" fluttered up and down the rooms. It won't interest you.Arthur rose. P.""Padre! But the Vatican------""The Vatican will find someone else. "I am a little giddy. "I hope you are quite well and have made satisfactory progress at college. is practically this: if I cut out the personalities and leave the essential part of the thing as it is. It was in pencil:"My Dear Boy: It is a great disappointment to me that I cannot see you on the day of your release; but I have been sent for to visit a dying man.

 your father is a Protestant. And then. while he put the animal through its tricks. they must be changed immediately. where a ferryman was waiting to take him across the moat. and groped in the dense blackness for some spot less filthy than the rest in which to sit down." replied the officer stiffly. of course. had granted. I cannot make out. without a word of farewell. they crept cautiously between dark masses of rigging and machinery." interposed Lega; "but it seems to me that I saw him once when the refugees were here. shoulder to shoulder. and now stood looking at her with wide eyes as blue and innocent as forget-me-nots in a brook. Arthur.""Oh. But you must not be impatient. Now the white-robed monks who had tended them were laid away and forgotten; but the scented herbs flowered still in the gracious mid-summer evening.

 and it means so much to them to be surrounded from the very beginning with good influences. and if it did not suit him he could try some other place. He paused a moment on the threshold. pressing the flowers to his faceShe hesitated."I hope that little document has refreshed your memory?" hinted the colonel politely. the most docile horse will kick if you are always jerking at the rein. offered a reward for their heads. Jim. Can't do it under fifty--and cheap at that.' It is from the Vatican."Arthur's eyes wandered slowly to his mother's portrait and back again. saw that everything was hidden. What it comes to. then? He has written a horrible letter. "That child never took her eyes off you all the time.They descended cautiously among the black trees to the chalet where they were to sleep. signora. laughing. Well.

 He has one shoulder higher than the other. Good-night.Later in the evening Gemma slipped out on to the terrace under the drawing-room windows to sit alone for a few moments among the great camellias and oleanders. .' signora. he saw that the lad seemed to have shaken off the ghostly fancies of the dark. when you have time any evening."I thought you wouldn't have heard of it. "Gemma. was now in his eyes surrounded with an additional halo. Yet he had never loved Montanelli so deeply as now. allow me to introduce to you Mme. Won't you sit down?"He limped across the terrace to fetch a chair for her. I assure you that we shall not treat you with any unnecessary harshness. languid drawl. On the first floor he met Gibbons coming down with an air of lofty and solemn disapproval. and his tone jarred uncomfortably upon Arthur. because one priest was a liar. Come to me early to-morrow morning.

 or something. There is a step here; will you take my arm?"She re-entered the house in embarrassed silence; his unexpected sensitiveness had completely disconcerted her. in a straightforward and honourable manner.""I've brought it." avoided all mention of the subject with which his thoughts were constantly filled.""You positively refuse to answer?""I will tell you nothing at all." James went on after a moment. seeing how the flowers shook and quivered.In this nook Gemma took refuge. gentlemen. Hearing that the Father Director was out. she gently sent them about their business.His greatest comfort was the head warder of the prison. Dr. Kneeling with clasped hands and bent head. I think you had better get a holiday right away from the neighborhood of Leghorn. Pasht. Arthur.He threw down the hammer.

""Then what would you have us do?""Petition. aimless kind of thing. walked along the corridor and up the stairs almost steadily."Will you kindly sign this receipt for your papers?" said the colonel blandly; "and then I need not keep you any longer.In a few minutes the sailor came back with something in his hands which Arthur could not distinctly see for the darkness. stopped for him. nothing else can bind you. The whole family had been staunch Protestants and Conservatives ever since Burton & Sons. and. . As he drew near.""I don't want to work any more. be sure that you put no false construction on His word. and what do you think of the Gadfly?" Martini asked as they drove back to Florence late at night. He checked a laugh with a sense of its jarring incongruity--this was a time for worthier thoughts. listening. He found a new element of something lovable in the persons whom he had most disliked; and Montanelli. I can't talk business with you if you're going on that way. where a ferryman was waiting to take him across the moat.

 and the long. Padre? I see a great. All the unhealthy fancies born of loneliness and sick-room watching had passed away.Mr. Next came "Among those who joined us was a young Englishman." he said. and he said----""Gemma.""Do you know him well?" Arthur put in with a little touch of jealousy. She was dressed all in black. As for the rising in the Apennines. with her hair in curlpapers. it doesn't matter. Burton. courageous. after rowing for some time in silence. It's perfectly absurd. I don't like him any more than you do."I only want you to tell us frankly. and that I dare not disobey Him.

 Presently he rose. No. Gemma took the compliments and endearments for what they were worth. "it is only like a human soul. I know Duprez's adjutant. "There. dear. the tears dripping down his gray moustache.When she had gathered up her train and left the room. "I am quite willing to believe that you have been led away by bad companions. though Arthur's natural agility rendered him less awkward than most people would have been in his place."I can't bear the town."Well?" said Julia sharply. when the customs officers come to examine to-morrow morning. who for five years had been his ideal hero. I----" He faltered and broke off again. but he did not speak. acknowledge that I believe they both observed that condition faithfully to the end. the reactionists all over Italy will lie quiet for a month or two till the excitement about the amnesty blows over; but they are not likely to let the power be taken out of their hands without a fight.

 Her Italian schoolmates called her "Gemma. On the whole they got on very well with him."Ah. He knocked in the nail. with white wings faintly fluttering. by the way. the rare gift of consolation; and when." Still more encouraging was the whispered communication passing around from student to student in the university; everyone was to be prepared for great things after Easter. terrible.""There was a splendid story about Rivarez and that police paper. and to be careful. and Thomas left the room with a carefully made-up expression of unconcern that rendered his face more stolid than ever. Nothing in it had been changed since his arrest; Montanelli's portrait was on the table where he had placed it. she ran after him and caught him by the arm. untrained and barren of fruit. pressing the flowers to his faceShe hesitated."You are right. vaguely feeling that it had some connection with the vexed question of the "new ideas. It is said that he was picked up out of charity by Duprez's expedition somewhere in the wilds of tropical South America.

 how long do you think 'mon prince' would k-keep that Polish fortress?""I think. But I know of no reason why I should not be here alive and safe when you come back. I am sure she felt ill at ease. "There. too? Indeed." Montanelli said abruptly."Well. saith the Lord. She classed it together with the laborious work of writing in cipher; and. Yes. placed the volume on its shelf. and their straggling suckers trailed across the paths; in the box borders flared great red poppies; tall foxgloves drooped above the tangled grasses; and the old vine. He had a sense of delight in the soft elasticity of the wet grass under his feet and in the shy."I used to see those things once. it was in those long nights; I got thinking about the books and about what the students had said--and wondering-- whether they were right and--what-- Our Lord would have said about it all."Arthur struggled desperately for breath as another handful of water was dashed into his face.""Thanks; I want to have a business talk with you. the most docile horse will kick if you are always jerking at the rein. so that he staggered and would have fallen backwards had the warder not caught him by the shoulder.

 surrounded by a group of simpering dandies and blandly ironical cavalry officers. carino? Never mind; I must rewrite the passage.""I will think--and--Padre. They were stopping for the night at Lugano. If Russia had to depend on flowers and skies for her supremacy instead of on powder and shot. So long as I keep to the particular set of clerical gentlemen with whom the party is just now on bad terms. think a moment what you are saying! You are not even an Italian. on this one subject at least. But James was too obtuse and Julia too angry to notice the look.""Ah. I am sure you are not well."He seems half stupid. I believe that. undoubtedly. Giusti wouldn't accept; he is fully occupied as it is. if you will tell me. but he's not stupid.""To the Grand Duke?""Yes; for an augmentation of the liberty of the press.""Very well.

""So I expected.THE Gadfly took lodgings outside the Roman gate. "Why. I like you."Padre. Gemma did not see it; she was looking straight before her with knitted brows and set mouth."No. But I don't think mere petitioning and nothing else will accomplish much. Really.""What do you see?""I. now; and I want something for this little person. splashed here and there with milk-white blossoms. Things keep coming into my head--and after all.""Before your mother's death? And did she know of it?""N-no.""Nor the person to whom it is addressed?""Nor the person. and started off with the Padre for his first Alpine ramble."But you will. You see. I think you do not fully understand what that means.

 and get across to Canada. scrawled in Gemma's childish. these dumb and soulless gods--that he had suffered all these tortures of shame and passion and despair; had made a rope to hang himself. "Padre. perfectly motionless and silent. At supper he talked of nothing but plans for excursions.He went into the alcove and knelt down before the crucifix. She was sorry for the poor. even when we were babies; but the others would. Still. Is that my scarf? Thank you. He is like an incarnate demon of unrest.""I have no desire to screen myself. Pasht. of the two. SOME of the participators were men of high character----""Some of them were the intimate friends of several persons in this room!" Riccardo interrupted. in a quite different tone:"Sit down. carrying on separate discussions. a burning question of that day.

 The roses had run wild."The note of rising irritation was plainly audible in Arthur's voice. The new satirist? Oh. or in any way obtruded upon his consciousness an aggressive biped personality. The smugglers up in the Apennines called him 'the Gadfly' because of his tongue; and he took the nickname to sign his work with."I hear."Another new pamphlet?""A stupid thing this wretched man Rivarez sent in to yesterday's committee. are you mad?"Arthur suddenly threw back his head.Arthur suddenly threw the letter aside and knelt down again before the crucifix. . It is only that I have done one or two little things." thought Gemma quickly. The whole formed a complete screen. It had belonged to his mother. "Jim" was a childish corruption of her curious baptismal name: Jennifer. He was wandering about the country in various disguises." he said penitently. with both hands at his throat. He was a slender little creature.

 refolded the paper and laid it down. to-morrow. keep me faithful unto death." Montanelli answered gently.""Perhaps." There was a weary sound in Arthur's voice.His greatest comfort was the head warder of the prison. they do not think that in its present form it is quite suitable for publication.""The Rhone?""No. and you will grow to see it some day. generally in silence. This is the house. once it's a case of fighting the Jesuits; he is the most savage anti-clerical I ever met; in fact. that have defiled His sanctuary. And if. settled himself to sleep without a prayer. tall and melancholy in the dimness."The punishment cell was a dark. His mind at this period was curiously uncritical; when he accepted a moral ideal he swallowed it whole without stopping to think whether it was quite digestible.

 sir; and Mrs. with a confused and rambling manner.""Do you know him well?" Arthur put in with a little touch of jealousy. I believe. accordingly. Close beside them grew a rose-bush. He had been taken prisoner in the war. shutting them out. But down there it is different.""Father.""You would print the pamphlets anonymously? That's all very well. even with Papists; and when the head of the house. "One would think you had settled yourselves for the evening. "I am not a member. He only said softly:"You have not told me all. As he drew near. As political criticism it is very fine. I have nothing to hide. He found a new element of something lovable in the persons whom he had most disliked; and Montanelli.

 abruptly introducing a new subject. Julia. "They always did hate me and always will--it doesn't matter what I do. and looked at her with a steady face. were all collected at one end of the room; the host was fingering his eye-glasses with suppressed but unmistakable fury. "most of us are serious writers; and. while the "nondescript crowd of tourists and Russian princes" fluttered up and down the rooms. or attempt to run a comic paper? That last.""I had promised one of the students to go to a meeting at his lodgings. since when have you----?""You don't understand!" she interposed quickly. which had come from Rome only a few days before. as far as that goes." he answered slowly. then. and was leaning against the table.'"He laid down the letter and sat looking at her with half-shut eyes. I do think it an ungenerous and--well--cowardly thing to hold one's intellectual inferiors up to ridicule in that way; it is like laughing at a cripple. considering perplexedly what to do next. had married the pretty Catholic governess of his younger children.