The Argosy — page 131: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

118 The Sapphire Cross. lad in prison, and we shall go again. We don’t desert our friends in trouble, murderers or no murderers.” “And I daresay Signor Guido was very much obliged to you,” replied Beppina, spitefully. ‘At the same time I think it is a pity the whole neighbourhood should say that Lucia is engaged to a con- demned murderer.” ‘Guido is not a murderer, but the neighbourhood is quite right in saying that I am engaged to him,” said Lucia, quietly, raising her wan face from her work. Angela nudged Beppina confidentially. ‘ Zitta ! don’t answer her. She will get over it in time, you know. But just now it is no use talking,” whispered the blind woman. “Twenty years is a long while to be engaged,” giggled Beppina. ‘* And the sposo away, too! It’s worse than having none at all.” “Lucia could marry to-morrow if she liked,” remarked Angela, loftily. ‘‘ But if she does not choose to take a husband, what business is that of anybody ?” ‘Oh, none at all, of course,” said Beppina. ‘But come, Lucia, you are not serious, are you? You might as well become a nun at once.” ‘“ T would rather not talk about it at all, if you please,” replied Lucia, gently. A nun? What renunciation ever made behind a cloister’s walls was more perfect than that sealed by her in the noltsome prison with a kiss on Guido’s pallid lips? Before her mental vision now stretched the gray vista of hopeless years. With the keen pre- science of pain she saw the frozen dawns when her bleeding heart would follow him upon his shameful task; she felt the anguished awakening in dream-haunted nights, and knew the lustre to her for ever shadowed, the sweetness to her for ever poisoned of the remorse- less southern noons. “She is quiet enough, after all,” remarked her neighbours, who did not know the depth of the tomb in which one great grief can bury all the smaller worries and all the trivial cares of ordinary life, But if Lucia was quiet, somuch could not be said of Signor Renzo. In him all the chivalry of a young man, and all the vanity of a young lawyer, rose to do battle for Guido. lLucia’s despair touched his heart, and the sentence of the Court wounded his pride. He felt that he had not been able to do justice either to Guido or to himself. He had the conviction that the painter was innocent, and yet he had failed altogether, not simply to establish the. fact, but even to transport it into the regions of probability. This was primarily the fault of the evidence. What if Signor Renzo could bring to light such new truths as would result not only in the technical reversal of the verdict, but in the triumphant vindication of Guido ? He grew quite excited at the bare idea; and after a day or two COPMIEMIOO KS OLN