Hope Republican, Volume 2, Number 1, Hope, Bartholomew County, 27 April 1893 — Page 3

The Yellow Mask\ BY WILKIE COLLINS.

Part Sooon d. CHAPTER I.—CoxTtvuED, “But how did she first get the advantage of you?" “If I had found out, she would never have succeeded where I failed. All I know is, that she had more opportunities of seeing him than I, and mat she used them cunningly enough even to deceive me. While I thought I was gaining ground with Fabio, I was actually losing it. My first suspicions were excited by a change in Luca Lomi's conduct toward mo. He grew cold, neglectful—at last absolutely rude. I was resolved not to see this; but accident soon obliged me to open my eyes. One morning I heard Fabio and Maddalena talking o! me when they imagined I had loft the studio. I can’t repeat their words, especially hers. The blood flies into my head, and the cold catches me at the heart, when I only think of them. It will be enough if I tell you that he laughed at me. and that she—” “Hush! not so loud. There are other people lodging in the house. Never mind about telling me what you heard; it only irritates you to no purpose. I can guess that they had discovered—" “Through her —remember, all through her!” “Yes, yes, I understand. They had discovered a great deal more than you ever intended them to know, and all through her." “But for the priest, Virginia, I should have been openly insulted and driven from their doors. He had insisted on their behaving with decent civility towards me. They said he was afraid of mo, and laughed at the notion of his trying to make mo afraid too. That was the last thing I heard. The fury I was in, and the necessity of keeping it down, almost suffocated me. I turned round to leave the place for ever, when, who should I see, standing close behind me, but Father Rocco. He must have discovered in my face that I knew all, but he took no notice of it. He only asked, in his usual quiet, polite way, if I was looking for anything I had lost, and if he could help me. I managed to thank him, and to get to the door. He opened it for me respectfully, and bowed; he treated me like a lady to the last! It was evening when I left the studio in that way. The next morning I threw up my situation, and turned my back on Pisa. Now you know everything.” “Did you hear of the marriage? or did you only assume from what you knew that it would take place?” “I heard of it six months ago. A man came to sing in the chorus at our theatre who had been employed some time before at the grand concert give on the occasion of the marriage. But let us drop the subject now. I am in a fever already with talking of it. You are in a bad situation here, my dear; I declare your room is almost stifling.” “Shall I open the other window?” “No; let us go out and get a breath of air by the river-side. Como, take your hood and fan; it is getting dark —nobody will sec us, and we can come 1 back here, if you like in half an hour.” Mademoiselle Virginie acceded to her friend’s wish rather reluctantly. They walked toward the river. The sun was down, and the sudden night of Italy was gathering fast. Although Brigida did not sav another word on the subject of Fabio or his wife, she led the way to the bank of the Arno, on which the young nobleman’s palace stood. Just as they got near the great door of entrance, a sedan-chair, approaching in the opposite direction, was set down before it; and a footman, after a moment's conference with a laly inside the chair, advanced to the porter’s lodge in the courtyard. Leaving her friend to go on, Brigida slipped in after the servant by the open wicket, and concealed herself in the shadow cast by the great closed gates. “The Marchesa Melani, to inquire how the Countess D’Ascoli and the infant are this evening,” said the footman. “My mistress has not changed at all for the better since the morning, ” answered the porter. “The child is doing quite well.” The footman went back to the sedan chair; then returned to the porter’s lodge. “The Marchesa desires me to ask if fresh medical advice has been sent for,” he said. “Another doctor has arrived from Florence to-day,” replied the porter. Mademoiselle Virginia, missing her friend suddenly, turned back toward the palace to look after her, and was rather surprised to see Brigida slip out of the wicket gate. There were two oil lamps burning on pillars outside the doorway, an 1

their light, glancing on the Italian’s face, as she passed under them, showed that she was smiling. CHAPTER II. While the Marchesa Melani was making inquiries at the palace gate Fabio was sitting alone inthe room which his wife usually occupied when she was in health. It was her favorite room, and had been prettily decorated, by her own desire, with hangings in yellow satin and furniture of the same color. Fabio was now waiting in it, to hear the report of the doctors after their evening visit. Although Maddalena Lomihad not been his first love, and although he had married her under circumstances which are generally and rightly considered to afford few chances of lasting happiness in wedded life, still they had lived together through the one year of their union tranquilly, if not fondly. She had molded herself wisely to his peculiar humors, had made the most of his easy disposition, and, when her quick temper had got the better of her, had seldom hesitated in her cooler moments to acknowledge that she had been wrong. She had been extravagant, it is true, and had irritated him by fits of unreasonable jealousy; but these were faults not to be thought of now. He could only remember that she was the mother of his child, and that she lay ill but two rooms away from him —dangerously ill, as the doctors had unwillingly confessed on that very day. The darkness was closing in upon him, and he took up his hand-bell to ring for lights. When the servant entered there was genuine sorrow in his face, genuine anxiety in his voice, as he inquired for news from the sick-room. The man only answered that his mistress was still asleep, and then withdrew, after first leaving a sealed letter on the table by his master’s side. Fabio summoned him back into the room, and asked when the letter had arrived. He replied that it had been delivered at the palace two days since, and that he had observed it lying unopened on a desk in his master’s study. Left alone again, Fabio remembered that the letter had arrived at a time when the first dangerous symptoms of his wife’s illness had declared themselves, and that he had thrown it aside, after observing the address to bo in a bandwriting unknown to him. In his present state of suspense any occupation was better than sitting idle. So he took up the letter with a sigh, broke the seal and turned inquiringly to the name signed at the end. It was “Nanina.” He started and changed color. “A letter from her,” he whispered to himself. “Why does it come at such a time as this?” His face grew paler, and the letter trembled in his fingers. Those superstitious feelings which he had ascribed to the nursery influences of his childhood, when Father Rocco charged him with them in the studio, seemed to be overcoming him now. He hesitated, and listened anxiously in the direction of his wife’s bedroom before reading the letter. Was its arrival ominous of good or evil? That was the thought in his heart as he drew the lamp near to him and looked at the first lines. “Am I wrong in writing to you?” (the letter begun abruptly). “If I am, you have but to throw this little leaf of paper into the fire, and to think no more of it after it is burned up and gone. I can never reproach you for treating my letter in that way, for we are never likely to meet again. “Why did I go away? Only to save you from the consequences of marrying a poor girl who was not fit to become, your wife. It almost broke my heart to leave yon, for I had nothing to keep up my courage but the remembrance that I was going away for your sake. I had to think of that morning and night—to think of it always, or I am afraid I should havo faltered in my resolution and have gone back to Pisa. I longed so much at first to see you once more—only to tell you that Nanina was not heartless and ungrateful, and that you might pity her and think kindly of her, though you might love her no longer. “Only to tell you that? If I had been a lady I might have told you in a letter; but I had never learned to write, and I could not prevail upon myself to get others to take the pen for me. All that I could do was to learn secretly how to write with ,my own hand. It was long, long work; but the uppermost thought in my heart was always the thought of justifying myself to you, and that made me patient and persevering. I learned at last to write so as not to be ashamed of myself, or to make you ashamed of me. I began » letter

—ray first letter—to you; but I heard of your marriage before it was done, and then had to tear the paper up and put the pen down again. "I had no right to come between you and your wife, even with so little a thing as a letter; I bad no right to do anything but hope and pray for your happiness. Are you happy? I am sure you ought to be; for how can your wife help loving you? “It is very hard for me to explain why I have ventured on writing now, and yet I can’t think that I am doing wrong. I heard a few days ago (for I have a friend at Pisa who keeps me informed, by my own desire of all the pleasant changes in your life) —I heard of your child being born; and I thought myself, after that,justified at last in writing to you. No letter from me, at such a time as this, can rob your child’s mother of so much as a thought of yours that is due her. Thus, at least, it seems to me, I wish so well to your child, that I cannct surely be doing wrong in writing these lines. “I have said already what I wanted to say—what I have been longing to say for a whole year past. I have told you why I left Pisa; and have, perhaps, persuaded you that I have gone through some suffering, and borne some heart aches for your sake. Have I more to write? Only a word or two, to tell you that I am earning my bread, as I always wish to earn it, quietly at home—at least at what I must call home now. I am living with reputable people, and I want for nothing. La Biondella has grown much; she would hardly be obliged to get on your knee to kiss you now; and she can plait her din-ner-mats faster and more neatly than ever. Our old dog is with us, and has learned two new tricks; but you can't be expected to remember him, although you are the only stranger I ever saw him take kindly to at first. “It is time I finished. If you have read this letter through to the end, I am sure you will excuse me if I have written it badly. There is no date to it, because I feel that it is safest and best for both of us that you should know nothing of where I am living. I bless you and pray for you, and bid you affectionately farewell. If you can think of me as a sister, think of me sometimes still.” Fabio sighed bitterly as he read the letter. “Why,” he whispered to himself, “why does it come at such a time as this, when I cannot, dare not think of her?” As he slowly folded the letter up, the tears came into his eyes, and he half raised the paper to his lips. At the same moment someone knocked at the door of the room. He started and felt himself changing color guiltily as one of his servants entered. “My mistress is awake,” the man said, with a very grave face and a very constrained manner, “and the gentlemen in attendance desired me to say—” He was interrupted, before he could give his message, by one of the medical men, who followed him into the room. “I wish I had better news to communicate,” began the doctor gently. “She is worse, then?” said Fabio, sinking back into the chair from which he had risen the moment before. “She has awakened weaker instead of stronger after her sleep,” returned the doctor evasively. “I never like to give up all hope until the very last, but —” “It is cruel not to be candid with him,” interposed another voice—the voice of the doctor from Florence, who had just entered the room. “Strengthen yourself to bear the worst,” he continued, addressing himself to Fabio. “She is dying. Can you compose yourself enough to go to her bedside?” Pale and speechless, Fabio rose from his chair, and made a sign in the affirmative. He trembled so that the doctor who had first spoken was obliged to lead him out of the room. “Your mistress has some relations in Pisa, has she not?” said the doctor from Florence, appealing to the servant who waited near him. “Her father, sir, Signor Luca Lomi; and her uncle, Father Rocco,” answered the man. “They were here all through the day, until my mistress fell asleep.” “Ho you know where to find them now?” “Signor Luca told me he should be at his studio, and Father Rocco said I might find him at his lodgings.” “Send for them both directly. Stay, who is your mistress’s confessor? He ought to be summoned without loss of time.” “My mistress’s confessor is Father Rocco, sir.” “Very well —send or go yourself, at once. Even minutes may be of importance now.” Saying this, the doctor turned away, and sat down to wait for any last'demands on his services, in the chair which Fabio had just left. CHAPTER III. Before the servant could get to the priest’s lodgings a visitor had applied there for admission, and had been immediately received by Father

Rocco himself. This favored guest was a little man, very sprucely and neatly dressed, and oppressively polite in his manner. He bowed when he first sat down, he bowed when he answered the usual inquiries about his health, and he bowed for the third time when Father Rocco asked what had brought him from Florence, “Rather an awkward business,” replied the little man, recovering himself uneasily after his third bow. “The dressmaker named Nanina, whom you placed under my wife’s protection about a year ago ” “What of her?” inquired the priest eagerly. “I regret to say she has left us, with her child-sister and their very disagreeable dog, that growls at everybody.” “When did they go?” , “Only yesterday. I came here at once to tell you, as you wore so very particular in recommending us to take care of her. It is not our fault that she has gone. My wife was kindness itself to her, and I always treated her like a duchess. I bought dinner-mats of her sister; I even put up with the thieving and growling of the disagreeable dog—” “Where have they gone to? Have you found out that?” “I have found out, by application at the passport-office, that they have not left Florence; but what particular part of the city they have removed to I have not yet had time to discover.” “And pray, why did they leave you, in the first place? Nania is not a girl to do anything without a reason. She must have had some cause for going away. What was it?” The little man hesitated, and made a fourth bow. “You remember your private instructions to my wife and myself when you first brought Nanina to our house?” he said, looking away rather uneasily while he spoke. “Yes; you were to watch her, but to take care that she did not sus pect you. It was just possible at that time that she might try to get back to Pisa without my knowing it; and everything depended on her remaining in Florence. I think now that I did wrong to distrust her; but it was of the last importance to provide against all impossibilities, and to abstain from putting too much faith in my own good opinion of the girl. For these reasons, I certainly did instruct you to watch her privately. So far you are quite right; and I have nothing to complain of. Go on.” “You remember,” resumed the little man, “that the first consequence of our following your instructions was a discovery (which we immediately communicated to you) that she was secretly learning to write?” “Yes; and I also remember sending you word not to show that you knew what she was doing, but to wait and see if she turned her knowledge of writing to account, and took or sent any letters to the post. You informed me in your regular monthly report, tlfat she never did anything of the kind.” “Never, until three days ago; and then she was traced from her room in my house to the post-office with a letter which she dropped into the box. ” “And the address of which you discovered before she took it from your house?” “Unfortunately {I did not," answered the little man, reddening and looking askance at the priest, as if he expected to receive severe reprimand. But father Rocco said nothing. He was thinking. Who could she written to? If to Fabio, why should she have waited for months and months, after she had learned how to use her pen, before sending him a letter? If not to Fabio, to what other person could she. have written? “I regret not discovering the address—regret it most deeply,” said the little man with a low bow of apology. “It is too late for regret,” said Father Rocco coldly. 1 ‘Tell me how she came to leave your house; I have. Hot heard that yet". Be as brief as you can. I expect to be called every moment to the bedside of a near and dear relation, who is suffering from severe illness. You shall have, all my attention; but you must ask it for as short a time as possible.” “I will be briefness itself. In the first place, you must know that I have —or rather had—an idle, unscrupulous rascal of an apprentice in my business.” The priest pursed up his mouth contemptuously. “In the second place, this same good-for-nothing fellow had the impertinence to fall in love with Nanina.” Father Rocco started, and listened eagerly. “But I must do the girl justice to say that she never gave him the slightest encouragement; and that, whenever he ventured to speak tc her, she always quietly but very de cidedly repelled him." “A good girl!” said Father Rocco

‘ “I always said she was a good girl. It was a mistake on my part ever to have distrusted her.” ■ , i “Among the other offenses, continued the little man, of which I now find my scoundrel of an apprentice to have been guilty, was the enormity of picking the lock of my desk, and prying into my private paP6 “They shall be for the future; I will take good care of that. “Were any of my letters to you about Nanina among these private papers?” _ ‘ ‘Unfortunately they were. Pray, excuse my want of caution this time. It shall never happen again." “Go on. Such imprudence as yours can never be excused; it can only be provided against for the future. I suppose the apprentice showed my letters to the girl ?” “I infer as much; though why he should do so —” ' “Simpleton! Did you not say that he was in love with her (as you term it), and that he got no encouragement?” : | “Yes, I said that, and I know it to be true.” “Well! Was it not his interest, being unable to make any impression on the girl’s fancy, to establish some claim to her gratitude and try if ha could not win her that way? By showing her my letters he would make her indebted to him for knowing that she was watched in your house. But this ismot the matter in question now. You say you infer that she had seen my letters. On what grounds?” “On the strength of this bit of paper,” answered the little man, ruefully producing a note from hia pocket, “She must have had your letters shown to her soon after putting her own letter into the post. For, on the evening of the same day, when I went up into her room, I found that she and her sister and the disagreeable dog had all gone, and observed this note laid on the table.” (to be continued.) UNGRATEFUL. How a Pretty Girl Disappointed Her Doctor. New York Herald. ‘ ‘Our lives are full of disappointments,” remarked my friend, the surgeon, who is famous for his ability to joke with patients of any nationality in their own language and make them forget their misery for the time, “and I thought up to last week that I had had my full share of them. 1 ‘Now I believe that I am way over on my allowance. See if you do not agree with me. “Early last summer,” he began, “a charming young lady was brought to my office from a western state in a pitiable condition. She had dislocated her ankle some months before, and from unskilled treatment it had been put in such a shape that I thought at first that amputation might be necessary. She was wasted away to seventy-five pounds and a mere wreck of her former self. 1 ‘I was luckily able to save the foot and bring her back to perfect health, and she blossomed into one of the prettiest girls I ever seen. She and her mother called on me to say ‘good-by’ last Tuesday, and she was in the highest of spirits. She danced around the room to prove that her ankle was perfectly strong again, and gave me this handsome silver inkstand for a remembrance. As I accompanied them to the stoop she paused on the upper step and took my hand again. ‘Doctor,’ said she, ‘beyond the check which papa will send you and the eternal gratitude of mamma and myself I feel that you deserve a reward that most men would risk their necks to gain! You deserve a kiss. Mamma, kiss him,’ and before I could get the pucker out of my lips she was down in the street sending up at me the most tantalizing laugh I have ever heard. “Yes, as I said before, wo all have our disappointments. Try a little of this Burgundy.” If any one supposes that superstition is on the decline ho ought to stand behind a jeweler’s counter for a few weeks and see how many precious stones are sold to be used as amulets. Hundreds are disposed of every year which can have no other use than to be-worn as charms. No particular kind seems to have the preference except the turquoise. A turquoise locket set in a show window is sure to go almost at once. Why the turquoise is preferred is impossible to say, unless on account of its color, for many persons regard blue as lucky. Took the Wfyd Out of His Sails. Life’s CaI niar. Waggs (to young matron with the perambulator)—Good morning, Mrs. Fulibloom. Are you taking the son out for an airing, or the heir out for a sunning? M's. Fullblcora — Neither, Mr. Waggs. Baby is a girl.