At the villa, we waited breathless. News came to us hour by hour: the very wind seemed to carry it, and it was swept to us on the incessant rush of the rain. On the twenty-third Radetsky had fled from Milan, to face Venice rising in his path. On the twenty-fourth the first Piedmontese had crossed the Ticino, and Charles Albert himself was in Pavia on the twenty-ninth. The bells of Milan had carried the word from Turin to Naples, from Genoa to Ancona, and the whole country was pouring like a flood-tide into Lombardy. Heroes sprang up from the bloody soil as thick as wheat after rain, and every day carried some new name to us; but never the one for which we prayed and waited. Weeks passed. We heard of Pastrengo, Goito, Rivoli; of Radetsky hemmed into the Quadrilateral, and our troops closing in on him from Rome, Tuscany and Venetia. Months passed—and we heard of Custozza. We saw Charles Albert’s broken forces flung back from the Mincio to the Oglio, from the Oglio to the Adda. We followed the dreadful retreat from Milan, and saw our rescuers dispersed like dust before the wind. But all the while no word came to us of Roberto.
These were dark days in Lombardy; and nowhere darker than in the old villa on Iseo. In September Donna Marianna and the young Countess put on black, and Count Andrea and his wife followed their example. In October the Countess gave birth to a daughter. Count Andrea then took possession of the palazzo Siviano, and the two women remained at the villa. I have no heart to tell you of the days that followed. Donna Marianna wept and prayed incessantly, and it was long before the baby could snatch a smile from her. As for the Countess Faustina, she went among us like one of the statues in the garden. The child had a wet-nurse from the village, and it was small wonder there was no milk for it in that marble breast. I spent much of my time at the villa, comforting Donna Marianna as best I could; but sometimes, in the long winter evenings, when we three sat in the dimly-lit salone, with the old Count’s portrait overhead, and I looked up and saw the Countess Faustina in the tall carved seat beside her husband’s empty chair, my spine grew chill and I felt a cold wind in my hair.
The end of it was that in the spring I went to see my bishop and laid my sin before him. He was a saintly and merciful old man, and gave me a patient hearing.
“You believed the lady innocent?” he asked when I had ended.
“Monsignore, on my soul!”
“You thought to avert a great calamity from the house to which you owed more than your life?”
“It was my only thought.”
He laid his hand on my shoulder.
“Go home, my son. You shall learn my decision.”
Three months later I was ordered to resign my living and go to America, where a priest was needed for the Italian mission church in New York. I packed my possessions and set sail from Genoa. I knew no more of America than any peasant up in the hills. I fully expected to be speared by naked savages on landing; and for the first few months after my arrival I wished at least once a day that such a blessed fate had befallen me. But it is no part of my story to tell you what I suffered in those early days. The Church had dealt with me mercifully, as is her wont, and her punishment fell far below my deserts….
I had been some four years in New York, and no longer thought of looking back from the plough, when one day word was brought me that an Italian professor lay ill and had asked for a priest. There were many Italian refugees in New York at that time, and the greater number, being well-educated men, earned a living by teaching their language, which was then included among the accomplishments of fashionable New York. The messenger led me to a poor boarding-house and up to a small bare room on the top floor. On the visiting-card nailed to the door I read the name “De Roberti, Professor of Italian.” Inside, a gray-haired haggard man tossed on the narrow bed. He turned a glazed eye on me as I entered, and I recognized Roberto Siviano.
I steadied myself against the doorpost and stood staring at him without a word.
“What’s the matter?” asked the doctor who was bending over the bed. I stammered that the sick man was an old friend.
“He wouldn’t know his oldest friend just now,” said the doctor. “The fever’s on him; but it will go down toward sunset.”
I sat down at the head of the bed and took Roberto’s hand in mine.
“Is he going to die?” I asked.
“I don’t believe so; but he wants nursing.”
“I will nurse him.”
The doctor nodded and went out. I sat in the little room, with Roberto’s burning hand in mine. Gradually his skin cooled, the fingers grew quiet, and the flush faded from his sallow cheekbones. Toward dusk he looked up at me and smiled.
“Egidio,” he said quietly.
I administered the sacrament, which he received with the most fervent devotion; then he fell into a deep sleep.
During the weeks that followed I had no time to ask myself the meaning of it all. My one business was to keep him alive if I could. I fought the fever day and night, and at length it yielded. For the most part he raved or lay unconscious; but now and then he knew me for a moment, and whispered “Egidio” with a look of peace.
I had stolen many hours from my duties to nurse him; and as soon as the danger was past I had to go back to my parish work. Then it was that I began to ask myself what had brought him to America; but I dared not face the answer.
On the fourth day I snatched a moment from my work and climbed to his room. I found him sitting propped against his pillows, weak as a child but clear-eyed and quiet. I ran forward, but his look stopped me.
“Signor parocco,” he said, “the doctor tells me that I owe my life to your nursing, and I have to thank you for the kindness you have shown to a friendless stranger.”
“A stranger?” I gasped.
He looked at me steadily. “I am not aware that we have met before,” he said.
For a moment I thought the fever was on him; but a second glance convinced me that he was master of himself.
“Roberto!” I cried, trembling.
“You have the advantage of me,” he said civilly. “But my name is Roberti, not Roberto.”
The floor swam under me and I had to lean against the wall.
“You are not Count Roberto Siviano of Milan?”
“I am Tommaso de Roberti, professor of Italian, from Modena.”
“And you have never seen me before?”
“Never that I know of.”
“Were you never at Siviano, on the lake of Iseo?” I faltered.
He said calmly: “I am unacquainted with that part of Italy.”
My heart grew cold and I was silent.
“You mistook me for a friend, I suppose?” he added.
“Yes,” I cried, “I mistook you for a friend;” and with that I fell on my knees by his bed and cried like a child.
Suddenly