The White Sister. F. Marion Crawford

reading a letter from Giovanni Severi. All was over now—the lying in state, the funeral at the small parish church, the interment in the cemetery of San Lorenzo, where the late Prince had built a temporary tomb for himself and his family, under protest, because modern municipal regulations would not allow even such a personage as he to be buried within the walls, in his own family vault, at Santa Maria del Popolo. But he had been confident that even if he did not live to see the return of the Pope's temporal power, his remains would soon be solemnly transferred to the city, to rest with those of his fathers; and he had looked forward to his resurrection from a sepulchre better suited to his earthly rank and spiritual worth than a brick vault in a public cemetery, within a hundred yards of the thrice-anathematised crematorium, and of the unhallowed burial-ground set aside for Freemasons, anarchists, Protestants, and Jews. But no man can be blamed fairly for wishing to lie beside his forefathers, and if Prince Chiaromonte had failed to see that the destiny of Italy had out-measured the worldly supremacy of the Vatican in the modern parallelogram of forces, that had certainly been a fault of judgment rather than of intention. He had never wavered in his fidelity to his ideal, nor had he ever voluntarily submitted to any law imposed by the 'usurper.'

      'That excellent Chiaromonte is so extremely clerical,' Pope Leo the Thirteenth had once observed to his secretary with his quiet smile.

      But Angela missed her father constantly, not understanding that he had systematically forced her to look to him as the judge and master of her existence, and she wondered a little why she almost longed for his grave nod, and his stern frown of disapproval, and even for the daily and hourly reproof under which she had so often chafed. Madame Bernard had been installed in the palace since the day of the fatal accident, and she was kindness personified, full of consideration and forethought; yet the girl was very lonely and miserable from morning till night, and when she slept she dreamed of the dead Knight of Malta's face, of the yellow light of the wax torches, and the voices of the priests.

      On the fourth day a letter came from Giovanni, the first she had ever received from him. She did not even know his handwriting, and she looked at the signature before reading the note to see who had written to her so soon. When she understood that it was he, a flood of sunshine broke upon her gloom. The bright morning sun had indeed been shining through the window for an hour, but she had not known it till then.

      It was not a love-letter. He used those grammatically illogical but superfinely courteous forms which make high Italian a mystery to strangers who pick up a few hundred words for daily use and dream that they understand the language. He used the first person for himself, but spoke of her in the third singular; he began with: 'Most gentle Donna Angela,' and he signed his full name at the end of a formal phrase setting forth his profoundly respectful homage. She would have been much surprised and perhaps offended if he had expressed himself in any more familiar way. Brought up as she had been under the most old-fashioned code in Europe when at home, and under the frigid rule of the Ladies of the Sacred Heart when she was at school, any familiarity of language seemed to her an outrage on good manners, and might even be counted a sin if she condescended to it in speaking with a man who was not yet her husband. She had been made to address her father in the third person feminine singular ever since she had learned to talk, precisely as Giovanni wrote to her; and if she prayed to the Deity with the less formal second person plural, this was doubtless because the Italian prayers had been framed in less refined and courteous times than her own.

      In spite of his stiff grammar, however, Severi managed to write things that brought the colour to her face and the light to her eyes. He said, for instance, that he was coming to see her that very afternoon; that in order not to attract attention at the gate of the palace he would wear civilian's dress, and that he hoped she would not only receive him, but would send Madame Bernard out of the room for a little while, so that he might speak to her alone.

      The proposal was so delightful and yet so disturbing that Angela thought it must be wicked and tried to examine her conscience at once; but it shut up like an oyster taken out of the water and pretended to be perfectly insensible, turn it and probe it how she would.

      So she gave it up; and she did so the more readily because it would be quite impossible to see Giovanni that afternoon, enchanting as the prospect would have been. Her aunt the Marchesa had sent word that she was coming at four o'clock with the lawyer to explain Angela's position to her, and it was impossible to say how long the two might stay. Meanwhile she must send word to Giovanni not to come, for it would not suffice that he should be refused admittance at the gate, since he might chance to present himself just when the Marchesa drove up, which would produce a very bad impression. Angela was ashamed to send her maid with a note to a young officer, and she would not trust one of the men-servants; she turned for advice to Madame Bernard, who was her only confidante.

      'What am I to do?' she asked when she had explained everything. 'He is generally at the War Office at this time and he may not even go home before he comes here. I see no way but to send a note.'

      'He would certainly go home to change his clothes,' answered the practical Frenchwoman; 'but it is not necessary for you to write. I will telephone to the War Office, and if the Count is there I will explain everything.'

      Angela looked at her doubtfully.

      'But then the servant who telephones will know,' she objected.

      'The servant? Why? I do not understand. I shall speak myself. No one will be there to hear.'

      'Yourself? My father never could, and I never was shown how to do it. Are you sure you understand the thing? It is very complicated, I believe.'

      Madame Bernard was not surprised, for she knew the ways of the Palazzo Chiaromonte; but she smiled and assured the young girl that a telephone was not really such a dangerous instrument as she had been led to believe.

      'I once tried to make a few stitches with a sewing-machine,' Angela said, apparently in explanation.

      'A telephone is different,' Madame Bernard answered gravely. 'Shall I ask the Count to come to-morrow at four o'clock, instead of to-day?'

      Angela hesitated, and then blushed faintly.

      'Do you think——' she began, but she stopped and hesitated. 'He would be angry, I am sure——' She seemed to be suddenly distressed.

      'Your father?' asked the Frenchwoman, guessing what she meant. 'My dear Princess——'

      'Oh, please don't call me that!' cried Angela. 'You never do——'

      'You see, you are a great personage now, my dear child,' Madame Bernard answered, 'and I am no longer your governess——'

      'But you are my friend, dear, dear Madame Bernard! Indeed, I think you are my only friend now!'

      And thereupon Angela threw her arms round the little woman's neck and kissed her very affectionately. Madame Bernard's fresh face beamed with pleasure.

      'Thank you, my dear,' she answered. 'And as for your father, my child, he is without doubt in heaven; and that means that he now judges you by your intentions and no longer by appearances only.'

      This sage little speech reassured Angela, though she soon afterwards asked herself whether it was quite loyal to allow any one to say that the Prince had ever judged her 'by appearances only.' But while she was making this reflection Madame Bernard was already telephoning to Giovanni, who was at the War Office, as Angela supposed, and he answered with alacrity that he would come to the palace on the following afternoon and ask to see Madame Bernard on a matter of business. It was really her business to teach French, as all the servants knew, and if they thought that the young officer came to ask about some lessons for himself or a friend, so much the better. Madame Bernard was naturally practical, and Giovanni was by nature quick-witted; so the matter was settled in a few words, to the satisfaction of both; and when Angela was merely told that he was coming she was much more pleased than she was willing to show, and she said no more about her father's hypothetical disapproval.

      That afternoon she received the Marchesa del Prato and the lawyer downstairs in the second of the outer drawing-rooms. It was cold there, but she had not quite dared to order a fire to be made, because the Prince had never allowed fires except in the inner