The Day of Temptation

“So, compelled to suffer this indignity in silence, and maintain the ignominious part he had allotted to me, I went to Livorno under the assumed name of Fanetti, and attended the constant meetings of the league which were taking place there. Was it any wonder that I should, under such circumstances, actually become an Anarchist? Among the members of this band of secret assassins – an offshoot of the dreaded Mafia – was a girl named Vittorina Rinaldo, who, having ascertained by some means that Nenci and Malvano, then in England, had misappropriated the greater part of the funds of the league, resolved to travel to London and denounce them. This she did, being accompanied thither by Captain Tristram, who had been induced to join us by Lady Marshfield, and, I suppose, with some vague hope that the knowledge thus acquired might be of service to the British Foreign Office. Vittorina and myself had taken the oath at the same meeting of the league, and had on that night received from Nenci, the leader, rings of exactly similar pattern – ‘marriage rings,’ he laughingly termed them. Well, you are aware of that scoundrel’s devilish ingenuity. It was he who had made those rings so that by a mere pressure of his hand upon the ring the poison was injected, and the girl’s life taken. You know how cleverly circumstantial evidence was fastened upon her friend. From recent inquiries, I have discovered that Vittorina’s relations on her mother’s side were English, and had a villa up at Como, and that Major Maitland, having a couple of years before appropriated a large sum of money belonging to her, was no doubt an accessory to her death, for he has never been heard of since the night of the crime. Remember that his photograph was found among her possessions, and that he was no doubt with Nenci awaiting her arrival that night at Charing Cross.”

“There seems to be little doubt, from the fact that Nenci gave you a similar ring, that he intended you should share the same fate as Vittorina,” her husband observed, marvelling at her story.

“Certainly he did,” she answered. “Time after time I strove to free myself, from the fetters ever galling me and driving me to desperation, but Montelupo was always inexorable. He loved Vittorina, I afterwards discovered, for it was he who had written that mysterious letter signed ‘Egisto,’ and he was determined to avenge her murderer. Like ourselves he was utterly unaware of the identity of the assassin. Now, however, that you have supplied the information wanting, and the culprit has paid the penalty; now that Malvano, the man who so cleverly acted as secret agent of the Embassy in London, while the same moment he was plotting against the State, and his cunning companion, Romanelli, have been arrested, tried at Rome, and will spend the remainder of their lives in imprisonment on Elba, my master has given me my freedom. I am free to love you, Nino.”

“But the little marble image?” he said. “Why was that deadly thing so ingeniously contrived?”

“In order to strike a blow which was intended should paralyse the monarchy and cause a revolution in Italy,” she answered quickly. “In the blue boudoir in the Quirinal, on a sideboard behind the Queen’s private writing-table, there stands a tiny but exactly similar bust. In collusion with one of the royal servants, it was proposed to exchange this image for one invented by Nenci and Malvano, so that when His Majesty joined the Queen one night after dinner, both would be blown into eternity.”

“Then, by your efforts, and by the imminent risks you ran among that desperate gang, you averted the terrible catastrophe – you, indeed, saved Italy.”

“I suppose I did,” she said. “At that time political feeling ran high, and such a blow at the monarchy would have undoubtedly given the Republicans and Anarchists the upper hand. But I do not now regret,” she added, a look of supreme happiness lighting up her beautiful countenance – “I do not regret, Nino, because I have secured your true honest love.”

“I believe in your honesty, darling, for I know how terribly you have suffered,” he exclaimed, drawing her closer to him, until her head fell upon his shoulder. “Those who now seek to besmirch your good name shall answer to me.”

Their hands clasped, their eyes exchanged a love-look long, deep, and intense. Then her eager lips met his in one fierce passionate kiss.

“The years of my bondage are like some half-remembered hideous nightmare, Nino,” she murmured, still gazing full into his eyes. “But it is all finished, for you, my husband, true, patient, and forbearing placed in my hand a weapon against my enemies; you brought back to me a renewed desire for life and its pleasures; and you gave me deliverance from the evil that encompassed me. Truly a perfect peace is ours, for the dark Day of Temptation has waned, and has given place to a bright and blissful dawn.”

The End