Edith Wharton: Complete Works. Edith Wharton

other boatman shrugged his shoulders. “Even an enemy’s roof may serve to keep out the storm,” he observed philosophically.

      “The storm? What storm?”

      The man pointed to the north. Against the sky hung a little black cloud, the merest flaw in the perfect curve of the night.

      “The lake is shrewish at this season,” the boatman continued. “Did your excellencies burn a candle before starting?”

      Odo sat silent, his eyes fixed on the cloud. It was growing visibly now. With every moment its outline seemed to shift and spread, till its black menace dilated to the zenith. The bright water still broke about them in diamond spray; but as the shadow travelled the lake beneath it turned to lead. Then the storm dropped on them. It fell suddenly out of mid-heaven. Sky and water grew black and a long shudder ran through the boat. For a moment she hung back, staggering under a white fury of blows; then the gale seemed to lift and swing her about, and she shot forward through a long tunnel of glistening blackness, bows on for Peschiera.

      “The enemy’s roof!” thought Odo. He reached for Fulvia’s hand and found it in the darkness. The rain was driving against them now and he drew her close and wrapped his cloak about her. She lay still, without a tremor, as though in that shelter no fears could reach her. The night roared about them and the waters seemed to divide beneath their keel. Through the tumult Odo shouted to the boatmen to try to make some harbor north of Peschiera. They shouted back that they must go where the wind willed and bless the saints if they made any harbor at all; and Odo saw that Peschiera was their destiny.

      It was past midnight when they set foot on shore. The rain still fell in torrents and they could hardly grope their way up the steps of the landing-stage. Odo’s first concern was to avoid the inn; but the boatmen, exhausted by their efforts and impatient to be under shelter, could not be bribed to seek out another lodging for the travellers. Odo dared not expose Fulvia longer to the storm, and reluctantly they turned toward the inn, trusting that at that hour their coming would attract little notice.

      A travelling-carriage stood in the courtyard, and somewhat to Odo’s surprise the landlord was still afoot. He led them into the public parlor, which was alight, with a good fire on the hearth. A gentleman in travelling-dress sat near this fire, his back to the door, reading by a shaded candle. He rose as the travellers entered, and Odo recognized the abate de Crucis.

      The latter advanced with a smile in which pleasure was more visible than surprise. He bowed slightly to Fulvia, who had shrunk back into the shadow of the doorway; then he turned to Odo and said: “Cavaliere, I have travelled six days to overtake you. The Duke of Pianura is dying and has named you regent.”

      —————

VII.

      Odo heard a slight movement behind him. He turned and saw that Fulvia had vanished. He understood her wish for concealment, but its futility was written in the glance with which de Crucis followed her flight.

      The abate continued to speak in urgent tones. “I implore you,” he said, “to lose no time in accompanying me to Pianura. The situation there is critical and before now his Highness’s death may have placed the reins in your hands.” He glanced at his watch. “If your excellency is not too tired to set out at once, my horses can be harnessed within the half hour.”

      Odo’s heart sank. To have let his thoughts dwell on such a possibility seemed to have done little to prepare him for its realization. He hardly understood what de Crucis was saying: he knew only that an hour before he had fancied himself master of his fate and that now he was again in bonds. His first clear thought was that nothing should part him from Fulvia.

      De Crucis seemed to read the thought.

      “Cavaliere,” he said, “at a moment when time is so valuable you will pardon my directness. You are accompanying to Switzerland a lady who has placed herself in your charge—”

      Odo made no reply, and the other went on in the same firm but courteous tone: “Foreseeing that it would be difficult for you to leave her so abruptly I provided myself, in Venice, with a safe-conduct which will take her safely across the border.” He drew a paper from his coat. “This,” said he, handing it to Odo, “is the Papal Nuncio’s authorization to the Signorina Fulvia Vivaldi, known in religion as Sister Veronica, to absent herself from Italy for an indefinite period. With this passport and a good escort your companion will have no difficulty in rejoining her friends.”

      Excess of astonishment kept Odo silent for a moment; and in that moment he had as it were a fugitive glimpse into the workings of the great power which still strove for predominance in Italy. A safe-conduct from the Papal Nuncio to Fulvia Vivaldi was equivalent to her release from her vows; and this in turn implied that, for the moment, religious discipline had been frankly sacrificed to the pressure of political necessities. How the invisible hands made and unmade the destinies of those who came in their way! How boldly the Church swept aside her own defences when they obstructed her course! He was conscious, even at the moment, of all that men like de Crucis had to say in defence of this higher expediency, this avowed discrimination between the factors in each fresh combination of circumstances. He had himself felt the complex wonder of thoughtful minds before the Church’s perpetual miracle of change disguised in immutability; but now he saw only the meaner side of the game, its elements of cruelty and falseness; and he felt himself no more than a frail bark on the dark and tossing seas of ecclesiastical intrigue. For a moment his heart shuddered back from its fate.

      “No passport, no safe-conduct,” he said at length, “can release me from my duty to the lady who has placed herself in my care. I shall not leave her till she has joined her friends.”

      De Crucis bowed. “This is the answer I expected,” he said, not without sadness.

      Odo glanced at him in surprise. The two men, hitherto, had addressed each other as strangers; but now something in the abate’s tone recalled to Odo the familiarity of their former intercourse, their deep community of thought, the significance of the days they had spent together in the monastery of Monte Cassino. The association of ideas brought before him the profound sense of responsibility with which, at that time, he had looked forward to such an hour as this.

      The abate was watching him gravely.

      “Cavaliere,” he said, “every instant counts. All you had once hoped to do for Pianura is now yours to accomplish. But in your absence your enemies are not idle. His Highness may revoke your appointment at any hour. Of late I have had his ear, but I have now been near a week absent, and you know the Duke is not long constant to one purpose.—Cavaliere,” he exclaimed, “I appeal to you not in the name of the God whom you have come to doubt, but in that of your fellow-men, whom you have wished to serve.”

      Odo looked at him, not without a confused sense of the irony of such an appeal on such lips, yet with the distinct consciousness that it was uttered in all sincerity, and that, whatever their superficial diversity of view, he and de Crucis were at one on those deeper questions that gave the moment its real significance.

      “It is impossible,” he repeated, “that I should go with you.”

      De Crucis was again silent, and Odo was aware of the renewed intentness of his scrutiny. “If the lady—” broke from him once; but he checked himself and took a turn in the room.

      Meanwhile a resolve was slowly forming itself in Odo. He would not be false to the call which, since his boyhood, had so often made itself heard above the voice of pleasure and self-interest; but he would at least reserve the right to obey it in his own fashion and under conditions which left his private inclination free.

      “There may be more than one way of serving one’s fellows,” he said quietly. “Go back without me, abate. Tell my cousin that I resign my rights to the succession. I shall live my own life elsewhere, not unworthily, I hope, but as a private person.”

      De Crucis had turned pale. For a moment his habitual self-command seemed about to fail him; and Odo could not but see that a sincere personal