1869.

CHAPTER XXI.

IN THE TEMPTER'S NET.

Snap immediately followed the foster-brother, but with a mien so soft and unruffled that it disturbed not so much as the atmosphere. He of all the rest seemed the one who had not noticed Farinelli, and to all appearance was most uninterested in him. As for his leaving the green-room immediately after him, it could have been with no possible intent of following the singer, and then any one would have wagered against any odds that the snaillike Snap would never dream of keeping up with the excited Farinelli.

"A moment," said Sir Herbert hurriedly to Orsini, and he made after his mentor.

But it was more than five minutes before he could even overtake his secretary, who kept at a given distance that varied scarcely an inch from Farinelli; yet the singer dashed along with the steam of the boiling blood that gushed from his jealous heart. Seemingly however, Snap was walking easily along without effort, and none but a close observer, struck with the relative distance so exactly kept up between the two individuals, whose movements formed such contrast, would have thought the follower was walking with more than very common speed or imagined him to be following. Yet his steps were nearly as quick and certainly longer than the ones taken by Farinelli, for the appearance of slowness was not through a lack of rapid action, but in his soft, long-striding, regular-drawn-out undemonstrativeness.

And thus it was with him in everything. He traveled faster and accomplished more than almost any other in what he undertook, for all his seeming slowness. Sir Herbert at length overtook him, wellnigh winded.

"Snap, I want a word with you."

"When I return, Sir Herbert," he smoothly answered, paying no more attention to his master. He was concentrating himself in one direction.

"I have learned that Templar is making arrangements to leave Rome in three days."

"Ah! that is important," Snap answered, but still no excitement, still no breaking in his even course, which was on-right

"You are for bringing Farinelli to the point?” "Yes. Now return to Orsini."

Sir Herbert did so and the mentor continued on, right on, long and even in his course; undemonstrative in his manner.

When Farinelli came within sight of Spontini's villa he slackened his pace, and his movements and actions became spasmodic. He had obeyed the same impulse that one does who mounts his horse under an agonized state of mind, and rides as though the very furies pursued and lashed him into wilder course. But the foster-brother was now near enough the spot that daily drew him under its fatal influence and less charged with his own elect ricity-near enough for the tantalizing torture to which he subjected himself. We are like the poor moth, ever fluttering around the flame that burns us. He seldom entered the beautiful villa where he would have been cordially welcomed and treated with sisterly affection by Terese; but the old confidence and companionship which existed between them when she was a girl and he plain Beppo-her Beppo-her champion-her slave-no longer existed. Now she was only his sister, who received him like a woman receiving affectionately her natural brother, but no more than a brother.

Often he would lean against some tree for hours, gazing forlornly on Spontini's Paradise in the distance, where dwelt with him his two pupils and young De Lacy. Sometimes he would brood over doubts of Sir Walter Templar making Terese his wife, and that even made his spirit fiercer than all beside. Often he scourged himself with wishes that she was his wife, and then he would find comfort in the imagination of a little Terese again dancing on his knee and then a fairy girl taking her mother's place and caressing him fondly as her own Beppo, as she had done before, or scolding him with gentleness and singing to him to drive away the evil spirit, until he sobbed again as when a boybaptized unto repentance in his own tears; but even with this consolation there would come self-wailings that he should never know wife or child of his.

The foster-brother at length stopped and reclined against a tree exhausted, and wiped the perspiration from his brow-more the sweat of agony that his burning soul oozed out than from bis hurried walk. Snap also had slackened his pace and for a

127

moment lifted his hat from his over-heated temples; for even Snap could not keep cool."

"Nothing to her-nothing to her now!" wailed the poor fosterbrother. The manager, the greenroom, the fashionable gossips all know of Terese before Beppo. No, I am not Beppo. I wear a better sounding name. When I was Beppo 'twas her Beppo. Then I was everything to her; nothing to her now-nothing to her now! Holy mother, I ask not to be her husband; I would have her Sir Walter Templar's wife, for she loves him, and I should be so happy. Beppo would be so happy to see her his wife."

But the hot tears that coursed down his face, burning furrows as they rolled, told how much of happiness there was to the fosterbrother in the thought of her being the wife of another, but it also told how entire was his love that wished her another's for her happiness.

"But O! I ask to be what I once was-her Beppo-her slave!" The tempter was near the distracted foster-brother! His coming was not harsh but mesmeric The analytic Snap, like Mesmer and others recognized the subtle agencies of nature, and without comprehending in exact science used them. He had often

observed the fascination he could throw around cthers and what a concentrated will had enabled him to exercise over the minds he sought to influence. The presence of a human being may be felt sometimes when not seen and by the side of one who sleeps affect the sleeper; every one has felt a hundred times others looking back at them and proven it by looking back themselves. So Snap now made his own presence felt and made it insinuating. The foster-brother partook something of the other's calmness and cynical spirit.

"Why has she rejected the prima donna-ship of Rome when she has just reached her first great triumph? What is she going to do? Where is she going to? Bah! I will ask the gossips of the city; for I know nothing of my foster-sister now.

"Shall I answer your question, my good Farinelli?''

The singer bounded from his reclining position from the tree, and his appearance and feelings were those of a man who thought the arch fiend had suddenly come to his elbow to answer him. "I am flesh and blood, my good Farinelli."

The singer gradually became reconciled to the presence of the individual who was regarding him with a sympathetic and kindly smile. There was no sinister spirit manifested. Snap was scientific in his spirit. He was solving a problem. It was a human one; and he solved his problems in sympathy and not ill-nature. "Shall I answer your question, my good Farinelli?" he repeated.

Well, signor, if you can, though I like not your intrusion." "Be not offended, Signor Farinelli. You are on a public road and were only oblivious to my approach because not sufficiently attentive to surrounding objects. I overheard your questions, and, as they were asked of the gossips of Rome, I proposed to answer them."

"No trifling with me, signor," broke in the singer impatiently, "Do so, I say, if you can.'

"I can, my good signor. Your foster-sister is going to England."

"Ah! How know you?"

"Would she not have told you, my good Farinelli, were that the case?"

"Ah! what mean you, signor?" the foster-brother demanded, excitedly, for his assertion that Terese was to be our hero's wife was made more to hide his own misgivings than from assurance.

"During Sir Walter Templar's association with your fostersister, have you never heard of a certain betrothal between him and his cousin?" asked the tempter, and then added, cynically, "Oh, I am foolish to ask. That of course has been hid."

"There you wrong Sir Walter Templar, signor. He has never hid it. I think he designs not wrong to my foster-sister, and, though I am not in their secrets, believe he will make her his wife. By Him who made me, if he designed dishonorably by her Bah! I am babbling to a stranger. Good day, signor. I like not meddling in my foster-sister's affairs," he said, making away. 我

"Be not churlish, my good Farinelli. Read this letter. It will convince you that Sir Walter Templar is going direct to England to marry his cousin Eleanor Courtney. I like not my words to be challenged without giving demonstration:" and the secretary-mentor of Sir Herbert handed him Wortley's letter which he had with him for that purpose. The post-office stamps both of England and Italy were on the back of the sheet; and it was evident to the agitated reader that it was a bona fide letter from a legal adviser to his client.

When the foster-brother had read the letter, he returned it, his countenance frightfully pale and haggard, his manner agitated, observing

"Yes, Signor, I grant that is presumptive evidence that Sir Walter Templar is returning to England to marry his cousin." "And your foster-sister?" querried the Tempter.

"I grant that I believe it will affect her happiness; but it is no evidence that she is going with him.”

"Her refusal to sign the re-engagement," suggested the other. "Has no reference to the letter I have read, Signor," answered the singer, trying to argue that down which troubled him so much.

"You reason well, my good Farinelli. That letter proves only what it refers to and no more; but shall I prove the other two points started, and something besides, which the foster-brother of Terese ought to prevent? Shall I make it clear to you, my good

Farinelli?"

"Holy Mother, I hope you cannot.”

"When I informed you that Sir Walter Templar was going to England and in three days would leave Rome, what conclusion did you jump at?" pursued the Tempter. "Why, that Terese had refused the re-engagement to go also: just what I concluded; for it is so relative."

"True, true; both coming together, it can have no other meaning," conceded the singer.

Now the letter read proves not that, but it does something beyond it."

"Holy Mother!" the foster-brother exclaimed, fresh doubts rushing upon him at every step.

"You concluded, besides, that she was going to England to become his wife. That letter shows that his uncle has written for his return, that his family is making preparations for marriage, not to Terese, but to his cousin Eleanor Courtney."

"Yes, yes, Signor, I read it. Torture me not with its repetition. The letter tells no more."

"But I have made an addendum: Sir Walter Templar leaves Rome in three days. You will find it so."

"You have repeated that also, Signor.'

"But the inference, my good Farinelli. He is going not to marry your foster-sister, but his cousin and betrothed."

"Well, well, go on!" and the tortured foster-brother, still forced on with eagerness, that which his jealous mind formed as the sequel, but which he ran from and towards with dismay.

"And yet we both agree that your foster-sister has refused the re-engagement at the opera house to go with or follow him to England. But still more certain, my good Farinelli, I heard Spontini intimate as much to the management in his embarrassed excuses for Terese. In fact, my good Farinelli, the composer was very agitated as though much troubled."

"Mother of God! Spontini himself cannot think my foster-sister is going as his mistress. The maestro's countenance was an assurance to me. O, if he doubts too- Holy Virgin! she is too good, too innocent, too pure for that. O! you know her not, Signor, or you would not conclude that."

And he who, when a boy, was her Beppo, wailed, and his manner was that of one who would have groveled at the Tempter's feet for proof that Terese would not become Sir Walter Templar's mistress.

"I will take your knowledge of her, my good Farinelli, not mine, as her standard," continued the Tempter, knowing the singer was completely under his influence. "And as for Sir Walter Templar, I know his character much better than you do. I have studied him as one of my problems."

“And you think not honorably of him, Signor?"

"Nay, nay, my good Farinelli. I have even a much higher opinion of him than you have. I measure him by a very high standard, but I temper my judgment with worldly wisdom and expérience. You fully understand the meaning of sophistry, do you not?"

"I believe so, Signor," the other answered.

"Well, now, my good Farinelli, the sophistry of lovers is matchless. O Cupid is a blind god, believe me; and blindfolds all who

submit to him: and if, when blinded, his victims wander into a labyrinth-"

"Holy Mother! I am lost, lost;-no finding the way out!" burst from the agonized soul of one who was hopelessly wandering in its windings and bewilderments.

"But that is not all, my good Farinelli. I was about to show you the lovers sophistry. They take for their motto, The union of hearts before the union of hands:-a very good motto; and when the latter follows unexceptionable. But when the union of hands cannot follow, then comes the lovers sophistry: they lay down their own code of laws, excellent in the abstract but not sanctioned by society, pure in theory, but pernicious in practice." "Mother of God! my foster-sister Sir Walter Templar's mistress!"

"Ah! my goed Farinelli, you must not use such repulsive epithets as mistress and seducer."

"But they are the names, Signor. God! I shall go mad in looking at them, they are so repulsive."

"Have you never heard them till now? What, are you holier than the rest of us that they shock you so?"

"No, no; not until they touched my foster-sister did they seem so hideous."

"But, my good Farinelli, I said you must not use such repulsive names. They are not in the vocabulary of this lover's sophistry. It is wife and husband-wife and husband by holier, higher, diviner laws and sanctions than the formalities and cruel arrangements of society that link hands, not hearts."

"Yes, yes, I know that is the sophistry. Holy Virgin watch over my foster-sister!"

"You have judged wrongly, Farinelli, believe me, in thinking your foster-sister safe, because she is pure and good and Sir Walter Templar honorable and noble in his nature. To me, this omens their fall. Why, my dear Signor, my philosophy is, that it is the best and not the worst part of humanity that err.'

"O, Terese, I would we both had died before we saw him,” still wailing from the tortured heart of the Beppo of happier days, and still the tempter pursued his subtle course.

"Now, my good Farinelli, your foster-sister is a child of genius; white as the lily in her innocence; trustful as woman's nature; but she is also trustful as the orphan who loves and finds father, mother, and her all-in the hands of that one like the plastic wax. Can you not see how much all this fits her for the union of hearts and wife by the higher laws?"

"Curse him! Oh, that my dagger was in his heart!" "Nay, nay: Sir Walter Templar never will be a seducer. He will be Terese's husband. Himself of a poetic type, he is a fitting mate for her. He is just the man to break down the altars which the artificial, the selfish set up, and in their place establish those which nature's fitness ordains."

Plausible fiend! 'tis mistress to me. Sooner would I see my foster-sister in her grave than Sir Walter Templar's mistress. Oh, I will plunge my dagger into his heart before she shall be that."

"Did I not just now say, my good Farinelli, that the lover's sophistry was excellent in theory but pernicious in practice!" unruffledly replied the tempter.

"Sooner see her in the grave!-in the grave sooner than that!" moaned the tempted soul.

"Yes she would be his mistress. I agree with you, and society would call her children illegitimate and nameless, except in the tell-tale slander of bearing their mother's name, Even at the best-not the worst, my good Farinelli-they would be in parentage outcast, blushing over the history of their mother, if they knew it, and concealing it from others as the children of the hangman would their parentage."

"I will kill him!"

"Go to your foster-sister, and remonstrate with her against becoming his mistress."

We shall meet

"I will kill him!" was still the fierce response. "Tell her how society, not how love, will view it." "I will kill him! And now, Signor, leave me. again. No more now. I think you mean well to me and my foster-sister; but I see you wish him out of your way, too. Be satisfied, Signor, I will kill him!

The idea had taken such possession of the foster-brother's mind that it filled it, and the resolve calmed him and blunted his mental agony.

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