Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 15, No. 90, June, 1875

Was it worth while to reply to so unconscious, so friendly, a question by the truth? Why ask? What man, having gone so far, would be content to stop? Letting his eyes speak for him, he met her innocent questioning look by a long imploring gaze as he whispered, "You."

As he spoke the expression came over her face that he had noticed when he had first crossed her path with Mrs. Felton: the color forsook her cheeks, the dreamy composure of her attitude vanished, and she murmured in a scared, helpless tone, "Do you want to kill me?"

"No, no: do not think that," he hastily replied. Then seeing the boat had drifted behind a little island that hid them from view, he moved and sat on the floor beside her. "Dear Fay, believe me there is no reality in your foreknowledge. Such a thing is impossible. Love me, Fay, and I will shield you from any evil that may happen. Do not let those sick fancies mislead you: they are gone never to return."

"Take me home, take me home," she sobbed, covering her face with her hands. "Oh why do you talk to me in this way? It is unkind. You know it cannot be. I will not listen to another word. Take me home."

Dr. Grey was too wise to insist. Love had quickened his intuitions. He would have liked to take her in his arms and chase this threatening horror from her mind: he was eager to plead his cause, to assure her of his devotion, but without a word he resumed his seat and obeyed.

The generosity shown in thus preferring her wishes to his own touched Fay more than any pleading could have done. She was convinced of his unselfishness, and her confidence in him remained unshaken. For some time after the scene in the boat she was very shy; but seeing he avoided the forbidden subject, and unconsciously growing each day fonder of his society, she allowed herself to drift into that closer intimacy which can have but one reason for its charm. Maurice saw and rejoiced. If he had won her heart he felt sure of surmounting the imaginary objection to his suit, and he resolved on a bold stroke.

One evening after a long walk they were seated on a huge table-rock jutting from the shore into the water, nothing but the lake before them, the sky above, the forest behind. "Is it not a matter of surprise that you should still be living, Miss Lafitte? he asked, concealing his trepidation under the appearance of raillery.

"Why?"

"Because you have been in love with me for several weeks."

Struck with the truth rather than the audacity of his assertion, she looked down, pondering intently a little space; then, not considering what the admission involved, she said in a choked voice, "You are right."

"And it has not hurt you," he went on eagerly. "I cannot hurt you. Won't you believe me?"

Another longer pause, and the words came trembling forth: "If it could be so!"

"It is so. It has been already proved." He took her hand gently: she permitted it to lie in his, and silence, the language of full hearts, ministered between them.

She broke it finally by the whispered question, "You are quite, quite sure that these warnings are not peculiar—that science can account for them?"

"On my honor, yes."

"I want to believe—I do believe you. I will risk my life for you: I—I—I love you, Maurice."

"My darling!"

She was very quiet, even sad, that evening. Conversation seemed an effort, and after some vain attempts to shake off her depression she hastily retired. After a long search Grey found her walking in one of the alleys of the garden, and could perceive by her tones that she had been weeping.

"In a very few days you will laugh at these pet superstitions. Do not indulge this mood: come and walk," he said persuasively.

"You are cruel."

"Indeed it is for your good."

"Maurice, do you think we are justified in thus tempting Fate?"

He smiled at her as if she were a child: "I have no doubts."

Her eyes shone solemnly as she replied, "Then lead me, even to death."

"To life—to a happy life, dear Fay." He put her unresisting hand on his arm and led her to the door of her room: "Sleep, my darling, and to-morrow you will feel more tranquil."

The next day the young man congratulated himself: Fay was as bright as if evil could never touch her. On passing him at the breakfast-table she whispered, "I defy Fate."

But the struggle was not yet over: the old fear and the new love fought a hard battle. A fortnight of these alternate lights and shadows passed. In his presence the poor girl tried to put on a brave face, but what she endured when alone could be seen in her loss of flesh and color. Sometimes the doctor almost repented having brought this misery upon her, but he comforted himself by looking forward to the calm which must surely follow this storm.

One morning, Miss Lafitte not appearing at her usual time, Maurice became alarmed. Fearing she might be ill, he went to her parlor to inquire: his knock was responded to by Jane, who gave him a note evidently written in expectation of his coming. It ran thus: "Meet me this evening at seven on the rock that you know." Of course he knew the place: it was where she had acknowledged her love.

As may be supposed, the young man was not late at the rendezvous, but he found Fay already there, walking restlessly up and down the contracted space.

"Sit down," she began in the peremptory tone of extreme emotion; then clasping her hands as she stood before him, she said, "I wanted to see you—"

"Not more than I wanted to see you," he interrupted lightly.

Without noticing his remark, she continued hurriedly, "I wish to say that all between us is broken off."

"It is not: I won't submit." He made a motion to rise.

"Do not come near me," she cried with growing agitation. "You have brought me my death. Oh, Maurice!"—here her voice sank pathetically—"why did you make me love you? I shall die—nothing can persuade me to believe otherwise—and it will be soon, soon, soon."

"How very unreasonable, dear Fay! You have long acknowledged your love, yet nothing has happened."

"It is about to happen."

"Come and sit by me," he begged.

"Never again: it must be ended. All day this miserable feeling has oppressed me. I have tried to shake it off, but cannot. It is a warning—it is horrible. Death is near, close, close. I must cease loving you or pay the penalty."

Her wan face presented such a picture of grief, her, voice expressed such an excess of suffering, that Maurice felt his eyes grow dim. Scarcely less moved than herself, he replied, "You cannot cease loving me, dear, dear Fay, nor can I bear to lose you. Let us end this struggle by an immediate marriage. You will then be calm—you will be happy. I will go to your father at once and make the arrangements: he will consent when I explain. There is a clergyman at the house, and a midnight train for New York. Oh, my darling, do not hesitate: this suspense is killing you. Can't you trust me, Fay?"

She listened eagerly: his voice seemed to soothe her. Seeing this, he rose, and, still speaking words of love, approached her. Controlled by, yet fearing, his influence, she slowly retreated as he advanced. Suddenly he cried as if in agony, "Fay, come to me!"

She was standing on the brink of the rock with her back to the danger. A moment she wavered: then Maurice could restrain himself no longer, but, extending his arm, he rushed toward her.

A little step backward, a shy movement to yet delay the consent that was already on her lips, a fall, a splash, and the waters of the lake closed over the body of Fay Lafitte.

To save her or lose himself was the resolution of the doctor as he leapt to the rescue. He was a good swimmer, and soon came to the surface after the plunge, but the shadow of the rock retarded his search. At last he found her, and then a new difficulty, that of landing, presented itself. The shore was covered with a fringe of impenetrable brushwood, which gave him the scantiest support, and it was impossible to mount the face of the rock. Almost in despair, he looked across the water, where he saw in the moonlight a fisherman's boat. Slowly the little craft obeyed his repeated calls for help. Sturdy arms relieved him of his insensible burden, while he, scarcely taking time to climb beside her, hoarsely bade the men row for their lives.

It is needless to describe the scene of confusion which followed on their arrival at the hotel. The only practical man there was Dr. Grey, who gave orders and applied remedies with desperate energy. His persistence was rewarded: the veined lids opened, the white lips parted, intelligence returned: she spoke, and Maurice threw himself on his knees and bent over her that he might catch the words. "My warning was true," she whispered slowly, "but—I—am—willing—to—die—for—loving—you." Then perception faded from those gentle eyes, breathing ceased, the muscles relaxed. Fay was dead.

And the doctor?

He afterward married his cousin: she was so kind to him at the time of his sad affliction.

    ITA ANIOL PROKOP.

A SCENE IN THE CAMPAGNA

You remember the Piazza della Bocca della Verità at Rome? No? Perhaps it is too far away from the Piazza di Spagna and the stairs of the Monte di Trinità, which may be taken to be the central points of English or American Rome. Yet you must have passed by the Bocca della Verità on your way to your drive on the Via Appia and the tomb of Caecilia Metella. Do you not remember a large, shambling, unkempt-looking open space, a sort of cross in appearance between the piazza of a city and a farmyard, a little after passing the remains of the Teatro di Marcello, the grand old arches of which are now, in the whirligig of Time's revenges, turned into blacksmiths' shops? The piazza in question is nearly open on one side to the Tiber, on the immediate bank of which stands that elegant little round temple, with its colonnade of charming fluted pillars, which has from time out of mind been known as the Temple of Vesta, though the designation, as modern archaeologists tell us, is probably erroneous. All the world, whether of those who have been at Rome or not, knows the Temple of Vesta, for it is the prettiest, if not the grandest, of the legacies to us of old pagan Rome, and it has been reproduced in little drawing-room models by the thousand in every conceivable material. Close to it, at one corner of the piazza, is the ancient and half-ruinous house which is pointed out as the habitation of Cola di Rienzi. It is altogether a strange-looking spot, that Piazza della Bocca della Verità, standing as it does on the confines of what may be called the inhabited part of Rome and that portion of the huge space within the walls which still remains sacred to the past and its memories and remains. But not the least strange thing about it is its name—the Piazza of the Mouth of Truth! There is a story of some one of the great doctors of the early ages of Christianity having taught in the very ancient church which stands on the side of the piazza farthest from the Tiber. Ay, to be sure, the name must come very evidently thence. The "mouth of truth" was the mouth of that seraphic or angelic or golden-tongued or other "doctor gentium," and the old church and the piazza still preserve the memory of his eloquence. Not a bit of it! Under the venerable-looking portico of this church there is a huge colossal marble mask, with a gaping mouth in the middle of it. There it lies, totally unconnected in any way with the various other relics of the past around it—tombs and frescoes and mosaics—and the stranger wonders what it is, and how it came there. To the last question there is no reply. But in answer to the former, tradition says that the Roman populace when affirming anything on oath were wont to place their hands in the mouth of this mask as a form of swearing, and hence the stone was called the "Bocca della Verità," and has given its name to the piazza.

Well, it was while traversing this piazza a few days since with a stranger friend, whom I was taking to visit the curious old church above mentioned, that I received and returned the salutation of an acquaintance whose appearance induced my companion to ask with some little surprise who my friend was. The individual whose courteous salutation had provoked the question was a horseman mounted on a remarkably fine black mare. Whether, in consequence of some little touch with the spur, or whether merely from high condition and high spirits, the animal was curvetting and rearing and dancing about a little as she crossed the piazza, and the perfect ease—and one may say, indeed, elegance—of the rider's seat, and his consummate mastery of the animal he bestrode, must have attracted the attention and excited the admiration of any lover of horses and horsemanship. It was abundantly evident that he was neither one of the "gentlemen riders" who figure in the somewhat mild Roman steeple-chase races, nor of those Nimrods from beyond the Alps who, mounted on such steeds as Jarrett or Rannucci can supply them with, attend the "meets" of the Roman hunt. The man in question was very unlike any of these; his horse was quite as unlike any that such persons are wont to ride; and his seat upon his horse and his mode of riding were yet more unlike theirs. It was not the seat of a man accustomed to "go across the country" and ride to hounds; and still less was it the seat of a cavalry-man, the result of teaching in a military riding-school. It was more like the seat (if the expression be permissible) of a centaur. The rider and his steed seemed to be one organization and governed by one and the same will.