172 CHAPTER XIV. "That dare as well answer a man indeed, STEPHEN AYLWARD could not sleep. His temples were throbbing and his mind distressingly active in one weary round. Again and again he went through the scene in the Great Piazza. He wondered if Philip were sleeping; if Cheepyre would wake with a headache; what the Deanes would think of it all. At last he got out of bed and threw the window wide open. The night was intensely black, the air sullen and motionless as at noon. It was a labour to breathe. Stephen was turning away with a sigh, when he was conscious of a sudden light. He paused, and presently heard in the distance a noise of thunder. He turned quickly with a fresh sense of hope and joy; and on a sudden down came the rain, bounteous and plentiful, driving dull vapours and lashing the still waters below. The young man laughed aloud and spread his arms wide to the quickening night. "All may yet be well," he said to his heart. Then he jumped into bed, and after a few moments was sleeping like a child. It was late when he woke, and he started to find Philip by his bedside. He has gone," said Philip. "Gone!" echoed Stephen only half awake. "Who's gone where?" "Cheepyre is gone. I woke with a feeling that somebody had gone out through the room, and I went to look at him, and he had gone. I would not wake you; it was no use; and you needed sleep. I tried the station; then the Belrotoli Palace, and the Caffe Florian, and at last the Piazzetta. He went off at cock-crow in a gondola." Aylward was wide awake now and much disgusted. "He has run away," he said. "Not he," said Lamond; "Tiribomba was with him, and a young surgeon-nobody else. They have gone to fight." "Impossible! I told you that he does not even pretend to any pluck." Impossible, but true. They went toward San Giovanni. Will you come?" "But we must be too late. Poor boy! Young fool!" "Jump up! there's no time to lose. I'll get you some breakfast." Stephen jumped out of bed much refreshed by the great change in the atmosphere. A cool sweet air came to him as he hurriedly dressed himself, and he hoped that after all no harm would come of this absurd affair. As for Philip, the necessity of action roused him like wine. The thought that he might help this headstrong boy stirred to its depths that chivalry, which in the ordinary days of life he kept concealed. He busied himself in the room, and counted the lagging minutes. "For Cynthia!" he said to himself, and was ready for a thousand battles. If only he might be in time to take this quarrel on himself, and send the boy safe to her. Nothing should stay him—not Stephen, nor the whole Italian army. He was wild with impatience before Aylward joined him. He only gave him time to snatch a roll from the table, and was already hurrying him to the door, when it was thrust open, and old Rosa appeared with lively demonstrations of sorrow and alarm. Stephen's heart sank; here was some new complication of affairs. It was clear that no festival or much loved holiday had brought old Rosa from her island. Here was genuine grief dramatically displayed. She burst into lamentations over the poor little woman. "Cynthia?" gasped Philip, and turned white. "Is the young lady ill?" asked Stephen in Italian. "No, no," she answered; "the poor lady the mother, and she so good, so gentle! It is a stupidity of the blessed saints,—a stupidity!" Then she went on with many gesticulations and much breaking off for appropriate exclamation to relate how master Fabian had slipped away from the lazy Vittoria at the first dawn and run out into the grass all drenched with the thunder-shower; how the Signora had instantly discovered it, and gone in pursuit; how she the poor old woman Rosa coming from an early visit to her cows had found the mother and son together. Then with the tears streaming down her withered shrunken cheeks she said that the good lady had called her, and begged her to take the boy quickly to the house and to change his little shoes. "And the poor thing cried, 'Quick, quick, my good Rosa!' and pushed the dear little rascal to me, and at that moment she turned white-white as your linen my young gentleman, and fell down there where she stood on the wet grass. Holy Madonna, how I have moved my old legs to bring the news; and I was a noted dancer once, let the young gentlemen believe me!" And she began to point her old toes, and to grin though the tears were not dry on her cheeks. And the master, Mr Deane, how is he?" asked Stephen, who shocked as he was had room for the thought how strange it was that such a lover of peace as he should be hurried hither and thither by other people's business. "Ah, the poor little one!" cried Rosa relapsing into the depths of woe, "what can you expect? He is a man-a poor thing when trouble comes. He has fallen flat. He sits and stares so, so, till the eyes drop out of his head." Stephen looked rather hopelessly at the old woman's expressive pantomime, but Philip broke in quickly: "And the young lady?" "How brave she is, the young lady!" cried Rosa rapturously. "She has put the poor mother to bed, and she said to me, 'My Rosa '-for she knows well that I have sense if I am an old woman, more sense than these young girls like that lazy Milanese slut Vittoria-Rosa,' she said, 'go quickly, quickly and bring the doctor |