The only person in the little group who
knew nothing of the plan was Gemma; it had been
kept from her at Martini's special desire. "She
will break her heart over it soon enough," he had
said.
As the smuggler came in at the garden gate
Martini opened the glass door and stepped out
on to the verandah to meet him.
"Any news, Marcone? Ah!"
The smuggler had pushed back his broad-brimmed
straw hat.
They sat down together on the verandah. Not
a word was spoken on either side. From the
instant when Martini had caught sight of the face
under the hat-brim he had understood.
"When was it?" he asked after a long pause;
and his own voice, in his ears, was as dull and
wearisome as everything else.
"This morning, at sunrise. The sergeant told
me. He was there and saw it."
Martini looked down and flicked a stray thread
from his coat-sleeve.
Vanity of vanities; this also is vanity. He was
to have died to-morrow. And now the land
of his heart's desire had vanished, like the fairyland
of golden sunset dreams that fades away when
the darkness comes; and he was driven back into
the world of every day and every night--the world
of Grassini and Galli, of ciphering and pamphleteering,
of party squabbles between comrades
and dreary intrigues among Austrian spies--of the
old revolutionary mill-round that maketh the
heart sick.
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