April, the beautiful April of Southern Italy, was half-way spent before the Villa Camellia broke up for the holidays. There were the usual term-end examinations, at which distressed damsels, with agitated minds and ink-stained fingers, sat at desks furnished with piles of foolscap, and cudgeled their brains to supply facts to fill the sheets of blank paper; there was the reading out of results, with congratulations to those who had succeeded, and glum looks from Miss Rodgers to those who had failed; then followed the bringing down of boxes, the joyful flutter of packing, the last breakfast, and the final universal exodus.

"Good-by, dear old thing!"

"Do miss me a little!"

"Hope you'll have a ripping time!"

"Be a sport and write to me, won't you?"

"Hold me down, somebody, I'm ready to fizz over!"

"You won't forget me, dearie? All right! Just so long as we know!"

Lorna, who had anticipated previous vacations as simply a relief from the toil of lessons, went home to Naples with quite altered feelings from those of[273] former occasions. She was determined that, if it possibly lay in her power, she would make her father enjoy the time she spent with him. In spite of injustice and cruel wrong there might surely be some happy hours together, and she would win him to live in the present, instead of continually brooding over the past. The immense, terrible pathos of the situation appealed to the deepest chords in her nature. Her father was still in the prime of his years, a handsome, clever man, who might have done much in the world. Was it yet too late? Lorna sometimes had faint, budding hopes that in some fresh country his wrecked career might be righted, and that he might make a new start and rise triumphant over the ruin of other days. He was glad to see her. There was no doubt about that. The knowledge that she now shared his secret placed her on a different footing. It was a relief to him to have some one in whom he could confide, some one who knew the reason for his hermit mode of living, and above all who believed in his innocence. Insensibly Lorna's presence acted upon him for good. The nervous, hunted look began to fade out of his eyes, and sometimes he actually smiled as she recounted the doings of the Camellia Buds, or other happenings at school.

"Daddy!" she said once, "couldn't we go out to Australia or America, or somewhere where nobody would know us, and make a fresh life for ourselves?"[274]

A gleam of hope flitted for a moment over the sad face.

"I've thought of that, Lorna. Perhaps I've been too morbid. It seemed to me that every Englishman must know of what I had been accused. And I had no credentials to offer. Now, with a five years' reference from the Ferroni Company in Naples I might have a chance of a job in Australia. It's worth considering—for your sake, child, if not for mine."

During the whole of the first week of the holidays Lorna amused herself as best she might in their little lodgings in Naples. While her father was at the office she read or sewed, or played on a wretched old piano, which had little tune in it but was better than nothing. The evenings were her golden times, for then they would go out together, sometimes into the Italian quarters of the city, or sometimes by tram into the suburbs, where there were beautiful promenades with views of the sea. In these walks she grew to be his companion, and instead of shrinking from him as in former days, she met him on a new footing and gave him of her best. Together they planned a home in a fresh hemisphere, and talked hopefully of better things that were perhaps in store for them over the ocean. And so life went on, and father and daughter might have realized their vision, and have emigrated to another continent where no one knew their name or their former history, and have made a fresh start and won comparative suc[275]cess, but Dame Fortune, who sometimes has a use for our past however bitterly she seems to have mismanaged it, interfered again, and with fateful fingers re-flung the dice.

It certainly did not seem a fortunate circumstance, but quite the reverse, when the grandchildren of their landlady, who occupied the étage above their rooms, sickened with measles. Lorna had never had the complaint, and it was, of course, most important that she should not convey germs back to the Villa Camellia, so it was a vital necessity to move her immediately out of the area of infection. Signora Fiorenza, harassed but sympathetic, suggested a visit to Capri, where her sister, Signora Verdi, who owned a little orange farm and had a couple of spare bedrooms, would probably take her in for the remainder of the holidays, which would give the necessary quarantine before returning to the school.

Mr. Carson jumped at the opportunity, and Lorna was told to pack her bag.

"But Daddy, Daddy!" she remonstrated. "I don't want to leave you. Just when we're happy together must I run away? Do measles matter? I'd rather have them and stay here. I would indeed."

"Don't be silly, Lorna. Miss Rodgers wouldn't thank you to start an epidemic. Of course you must go to Capri. It's a splendid opportunity. Signora Verdi has a nice little villa. Cheer up, child. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll take you myself to-mor[276]row, stay over Sunday, and come again and spend the next week-end with you. I can get an extra day or two of holiday if I want, and the Casa Verdi is a quiet spot, quite out of the way of tourists. We can have the orange groves to ourselves and see nobody. If I catch the early boat I'm not likely to be troubled with English trippers; that's one good business."

"Daddy! You darling! Oh, that would be glorious! I'd go to the North Pole if you'd come too. Two week-ends with you in Capri! What fun. We'll have the time of our lives!"

To poor Lorna, who so seldom had the opportunity of enjoying family outings, this visit indeed was an event. She packed her bag joyously, and was all excitement to start.

Following his usual custom of avoiding the vicinity of English people, Mr. Carson decided not to go to Capri by the ordinary steamer that conveyed pleasure-seekers, but to secure passages in a cargo vessel which was crossing with supplies. To Lorna the mode of conveyance was immaterial; she would have sailed cheerfully on a raft if necessary. She rather enjoyed the picturesque Neapolitan tramp steamer with its cargo of wine barrels and packing cases, and its crew of bare-footed, red-capped seamen, talking and gesticulating with all the excitability of their Southern temperament. The voyage across the blue bay was longer than that to Fossato, and she sat in a cozy nook among the casks,[277] and watched first the white houses of Naples fading away, then the distant mountains of the coast, then the gay sails of the fishing craft that plied to and fro over the water.

It was sunset when they reached the beautiful island of Capri, a pink ethereal sunset that flooded headland and rock, orange orchard and vineyard, in a faint and luminous opal glow. Their vessel anchored outside the quay of the Marina Grande, and signaled for a boat to take them off. A little skiff put out from the beach, and into this they and their luggage were transferred. The transparent crystal water over which they rowed was clear as an aquarium, and alive with gorgeous medusæ whose pink tentacles seemed to flash with the colors of the sunset; to gaze down at them was like watching a flock of sea-butterflies flitting across a background of undulating green.

They landed at the jetty, walked to the shore, and after securing a carriage started on a long drive uphill to the terreno of Signora Verdi. Capri, betwixt the glow of the fading sunset and the light of the rising full moon, was a veritable land of romance, with its domed eastern-looking houses set in a mass of vines and lemon trees, and the luscious scent of its many flowers wafted on the evening air. It seemed no less attractive in the morning, when, after drinking their coffee in a rose-covered arbor that stood at the bottom of their landlady's orange grove, they wandered away through the bosco and up on to[278] the open hillside. Here Flora had surely played a trick to plant golden genista against the intense sapphire blue of a Capri sea, and she must have emptied her apron all at once to have spangled the rough grass with cistus, anemone, and starry asphodel. Below them lay a stretch of rugged rocks and turquoise bay, with no sound to break the silence but the tinkling of goat-bells, or the piping of a little dark-eyed boy who practiced a rustic flute as he minded his flock. To poor Mr. Carson, wearied with the noise and clamor of Naples, it was a veritable Paradise, a haven of refuge, a breathing space in the dreary pilgrimage of his sad life. On the top of this sunlit, rock-crowned islet he gained a short period of peace and rest before he once more shouldered his heavy burden.

"If I could live all my days here, Lorna, who knows, I might learn to forget," he said wistfully.

"Oh, Dad! We must find a way out somehow. You can't go on like this! It's killing you. Why have we to suffer under this unjust accusation? Why should some one else do a shameful deed and shift the blame on to you? Is there no plan by which you could clear your name?"

"I've asked myself that question, Lorna, through many black hours, but I've never hit on an answer."

"I hate the man who's wronged you," she sobbed passionately. "Yes! I hate him—hate him—hate him—and all belonging to him. Is it wicked to hate? I can't help it when it's my own father's honor that's[279] at stake. Oh, Daddy, Daddy, if I could only 'get even' I'd be content. It seems so hard to let the wicked prosper and just do nothing. Why should some people have all the laughter of life and others all the tears?"

Lorna parted reluctantly from her father on Monday morning. He sailed by a very early boat, so that the sun had not yet risen high, as, after watching his vessel leave the harbor, she turned from the Marina to walk back to the Casa Verdi. Half of the little town was still asleep. There were no signs of life in the hotel, where ............