ez, I know; but we are talking of politics now, not of
persons."

"Madonna! Give it up! That man is dangerous; he is secret, and cruel,
and unscrupulous--and he is in love with you!"

She drew back.

"Cesare, how can you get such fancies into your head?"

"He is in love with you," Martini repeated. "Keep clear of him,
Madonna!"

"Dear Cesare, I can't keep clear of him; and I can't explain to you why.
We are tied together--not by any wish or doing of our own."

"If you are tied, there is nothing more to say," Martini answered
wearily.

He went away, saying that he was busy, and tramped for hours up and down
the muddy streets. The world looked very black to him that evening. One
poor ewe-lamb--and this slippery creature had stepped in and stolen it
away.

CHAPTER X.

TOWARDS the middle of February the Gadfly went to Leghorn. Gemma had
introduced him to a young Englishman there, a shipping-agent of liberal
views, whom she and her husband had known in England. He had on several
occasions performed little services for the Florentine radicals: had
lent money to meet an unforeseen emergency, had allowed his business
address to be used for the party's letters, etc.; but always through
Gemma's mediumship, and as a private friend of hers. She was, therefore,
according to party etiquette, free to make use of the connexion in any
way that might seem good to her. Whether any use could be got out of it
was quite another question. To ask a friendly sympathizer to lend his
address for letters from Sicily or to keep a few documents in a corner
of his counting-house safe was one thing; to ask him to smuggle over a
transport of firearms for an insurrection was another; and she had very
little hope of his consenting.

"You can but try," she had said to the Gadfly; "but I don't think
anything will come of it. If you were to go to him with that
recommendation and ask for five hundred scudi, I dare say he'd give them
to you at once--he's exceedingly generous,--and perhaps at a pinch he
would lend you his passport or hide a fugitive in his cellar; but if you
mention such a thing as rifles he will stare at you and think we're both
demented."

"Perhaps he may give me a few hints, though, or introduce me to a
friendly sailor or two," the Gadfly had answered. "Anyway, it's worth
while to try."

One day at the end of the month he came into her study less carefully
dressed than usual, and she saw at once from his face that he ha