The Sign of the Seven Sins

No; I dare not reveal everything here, lest I may be misjudged. The narrative is, to say the least, a strange one; so amazing, indeed, that had I not been one of the actual persons concerned therein I would never have believed that such things could be.

Yet these chapters of an eventful personal history, remarkable though they may appear, are nevertheless the truth, a combination of unusual circumstances which will be found startling and curious, idyllic and tragic. Reader, I would confess all if I dared, but each of us have skeletons in our cupboards, both you and I--for, alas! I am no exception to the general rule among women.

If compelled by natural instinct to suppress one single fact, I may also add that it has little or nothing to do with the circumstances herein related. It only concerns myself, and no woman cares to afford food for gossips at her own expense. Briefly, it is my intention to narrate plainly and straightforwardly all that occurred, in the hope that those who read may approach it with a perfectly open mind and afterwards adjudge me fairly, impartially, and without the prejudice attaching to one whose shortcomings are many, and whose actions have perhaps not always been tempered by wisdom.

My name is Carmela Rosselli. I am of Italian extraction, five-and-twenty years of age last December, and already--yes, I confess it freely--I was utterly world-weary. I am an only child. My mother, one of the Burnetts of Washington, married Romolo Annibale, Marchese di Pistoja, an impecunious member of the Florentine aristocracy, and after a childhood at Washington I was sent to the Convent of San Paolo della Croce at Florence to obtain my education. My mother’s money enabled the Marchese to live in the reckless style befitting a gentleman of the Tuscan nobility, but, unfortunately for me, both my parents died when I was fifteen and left me in the care of a second cousin, a woman but a few years older than myself; kind-hearted, everything that was most American and womanly, and--everything most devoted to me.

Thus it was that at the age of eighteen I received the maternal kiss of the grave-eyed Mother Superior, Suor Maria, and all the good sisters in turn, and returned to Washington accompanied by my guardian, Ulrica Yorke.

Like myself, Ulrica was wealthy and, being smart and good-looking, did not want for admirers. Together we lived for several years amid that society, diplomatic and otherwise, which circles around the White House, until one rather dull afternoon in the fall she, Ulrica, made a most welcome suggestion:

“Carmela, I am ruined morally and physically. I feel that I want a complete change.”

I suggested New York or Florida for the winter.

“No,” she answered, “I feel that I must build up my constitution as well as my spirits. Europe is the only place,--say London for a month, Paris, Monte Carlo for January, then Rome till after Easter.”

“To Europe!” I gasped.

“Why not?” she inquired. “You have money,--what there is left of it,--and we may just as well go to Europe for a year and enjoy ourselves as vegetate here.”

“You are tired of Guy?” I observed.

She shrugged her well-formed shoulders, pursed her lips, and contemplated her rings.

“He has become too serious,” she said simply.

“And you want to escape him?” I remarked. “Do you know, Ulrica, that I really believe he loves you?”

“Well, and if he does?”