Part 32 (1/2)
”He is gone, I suppose?”
I bowed. I could not trust myself to speak.
”He made you his apology?” asked the marquis.
I bowed again. There was another pause of heavy silence. The rigid smiling face of the corpse seemed to mock all speech. The doctor stooped and skillfully closed those glazed appealing eyes--and then it seemed to me as though Guido merely slept and that a touch would waken him. The Marquis D'Avencourt took me by the arm and whispered, ”Get back to the city, amico, and take some wine--you look positively ill!
Your evident regret does you credit, considering the circ.u.mstances--but what would you?--it was a fair fight. Consider the provocation you had!
I should advise you to leave Naples for a couple of weeks--by that time the affair will be forgotten. I know how these things are managed--leave it all to me.”
I thanked him and shook his hand cordially and turned to depart.
Vincenzo was in waiting with the carriage. Once I looked back, as with slow steps I left the field; a golden radiance illumined the sky just above the stark figure stretched so straightly on the sward; while almost from the very side of that pulseless heart a little bird rose from its nest among the gra.s.ses and soared into the heavens, singing rapturously as it flew into the warmth and glory of the living, breathing day.
CHAPTER XXVI.
Entering the fiacre, I drove in it a very little way toward the city. I bade the driver stop at the corner of the winding road that led to the Villa Romani, and there I alighted. I ordered Vincenzo to go on to the hotel and send from thence my own carriage and horses up to the villa gates, where I would wait for it. I also bade him pack my portmanteau in readiness for my departure that evening, as I proposed going to Avellino, among the mountains, for a few days. He heard my commands in silence and evident embarra.s.sment. Finally he said:
”Do I also travel with the eccellenza?”
”Why, no!” I answered with a forced sad smile. ”Do you not see, amico, that I am heavy-hearted, and melancholy men are best left to themselves. Besides--remember the carnival--I told you you were free to indulge in its merriment, and shall I not deprive you of your pleasure?
No, Vincenzo; stay and enjoy yourself, and take no concern for me.”
Vincenzo saluted me with his usual respectful bow, but his features wore an expression of obstinacy.
”The eccellenza must pardon me,” he said, ”but I have just looked at death, and my taste is spoiled for carnival. Again--the eccellenza is sad--it is necessary that I should accompany him to Avellino.”
I saw that his mind was made up, and I was in no humor for argument.
”As you will,” I answered, wearily, ”only believe me, you make a foolish decision. But do what you like; only arrange all so that we leave to-night. And now get back quickly--give no explanation at the hotel of what has occurred, and lose no time in sending on my carriage.
I will wait alone at the Villa Romani till it comes.”
The vehicle rumbled off, bearing Vincenzo seated on the box beside the driver. I watched it disappear, and then turned into the road that led me to my own dishonored home. The place looked silent and deserted--not a soul was stirring. The silken blinds of the reception-rooms were all closely drawn, showing that the mistress of the house was absent; it was as if some one lay dead within. A vague wonderment arose in my mind. WHO was dead? Surely it must be I--I the master of the household, who lay stiff and cold in one of those curtained rooms! This terrible white-haired man who roamed feverishly up and down outside the walls was not me--it was some angry demon risen from the grave to wreak punishment on the guilty. _I_ was dead--_I_ could never have killed the man who had once been my friend. And he also was dead--the same murderess had slain us both--and SHE lived! Ha! that was wrong--she must now die--but in such torture that her very soul shall shrink and shrivel under it into a devil's flame for the furnace of h.e.l.l!
With my brain full of hot whirling thoughts like these I looked through the carved heraldic work of the villa gates. Here had Guido stood, poor wretch, last night, shaking these twisted wreaths of iron in impotent fury. There on the mosaic pavement he had flung the trembling old servant who had told him of the absence of his traitress. On this very spot he had launched his curse, which, though he knew it not, was the curse of a dying man. I was glad he had uttered it--such maledictions cling! There was nothing but compa.s.sion for him in my heart now that he was dead. He had been duped and wronged even as I; and I felt that his spirit, released from its grosser clay, would work with mine and aid in her punishment.
I paced round the silent house till I came to the private wicket that led into the avenue; I opened it and entered the familiar path. I had not been there since the fatal night on which I had learned my own betrayal. How intensely still were those solemn pines--how gaunt and dark and grim! Not a branch quivered--not a leaf stirred. A cold dew that was scarcely a frost glittered on the moss at my feet, No bird's voice broke the impressive hush of the wood-lands morning dream. No bright-hued flower unb.u.t.toned its fairy cloak to the breeze; yet there was a subtle perfume everywhere--the fragrance of unseen violets whose purple eyes were still closed in slumber.
I gazed on the scene as a man may behold in a vision the spot where he once was happy. I walked a few paces, then paused with a strange beating at my heart. A shadow fell across my path--it flitted before me, it stopped--it lay still. I saw it resolve itself into the figure of a man stretched out in rigid silence, with the light beating full on its smiling, dead face, and also on a deep wound just above his heart, from which the blood oozed redly, staining the gra.s.s on which he lay.
Mastering the sick horror which seized me at this sight, I sprung forward--the shadow vanished instantly--it was a mere optical delusion, the result of my overwrought and excited condition. I shuddered involuntarily at the image my own heated fancy had conjured up; should I always see Guido thus, I thought, even in my dreams?
Suddenly a ringing, swaying rush of sound burst joyously on the silence--the slumbering trees awoke, their leaves moved, their dark branches quivered, and the gra.s.ses lifted up their green lilliputian sword-blades. Bells!--and SUCH bells!--tongues of melody that stormed the air with sweetest eloquence--round, rainbow bubbles of music that burst upon the wind, and dispersed in delicate broken echoes.
”Peace on earth, good will to men!
Peace--on--earth--good--will--to--men!” they seemed to say over and over again, till my ears ached with the repet.i.tion. Peace! What had I to do with peace or good-will? The Christ Ma.s.s could teach me nothing.
I was as one apart from human life-an alien from its customs and affections--for me no love, no brotherhood remained. The swinging song of the chimes jarred my nerves. Why, I thought, should the wild erring world, with all its wicked men and women, presume to rejoice at the birth of the Saviour?--they, who were not worthy to be saved! I turned swiftly away; I strode fiercely past the kingly pines that, now thoroughly awakened, seemed to note me with a stern disdain as though they said among themselves: ”What manner of small creature is this that torments himself with pa.s.sions unknown to US in our calm converse with the stars?”