“Elise,” I scream suddenly, “Elise! Telegraph to Kamarowsky. Warn him.... Quickly, oh, quickly! Why, why did we not do so before?”
“Hush, my lady, hush! You were delirious; you could only rave and weep.”
“Elise, Elise, telegraph to Kamarowsky....”
“It is too late, my lady.”
Yes, it is too late.
(At this very hour of dawn the train has reached Venice. Nicolas Naumoff is hastening from the Riva degli Schiavoni, across the empty piazza and the deserted streets. He hails a gondola. “Campo Santa Maria del Giglio!”
And the gondola, with soft plash of oar, glides slowly towards the doomed sleeper.
What dreams may the angel of rest have sent to him for the last time? Perhaps the tender vision of little Grania has gladdened him, while silent and inexorable in the closed gondola the youth with the golden eyes steals towards him through the mazes of the clear canals.
“Santa Maria del Giglio.”