Letter from Margharita Briscoe to the Count Leonardo di Marioni, care of the Princess di Carlotti, Palazzo Carlotti, Rome.
"My dear, dear Uncle: I am inclined to scold you for your letter, for it made me very sad. Why should you be so sure of dying just as the vengeance which is your due becomes yours? You are not very old, and I can nurse you even as I did before. Think how lonely I should be without you. No, you must not think of leaving me. I forbid it! It is morbid. Banish that fancy for my sake, and try and think of a quiet happy life together, away in some southern city, where the sea and the sky are blue, and the sun is warm, and the breezes are soft and laden with the perfume of sweet flowers. We would never live in this country, would we? I do not like it. It is cold and damp, and it chills me, chills even my heart. Oh! I know just the life we could live together, and be very, very happy. Write to me no more of death.
"I am quite settled down here, waiting. My duties are light, and I do not find them irksome. Every day I realize that I did well in coming here as a governess, and not as one seeking a home. They think that it is because of my pride that I have willed it so. They do not know.
"Lady St Maurice tries to be kind to me in her way; but when the honeyed words are upon her lips, I think of you and my heart is steel. She must have been a very beautiful woman—nay, she is beautiful now! You asked me in your first letter to watch well and to tell you whether they were happy together. You asked me, and I tell you the truth.
"Yes! I think that of all the women whom I have ever seen, her life seems to have flown along the most calmly and peacefully. I have never seen a cloud upon her brow; I hate her for it. She has no right to be happy; she who by such treachery condemned you to a living death. Once my anger rose up so fiercely that I nearly struck her, and I had to hurry from the room lest I should betray myself before the time. Truly she deserves punishment, and my hand shall not shrink from inflicting it.
"Yet, after all, is death the most complete form of punishment. Sometimes I doubt it. I would mar the beauty of her face for ever, and laugh. I would strike her blind gladly; I would make her a cripple for life, without remorse, without hesitation. To see her suffer would please me. I should have no pity!
"But death, uncle! If anything of our religion be true, would death be so terrible a thing? Against my will I see that her life is good. She has made her home what it should be, and her husband happy. She is a devoted Christian, and, wet or fine, every Sunday morning before breakfast, she goes to the little church in the village and kneels before the altar. She visits the sick and the poor, and they love her. For me, religion has become something of a dream. I was brought up a Roman Catholic. What I am now I do not know! When I vowed my life to its present purpose I filled it with new thoughts; I put my religion away from me. I could not kneel with hate in my heart; I could not confess, with the desire to kill in my bosom.
"Yet let that pass. Supposing there be a heaven, if we kill her for her treachery to you will not that sin be wiped out? May she not gain heaven? And if so, what of our vengeance? Death is swift! What will she suffer? It will be those who are left behind who will feel the pain; for her, there will be a happiness beyond even the happiness of earth. She will be shriven of her sin by our vengeance.
"Think of this, my dear uncle! Do not imagine that I am growing faint-hearted; do not imagine that I am drawing back from the task which I now claim as my right. Death, or some other sort of punishment, shall surely fall upon her; she shall not escape! Only think what is best.