And in it, her voice was silent, for it had done its tempting, and she had her will, on the selfsame spot where he had kissed Veronica. Then he trembled from head to foot, and his heart stood still. An instant later he was gone, and she had not tried to keep him. She watched him as he left her and went to the door without turning.
He walked quickly when he had shut the door behind him, and his face was livid. The depth below the depths had been too deep. He had but one thought as he went through the rooms, and the antechamber, and hall, and out upon the cold staircase, and up to his own door, and on, and in, till he turned the key of his own room behind him. There was no stopping then, either, between the door and the table, between key and lock, and hand and weapon.
Before the woman's kiss had been upon his lips two minutes, Bosio Macomer lay dead, alone, under the green-shaded lamp in his own remote room.
Peace upon him, if there be peace for such men, in the mercy of Almighty God. He did evil all his life, but there was an evil which even he would not do upon the innocent life of another. He died lest he should do it, and desperately grasping at the universal strength of death, he cast himself and his weakness into the impregnable stronghold of the grave.
CHAPTER XI.
It was still early in the morning, and all Naples knew that Count Bosio Macomer had committed suicide on the preceding evening. Every morning newspaper had a paragraph about the shocking tragedy, but few ventured to guess at any reason for the deed. It was merely stated that Count Bosio's servant had been alarmed by the report of a pistol about nine o'clock in the evening, and on finding the door of his master's room locked had broken in, suspecting some terrible accident. He had found the count stretched upon the floor, in evening dress, with his own revolver lying beside him.
That was precisely what had happened, but the meagre account gave no idea of the confusion which had ensued upon the discovery. It contained no mention of Matilde nor of Veronica, and merely observed that the brother of the deceased was overcome with grief.
That would have been too weak an expression to apply to what Matilde suffered during the hours which followed the first appalling blow. In the overpowering horror of the situation, she did not lose her mind, but she sincerely believed that her body could not live till the morning.
To do her justice, as she sat there beside the dead man, bent and doubled in silent, tearless grief, a dark shawl drawn over her head to hide her face, and utterly regardless, for once, of what any one might think, she thought only of him and of what she had done. For she understood, and she only, in all the household.
Beyond her conscious thoughts, if they could be called thoughts at all, the black figures of the forbidding future loomed darkly in her consciousness. They were the things she knew, rather than the things she felt, but the terror of what was to be was as real as the grief for what had been, though as yet it had less strength to move her. The blow had struck her down, and until she should try to rise she could feel nothing but the blow. In truth she did not think that she should live until the morning.