"Poison! Bianca!"
The poor girl gave a terrible shriek of agony, and flung herself into the arms of her husband, while again there sounded the wicked laugh of the Marchesa.
"Ah! you cannot save her now, traitor! perjurer that you are! she will die!"
There was a sudden smash of glass, as Beltrami hurled himself through the archway and stood before his terrible wife.
"You lie, wretch! Here is the antidote!"
Bianca was lying unconscious in Guiseppe's arms, and he, with a cry of joy, stretched out his hand for the phial which Beltrami, standing midway between his wife and the tenor, was holding. Suddenly, with a shriek of rage, the Marchesa sprang forward, and tearing the phial from his hand, hurled it through the open window into the street.
"No, no! She shall die! She shall die!"
I shall never forget that supreme moment of anguish. Bianca lying pale as a lily in the arms of her agonized husband; myself standing amid the ruins of the table in the archway; the Marchesa erect, defiant, and snarling like an enraged tigress; and only Beltrami calm--
Beltrami standing cold and inflexible, with folded arms and a sinister smile on his thin lips. The whole of this frightful drama had only lasted a few minutes, but the denouement, more terrible than anything that had gone before, had now arrived.
"She shall die!" repeated the Marchesa with devilish persistency.