"The voice is not bad, but the appearance--the acting--oime!"
"Eh, Teodoro, what would you? Donna Lucrezia is not on the stage."
"Not on the stage!" said Teodoro in an astonished tone. "Ebbene! where is she?"
"Look at the box yonder!"
"Per Bacco! the Contessa Morone."
I started as I heard this name, and, looking in the same direction as the young men, saw a woman seated far back in the shadow of a box, the fourth or fifth from the stage. She was talking to three gentlemen, and her face was turned away so that I could not see her features; but, judging from the glimpse I caught of her head and bust, she seemed to be a very majestic woman.
The Contessa Morone! She was then in Verona after all. This discovery removed all my doubts concerning the identity of the ghoul. She was the woman who had left the vault in the burial-ground. She was the woman who had slain Guiseppe Pallanza in the secret chamber of the deserted palace, and she was the woman seated in the shadow of the box, talking idly as though she had no terrible crime to burden her conscience. If I could only see her face I would then recognise her; but, as if she had some presentiment of danger, she persistently looked everywhere but in my direction. As I gazed she moved slightly, the bright light of a lamp shone on her neck, and I saw a sudden tongue of red flame flash through the semi-twilight of the box, which at once reminded me of the necklace of rubies worn by that terrible vampire of the graveyard.
Eager to know all about this woman, whom I felt sure was the murderess of Pallanza, I listened breathlessly to the two officers who were still talking about her.
"It is a year since Morone died," said Teodoro, lowering his opera-glass, "and she has lived since at Rome, where I met her. Why has she returned here?"
"Eh, who knows! Perhaps to reside again at the Palazzo Morone."