“We mutually became silent, watching the clouds drifting across the sky, and the different hues of eve, as they blended into one. The air began to distil dew heavily. I rose, apprehensive that my health would be injured by exposure to it. As I rose upon my feet, a strange sensation came over me. Earth, air, mountains, clouds,—all objects seemed to swim before my eyes. I felt as if falling, I knew not where, and stretching out my hands for support, instinctively, I was received into my husband’s arms, and lost all consciousness.
“When I recovered life, I found myself in my salon, my husband and Pasiphae anxiously bending over me: my bodice was unloosed, my hair undone. I gasped for breath, and partly raising myself, leaned on some one’s shoulder;—it was Rinaldo’s. Everything in the room seemed indistinct, confused.
“Dear lady, what ails thee? what has happened?” I heard poor Pasiphae say, as she bathed my face and rubbed my hands.
“Your mistress fainted as we sat in the garden together,” was my husband’s reply, rendered inarticulate by tears. He kissed me repeatedly, smoothed my hair, and manifested by his emotion the grief he felt, not only at my illness, but his own incomprehensible, cruel, conduct.
When strong aromatics had thoroughly brought back to earth my truant senses, Pasiphae watched that night my fitful slumber, broken only by strange starts and convulsive movements that half affrighted her: my husband tenderly attended me. For days (they said) my life hung on a thread: and when exhausted nature resuscitated to life and health once more, I had a beautiful, a lovely boy!
My health for weeks after his birth continued delicate. I seldom left my room: that cherished infant, whose life had so nearly been purchased by my own, my constant companion. And Rinaldo was kinder in those days; if our old feelings were not renewed, at least our child formed a connecting tie,—we seemed drawn more nearly to each other. Pasiphae manifested, at seeing the child, the joy of a child itself at seeing a new toy: she would carry the little thing in her arms, admire its undefined features, and playfully caress its tiny hands.
Count Calabrella, at my husband’s urgent entreaty, prolonged his visit, and often came to pay his compliments; the charms of his conversation and manners won daily upon my esteem; I never could look upon that animated face, nor listen to that melodious voice, which distilled such noble thoughts, such chivalrous sentiments, without wishing that Rinaldo was more like him,—that he did not desecrate to unworthy uses the abilities with which nature had endowed him. Time fleeted, and I again resumed my walks in the castle garden, and on the terrace, in which Pasiphae sometimes followed me, bearing the child.
We named him Raphael, a fancy of his father’s it was to bestow on the little one the name of the great painter. As day by day developed his senses and he became conscious of the difference of persons, and would extend his baby hands toward me, and weep if I left him, I realized in this love a mother’s pride, a mother’s joy; often when caressing him I imagined I saw him grown to manhood, noble in his principles, handsome in appearance, and that he would reward me by his tenderness and duty for all the mental anguish I should have to endure before that time came. When he pressed his little hands on my face, or tried to bite my finger as infants do, I always kissed that sweet little mouth, and sometimes tears followed the kiss and fell upon that face.
On one occasion when I was passing through the corridor, on my way to take my daily promenade, the door of my husband’s studio was suddenly thrown open, and the mysterious stranger who had accosted me before in that corridor rushed violently passed me, and disappeared down the marble staircase. The sight of that shrouded form inspired me with a vague foreboding of horror. I had never been able to gather from my husband the object of their frequent visits, and I often attributed his dejection and gloom to his communications with them.
“Who can that man be, Pasiphae? and what can he and his companions want with monsieur?”