Her piteous appeal made him start back into consciousness, and with a hasty motion he hurled something across the studio, where it fell with a tinkling, metallic sound.
“I—I struck her,” he gasped, in a harsh cracked voice. “I loved her—ah! how I loved her; and she was false. Look: she had even robbed me, and fled with all her jewels—to him. See where they lie, scattered upon his floor. Ah, signora,” he cried passionately, and growing more and more Italian in his excitement, “I poured out wealth at her feet. There was nothing I would not have done to gratify her. For I loved her—I loved her. Dio mio, how I loved!”
“Hush!” cried Cornel, recovering herself somewhat in the presence of suffering and danger, her medical education asserting itself. “Go quickly and call help. Send for a surgeon.”
“No, no!” he cried excitedly, as his face blanched with dread. “If I call, it means the police, and—oh! horror—they will say I have murdered her.”
“Man!” cried Cornel, in disgust at his sudden display of selfishness, “have you no feeling?—Is this your love? Quick!—your handkerchief. Mine too; take it from my pocket. God help me, and give me strength,” she whispered, as her busy fingers staunched the wound by closing the cut. Then, as the Conte stood looking on, trembling like a leaf, she bade him fetch a large wide lotah from where it stood upon a bracket, pour water into it from the carafe, and place it upon the floor beside the Contessa’s head.
And as she knelt there all hatred and horror of the beautiful woman passed away. It was an erring sister and sufferer for sin, bleeding to death; and, knowing how precious minutes were at such a time, she tore up the handkerchiefs and portions of the Contessa’s attire, as, with skilled hands, she checked the bleeding, and securely bandaged the wound.
She was so intent upon her work, that, after he had obeyed her orders, she was hardly conscious of the Conte’s presence, while he, after watching her acts for some minutes, suddenly looked round, startled by some sound which penetrated to where they were. Then, trembling visibly, he began to examine the front of his clothes, passing his hands over them, and examining his palms for traces of the deed, but finding none.
Then a fresh thought struck him, and after keenly watching Cornel to see if she noticed the action, he crept on tip-toe—a miserably bent, decrepit-looking figure—to where the tinkling sound had been heard, picked up a little ivory-handled stiletto, examined its blade in the faint light, with his back to the group by the inner room door, and, catching up a piece of Moorish scarf, wiped it quickly, and hid the weapon in his breast pocket.
Then creeping on tip-toe to the studio door, he listened, his face full of abject fear, and hearing nothing, he turned the key.
He glanced toward Cornel, whose back was toward him, as she busily went on with her task, hiding too his wife’s face from him by her position.