Another sound came to both now, the pounding of horses’ hoofs, borne over the roof from the street—the rumble of heavy coach wheels. It ceased all at once, and lights sprang into windows across the shrubbery.
She came to her feet as Tita hurried toward them. “It is the signore,” warned the gondolier.
“Dio mio!” she whispered. “Go—go quickly!”
He caught her hands. “If only I could help you, serve you!”
“You can,” she said hurriedly. “I have a letter on which much depends—for the Contessa Albrizzi at Venice. I cannot trust a messenger.”
“It shall start to-night.”
“It is in my room. I will send it after you by Tita. Ah—hasten!”
He bent and touched his lips to a curl that had blown like litten gold against her shoulder. Her eyes met his an instant in fluttering, happy confusion. Then, as he followed Tita quickly to the gate, she turned and ran toward the house.
She had not seen a man, crouched in the shadow of a hedge, who had hurried within doors to greet the master of the casa so unexpectedly returned. She did not see the rage that colored her husband’s shrunken cheeks in his chamber as Paolo, his Corsican secretary, imparted to him two pieces of information: the presence of the stranger in the garden and the arrival that afternoon at the osteria of him Venice called “the wicked milord.”
The old count pondered, with shaking fingers. He hated the Englishman of Venice; hated him for robbing him of the youth and beauty he had gloated over, for the arrow to his pride—with a hatred that had settled deeper each day, fanatical and demented. The story of the garden trespasser inspired now an unholy craving for reprisal, unformed and but half conceived. He summoned his secretary.