Could the wretched count have beheld his pale and suffering wife during one of her many dreary hours of silent and lonely anguish, his heart, unless lost to every sense of honour, must have been wrung within him: he would have been struck with remorse to behold the misery he had wrought for one so young and so beautiful—so loving and so patient; an angel of heaven, compared with the demon of wickedness to which he had transformed himself.
But the count never saw her now. With his cousin the abandoned Lucretia and her equally abandoned brother, or with Elmina la Mandona the most beautiful courtezan in Venice, he lived a life of debauchery and extravagance, till his coffers were drained, his retinue dismissed, his horses sold, and his estates, pictures, libraries, jewels, and plate had all melted away like snow in the sunshine. The grass grew in the stable court, where the stall collars of sixty steeds had rattled in his father's days; weeds and flowers flourished on the palace-walls without, and spiders spun their webs undisturbed on the gilded columns and gorgeous frescoes within: even the once gay gondola, that bore the crest of his house on its prow, lay unused and rotting in the grand canal. His exhausted finances would not now admit of his giving splendid entertainments to gay beauties at their own houses, or musical fêtes on the moonlit water: he no longer reclined in glittering gondolas, gorgeous with rich hangings, redolent with the perfume of flowers, and ringing with laughter the music of lutes and the voices of Elmina and her companions, as they glided along the winding canals of Venice after every other sound in the city was hushed.
After an absence of some months from his home, the count one night returned: but how accompanied? He brought with him Elmina and a troop of her companions, who again filled the once desolate palace with riot and disorder, and penetrating even to the private apartments of the unhappy countess, insulted her so grossly that she rushed out in sorrow and terror into the streets.
"O Girolamo, my brother, hadst thou been here, instead of sleeping on the field of Francavilla, thy unfortunate sister had not been brought to this!" was the exclamation of the poor wanderer, as she abandoned her once happy home at midnight, and, accompanied only by one aged domestic, set out for Nuovale, the last of their country villas which the spendthrift had left unsold.
She might have complained of her wrongs to the good Doge her uncle; but he was bowed down with sickness, age, and infirmities, brought on by his wounds received in the wars of the Republic, and increased by troubles arising from the intrigues of proud and plotting Venetian nobles. She wished not to add to his distress by a recapitulation of her own; but hoped that, by suffering in silence, time would bring about a change: for she yet cherished the idea that her still-loved Giulio might again return her affection. But, alas for Diomida! time brought no change to happiness for her.
Forgotten and forsaken, she lived in the utmost seclusion and retirement; while her husband continued his career of riot, gaiety, and dissipation at Venice, with his cousin Lucretia. That most beautiful but abandoned woman, seemed to rejoice in thus openly triumphing over her married and virtuous rival: but her wicked ends were not yet accomplished. She had long resolved that Diomida should be destroyed and that the count should become her own: a terrible climax was fast approaching.
It was soon whispered abroad by the scandalous tale-bearers of the city, that for most imperative reasons, the Signora Strazoldi had retired to a solitary villa on the Brenta, accompanied by her mother the old countess; who in her younger days had been equally infamous for her intrigues and dissipated life. Meanwhile Count Stefano, to preserve appearances, challenged Della Torre to a duel in the Piazza of St. Mark at noon. But other means were to be taken, and the cavaliers never came to the encounter.
Bewitched by the beauty of the artful Lucretia, tormented by her tears and reproaches, and stung by the taunts of her mother and the threats of the boisterous and fierce Stefano, Count Giulio thirsted with all the avarice of a miser to replenish his exhausted exchequer with the yet unimpaired fortune of his cousin. Yielding to all these baneful impulses, he concerted the destruction of the unhappy Diomida; sinking his soul yet deeper in misery and crime. The honour of the Signora Lucretia was to be fully restored on her public espousal by the Count Della Torre. Descended from one of the most ancient of the twelve electoral families, he now found himself obliged to wed a daughter of his uncle by marriage; who ranked only in the third class of the Venetian nobility, and whose name had been enrolled in the "Golden Book" for a few thousand sequins required in some of the pressing emergencies of the Republic.
It was arranged that the young countess should be murdered while her uncle John Cornaro, laid on a couch of pain and sickness, was unable to avert or avenge her fate. Elmina la Mondana was employed by Count Giulio to be the assassin, and she departed from Venice with ample bribes and instructions from Lucretia and her mother. Accompanied by Count Stefano, she reached Nuovale in disguise, and was introduced alone into the sleeping apartment of Diomida, when the latter was preparing to retire to bed. The aspect of this fair, young girl—perishing under the lingering agony of a breaking heart and a wounded spirit tortured by the reflection of a life lost and a love misplaced—raised no pity in the bosom of the cruel Mondana; who marked with heartless exultation, that the roundness of the stately form of the wronged wife was gone, her cheek pallid as death, and her eyes glassy and colourless.
"Pity me, gracious countess!" whined the treacherous Mondana grasping a concealed pistol, while she bowed humbly before her victim; "I am a poor woman whose husband was a trooper and served under the brave Girolamo Cornaro, in the wars of the Count di Merci, and was slain in battle by his side on that unhappy day in the Val di demona.