"By God, he's gone!" the Baronet shouted, and there was fear in his voice. "Stop, stop, for Heaven's sake, or you are all dead men."
"What is it?" shouted some, catching the infection of his fear.
"He has leaped down the shaft of the old silver mine."
Thus died Angelo Vasari, and perhaps it was better that he should perish by suicide than be taken alive only to fall into the hangman's hands or drag out a long life in some asylum for the insane. That the story could be kept from the general public was, of course, impossible, and the sensation caused at the inquest by the telling of the manner of his death was enhanced by the account I had to repeat of how my brother came by his. Vasari's studio in London was examined, and evidence was discovered in the cellar corroborating his assertion that he had burnt the body of the man whom he had sacrificed to his insane desire for fame.
As for the picture itself, Sir Hugh at first thought of destroying it, but finally decided to keep it on account of its marvellous merit as a work of art. It was removed from the gallery, and hung by itself in a room where it could be inspected by the privileged few. Daphne could never bring herself to look at it. She did not want the idealised image of her lover to be marred by the ghastly presentment of his dead likeness.
Whose wife Daphne is now, it is hardly necessary to say. We were married in the spring at Silverdale, and quiet though we wished the wedding to be, the church was crowded with people from far and wide who were eager to see the girl whose beauty had been the cause of such a tragedy. To efface from her mind as far as possible the memory of that tragedy is the chief object of my life and I am glad to think I do not wholly fail. She wears in addition to her wedding ring a second golden band, the ring that she threw into the well at Rivoli. It is to be buried with her, she says. May that day be far distant, is my constant prayer.
THE END
