"My Christina—confidant of my sufferings and sorrow—hear my dying request. To you I leave the task of consoling my husband. His noble tears shall not be shed over the grave of one who is unworthy of them. Tell him the truth, tell him all you know, show him this letter, and bid him not grieve for one who never loved him. Do this for me, it is my last request. ISABELLA."
Suddenly, from the adjoining room, the sweet tones of music were heard; the air was tremulous with melody, which at first soft and low, swelled louder and louder until it filled the room with a gush of harmony that stirred the hearts of those who listened with sweetest and holiest emotions.
Joseph bent eagerly forward. He knew those strains so well! He remembered the night when Isabella's tears had fallen among the rose-leaves, and he had kissed them away. He saw her once more in the pride of her beauty, looking at him from the depths of those glorious dark eyes which he had so madly loved. The music gave life and being to these memories, and its glamour brought back the dead from her grave! He remembered how he had asked her if she loved him, and how, avoiding the words so difficult to speak, she had answered with the witching tones of her violin. Oh, that heavenly evening hour upon the balcony! She had said, "Love has its own language: come and listen." And Christina said SHE HAD NOT LOVED! He could not, would not believe her!
He took the letter from Christina's hand and kissed the paper. "I do not believe you," he said softly. "My trust in her is like my sorrow—for eternity!"
This imperturbable faith had the effect of hardening Christina, and making her cruel. "You shall believe me," said she hastily. "You shall see in her own handwriting that she loved another."
"ANOTHER! "cried the wretched husband. "I will kill him!"
"He died before you ever knew her," said Christina, frightened at the effect of her own heartlessness.
A smile overspread his face. "Dead, before I knew her! Then she forgot him when I loved her." He took up the letter and read it again. "Oh," said he, "see how magnanimous was my Isabella. She has been false to her own heart that she might save me from sorrow. She thought it would dry my tears to think that she did not love me. Oh, beloved, I see through thy noble falsehood—in death as in life I know every working of that unselfish heart!"
Christina said nothing, but she grew more inflexible in her purpose. "He shall be convinced," said she to herself. "I will give him her letters to me, and then he will know that he never has been loved."
Again pealed forth the sounds of that heavenly music. Now the violin, mingling with the tones of the harpsichord, glide into a melody of divinest beauty; and the full, rich tones of a woman's voice warbled the complaint of Orpheus: "Che faro senza Eurydice!"