"I wrote a loving letter and sent her flowers," he argued with himself, "when I knew she would be dead! But her father would have got them, and he would have wired to me in Naples, and I should have come back overcome with sorrow,—and then I should have told them all how the picture was a secret between my Angela and myself,—how I had painted the greater part of it, and how she in her sweetness had wished me to surprise the world,—the plan was perfect, but it is all spoiled!—spoiled utterly through that stupid blunder of the sheath!"
Such a trifle! It seemed to him incredible—unjust—that so slight a thing could intervene between him and the complete success of his meditated treachery. For notwithstanding the fact that he had been a great reader and student of books, he now, in this particular hour of his own emergency, completely forgot what all the most astute and learned writers have always expounded to an inattentive world—namely, the fact that crime holds within itself the seed of punishment. Sometimes that seed ripens quickly,—sometimes it takes years to grow,—but it is always there. And it generally takes root in a mere, slight circumstance, so very commonplace and casual as to entirely escape the notice of the criminal, till the network of destiny is woven so closely about him that he can no longer avoid it,—and then he is shown from what a trifling cause the whole result has sprung. Varillo's present state of mind was one of absolute torture, for he felt that whoever found the sheath of his dagger would at once recognise it and declare the owner. If Angela had only been wounded,—if SHE had found it—she would never have given up the name of its possessor,—the miserable man knew her straight, pure soul intimately enough for that!
"If she heard, she would shield me and defend me at the cost of her own life!" he said—"She was always like that! SHE would never listen to anything that was said against me,—and if she lived, she would love me still, and never say that I had tried to kill her!" and he actually smiled at the thought. "How strangely some women are constituted!—especially women like Angela, who set up an exalted standard of life, and accommodate their daily conduct to it! They are sublime fools!—and so useful to men! We can do anything we like with them. We can ruin them—and they bear their shame in silence. We can laugh away their reputations over a game at billiards, and they are too pure and proud to even attempt to defend themselves. We can vilify whatever work they do, and they endure the slander,—we can murder them—" he paused," Yes, we can murder them, and they die, without so much as leaving a curse behind them! Extraordinary!—angelic—superb!—and a wise Fate has ordained that we men shall never sacrifice ourselves for SUCH women, or go mad for the love of them! We love the virago better than the saint; we are afraid of the woman who nags at us and gives us trouble—who screams vengeance upon us if we neglect her in a trifle—who clamours for our money, and insists on our gifts—and who keeps our lives in a perpetual fever of excitement and terror. But the innocent woman we hate—very naturally! Her looks are a reproach to us, and we like to kill her when we can—and we often succeed morally,—but THAT is not called murder. The other way of killing is judged as a crime—and—then—the punishment is death!"
As this word passed his lips in a whisper, he trembled violently.
Death! It had a chill sound—yet he had not thought so when he
associated it with Angela. For of course Angela was dead. Was she not?
Surely she must be—he had driven the dagger straight home!
"She could not possibly live," he muttered—"Not after such a well directed blow. And that amazing picture! If I could but claim it as my work, I should be the greatest artist in the world! It would be quite easy to make out a proof—only that cursed dagger-sheath is in the way!"
He was startled out of his reverie by another stoppage of the carriage, and this time the driver jumped down from his box and came to the door.
"This is as far as I can take you, Signor," he said, looking curiously at his passenger,—"It is quite half way to Frascati. There is the inn I told you of—where those lights are," and he pointed towards the left,—"The carriage road does not go up to it. It is a great place for artists!"
"I am not an artist!" said Varillo brusquely.
"No? But artists are merry company, Eccellenza!—" suggested the driver, wishing to make up for his previous sulkiness by an excess of amiability—"And for a night, the albergo is a pleasant resting place on the way to Frascati, for even the brigands who sup there are good-natured!"
"Ah! There are brigands, are there?" said Varillo, getting out of the fiacre and beginning to recover something of his usual composure,—"And I daresay you are one of them if the truth were known! Here is your money." And he gave the man two gold pieces, one of twenty francs, the other of ten.