Paolo, a round-faced, timid-looking little Piedmontese, nodded emphatically.
"That do I!" he answered—"Fair as an angel—kind-hearted too,—and they told me she was a wonder of the world. Che, che! Murdered! And who could have murdered her? Someone jealous of her fame! Poor thing—she is engaged to be married too, to another artist named Florian Varillo. Gran Dio! He will die of this misery!" And they bent their heads over the paper together and read the brief announcement headed "Assassinamento di Angela Sovrani!"
A sudden crash startled them. Varillo had sprung up from his table in haste and overset his glass. It fell, shivering to atoms on the floor.
"Pardon!" he exclaimed, laughing forcedly,—"A thousand apologies! My hand slipped—it was an accident—"
"Do not trouble yourself, Signor," said the landlord, Paolo, cautiously going down on his fat knees to pick up the fragments—"It was an accident as you say. And truly one's nerves get shaken nowadays by all the strange things one is always hearing! Myself, I tremble to think of the murder of the Sovrani—the poor girl was so innocent of evil—and see you!—we might all be murdered in our beds with such villains about . . ."
He broke off, surprised at the angry oath Varillo uttered.
"Per Dio! Can you not talk of something else?" he said hoarsely,—"There is a murder nearly every day in Rome!"
Without waiting for a reply he hastily strode out of the inn, banging the door behind him. He had engaged his room there for the night—true!—but—after all this foolish gabble he resolved he would not go back. They would still talk of murder, if he did! Murder was in the air! Murder seemed written in letters of fire against the clear sky now luminous with the moon and stars! He was in a fever and a fury—he walked on and on, little heeding where he went. What the devil had brought Gherardi to that particular inn at that particular time of night? He could not imagine. For though he knew most scandals in Rome, the scandal of the priest's "villa d'amour" at Frascati, was a secret too closely guarded for anyone save the sharpest of professional detectives to discover, and he was totally ignorant of it. He wondered restlessly whether the crafty Vatican spy had seen him while pretending not to see? If that were so, then he was lost! He could not satisfy himself as to whether he had really escaped observation, and tormented by this reflection he walked on and on, the burning impetus of his thoughts hastening his footsteps. A cold wind began to rise,—a chill, damp breath of the Campagna, bringing malaria with it. He felt heated and giddy, and there was a curious sense of fulness in his veins which oppressed him and made him uncertain of his movements. Presently he stopped, and stood gazing vaguely from left to right. He was surely not on the road to Frascati? There was a tall shadowy building not far from him, surrounded with eucalyptus trees—he tried to locate it, but somehow though, as a native of Rome and an artist, he was familiar with most of the Campagna, he did not recognise this part of it. How bright the stars were! Living points of fire flashing in dense purple!—one could never paint them! The golden round of the moon spreading wide reflections on the road, seemed to his excited mind like a magic ring environing him, drawing him in, pointing him out as the one criminal for whom all the world was seeking. He had no idea of the time,—his watch had stopped. He began to count up hours. He remembered that when he had gone to see Angela, it was about four o'clock. He had known perfectly well that she was alone, for he had seen the Cardinal drive past him in the streets on the way to the Vatican, and he had heard at his "Cercolo" or club, that Prince Sovrani had gone out of Rome for a few hours. And, thus informed, he had timed his visit to Angela well. Then, had he meant to kill her? No. He was quite certain that he never had had any such intention. Then what had been his purpose? First, to see her picture, and then to condemn it. Not harshly, but gently—with the chill toleration and faint commiseration of the critic who pretends to judge everything. He knew—none better—the glowing ardour and enthusiasm of the genius which was as much a part of Angela as colour is part of a rose,—his intention had been to freeze all that warmth with a few apparently kind words. For he had never thought it possible that she,—a mere woman,—could evolve from her own brain and hand, such a poetic, spiritual and magnificent conception as "The Coming of Christ." And when he saw what she had done, he bitterly envied her her power,—he realized the weakness of his own efforts as compared with her victorious achievement, and he hated her accordingly, as all men hate the woman who is intellectually superior to themselves. After all, there was no way out of it, but the way he had chosen,—to kill her and make an end! To kill her and make an end! He muttered these words over and over to himself, as he stood irresolutely watching the broad patterns of the moonlight, and thinking confusedly about the time. Yes,—it was four o'clock when he went to Angela's studio,—it must have been five, or past that hour when he left it,—when he slunk down the side-street which led to the river, and threw the key and his dagger together into the muddy tide. After that he had gone home,—and had superintended his valet, while that individual packed his portmanteau for Naples—and then—and then? Yes,—then he had written to Angela,—one of the pretty gracious little notes she was accustomed to receive from him,—how strange it was to write to a dead girl!—and he had gone out to the nearest florist's shop, and chosen a basket of lilies to send to her,—lilies were for dead maidens always,—and he had sent the flowers and his love letter together. Then surely it must have been about half-past six? He tried to fix the hour, but could not, and again his thoughts went rambling on. After sending the lilies, he had returned to his own house, and Pon-Pon had prepared a "petit cafe" for him, and he had partaken of it, and had smoked a couple of cigarettes with her, and then had said a leisurely good-bye, and had started for the railway-station en route for Naples. What train had he intended to go by? The eight o'clock express. He remembered that. But on the way, he had discovered that loss of the dagger-sheath,—an unforeseen fatality that had turned him back, and brought him to where he now stood meditating. How long did the driver of that fiacre he hired, take to bring him to the wayside inn on the road to Frascati? This he could not determine,—but to his uncertain memory it seemed to have been an unusually tedious and tiresome journey. And now—here he was—with no habitation in sight save the solitary building whose walls loomed darkly through the eucalyptus trees. He went towards it after a while, walking slowly and almost mechanically;—he was extremely tired, and an oppressive sense of heat and weariness combined made him anxious to obtain a night's lodging somewhere,—no matter in what sort of place. Anything would be better than sleeping out on the Campagna, an easy prey to the worst form of fever. As he approached more nearly to the house among the trees, he saw that it was surrounded by a very high, closely intertwisted iron railing,—and when he came within a few paces of what appeared to be the entrance, he was startled by the sudden heavy clang of a bell, which, striking through the still air, created such harsh clamour that he instinctively shivered at the sound. He paused,—and again the dismal boom crashed on his ears,—then as its echo died away another deep monotone, steadily persistent, began to stir the silence with words,—words, which to Florian Varillo in his nervous excitation of mind sounded hellish and horrible.
"Libera me Domine, de morte aeterna!"
"In die ilia tremenda!"
"Quando coeli movendi suntet terra!"
"Dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignem!"
He listened, and a cold sweat broke out on his forehead. With that strange weakness and effeminacy which often distinguishes the artistic, and particularly the Italian artistic temperament, he was excessively superstitious, and this unexpected chanting of a psalm of death seemed to him at the moment, of supernatural and predetermined origin, devised on purpose to intensify the growing terrors of his coward conscience.