“Cesare! Cesare! speak! What ails you? Why have you brought me here? Touch me—kiss me! say something—anything—only speak!”
And her bosom heaved convulsively; she sobbed with terror.
I put her from me with a firm hand. I spoke in measured accents, tinged with some contempt.
“Hush, I pray you! This is no place for an hysterical scena. Consider where you are! You have guessed aright—this is a vault—your own mausoleum, fair lady!—if I mistake not—the burial-place of the Romani family.”
At these words her sobs ceased, as though they had been frozen in her throat; she stared at me in speechless fear and wonder.
“Here,” I went on with methodical deliberation, “here lie all the great ancestors of your husband’s family, heroes and martyrs in their day. Here will your own fair flesh molder. Here,” and my voice grew deeper and more resolute, “here, six months ago, your husband himself, Fabio Romani, was buried.”
She uttered no sound, but gazed at me like some beautiful pagan goddess turned to stone by the Furies. Having spoken thus far I was silent, watching the effect of what I had said, for I sought to torture the very nerves of her base soul. At last her dry lips parted—her voice was hoarse and indistinct.
“You must be mad!” she said, with smothered anger and horror in her tone.
Then seeing me still immovable, she advanced and caught my hand half commandingly, half coaxingly. I did not resist her.
“Come,” she implored, “come away at once!” and she glanced about her with a shudder. “Let us leave this horrible place; as for the jewels, if you keep them here, they may stay here; I would not wear them for the world! Come.”