“Listen!” I said, “there is more to tell. When I broke loose from the grasp of death, when I came home—I found my vacant post already occupied. I arrived in time to witness a very pretty pastoral play. The scene was the ilex avenue—the actors, you, my wife, and Guido, my friend!”
She raised her head and uttered a low exclamation of fear. I advanced a step or two and spoke more rapidly.
“You hear? There was moonlight, and the song of nightingales—yes; the stage effects were perfect! I watched the progress of the comedy—with what emotions you may imagine. I learned much that was news to me. I became aware that for a lady of your large heart and sensitive feelings one husband was not sufficient”—here I laid my hand on her shoulder and gazed into her face, while her eyes, dilated with terror, stared hopelessly up to mine—“and that within three little months of your marriage to me you provided yourself with another. Nay, no denial can serve you! Guido Ferrari was husband to you in all things but the name. I mastered the situation—I rose to the emergency. Trick for trick, comedy for comedy! You know the rest. As the Count Oliva you can not deny that I acted well! For the second time I courted you, but not half so eagerly as you courted me! For the second time I have married you! Who shall deny that you are most thoroughly mine—mine, body and soul, till death do us part!”
And I loosened my grasp of her: she writhed from me like some glittering wounded serpent. The tears had dried on her cheeks, her features were rigid and wax-like as the features of a corpse; only her dark eyes shone, and these seemed preternaturally large, and gleamed with an evil luster. I moved a little away, and turning my own coffin on its side, I sat down upon it as indifferently as though it were an easy-chair in a drawing-room. Glancing at her then, I saw a wavering light upon her face. Some idea had entered into her mind. She moved gradually from the wall where she leaned, watching me fearfully as she did so. I made no attempt to stir from the seat I occupied.
Slowly, slowly, still keeping her eyes on me, she glided step by step onward and passed me—then with a sudden rush she reached the stairway and bounded up it with the startled haste of a hunted deer. I smiled to myself. I heard her shaking the iron gateway to and fro with all her feeble strength; she called aloud for help several times. Only the sullen echoes of the vault answered her, and the wild whistle of the wind as it surged through the trees of the cemetery. At last she screamed furiously, as a savage cat might scream—the rustle of her silken robes came swiftly sweeping down the steps, and with a spring like that of a young tigress she confronted me, the blood now burning wrathfully in her face, and transforming it back to something of its old beauty.
“Unlock that door!” she cried, with a furious stamp of her foot. “Assassin! traitor! I hate you! I always hated you! Unlock the door, I tell you! You dare not disobey me; you have no right to murder me!”
I looked at her coldly; the torrent of her words was suddenly checked, something in my expression daunted her; she trembled and shrunk back.
“No right!” I said, mockingly. “I differ from you! A man once married has some right over his wife, but a man twice married to the same woman has surely gained a double authority! And as for ‘dare not!’ there is nothing I ‘dare not’ do to-night.”
And with that I rose and approached her. A torrent of passionate indignation boiled in my veins; I seized her two white arms and held her fast.
“You talk of murder!” I muttered, fiercely. “You—you who have remorselessly murdered two men! Their blood be on your head! For though I live, I am but the moving corpse of the man I was—hope, faith, happiness, peace—all things good and great in me have been slain by YOU. And as for Guido—”