“You were present—you—you—” and my voice almost failed me.
Ferrari raised his eyebrows with a look of surprised inquiry.
“Of course! You are astonished at that? But perhaps you do not understand. I was the count’s very closest friend, closer than a brother, I may say. It was natural, even necessary, that I should attend his body to its last resting place.”
By this time I had recovered myself.
“I see—I see!” I muttered, hastily. “Pray excuse me—my age renders me nervous of disease in any form, and I should have thought the fear of contagion might have weighed with you.”
“With me!” and he laughed lightly. “I was never ill in my life, and I have no dread whatever of cholera. I suppose I ran some risk, though I never thought about it at the time—but the priest—one of the Benedictine order—died the very next day.”
“Shocking!” I murmured over my coffee-cup. “Very shocking. And you actually entertained no alarm for yourself?”
“None in the least. To tell you the truth, I am armed against contagious illnesses, by a conviction I have that I am not doomed to die of any disease. A prophecy”—and here a cloud crossed his features—“an odd prophecy was made about me when I was born, which, whether it comes true or not, prevents me from panic in days of plague.”
“Indeed!” I said, with interest, for this was news to me. “And may one ask what this prophecy is?”
“Oh, certainly. It is to the effect that I shall die a violent death by the hand of a once familiar friend. It was always an absurd statement—an old nurse’s tale—but it is now more absurd than ever, considering that the only friend of the kind I ever had or am likely to have is dead and buried—namely, Fabio Romani.”