Yelling from fright, Francesco and Giovanni ran off, calling for 'Help! help!' The women, mistress and maid, rushed to the drawing-room and fell in each other's arms, the one hiding her face on the other's breast, not daring to raise it, haunted by the frightful sight of the murdered body. It was quite livid, bloody in the face, breast, and enfolded arms, with a despairing look in the eyes and half-open mouth, which seemed to be sobbing. It stood against the parapet dripping blood and water, bound by the cord and chain. The message-boy and the butler had flung downstairs, calling out there was a dead man, a murdered man. At once, on the stairs, the gateway, the whole neighbourhood, the news spread that a murdered man's body had been found in the Rossi Palace well.
Everyone opened doors and rushed to windows; but Francesco and Giovanni's confused, breathless story caused such fright no one dared go in at the Marquis di Formosa's open door, or to the kitchen where the corpse lay. The women were still clinging to each other in the drawing-room; though Margherita tried to command herself for her mistress' sake, she felt the girl's body grow flabby from want of vital force—sometimes it stiffened as in a nervous convulsion. But the great whispering in the palace had got even into the doctor's flat, and his heart was always quivering, expecting a catastrophe. He put his head out of the window and saw people everywhere; the sound of voices came up even to him, saying that a murdered man had been found in the Rossi Palace well, and that the body was in the Cavalcantis' kitchen. Just then Giovanni, on thinking it over that the two women had been left alone, felt sorry that he had made such a fuss, for he knew the scandal would be reflected on the Cavalcanti family, and he was going upstairs again.
'Is there really a dead man?' Amati asked him, not managing to conceal how disturbed he was, in spite of his strength of mind.
'Yes, sir, there really is,' said the butler, with desperation in his eyes and voice.
'Who saw it?'
'Everyone saw it.'
'What! everyone? Did your mistress see it, too?'
'Yes, sir, she did.'
The doctor cast a furious look at him and went into the fatal house, where a tragic breath had always blown from the first moment he put his foot in it, where any queer, doleful tragedy was possible to happen. He wandered about the rooms like a madman in search of Bianca Maria, and found her sitting on a large drawing-room chair, so pale, so terrified, so silent, that Margherita was kneeling before her in alarm, holding her hands, begging her to say a word—only a word.
Bianca Maria glanced at Amati, but seemed not to know him; she kept cold and inert and stiff in her frightened attitude.