Whilst I was sipping this, expecting every moment the arrival of my servant with my clothes, clean linen, letters, and a barber, I heard the key turn in the lock, and made sure that it was Federigo. But the warder introduced a muffled figure of a woman, who, when he had retired, came quickly towards me, as if she was about to stab me. "Miserable young man!" she said fiercely. It was Aurelia!
I sprang up, took, saluted her hand, "Madam," I said, "this is a condescension which I am far from deserving. I have done nothing but my duty."
Her eyes were very bright, and she was distressed for breath; but there was an intensity in her manner—a fire, a flame—which made her vehement.
"Your duty, indeed!" she cried. "When may I expect you to find your duty elsewhere than in my affairs? Am I never to have paid off my original debt to your lordship? It is not enough, it appears, that you make love to me—but you must tell my husband all about it! It is not enough that he drives me out of doors and that you refuse to come with me—no, but you must wander about by yourself, telling all the world what you have done. It is not enough that you make me love you, but you must needs intrigue with a low-born girl, a thing of naught! And now, finally, you come galloping into Florence again, and you—you——Oh, Heavens, I have no patience left to speak of such things! How did you dare"—she stamped her foot furiously, her cheeks were flame-red—"How did you dare do such deeds? You have killed the marchese—dead; you have given Count Amadeo three dangerous wounds and a fever; you are in every mouth, and not you only, you wicked boy, but myself and my husband—and—and——" She wrung her hands, she shook with anger, but at last she was silent. I ventured to say that she did me wrong, though any wrong she did me would be benevolence compared to my trespasses against her. I said that I had not killed the marchese, who, on the contrary, had done his best to murder me twice; and that as for the count, who had slandered her vilely and deserved a felon's death, I had spared his life upon his retractation of his calumny. "I hope," I said in conclusion, "that he told you to whom he actually owed his life."
"He did, sir," said she haughtily; "he told me that you had been very absurd, and had made him feel a fool—which he did not at all relish. Oh, oh, oh!" she broke out with a little burst of laughter, "how could you be so mad as to spare him for his pocket-handkerchief!"
"For a reason, madam," I said, "which does not amuse me at all."
"Nor should it," she agreed. "That was a serious thing that you did, Checho. It was more serious than you seem to suppose. The wounds in his person are nothing compared to what you did beside. He is a proud man, and you have wounded his vanity. I doubt if he will ever be healed of that stroke. Do you know what he said to me just now?"
She was perfectly friendly now, by my side, almost touching me with her quick beautiful hands. With what seemed to me a levity no longer becoming the woman she was grown to be, she talked of serious things with sparkling eyes, and would give me confidences which she had received from an impudent liar. In reply to her question I shook my head. I could not speak to her just then, nor could I look at her.
She told me her story. "Count Amadeo said to me this morning, 'My friend, the fact that I owe you this preposterous debt of initials makes it more than doubtful whether I can ever endure to pay it off. I could have had no objection to stand indebted to Don Francis for my life, but I am a man of honour, with a name which I have some reason to value, and I assure you that it is not tolerable to me that I should owe its continuance in my person to the fact that my mistress's maiden name began with the same letters.' He said also——"
But I had caught her by the arm. "No more," I cried, "No more, O God!"