"And Diodora?"
"It was she who designed the whole plot. Her sickness that night was simulated in order to bring you near me, and to encourage you to the proposal."
This whole discourse, so closely resembling a cross-examination, had altogether the appearance of such an interrogatory as a magnetiser would address to his subject; and the answers I received were given with the plain, involuntary precision characteristic of hypnotised persons. She stood there before me, with her hands clasped in each other; that seraph-face of hers, that seemed the type of innocence and purity, without a tinge of colour, although her dreadful confession was enough to paint the cheeks of the most degraded woman with the colour of shame. She seemed to have no bashfulness, no sense of shame, and to be wholly incapable of realising her offence. And I had not believed in a Devil! Here he was before me, in the shape of this fair woman, who had tempted me with her angel's mien to sell my soul for her, and now she was dragging me down with her to eternal damnation! And the other one had warned me! She had told me with that "biting kiss" of hers that this seeming angel was no angel, but a Devil to kill me body and soul. She had told me that this fair rose was full of foul poison, and her warning had filled me with vain conceit and enhanced my love for my executioner. I saw it now. Cenni had meant to make that elopement real; and if I had taken her she would have given me her love, as this one had given me her accursed million. Money to pay for my honest name, money for my lost life and happiness, money to bribe me to the endurance of these hellish tortures!
Impossible! I cannot believe that human nature can be so vile, so miserably cunning and treacherous. This is some evil dream, some test, perhaps, of the sincerity of my love and trust in her.
"Flamma!" I said—"dearest! do not continue this ugly jest. I cannot hear foul words come out of your pure mouth;" and I tried to take her hand. But she drew back.
"I have told you the truth," she said, with a repellent gesture.
The truth! The truth! This shameful, horrid confession was the truth? Like an idiot or a lunatic I stared, gazing before me, with scarcely a thought in my stunned, aching head. A Calabrian dagger lay before me on the table. I had taken it from the museum, and used it for paper-cutting. Upon the steel blade was graven, in golden letters, "Buona notte;" and "Buona notte! buona notte," I kept incoherently murmuring.
"Have you no other question to address to me?" she asked, in a tremulus voice.
I shook my head, and pointed to the door, and, like a wooden puppet, she turned and disappeared through it. At the moment when her back was turned something like a flame flashed through my brain and body. For an instant I felt a mad impulse to rush after her, and with one bound bury this two-edged knife in her heart. Yes, in her heart; but from behind, just as they had stabbed me unawares, like assassins. My better self kept me back. My Uncle Diogenes rose before me. "Never quarrel with, never hurt a woman!" and my professional instinct was awakened. I should then have destroyed two lives; with the guilty I should have slain the innocent—a life which was in God's keeping as yet. Now the door closed behind her, and I had let the only opportunity for a deadly revenge upon the woman who had tricked me pass by neglected. Had I killed her at that moment I should have washed off the stain she had brought on my name in her own blood. "Look," I might have said, "she was led astray by another man, and I have killed her; it was my right and my duty!" This I could no longer do. She had escaped, and would live on safe and unharmed, and I should be dead and buried alive. I remembered now how confused they looked, Cenni and she, when I related to them the story of my friend, and how I had prided myself on my own prudence and good sense! And the trap was already laid for me, and I, who had thought myself safe from every such danger, here was I, on my wedding night, left alone, insulted, degraded as he was. No, not quite. He had had no money, and I had received a million. I had been paid for my disgrace, bribed for my infamy with money!
Great Jehovah, Whose vengeance is mighty, lend me Thine ear! No! Thou art too just and upright, I'll have nothing from Thee! Turn from me! I will none of Thy advice, none of Thy heavenly patience and magnanimous mercy! That marble-hearted woman had said to me, "If you deny God, He will forgive you, for He is infinitely good and merciful; but if you deny the Devil, he will be revenged on you!" and I had seen the devilish light in their eyes. I had shuddered and shunned them, and yet I had plunged headlong into the abyss which they had opened at my feet.