The servant’s quick eyes noted the recent disorder of the room: chairs overturned, white splinters of plaster fallen from the ceiling, a mirror broken. Into what trap had his master fallen? What was there hidden behind the table—on the floor? There were scrabbled finger-marks—red marks—in the dust.
“I was here with a lady whom I wished to take this house when a man burst in upon us. He shot her, and tried to shoot me, and I drew upon him in self-defence.” The Prince spoke haltingly. He had not been prepared to lie so soon.
“What are you doing with that cushion?”
Filippo looked down guiltily at the frilled thing he held. “I was going to put it under her head,” he began, but the other was not listening. He had come forward into the room and he had seen. The huddled heap of black and grey close at the Prince’s feet was human—a woman—and he knew the young pale face, veiled as it was in brown, loosened hair threaded with gold. A woman; and the man who lay there too, his dark head resting on her breast, his lips laid against her throat, was his master, Jean Avenel.
He uttered a hoarse cry of rage. “Murderer! You did it!”
But Tor di Rocca had recovered himself somewhat and the bold, hard face was a mask through which the red eyes gleamed wickedly. “Fool!” he answered impatiently. “It was as I said. The man was mad with jealousy. There is his pistol on the floor. I am going now to inform the authorities and to fetch the carabinieri.”
He went out, and Vincenzo did not try to prevent him.
“Signorino! signorino! answer me. Madonna benedetta! What shall I say to Ser ’Ilario?” The little man’s face worked, and tears ran down his cheeks as he knelt there at his master’s side, stooping to feel for the fluttering of the faint breath, the beating of the pulse of life. Surely there was no mortal wound—the shoulder—yes; and the side, and the right arm, since all the sleeve was soaked in warm blood.
All those who have been dragged down into the great darkness that shrouds the gate of Death know that the first sense vouchsafed to the returning soul is that of hearing. There was a sound of the sea in Jean’s ears, a weary sound of wailing and distress, through which words came presently by ones and twos and threes. Words that seemed a long way off, and yet near, as though they were stones dropped upon him from a great height: ... signorina ... not mortal ... healed ... care ... twenty masses to the Madonna at the Santissima Annunziata ...
Sight came next as the sea that had roared about him seemed to ebb, leaving him still on the shore of this world. He opened his eyes and lay for a moment staring up at the white ceiling until full consciousness returned, and with it the sharp, stabbing pain of his wounds, the acrid taste of blood in his mouth, the remembrance of love. Olive.... Had he not tried to reach her and failed? He groaned as he turned his aching head now on the pillow to see her where she lay.