"Go now, Stephania," he commanded. "Go! I will devise some fitting penance at more leisure."
"But, Father—my request."
"Ay, truly," he replied, with supreme melancholy. "Is it not the wont of the world to throw away the flower, when we have withered it with our evil breath?"
"But I cannot do it,—I cannot do it," Stephania moaned, raising her hands imploringly to the monk.
"It is for a mightier than Nilus to counsel," the monk spoke mournfully. "Thou standest on the brink of a precipice, from which nothing but the direct intervention of Heaven can save thee! Pray to the Immaculate One for enlightenment, and if the words of a monk have weight with thee, even against him, thou callest thy lord before the world,—desist, ere thou art engulfed in the black abyss, which yawns at thy feet.—When he is dead, it will be too late!"
And raising his lamp, to escort Stephania to her litter, the monk and the woman left the chamber, and Crescentius had barely time to conceal himself behind the boulders ere they appeared and passed by him, the monk anxiously guiding every step of his penitent.
The moon was sinking, when Stephania arrived at Castel San Angelo.
Taking the candle from the hands of the page, who had awaited her return with sleepy eyes, she dismissed him and passed into the lofty hall, dark and chill as a cellar, beyond which lay the Senator's, her husband's, apartments. She swiftly traversed the hall,—then she hesitated. No doubt he was asleep. What good was there in waking him? As she turned to retrace her steps to her own chamber, a strange and eerie gust of wind swept shrieking round the battlements, howled in the chimney, invaded the chamber with icy breath and almost extinguished the candle. Then there was a great hush. It seemed to her she could hear distant music from the Aventine, the murmur of voices, the sound of iron chains from the vaults below. To this,—or to death,—she had consigned the son of Theophano, the boy-king, who loved her.—To this?—Anguish and terror seized her soul. She felt, she must not move—must not look. There it stood,—blacker than the investing darkness,—its head bent,—shrouded in the cowl of a monk. What was it? Once before she had seen it,—then it had faded away in the gloom. But misfortune rode invariably in its wake. She tried to scream, to call the page, but her voice choked in her throat. She staggered toward the door; her limbs refused to support her;—groaning she covered her eyes. Otto down there,—or dead,—why had she never thought of it before? Now the monk made a step toward her; the face had nothing corpse-like in it, nothing appalling, yet she felt a freezing and unearthly cold; almost fainting she staggered up the narrow winding stairs. And entering her lofty chamber Stephania fell unconscious upon her couch.
After Crescentius had returned from the hermitage of Nilus, he gave strict orders to the guards of Castel San Angelo to admit no one, no matter who might crave an audience, and entering his own chamber, he lighted a candle. He had seen and heard, and he knew that the heart of his wife had gone from him for ever! At the terrible certainty he grew dizzy. A fearful price he had paid for his perfidy,—and now, there was no one in all the world he could trust. He dared not speak. He dared not even breathe his anguish. She must never know that he knew all,—no one must know. His lips must be sealed. The world should never point at him,—for this at least!
But terrible as his suffering must be his vengeance. He who had robbed him of his priceless gem, the wife of his soul, all he loved on earth,—he should languish and rot under her very chambers, where she might nightly hear his groans, without daring to plead for him. There was no further time for parley. The stroke must fall at once! Too long had he tarried. The Rubicon was passed.