She had been still on her bed, when the men of the mill had roused her, beating at the chamber door and crying to her:
'Generosa, Generosa, get up! The master is murdered, and lying dead at the church!'
She had been lying dreaming of Falko, and feeling in memory his kisses on her mouth, when those screams had come through the stillness of the early day, breaking through the music of the blackbirds piping in the cherry boughs outside her windows.
She had sprung from off her bed; she had huddled on some decenter clothing, and, bursting through the detaining hands of the henchmen and neighbours, had fled as fast as her trembling limbs could bear her to the church.
'Is it true? Is it true?' she cried, with white lips, to Gesualdo.
He looked at her with a long, inquiring regard; then, without a word, he drew the linen off the dead face of her husband and pointed to it.
She, strong as a colt, and full of life as a young tree, fell headlong on the stone floor in a dead swoon.
The people gathered about the doorway and watched her suspiciously and without compassion. There was no one there who did not believe her to be the murderess. No one except Don Gesualdo. In that one moment when he had looked into her eyes, he had felt that she was guiltless. He called Candida to her and left her, and closed the door on the curious, cruel, staring eyes of the throng without.
The people murmured. What title had he more than they to command and direct in this matter? The murder was a precious feast to them; why should he defraud them of their rights?
'He knows she is guilty,' they muttered, 'and he wants to screen her and give her time to recover herself and to arrange what story she shall tell.'