I stopped her. “Asta, I wish you would forget that part of our acquaintance. I don’t want you to love me for that.”
She laughed. “For that only, you mean, sir. But as to forgetting one little incident—no; not if by that I might have no recollection of my terror and sufferings. And now all is life and joy again. A few days ago I had nothing before me but the choice of death—or worse.” She shuddered. “Of becoming the Countess Furello; the wife of a murderer. Can I ever thank you, ever love you enough? It is so hot here,” she said, after a pause which was not altogether blank; “let us come and see whether we can find our way to the garden.”
As we rose I noticed that a jewel in her hair had become disarranged and was in danger of falling out. She turned to a great mirror on the wall and made the ornament fast. Suddenly, as she turned again, she gave a little half-gasping cry. I thought she must have hurt her head with the pin of the ornament, but soon saw that her cry had been called forth by something much worse than that, for she clasped my hand convulsively, and for some moments seemed speechless for very terror. At length she could answer me, in a frightened whisper:
“Furello! I saw him there as I turned from the glass. His face there, looking in at us. He is here.”
“Here!” I echoed incredulously, though with an uneasy feeling that the thing was quite possible.
“Here, yes; I saw the hateful face in the doorway, I tell you. He looked into this room, only for a moment. Jasper, my darling, you will save me from him, will you not?”
I reassured her as best I could, both on that point and on the likelihood of her being mistaken. “Your mind is full of the man,” I argued. “Some one resembling him looked in, and your nerves not having quite recovered made you think it was he.”
But she insisted; she was sure. “Do you suppose I could ever be mistaken in that face?” she said. “It was Count Furello.”
“But what should he be doing here?” I reasoned. “Here in one of the most exclusive gatherings in Verona. His evil reputation is such that no decent countryman of his own would know him. Of that you may be sure. And to think that Prince Guacini would admit him across his threshold is absurd.”
Reason as I would, nothing would shake her conviction that it had been Furello and none other that she had seen. It was distressing to me to see the mortal fear into which the sight, fancied or real, had thrown my darling.