“Well,” thought Clelia, “here he is a prisoner, and the captive of his enemies. For, after all, Count Mosca, even if one takes him to be an angel, must be delighted at seeing him caught.”
A peal of loud laughter burst forth in the guard-room.
“Jacopo,” said she to the officer, in a trembling voice, “what can be happening?”
“The general asked the prisoner angrily why he struck Barbone, and Monsignore Fabrizio answered very coldly: ‘He called me a murderer; let him show the patents which authorize him to give me that title,’ and then everybody laughed.”
Barbone’s place was taken by a jailer who knew how to write.
Clelia saw the clerk come out of the guard-room, mopping up the blood that streamed from his hideous face with his handkerchief; he was swearing like a trooper. “That d—d Fabrizio,” he shouted at the top of his voice, “shall die by no hand but mine! I’ll cheat the executioner of his job,” and so forth. He had stopped short between the guard-room window and the carriage to look at Fabrizio, and his oaths grew louder and deeper.
“Be off with you!” said the officer; “you’ve no business to swear in that way before the signorina.” Barbone raised his head to glance into the carriage; his eyes and Clelia’s met, and she could not restrain an exclamation of horror. She had never had so close a view of so vile a countenance. “He will kill Fabrizio,” said she to herself. “I must warn Don Cesare.”
This was her uncle, one of the most respected priests in the town. His brother, General Conti, had obtained him the appointment of steward and chief chaplain of the prison.
The general got back into the carriage. “Would you rather go home?” said he to his daughter, “or sit and wait for me, perhaps for a long time, in the courtyard of the palace? I must go and report all this to the sovereign.”
Fabrizio, escorted by the gendarmes, was just leaving the guard-room to go to the room allotted to him. Clelia was looking out of the carriage; the prisoner was quite near her. Just at that moment she answered her father’s question in these words: “I will go with you.” Fabrizio, hearing them spoken so close to him, raised his eyes, and met the young girl’s glance. The thing that struck him most was the expression of melancholy on her face. “How beautiful she has grown since we met at Como!” he thought. “What deep thoughtfulness in her expression! Those who compare her with the duchess are quite right. What an angelic face!”