“Die, traitor! even in thy act of treachery!”
The unfortunate young nobleman fell to the ground weltering in his own blood; and Camilla, with a shriek of heart-piercing agony, sunk fainting and prostrate upon his body.
The stranger gazed for an instant at the harrowing sight before him, then bent his knee beside Buondlemonte, and said, in a voice which already was touched with remorse,
“Buondlemonte, thou hast grievously wronged Francesca Amedi, and she has been her own avenger!”
The dying noble turned an inquiring glance upon the speaker, and with difficulty recognized the person of Francesca in the habiliments of the stranger.
“Thou art indeed avenged,” he murmured, in a weak voice, as he endeavored to embrace his fainting bride.
“Thou hadst canceled my hopes of happiness,” she said, as she rose to her feet, “and I have put the seal to the act by destroying thine!”
With a solemn step she stalked from the chapel, protected by those who had supported her; while Buondlemonte, after breathing a prayer to Heaven for Camilla’s peace, resigned his soul into the hands of its author.
It would be too melancholy a task to detail the particulars that followed this unhappy bridal. A few words will be sufficient to explain all that is necessary.
Camilla Donati, after many months, recovered from the fearful shock she had received in seeing her lover slain; but this world had ceased to delight her. She entered a convent, and in the course of time became its abbess. Francesca Amedi had accomplished her vengeance, but with its accomplishment she had ensured her own misery. With the vulture, remorse, ever preying upon her heart, she knew but one wish, and that was for death, while she lacked the power to terminate her own existence and solve the problem of eternity. After a vain effort to secure forgetfulness by mingling in society, she, too, retired from the world, and within the walls of the same convent over which Camilla Donati presided, she became a nun.