"He requests, then, by his love for you—by the remembrance of the happy moments you once spent together, that you neither resist nor scream."
Her heart was too full to speak; but she bowed her head in acquiescence. Lucrezia moved to go on. "How is my life to be taken? By the dagger? By blows?"
"By neither—by nothing. Not a hair of your head will be touched."
"Ah! I might have guessed. It is by poison."
"It will be taken by nothing, I tell you. Why do you not listen to me?"
"You speak in riddles," said Gina, faintly. "But I will bear my fate, whatever it may be."
"And in silence? He asks it by your mutual love."
"All, all, for his sake," she answered. "Tell him, as I have loved, so will I obey him to the last."
Lucrezia walked on, and Gina followed. She saw and understood the manner of her death, but, faithful to the imagined wish of her lover, she uttered neither remonstrance nor cry. The clock was upon the stroke of one, when smothered groans of fear and anguish told that her punishment had begun; but no louder sound broke the midnight silence, or carried the appalling deed to the inhabitants of the castle. An hour passed before all was completed: they were long in doing their deed of vengeance; and, when it was over, Gina Montani had been removed from the world forever.
"Madame, she is gone!" was the salutation of Lucrezia, her teeth chattering, and her face the hue of a corpse, when she entered the chamber of her mistress.