“I could laugh at your bitterness,” said the Cardinal, “did I not hold in my hand this sad memorial. Tell me, from whom did you receive it?”
“From her son.”
“Her son!” cried the Cardinal, starting to his feet; “mine as well as hers! Would to God I could see his face! Speak, Gregory, where did you part with him?”
“On the scaffold!” said the penitent, fixing his savage eyes upon the Cardinal. “Maffeo Accaioli was your son and the child of her I loved. What say you? Are not Rosa and myself avenged?”
The Cardinal heard but the first part of the sentence, for ere it was concluded, he had fallen back in his huge chair, helpless and unconscious: still his fixed and rayless eyes, half starting from their sockets, glared on the penitent with an expression that would have appalled a feebler heart.
“The comedy is over,” said the monk. “His eminence is dead.”
THE FATE OF THE HORNET.
I.
The summer sun is on the wave,
The zephyr seeks the sea,