"Take me away, take me away!" she moaned, hiding her face against my breast. ""Tis a vault--oh, Santissima Madonna!--a place for the dead!
Quick--quick! take me out to the air--let us go home--home--"
She broke off abruptly, her alarm increasing at my utter silence. She gazed up at me with wild wet eyes.
"Cesare! Cesare! speak! What ails you? Why have you brought me here?
Touch me--kiss me! say something--anything--only speak!"
And her bosom heaved convulsively; she sobbed with terror.
I put her from me with a firm hand. I spoke in measured accents, tinged with some contempt.
"Hush, I pray you! This is no place for an hysterical scena. Consider where you are! You have guessed aright--this is a vault--your own mausoleum, fair lady!--if I mistake not--the burial-place of the Romani family."
At these words her sobs ceased, as though they had been frozen in her throat; she stared at me in speechless fear and wonder.
"Here," I went on with methodical deliberation, "here lie all the great ancestors of your husband"s family, heroes and martyrs in their day.
Here will your own fair flesh molder. Here," and my voice grew deeper and more resolute, "here, six months ago, your husband himself, Fabio Romani, was buried."
She uttered no sound, but gazed at me like some beautiful pagan G.o.ddess turned to stone by the Furies. Having spoken thus far I was silent, watching the effect of what I had said, for I sought to torture the very nerves of her base soul. At last her dry lips parted--her voice was hoa.r.s.e and indistinct.
"You must be mad!" she said, with smothered anger and horror in her tone.
Then seeing me still immovable, she advanced and caught my hand half commandingly, half coaxingly. I did not resist her.
"Come," she implored, "come away at once!" and she glanced about her with a shudder. "Let us leave this horrible place; as for the jewels, if you keep them here, they may stay here; I would not wear them for the world! Come."
I interrupted her, holding her hand in a fierce grasp; I turned her abruptly toward a dark object lying on the ground near us--my own coffin broken asunder. I drew her close to it.
"Look!" I said in a thrilling whisper, "what is this? Examine it well: it is a coffin of flimsiest wood, a cholera coffin! What says this painted inscription? Nay, do not start! It bears your husband"s name; he was buried in it. Then how comes it to be open? WHERE IS HE?"
I felt her sway under me; a new and overwhelming terror had taken instant possession of her, her limbs refused to support her, she sunk on her knees. Mechanically and feebly she repeated the words after me--
"WHERE IS HE? WHERE IS HE?"
"Ay!" and my voice rang out through the hollow vault, its pa.s.sion restrained no more. "WHERE IS HE?--the poor fool, the miserable, credulous dupe, whose treacherous wife played the courtesan under his very roof, while he loved and blindly trusted her? WHERE IS HE? Here, here!" and I seized her hands and forced her up from her kneeling posture. "I promised you should see me as I am! I swore to grow young to-night for your sake!--Now I keep my word! Look at me, Nina!--look at me, my twice-wedded wife!--Look at me!--do you not know your HUSBAND?"
And throwing my dark habiliments from me, I stood before her undisguised! As though some defacing disease had swept over her at my words and look, so her beauty suddenly vanished. Her face became drawn and pinched and almost old--her lips turned blue, her eyes grew glazed, and strained themselves from their sockets to stare at me; her very hands looked thin and ghost-like as she raised them upward with a frantic appealing gesture; there was a sort of gasping rattle in her throat as she drew herself away from me with a convulsive gesture of aversion, and crouched on the floor as though she sought to sink through it and thus avoid my gaze.
"Oh, no, no, no!" she moaned, wildly, "not Fabio!--no, it cannot be=-Fabio is dead--dead! And you!--you are mad!--this is some cruel jest of yours--some trick to frighten me!"
She broke off breathlessly, and her large, terrified eyes wandered to mine again with a reluctant and awful wonder. She attempted to arise from her crouching position; I approached, and a.s.sisted her to do so with ceremonious politeness. She trembled violently at my touch, and slowly staggering to her feet, she pushed back her hair from her forehead and regarded me fixedly with a searching, anguished look, first of doubt, then of dread, and lastly of convinced and hopeless certainty, for she suddenly covered her eyes with her hands as though to shut out some repulsive object and broke into a low wailing sound like that of one in bitter physical pain. I laughed scornfully.
"Well, do you know me at last?" I cried. ""Tis true I have somewhat altered. This hair of mine was black, if you remember--it is white enough now, blanched by the horrors of a living death such as you cannot imagine, but which," and I spoke more slowly and impressively, "you may possibly experience ere long. Yet in spite of this change I think you know me! That is well. I am glad your memory serves you thus far!"
A low sound that was half a sob and half a cry broke from her.
"Oh, no, no!" she muttered, again, incoherently--"it cannot be! It must be false--it is some vile plot--it cannot be true! True! Oh, Heaven! it would be too cruel, too horrible!"
I strode up to her. I drew her hands away from her eyes and grasped them tightly in my own.
"Hear me!" I said, in clear, decisive tones. "I have kept silence, G.o.d knows, with a long patience, but now--now I can speak. Yes! you thought me dead--you had every reason to think so, you had every proof to believe so. How happy my supposed death made you! What a relief it was to you!--what an obstruction removed from your path! But--I was buried alive!" She uttered a faint shriek of terror, and looking wildly about her, strove to wrench her hands from my clasp. I held them more closely. "Ay, think of it, wife of mine!--you to whom luxury has been second nature, think of this poor body straightened in a helpless swoon, packed and pressed into yonder coffin and nailed up fast, shut out from the blessed light and air, as one would have thought, forever!
Who could have dreamed that life still lingered in me--life still strong enough to split asunder the boards that inclosed me, and leave them shattered, as you see them now!"
She shuddered and glanced with aversion toward the broken coffin, and again tried to loosen her hands from mine. She looked at me with a burning anger in her face.
"Let me go!" she panted. "Madman! liar!--let me go!"
I released her instantly and stood erect, regarding her fixedly.
"I am no madman," I said, composedly; "and you know as well as I do that I speak the truth. When I escaped from that coffin I found myself a prisoner in this very vault--this house of my perished ancestry, where, if old legends could be believed, the very bones that are stored up here would start and recoil from YOUR presence as pollution to the dead, whose creed was HONOR."
The sound of her sobbing breath ceased suddenly; she fixed her eyes on mine; they glittered defiantly.
"For one long awful night," I resumed, "I suffered here. I might have starved--or perished of thirst. I thought no agony could surpa.s.s what I endured! But I was mistaken: there was a sharper torment in store for me. I discovered a way of escape; with grateful tears I thanked G.o.d for my rescue, for liberty, for life! Oh, what a fool was I! How could I dream that my death was so desired!--how could I know that I had better far have died than have returned to SUCH a home!"
Her lips moved, but she uttered no word; she shivered as though with intense cold. I drew nearer to her.
"Perhaps you doubt my story?"
She made no answer. A rapid impulse of fury possessed me.
"Speak!" I cried, fiercely, "or by the G.o.d above us I will MAKE you!
Speak!" and I drew the dagger I carried from my vest. "Speak the truth for once--"twill be difficult to you who love lies--but this time I must be answered! Tell me, do you know me? DO you or do you NOT believe that I am indeed your husband--your living husband, Fabio Romani?"
She gasped for breath. The sight of my infuriated figure--the glitter of the naked steel before her eyes--the suddenness of my action, the horror of her position, all terrified her into speech. She flung herself down before me in an att.i.tude of abject entreaty. She found her voice at last.
"Mercy! mercy!" she cried. "Oh, G.o.d! you will not kill me?
Anything--anything but death; I am too young to die! Yes, yes; I know you are Fabio--Fabio, my husband, Fabio, whom I thought dead--Fabio--oh!" and she sobbed convulsively. "You said you loved me to-day--when you married me! Why did you marry me? I was your wife already--why--why? Oh, horrible, horrible! I see--I understand it all now! But do not, do not kill me, Fabio--I am afraid to die!"
And she hid her face at my feet and groveled there. As quickly calmed as I had been suddenly furious, I put back the dagger. I smoothed my voice and spoke with mocking courtesy.
"Pray do not alarm yourself," I said, coolly. "I have not the slightest intention of killing you! I am no vulgar murderer, yielding to mere brute instincts. You forget: a Neapolitan has hot pa.s.sions, but he also has finesse, especially in matters of vengeance. I brought you here to tell you of my existence, and to confront you with the proofs of it.
Rise, I beg of you, we have plenty of time to talk; with a little patience I shall make things clear to you--rise!"
She obeyed me, lifting herself up reluctantly with a long, shuddering sigh. As she stood upright I laughed contemptuously.
"What! no love words for me?" I cried, "not one kiss, not one smile, not one word of welcome? You say you know me--well!--are you not glad to see your husband?--you, who were such an inconsolable widow?"
A strange quiver pa.s.sed over her face--she wrung her hands together hard, but she said no word.
"Listen!" I said, "there is more to tell. When I broke loose from the grasp of death, when I came HOME--I found my vacant post already occupied. I arrived in time to witness a very pretty pastoral play. The scene was the ilex avenue--the actors, you, my wife, and Guido, my friend!"
She raised her head and uttered a low exclamation of fear. I advanced a step or two and spoke more rapidly.
"You hear? There was moonlight, and the song of nightingales--yes; the stage effects were perfect! _I_ watched the progress of the comedy--with what emotions you may imagine. I learned much that was news to me. I became aware that for a lady of your large heart and sensitive feelings ONE husband was not sufficient"--here I laid my hand on her shoulder and gazed into her face, while her eyes, dilated with terror, stared hopelessly up to mine--"and that within three little months of your marriage to me you provided yourself with another. Nay, no denial can serve you! Guido Ferrari was husband to you in all things but the name. I mastered the situation--I rose to the emergency. Trick for trick, comedy for comedy! You know the rest. As the Count Oliva you can not deny that I acted well! For the second time I courted you, but not half so eagerly as YOU courted ME! For the second time I have married you! Who shall deny that you are most thoroughly mine--mine, body and soul, till death do us part!"
And I loosened my grasp of her: she writhed from me like some glittering wounded serpent. The tears had dried on her cheeks, her features were rigid and wax-like as the features of a corpse; only her dark eyes shone, and these seemed preternaturally large, and gleamed with an evil l.u.s.ter. I moved a little away, and turning my own coffin on its side, I sat down upon it as indifferently as though it were an easy-chair in a drawing-room. Glancing at her then, I saw a wavering light upon her face. Some idea had entered into her mind. She moved gradually from the wall where she leaned, watching me fearfully as she did so. I made no attempt to stir from the seat I occupied.
Slowly, slowly, still keeping her eyes on me, she glided step by step onward and pa.s.sed me--then with a sudden rush she reached the stairway and bounded up it with the startled haste of a hunted deer. I smiled to myself. I heard her shaking the iron gateway to and fro with all her feeble strength; she called aloud for help several times. Only the sullen echoes of the vault answered her, and the wild whistle of the wind as it surged through the trees of the cemetery. At last she screamed furiously, as a savage cat might scream--the rustle of her silken robes came swiftly sweeping down the steps, and with a spring like that of a young tigress she confronted me, the blood now burning wrathfully in her face, and transforming it back to something of its old beauty.