"You mean the woman has confessed?" It was Anstice who spoke, and she turned to him at once with an animation of look and manner very different from her former languor.
"Well, as to confession I hardly know. But she has told me the whole story; and if you are both prepared to listen I will pass it on to you at once."
Sitting a little forward, her hands locked on the knee of her white gown, her blue eyes extraordinarily vivid in her softly-coloured face, she began her tale; and both men listened to her with rapt attention as her deep voice rang through the quiet room.
"It seems that years ago when Tochatti was a girl, living in a village close to Naples, she was betrothed to a handsome young Sicilian, a fisherman from Palermo. The story, as Tochatti told it, is a long and rather involved affair; but it is sufficient to say that there was another girl enamoured of Tochatti's lover; and matters were complicated still further by the fact that this girl was engaged to someone else. Well, Luigi, Tochatti's sweetheart, had evidently encouraged the second girl behind Tochatti's back; and when Tochatti found out she was so inflamed with rage and jealousy that, overhearing of an appointment between Bella and Luigi, she wrote a note in a handwriting roughly resembling that of Bella to the latter's sweetheart, a certain José, bidding him meet her at the same time and place as that arranged by the other two. Well, José went, expecting to meet his beloved--and found her in Luigi's arms. Tragedy followed, of course. José first tore the girl away and then stabbed her to the heart, afterwards turning on Luigi. They struggled--on the edge of the cliff; and Luigi proving the stronger, José was hurled over the edge into the sea below."
"A tragedy indeed," commented Major Carstairs as the speaker paused. "What was the next act? Did Luigi and Tochatti become reconciled and walk off arm-in-arm?"
"No." Chloe's voice sank a little. "It seems that when Tochatti, horror-struck by the result of her interference, rushed on to the scene, Luigi turned upon her, guessing somehow that she was responsible, and taxed her with having lured José to the spot that night. She owned up to it, and instead of imploring forgiveness appeared to glory in her treachery, whereupon Luigi, throwing the fatal letter into her face, burst into a torrent of rage, telling her he had never cared for her, that Bella was the only girl he had ever loved, and finished up by stabbing himself before her eyes rather than endure a life from which his adored one had vanished for ever."