"Fabio? Fabio?" he gasped. "He died--I saw him in his coffin--"
I leaned more closely over him. "I was BURIED ALIVE," I said with thrilling distinctness. "Understand me, Guido--buried alive! I escaped--no matter how. I came home--to learn your treachery and my own dishonor! Shall I tell you more?"
A terrible shudder shook his frame--his head moved restlessly to and fro, the sweat stood in large drops upon his forehead. With my own handkerchief I wiped his lips and brow tenderly--my nerves were strung up to an almost brittle tension--I smiled as a woman smiles when on the verge of hysterical weeping.
"You know the avenue," I said, "the dear old avenue, where the nightingales sing? I saw you there, Guido--with HER!--on the very night of my return from death--SHE was in your arms--you kissed her--you spoke of me--you toyed with the necklace on her white breast!"
He writhed under my gaze with a strong convulsive movement.
"Tell me--quick!" he gasped. "Does--SHE--know you?"
"Not yet!" I answered, slowly. "But soon she will--when I have married her!"
A look of bitter anguish filled his straining eyes. "Oh, God, God!" he exclaimed with a groan like that of a wild beast in pain. "This is horrible, too horrible! Spare me--spare--" A rush of blood choked his utterance. His breathing grew fainter and fainter; the livid hue of approaching dissolution spread itself gradually over his countenance. Staring wildly at me, he groped with his hands as though he searched for some lost thing. I took one of those feebly wandering hands within my own, and held it closely clasped.
"You know the rest," I said gently; "you understand my vengeance! But it is all over, Guido--all over, now! She has played us both false. May God forgive you as I do!"
He smiled--a soft look brightened his fast-glazing eyes--the old boyish look that had won my love in former days.
"All over!" he repeated in a sort of plaintive babble. "All over now! God--Fabio--forgive!--" A terrible convulsion wrenched and contorted his limbs and features, his throat rattled, and stretching himself out with a long shivering sigh--he died! The first beams of the rising sun, piercing through the dark, moss-covered branches of the pine-trees, fell on his clustering hair, and lent a mocking brilliancy to his wide-open sightless eyes: there was a smile on the closed lips! A burning, suffocating sensation rose in my throat, as of rebellious tears trying to force a passage. I still held the hand of my friend and enemy--it had grown cold in my clasp. Upon it sparkled my family diamond--the ring SHE had given him. I drew the jewel off: then I kissed that poor passive hand as I laid it gently down--kissed it tenderly, reverently. Hearing footsteps approaching, I rose from my kneeling posture and stood erect with folded arms, looking tearlessly down on the stiffening clay before me. The rest of the party came up; no one spoke for a minute, all surveyed the dead body in silence. At last Captain Freccia said, softly in half-inquiring accents: "He is gone, I suppose?"