CHAPTER XVII. NEMESIS.

The Maestro had a very comfortable suite of apartments in Milan overlooking the Via Carlo Alberto, near the Piazza del Duomo, which were chosen by him on account of their situation, as he could sit at the window of his bedroom and amuse himself by gazing at the crowded street. This watching of the populace was his great delight, and when not giving a lesson he was generally stationed at his window, or else employed in reading Il Seccolo, which he did in a curious fashion, by holding it close to his best-seeing eye.

Of course, like all the entrances to these Milanese flats, the stairs were singularly damp, dark, and malodorous, and after running the gauntlet of a fat portanaia, who was devouring a large dish of polenta in her glass house, we climbed up the humid steps, and speedily arrived at the second storey, where dwelt the Maestro when in Milan. To make up for the filth under our feet the ceilings over our heads were gorgeously painted with mythological figures; and even at that moment I could not help recalling George Sands' remark anent the contrast between these two. However, we had no time to admire the clumsy Jupiter throwing fire-brand thunderbolts, for at this moment Petronella, who had seen us through the dingy glass of her own little sanctum, opened the door, and was about to burst into a torrent of greetings, when I stopped her to ask if the Signora Pallanza was at home.

"Yes! yes! the Signora is in, but she is engaged-- engaged in talking with a lady--Dio! a great lady!

"Great heavens! we may be too late!" I muttered to Beltrami, who nodded his head silently. "Petronella, speak low. This gentleman and myself came on an important errand to the Signora. What is the lady's name?"

"Signor, she said she was the Marchesa Beltrami," replied Petronella, her jolly face growing rather grave at all this mystery.

"Is Signor Pallanza in?"

"No, Signor Hugo; he has gone to see an impresario."

"She is alone with Madame, let us go in at once," whispered Beltrami, exhibiting the first signs of alarm I had ever beheld in him.

"One moment! What about the Maestro, Petronella?"

"In his bedroom, Signor Hugo, at the window. Holy Saints! what is wrong?"

"Nothing! nothing! I will explain all shortly; but meanwhile, Petronella, show us a place where we can see into the room where the Signora is talking to the Marchesa, without being seen."

Beltrami nodded his head approvingly, for he saw my plan was to overhear the conversation, and only interrupt it should there be any danger to the Signora. Petronella was bursting with curiosity, but seeing, from the expression of our faces, that something important was going on, she screwed up her mouth with a shrewd look, to assure us we could depend upon her, and, closing the outside door cautiously, led us into the room adjacent to that in which the conversation was taking place. Pointing to an archway, veiled by curtains, to intimate that there was nothing else but the drapery to impede our hearing, she retired on tiptoe, with a puzzled, serious look on her usually merry face.

It seemed my fate to overhear mysterious conversations through veiled archways, but this one was not used as an entrance between the two rooms, for, as I peered through the curtains, 1 saw in front of them a small square table, upon which was placed a lacquered tray with glasses, and an oval straw-covered bottle of Chianti wine. I drew back for a moment, to see if Beltrami had noticed this obstacle to our sudden entrance into the room; but, instead of appearing dismayed, he had a grim, satisfied smile on his lips, as if he rather approved than otherwise of this table blocking up the doorway. Puzzled at this, I withdrew my eyes from his face, and looked again into the room beyond, where the Marchesa Beltrami was seated, talking to Bianca in what appeared to be a very friendly fashion.

It must be remembered that Bianca knew nothing about the Contessa Morone's intrigue with her husband, as both Guiseppe and myself had carefully kept all knowledge of the affair from her; and moreover, owing to her nervous agitation, she had not recognized the voice of the Marchesa when she spoke to us in the darkness of that fatal chamber at Verona. Consequently she was completely in ignorance of the real character of her visitor, and only beheld in her a lady who had called to see Signor Pallanza about some important business; this, as I afterwards learned, being the excuse she gave for her presence in the Casa Angello. It was truly terrible to see these two women seated together in friendly discourse, the one so innocent of the danger she was in, the other so ruthless in her determination to revenge herself on her rival. The pure white dove was in the clutches of this relentless hawk, who, while watching her victim so closely, was meditating as to the best means of carrying out her plans.

"Oh, it is horrible!" I murmured, turning pale with emotion.

"Hush!" whispered Beltrami with a sinister look; "she will fall into her own pit."

What did he mean by these strange words? I could not understand; but I had no time nor desire to ask for an explanation, as the terrible drama being played out in the next room riveted my attention; so, with a violent effort of self-repression, I resumed my post of observation, and listened to the conversation between the two actresses in the tragedy. It was idle and frivolous, the conversation of two strangers who had nothing to talk about but the merest commonplace; but this frivolity had for us a ghastly meaning; this commonplace concealed a frightful intention.

"And so, Signora Pallanza, you have never heard your husband mention my name!"

"No, Madame!"

"It is strange," said the Marchesa, smiling; "for in Rome I did what I could to help him in his profession. Eh! yes. I heard him singing Faust at the Apollo, and told all my friends to go and hear the New Mario."

"That is what they call him here, Signora," replied Bianca proudly; "but, indeed, it was kind of you to aid him. I wonder Guiseppe never spoke to me about you, for he never forgets a kindness."

"Ah! I'm afraid some men have not much gratitude," said Madame Beltrami with a laugh. "Never mind, when Signor Pallanza comes in you will see he has not forgotten me."

"He could hardly do that, Madame," answered Bianca, looking with honest admiration at the splendid beauty of the woman before her. "Had I seen you before I would always have remembered you! But--it is so strange!"

"What is strange, Signora?"

"I do not recognize your face, and yet I seem to have heard your voice before."

"Possibly!" said the Marchesa indifferently. "I go about a good deal."

"Were you ever in Verona?"

Madame Beltrami was startled for the moment at this apparently innocent question, but recovered her self-possession in a moment, and laughed gaily in a rather forced fashion,--

"Yes, Signora! I lived there a long time with my first husband, Count Giorgio Morone."

"Morone!" cried Bianca, starting to her feet with a cry of alarm. "Oh! Madame, do you know that palace?"

The Marchesa saw that she had made a mistake by mentioning that fatal name, but with iron nerve opened a fan she had hanging to her girdle and fanned herself slowly.

"Of course I do," she answered quietly; "it belongs to the family of my late husband, and is said to be haunted."

Bianca shivered.

"So it is! so it is!" she muttered in a fearful tone. "I have been in that room. Signor Hugo took me there."

"Signor Hugo!" repeated the Marchesa reflectively.

"I think I have heard my husband speak of that gentleman. He is English, is he not?"

"Yes, Madame. A great friend of my husband's. A terrible thing happened to Guiseppe at Verona! Oh! a terrible thing. And that room, that fearful room! Dio! I shall never forget it."

"You are trembling, Signora! You are ill," cried Madame Beltrami, rising to her feet and crossing quickly to the table before the curtain behind which we were concealed. "Let me give you some wine."

"No, no! thank you. I am quite well!" said Bianca, going to the window and opening it. "It is only the heat. The fresh air will do me good."

"A glass of wine will be better," replied the Marchesa, pouring out a glass of Chianti.

I felt myself seized with a kind of vertigo at seeing this demon take from her breast a small bottle and empty the whole contents of it into the glass. I would have cried out only the voice of Bianca arrested me,--

"I am perfectly well, Madame; but will you not take some wine yourself, since the day is so warm?"

"Certainly, if you will drink with me!" said Madame Beltrami, turning round with a calm smile; "but indeed the wine will do you good, you seem to faint."

She poured out another glass of the Chianti for herself, and was about to take the fatal drink to Bianca, when the latter called quickly from the window,--

"Madame! quick! come here! Guiseppe is coming down the street!"

Out of courtesy the Marchesa was forced to obey the call of her hostess, and went quickly to the window, leaving the two wine-glasses close together on the table, the one on the left containing the poison destined for Bianca, the other on the right innocent of any drug, which she intended to drink herself.

At this moment, while the two women were looking out of the window, I heard the voice of Beltrami, hoarse and broken, sound in my ear,--

"Go to the door and tell the servant to detain Pallanza!"

I looked at him in astonishment, for there was a frightful look of agitation in his pale face, and great drops of sweat were standing on his brow; but he made an imperative gesture, and I obeyed him without a word.

Petronella was in the kitchen, and I hurriedly told her to keep Pallanza at the door on some pretext or another, and stole quickly back to the room, where I found Beltrami leaning against the wall with a haggard look on his face.

"What is the matter?" I whispered quickly. "Are you ill?"

"No, no! Look!--look!--see! See what she is doing!"

I had only been gone a little over two minutes between the time I had last looked in the room and the moment I resumed my post of observation, but during that period the Marchesa, evidently afraid of the entrance of Pallanza, had given Bianca the fatal wine, and the girl was drinking it at the window. Madame Beltrami herself, with rather a pale face, but a devilish look in her eyes, had just set down her glass upon the table, empty. A moment after Bianca, having drained the fatal draught to the dregs, came across to the table and placed her glass beside that of the Marchesa's with a merry laugh.

"I am glad you persuaded me to have the wine, Signora. It is so refreshing."

"Yes, I think you will find it so," replied the Marchesa, with a strange smile.

The whole of this terrible scene had passed so rapidly that I had no time to interfere. My tongue clove to the roof of my mouth, as I saw Bianca drink the Borgian wine; yet with a mighty effort I was about to cry out, when Beltrami seized my arm in his powerful grasp, and dared me, with lurid eyes, to utter a sound.

The Marchesa, having completed her devilish work, was about to go, for I heard her say something to Bianca about seeing Pallanza on the stairs, when suddenly we heard Guiseppe's gay voice talking to Petronella, who strove to detain him; but with a merry laugh he brushed past her, and a moment afterwards was in the room. Standing there in the grasp of Beltrami, hidden by the curtains, there seemed to be a silence lasting an eternity; then we heard Guiseppe give a terrible cry of rage and fear, and despair,--

"Giulietta! you here! Demon! what are you doing?"

Slow and soft, like the hiss of a snake, came the answer,--

"Doing to her what I did to you."

"Poison! Bianca!"

The poor girl gave a terrible shriek of agony, and flung herself into the arms of her husband, while again there sounded the wicked laugh of the Marchesa.

"Ah! you cannot save her now, traitor! perjurer that you are! she will die!"

There was a sudden smash of glass, as Beltrami hurled himself through the archway and stood before his terrible wife.

"You lie, wretch! Here is the antidote!"

Bianca was lying unconscious in Guiseppe's arms, and he, with a cry of joy, stretched out his hand for the phial which Beltrami, standing midway between his wife and the tenor, was holding. Suddenly, with a shriek of rage, the Marchesa sprang forward, and tearing the phial from his hand, hurled it through the open window into the street.

"No, no! She shall die! She shall die!"

I shall never forget that supreme moment of anguish. Bianca lying pale as a lily in the arms of her agonized husband; myself standing amid the ruins of the table in the archway; the Marchesa erect, defiant, and snarling like an enraged tigress; and only Beltrami calm--

Beltrami standing cold and inflexible, with folded arms and a sinister smile on his thin lips. The whole of this frightful drama had only lasted a few minutes, but the denouement, more terrible than anything that had gone before, had now arrived.

"She shall die!" repeated the Marchesa with devilish persistency.

Beltrami gave a wild laugh that sounded like the mocking merriment of a fiend,--

"Fool! you have thrown away your life!"

Guiseppe looked up with sudden hope, and the Marchesa with a cry of abject terror reeled back with staring eyes and outstretched arms as the truth flashed across her mind.

"Life! life! oh! devil that you are, you--you--have changed--"

The fierce beauty of her face was suddenly distorted by a spasm of agony. She put her hands to her throat and tore open her dress, tore off the ruby necklace, the gems of which flashed down to the floor like a rain of blood, then with a yell of fear which had nothing human in its despair, she fell at our feet--dead.

Yes, she had fallen into her own pit; she had flung away her only chance of life in her desire to doom her rival and there amid the brilliant sunshine, amid the blood-red jewels scattered around her, with all her crimes, devilries, and wickedness on her head, lay the dead body of that Creature of the Night I had seen issue like a vampire from the old sepulchre to fulfil her evil destiny; and over her with folded arms, sinister and cruel, towered the man who, as the instrument of God, had sent her back to the hell from whence she had emerged.