"That lady"--she pointed within to where the silent dame of years was
tinkling unconcernedly on the keys--"is my dead husband's mother. Surely
she abundantly supplies the proprieties. And now you--you whom I thought
I could trust, spoil my year--spoil my life, slay in a moment my love
with reproach and scorn!"

She walked to the door, turned and said--"You, whom I trusted, have done
this!" Then she threw out her hands in an attitude of despair and scorn,
and disappeared.

I sat long with my head on my hands, thinking--the world about me in
ruins, never to be built up. Then I went up to my room, paused at the
wardrobe, changed my black coat to that in which I had arrived, and went
softly down-stairs again. The waning moon had just risen late, and threw
a weird light over the ranges of buildings, the gateways and towers.

I walked swiftly to the outer gate, and, there leaping a hedge of
flowering plants, I fled down the mountain through the vineyards. I
went swiftly, eager to escape from Castel del Monte, but in the tangle
of walls and fences it was not easy to advance. At the parting of three
ways I paused, uncertain in which direction to proceed. Suddenly,
without warning, a dark figure stepped from some hidden place. I saw the
gleam of something bright. I knew that I was smitten. Waves of white-hot
metal ran suddenly in upon my brain, and I knew no more.

When I awoke, my first thought was that I was back again in the room
where Lucia and I had talked together. I felt something perfumed and
soft like a caress. It seemed like the filmy lace that the Countess wore
upon her shoulder. My head lay against it. I heard a voice say, as it
had been in my ear, through the murmuring floods of many waters--"My