Valeria speedily fell asleep; but Fabio could not get to sleep. In the nocturnal silence all that he had seen, all that he had felt, presented itself to him in a still more vivid manner; with still greater persistence did he ask himself questions, to which, as before, he found no answer. Was Muzio really a magician? And had he already poisoned Valeria? She was ill ... but with what malady? While he was engrossed in painful meditations, with his head propped on his hand and restraining his hot breathing, the moon again rose in the cloudless sky; and together with its rays, through the semi-transparent window-panes, in the direction of the pavilion, there began to stream in--or did Fabio merely imagine it?--there began to stream in a breath resembling a faint, perfumed current of air.... Now an importunate, passionate whisper began to make itself heard ... and at that same moment he noticed that Valeria was beginning to stir slightly. He started, gazed; she rose, thrust first one foot, then the other from the bed, and, like a somnambulist, with her dull eyes strained straight ahead, and her arms extended before her, she advanced toward the door into the garden! Fabio instantly sprang through the other door of the bedroom, and briskly running round the corner of the house, he closed the one which led into the garden.... He had barely succeeded in grasping the handle when he felt some one trying to open the door from within, throwing their force against it ... more and more strongly ... then frightened moans resounded. * * * * * "But Muzio cannot have returned from the town, surely," flashed through Fabio's head, and he darted into the pavilion.... What did he behold? Coming to meet him, along the path brilliantly flooded with the radiance of the moonlight, also with arms outstretched and lifeless eyes staring widely--was Muzio.... Fabio ran up to him, but the other, without noticing him, walked on, advancing with measured steps, and his impassive face was smiling in the moonlight like the face of the Malay. Fabio tried to call him by name ... but at that moment he heard a window bang in the house behind him.... He glanced round.... In fact, the window of the bedroom was open from top to bottom, and with one foot thrust across the sill stood Valeria in the window ... and her arms seemed to be seeking Muzio, her whole being was drawn toward him. Unspeakable wrath flooded Fabio's breast in a suddenly-invading torrent.--"Accursed sorcerer!" he yelled fiercely, and seizing Muzio by the throat with one hand, he fumbled with the other for the dagger in his belt, and buried its blade to the hilt in his side. Muzio uttered a piercing shriek, and pressing the palm of his hand to the wound, fled, stumbling, back to the pavilion.... But at that same instant, when Fabio stabbed him, Valeria uttered an equally piercing shriek and fell to the ground like one mowed down.