Struck with horror the moment she committed this frightful act, Elmina fled to her guilty paramour, Count Stefano, who had been watching impatiently beneath the window of the apartment. On learning that Diomida was only wounded, he rushed up stairs to complete her destruction; and, in a transport of infuriated malignity, stabbed her with his poniard, until her bosom became a shapeless mass, so horribly was it mangled. Masked like a bravo, with his broad hat flapping over his eyes, Stefano cut his way through those whom the uproar had assembled, and who, though disposed to bar his passage, shrank from his bloody hand and formidable figure. He rejoined Elmina, whom he also destroyed by a blow of his poniard, to prevent her betrayal of him; and after flinging her body into the Brenta, which flowed past the walls of Nuovale, he was conveyed back to Venice in a gondola. To Giulio and his accomplices at the palace of Strazoldi, he displayed his bloody poniard, and the marriage ring of Diomida, as tokens that she was now no more. Then, for the first time, was the conscience of Count Giulio touched with compunction at the sight of that little golden symbol: his mind reverted in agony to the hour of his espousals before the altar of Santa Maria, when he had placed this ring on the finger of Diomida, his loving and beloved bride. How had he fulfilled the solemn vow of those nuptials? But the deed was done, and the wedding ring of Diomida glittered in the hand of her relentless rival; who regarded it with eyes which, bright and beautiful though they were, sparkled with triumphant malice and revengeful joy. "The ring is here, and we want but the priest to mumble Latin and so finish the night with a proper bridal," said the ruffian Stefano, in tones husky with fatigue, as he quaffed a sparkling draught of wine. Giulio felt a stifling sensation in his throat, and his heart beat wildly. "Think you, I will be wed with the ring of Diomida Cornaro?" exclaimed Lucretia, scornfully. "Perish the bauble with the hand that wore it!" and thus saying, she cast the trinket into the canal that flowed dark and silently beneath the windows of the palace. The fair image of his gentle wife arose vividly before Count Giulio at this moment, and he shrank with loathing from the side of Lucretia; regarding her brother with a horror which he could scarcely repress as his hand involuntarily sought the hilt of his poniard. Strazoldi noted his agitation, but knowing that taunts or threats would only be fuel to the fire that was smouldering in his heart, he called for wine; and Giulio drank deeply to drown remembrance. The juice of the grape, and the caresses of the fascinating Lucretia, soon made him forget for a time; and the night was given to revelry, and the formation of plans to cast the guilt of Diomida’s murder on the banditti of the hills or the bravoes of Venice. But they were miserably deceived.