Clasping each the other’s waist, and kissing away each other’s tranquil tears, how long we sat there I know not, neither what high fluttering thoughts, thoughts or angels, which be they--stealthily a door was opened, not the door of heaven, not even the main door of the room we sat in, but a narrow side-door. Through it crept, with crawling caution, he whom most of all men I now despised and pitied. Lily did not hear his entrance, neither did she see him; but my eyes and ears were keen from many a call of danger. Stunned for a while by the heavy blow, that met me on my return, I had forgotten all about him; I mean, at least, all about his present design. I had indeed told the farmer, for it was only fair to do so, my object in bringing him down; and how I relied on his wonderful strength and courage, having then no other to help me; but since I got home, and heard the sad tidings, it seemed a mere thing for contempt. Not even Lepardo Della Croce could catch a departed spirit. So, and in the landslip of the mind, sapped by its own, and sliding swiftly into another’s sorrow, I had not even ordered that the house should be watched at all; I had not even posted Giudice, who had a vendetta of his own, anywhere on guard. With a stiletto still concealed, all but the handle on which the light fell, he approached the bed, wriggling along and crouching, as a cat or leopard would. Then he rose and stood upright at the side of the bed, not our side but the other, and glared upon his intended victim’s face. I pushed Lily back behind the curtain as if with the weight of my bosom, while I watched the whole. Never in all my tempestuous life, of all the horrible things I have seen, and heard, and shuddered at, saw I anything so awful, so utterly beyond not only description, but conception, as that disdainful, arrogant face, when the truth burst on him. Not the body only, but the mind and soul--if God had cursed him with one--were smitten back all of a lump, as if he had leaped from a train at full speed into a firing cannon’s mouth. Before he had time to recover, I advanced and faced him. All dressed in white I was, with my black hair below my waist, for I had thrown off my travelling frock, and taken what first came to hand. They tell me I look best in white, it shows my hair and eyes so. He believed that it was a spirit, the Vendetta spirit of the other side; and he cowered from me. I was the first to speak. "Lepardo Della Croce, it is the rebuke of heaven. Dust upon ashes; such is man’s revenge. I have nursed, but scorn it now. Go in peace, and pray the Almighty that He be not like you. Stop; I will show you forth. You have a vindictive foe here, who would tear you to atoms."