Never releasing my arm, he set the taper in a crevice, and dragged me to the dreadful bed. “What!” he said, “are you afraid to look on your work?” And, pinning me forcibly, he bent and drew the cloth away. And side by side with the other, I saw the dead face of Pissani. Without a word, I sank down where I stood, and he fell back from me. “O, woman!” he cried, in a terrible voice, “that you could talk of your pride, with this lying at your heart!” He clasped his hands, and unclasped them, and struck his forehead, and again writhed them together, as if his grief baffled him from speech. Dragging my body towards him, I huddled cowering at his feet. “What!” he cried; “no word? no word?” I moaned, and moved my head in negative. “Grant he stabbed himself under the gallows,” he said, “since he found he could not look on her agony and live. Are you the more guiltless of his death?” Again I shook my head. “At least they are together,” he cried. “By so much you did them service, sending her first. But the price, woman, the price!” I rose, blind, staggering, to my feet. “It was my honour. I will go and pay it, and die.” He caught at and held me. “To whom?” “To de’ Medici. Let me go. Only you could have saved me, and you will not; and it is right.” Never quitting his hold, he turned from me, with a wild gesture of his free arm. “It was her life or yours,” I said. “Make it my curse, if you will, that I chose the dearer to me.” With a mad groan, he snatched me from my feet, and, holding me fiercely against his breast, carried me out and to the foot of the steps. [The End] NOTES. [1] #Diana Please# Born _circa_ 1770. [2] #scapegoat admiral# The unhappy patriot Caracciolo, whose hurried execution at the yardarm of the _Minerva_ raised such a storm of mingled protest and justification at the time. Madame Please’s insinuation must be accepted, if at all, as characteristic; yet there is no denying that Caracciolo’s court-martial (on a charge of deserting his king; to which the culprit pleaded very reasonably that it was his king who had deserted him), conviction by a narrow margin of votes, vindictive sentence, and hasty despatch thereon, afforded the great captain’s enemies the means to as unpleasant an indictment as any they could bring against his conduct of this unhappy Naples business. TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES. Minor spelling inconsistencies (_e.g._ caldron/cauldron, counterbuff/counter-buff, gravel-pit/gravel pit, etc.) have been preserved. Text version only: “#” is used to indicate bolded text. Alterations to the text: Convert footnotes to endnotes. Silently correct a few punctuation errors (quotation mark pairings, missing periods, etc.) [Introductory] Change “so often mentioned in the text, from the _slavic_” to _Slavic_. [Chapter VIII] (“She is _grern_ ... She is become, it _appe-ars_,) to _grown_ and _appears_, respectively. [Chapter IX] (“Why, you old _de-ar_?” said he.) to _dear_. [Chapter XVII]