"Prince Dionigi was a fierce, despotic, cruel and overbearing man. The pride of birth made him almost insane, and every indication of spirit or of resistance on the part of his inferiors was punished with incredible arrogance and severity. Vindictive to excess, he had, it was said, killed his wife's lover with his own hand, and worried her to death, poor creature, in a sort of captivity. He was bitterly detested by his equals, and still more bitterly by the poor, whom he assisted, however, on occasion, with lordly liberality, but in such a humiliating way that one felt degraded by his benefactions. "Now you will understand better the small degree of sympathy which his daughter has acquired. It seems to me that the constraint in which she passed her early youth, under the iron rule of such a detestable father, may well explain her reserved disposition, and what I may call the premature withering or repression of her heart. Doubtless she is afraid of reawakening antipathies connected with the name she bears, by entering into relations with other people; and if she avoids intercourse with her fellow men, it is for reasons which should arouse the compassion and deep interest of fair-minded persons. "A single other fact will serve to exhibit Prince Dionigi's disposition. About fifteen or sixteen years ago, I think--it is all very vague in my boyish memories,--a young mountaineer in his service, being maddened beyond endurance by the harshness of his language, ventured, they say, to shrug his shoulders as he held the stirrup for the prince to dismount from his horse. He was a worthy, honest fellow, but proud and of violent temper. The prince struck him a vicious blow. Thereafter they hated each other intensely, and the groom--his name was Ercolano--left the Palmarosa palace, saying that he knew the great secret of the family and that he would soon have his revenge. What was that secret? He had no time to reveal it, and no one ever knew what he had to reveal; for they found Ercolano the next morning on the seashore, murdered, with a dagger bearing the Palmarosa arms in his breast. His relations dared not demand justice, they were poor!" Magnani had reached this point when the white figure they had seen wandering about the terrace crossed the flower-garden once more and went inside. Michel shuddered from head to foot. "I don't know why your story has such an effect upon me," he said. "I seem to feel the cold blade of that dagger in my breast. That woman terrifies me. A strange superstition is creeping into my mind. A person cannot have a murderer's blood in her veins without having either a wicked heart or an unhinged mind. Give me a chance to breathe, Magnani, before you finish your story."