When all was finished, she carefully cleaned the marble top of the chest of drawers, and threw what little of the coa.r.s.er powder remained into the ashes of the fire, in which a few coals still glowed. The heat would consume the powder immediately.

Having done this, she set the three little moulds on the warm marble hearthstone to dry, took the remainder of the package of coa.r.s.er powder, twisted the stiff paper closely, so that it should not open, took the stockings from the keyholes, and, candle in hand, left the room, locking the door softly behind her. She made no noise as she traversed the dim rooms, in her felt slippers; but she avoided the yellow drawing-room and pa.s.sed through a pa.s.sage behind it. Her nerves were singularly good, but since Bosio's death she did not like to be alone in that room at night.

Bosio had been fond of dabbling in spiritism and such things, and they had often talked about the possibility of coming back after death, in that very room, promising each other that, if it were possible, the one who died first would try to communicate with the other. Matilde turned aside from the room in which they had said those things to each other.

She walked more and more cautiously as she came to the other end of the long apartment, where Veronica lived, and she stopped in a dark corridor before the door of Elettra's room. It was not ajar this time, but closed. Matilde did not hesitate, and began to turn the handle very slowly. Then she pushed the door and looked in, shading her candle with her hand, from her eyes, so as to look over it. She had determined, if she found the woman in bed, to wake her boldly, to say that she felt ill again and to tell her to go and heat some water. That would have taken some time. But Elettra was not there, and the bed, as usual of late, was untouched.

Matilde looked about her hastily, at the same time extracting the package from the wide pocket of her dressing-gown. The furniture was scant and simple--the bed, a table covered with things belonging to Veronica, beside which lay sewing-materials, two chairs, a shabby chest of drawers, a deal washstand--that was all. Italian servants are not accustomed to very luxurious quarters. A couple of coa.r.s.e, uncoloured prints of saints were tacked to the wall over the bed, and a bit of a dusty olive branch, from the last Palm Sunday, nine months ago, was stuck behind one of them.

Matilde looked about her, and hesitated a moment. Then, setting the candlestick down, she knelt upon the floor, and thrust the package as far as she could under the chest of drawers. Of all the things she had to do, in the course of that night and the following day, this was the only one with which any danger was connected, for at any moment Elettra might have come from Veronica's room to her own. The thing was possible, but not probable, between three and four o'clock in the morning. It did not happen, and when Matilde left the room and softly closed the door behind her, all was safe.

Before she went to bed, she entered the dining-room, poured herself out a gla.s.s of strong Sicilian wine from a decanter on the sideboard and drank it at a draught, for she was very tired. She left the decanter and the gla.s.s on the table, so that any one might see them. If by any remote possibility some wakeful person had chanced to hear her moving about in the night, she would say that she had felt ill, and had left her room in order to find the stimulant. She thought of every possible detail which could in any way hereafter be brought up in evidence.

At last she went back to her room, unlocked the door, and locked herself in.

Her plan was simple, though the details of it were complicated, so far as the preparation was concerned. It was an extremely bold plan, but one not at all likely to fail in the execution. Almost all the difficulty had lain in the preparations, and she had spared no pains and no suffering for herself, in the preliminaries.

She knew the story of Elettra's husband very well, and of how he had been murdered by peasants near Muro in trying to collect the exorbitant rents Macomer had attempted to exact. She was a good enough judge of character to see that Elettra had the revengeful disposition common to many of the southern hill people, and the woman's dark complexion, sombre eyes, and thin frame would all help to strengthen the impression in the mind of an unprejudiced judge.

She intended to make it appear that Elettra had poisoned the whole family, beginning with Matilde herself, out of revenge for her dead husband. Veronica was to die, but Gregorio and Matilde herself would only suffer a certain amount of pain for a few hours, and then recover.

She had begun by half poisoning herself, both to remove all suspicion, and as a sort of experiment, to be sure that she was giving herself and her husband a sufficient amount to produce the real symptoms of poisoning by a.r.s.enic. No half measures, no mere acting, would be of any avail.

The stuff in the package wrapped in coa.r.s.e paper was an almost pure salt of a.r.s.enic, sold by grocers as rat-poison.

The two small lumps of sugar and a.r.s.enic medicine were for herself and her husband; the large lump of almost pure poison was for Veronica.

In the examination which would follow upon the deed, the package of rat-poison would be found under the chest of drawers in the maid's room, half empty. It would be discovered that every alternate paper of Matilde's medicine had been tampered with, and it would be supposed that Matilde had at the first time taken one of those containing poison, whereas the doctor who had attended her had taken the next, which was untouched and only had medicine in it.

She intended to make tea on the following afternoon in Veronica's room.

She could easily find an excuse for bringing in Gregorio who, like many modern Italians, had acquired the habit of drinking tea every day. She herself would make the tea, and put in the sugar and cream. Elettra would, as usual, have brought in the tea-tray with the silver urn, for Veronica always preferred being served by her maid when she had anything in her own room. It would go hard, if Matilde could not divert Veronica's attention for one moment while she dropped the lumps into the cups, having concealed them in her handkerchief beforehand. There would be no servant in the room, for Elettra would have gone out. Gregorio would know beforehand what was to be done and would help to divert Veronica at the right moment. a.r.s.enic had little or no taste, and Veronica would drink her cup readily like the rest.

She would die before the next morning. That was certain. Everything would tend to throw the suspicion of having attempted to commit a horrible wholesale murder, upon Elettra. The will could be kept back until the first uproar and excitement should be over. Then Matilde would have the fortune, Gregorio would be saved, and Elettra would be condemned to penal servitude for life.

It was certainly a very bold plan, and Matilde did not see where it could fail.

CHAPTER XIV.

Matilde received on the following morning a curious letter which surprised and startled her. She had risen at last, grey and weary of face, with heavy eyes and drawn lips, to face the deed she meant to do.

The sky was overcast, but it was not raining yet, though it soon would.

She had risen before ringing for her maid, and had carefully removed the paper from the three little cakes of white stuff which she had made. It had to be done cleverly, for the smaller ones seemed likely to crumble; but the large one was quite consistent. She had hidden them all in the drawer she kept locked; then she had unfastened her door and had rung the bell. It was past nine o'clock, and her maid had brought her a letter with her coffee.

It was very short, but the few words it contained were exceedingly disquieting. It was accompanied by a card on which Matilde read 'Giuditta Astarita, Sonnambula,' and the address was below, in one corner. The few words of the letter, written in a subtle, sloping, feminine handwriting, correctly spelt and grammatically well expressed, ran as follows:--

"The spirit of B.M. wishes to make you an important communication and torments me continually. I pray you to come to me soon, on any day between ten and three o'clock. In order that you may be a.s.sured that it is really the spirit of B.M., and not a deceiving spirit, I am to remind you that on the evening of the ninth of this month, when you and he were alone together in a room which is all yellow, you laid your hand upon his head and stroked his hair and said: 'It is to save me.' The spirit tells me that you will remember this and understand it, and know that he is not a deceiving spirit."

Matilde read the short letter many times over, and her hands trembled when she at last folded it and returned it to its envelope. A sensation of curiosity and of ghastly horror ran through her hair, more than once, like a cool breeze, and with it came the infinite desire for some one word of truth out of the black beyond, from the one being whom she had loved so fiercely.

But in such things she was sceptical, and she sought to make some theory which should explain the writer of the letter into a common impostor.

She could find none. She remembered the act and the words that had gone with it. Only she and Bosio had known, and he was dead--he had died four-and-twenty hours after she had touched his hair and had said: 'It is to save me.' And she knew him well. He was not, under any circ.u.mstances, a man to speak of such things to a third person. Then, how did this Giuditta Astarita know what Matilde had said and done? It was not natural, and not natural meant supernatural--supernatural meant the possibility of communication, and she had loved the dead man with all her big, sinful soul.

It would be long before the time came for the deed, in the late afternoon, and the terrible day must be disposed of in some way or other. She was not afraid of going mad, nor of losing her nerve, nor of making a mistake at the last moment, but even to her courage and strength the hours before her were hours of fear.

She planned her day. The doctor would come, in the first place, at about ten o'clock. He would recommend her to be quiet, to take a little broth for luncheon, and a little more broth for dinner. She smiled grimly, as she thought of his probable instructions, and she knew what she could do and bear at pinch of pressing need. He would also tell her that the powder contained only just the right quant.i.ty of medicine, and that she must have been poisoned in some other way. She knew that.

Afterwards, Gregorio would need his instructions. He was to be at home in the afternoon, and to come and drink his tea in Veronica's room when Matilde sent for him. Just when Matilde was pouring out the tea, he was to distract Veronica's attention from the tea-table for a moment. She would not tell him that she intended to half poison him, too, for he was a coward, and at the last minute, dreading pain, he would not drink from his cup. She knew that well enough. She would tell him when he began to suffer the effects, and a.s.sure him that he was not going to die. Again she smiled grimly, and chancing to be just then before the mirror, she saw that her face had all at once grown old since yesterday. And in spite of her strength of body and will, she felt weak and exhausted, and hated the hours that were to be between.

But when she had spoken to Gregorio, she would go out alone, on foot.

And she knew that she should find the address given on Giuditta Astarita's card, and enter the house and see the woman who had written to her, and hear the message that was promised. If she left her own house, her feet must take her that way, whether she would or not.

And so it all happened just as she foresaw. But she had not known that in threading the intricate, dark streets she would almost forget what she was to do that day, in the mad hope of the one more word from beyond. She had not known that at the thought her eyes would brighten eagerly, the colour would come back to her cheeks, and the strength to her limbs as she walked. After all, the strongest thing that had ever been in her, or ever could be, was that pa.s.sionate, dominating, despotic devotion to one being; and the merest suggestion that he might not be gone quite beyond the reach of spiritual touch had power to veil the awful future of the day, when her hand was already uplifted to kill.

She was not a woman to hesitate at the last moment, unstrung and womanishly trembling because the victim was young, and smiled, and had innocent eyes. And yet, perhaps, had she not gone that day to answer the spirit-seer's summons and to catch at the straw thrown to her from beyond the grave, she might have seen a reason for changing her mind, and all might have happened very differently. But Fate does not sleep, though she seems sometimes to nod and forget to kill.

Matilde came to the house as the clock struck eleven, and entered by the dark, arched door, and went up the damp, stone steps, as Bosio had done a fortnight earlier. She was admitted by the decent woman whose one eye was of a china blue, and she waited for Giuditta in the same small sitting-room, of which the one heavily curtained window looked out upon an inner court. She did not know that Bosio had ever been there, but in her thoughts of him she felt his presence, and turned, with a shiver under her hair, to look behind her as she stood waiting before the window, just where he had stood. The day was dark, and the room was all dim and cold, with its stiff, ugly furniture and its bare, tiled floor.

The corners were shadowy, and her eyes searched in them uneasily, and she would not turn her back upon them again and look out of the windows.

Then the door opened noiselessly, and Giuditta Astarita entered, in her loose black silk gown, with her little bunch of charms against the evil eye, hanging by a chain from a b.u.t.ton hole.

The china blue eyes looked steadily at Matilde, out of the unhealthy face, but the woman gave no sign to show that she knew who her visitor was. Her hoa.r.s.e voice p.r.o.nounced the usual words: "You wish to consult me?"

"You wrote to me. I am the Countess Macomer," answered Matilde, lifting her veil, which was a thick one.

The expression in the woman's eyes did not change, but she still looked steadily at Matilde for three or four seconds.

"Yes," she said. "I thought so. I am glad that you have come, for I have suffered much on your account."

She looked as though she were suffering, Matilde thought. Then she placed the chairs, made the countess sit down, and drew the curtains, just as she had done for Bosio.

Then, in the dark, there was silence. It seemed to Matilde a long time, and she grew nervous, and moved uneasily. Then, without warning, she heard that other voice, clear, deep, and bell-like, which Bosio had heard, and she trembled.

"I see a name written on your breast,--Bosio Macomer."

The darkness, the voice, the shiver of antic.i.p.ation, unnerved the strong woman.

"What does he say to me?" she asked unsteadily.

Again there was a long silence, longer than the first, and by many degrees more disturbing to Matilda, as she waited for the answer.

"Bosio loves you," said the voice. "He is watching over you. He tells you to remember what you promised each other in the room that is all yellow, long ago,--that the one that should die first would visit the other. He tells you that it is possible, and that he has kept his promise. He loves you always, and you will be spirits together."

Matilde felt that in the darkness she was horribly pale, but she was no longer frightened.

"Will he come to me when I am alone?" she asked, and her voice did not shake.

"I will ask him," answered the clear voice, and again there was silence, but only for a few seconds. "This is his answer," continued the voice.

"He cannot come to you when you are alone, as yet. By and by he will come. But he watches over you. For the present he can only speak with you through Giuditta Astarita, who is now asleep."

"Is she asleep?" asked Matilde.