he air--let us go home--home--"

She broke off abruptly, her alarm increasing at my utter silence. She
gazed up at me with wild wet eyes.

"Cesare! Cesare! speak! What ails you? Why have you brought me here?
Touch me--kiss me! say something--anything--only speak!"

And her bosom heaved convulsively; she sobbed with terror.

I put her from me with a firm hand. I spoke in measured accents, tinged
with some contempt.

"Hush, I pray you! This is no place for an hysterical scena. Consider
where you are! You have guessed aright--this is a vault--your own
mausoleum, fair lady!--if I mistake not--the burial-place of the Romani
family."

At these words her sobs ceased, as though they had been frozen in her
throat; she stared at me in speechless fear and wonder.

"Here," I went on with methodical deliberation, "here lie all the great
ancestors of your husband's family, heroes and martyrs in their day.
Here will your own fair flesh molder. Here," and my voice grew deeper
and more resolute, "here, six months ago, your husband himself, Fabio
Romani, was buried."

She uttered no sound, but gazed at me like some beautiful pagan goddess
turned to stone by the Furies. Having spoken thus far I was silent,
watching the effect of what I had said, for I sought to torture the
very nerves of her base soul. At last her dry lips parted--her voice
was hoarse and indistinct.

"You must be mad!" she said, with smothered anger and horror in her
tone.

Then seeing me still immovable, she advanced and caught my hand half
commandingly, half coaxingly. I did not resist her.

"Come," she implored, "come away at once!" and she glanced about her
with a shudder. "Let us leave this horrible place; as for the jewels,
if you keep them here, they may stay here; I would not wear them for
the world! Come."

I interrupted her, holding her hand in a fierce grasp; I turned her
abruptly toward a dark object lying on the ground near us--my own
coffin broken asunder. I drew her close to it.

"Look!" I said in a thrilling whisper, "what is this? Examine it well:
it is a coffin of flimsiest wood, a cholera coffin! What says this
painted inscription? Nay, do not start! It bears your husband's name;
he was buried in it. Then how comes it to be open? WHERE IS HE?"

I felt her sway under me; a new and overwhelming terror had taken
instant possession of her, her limbs refused to support her, she sunk
on her knees. Mechanically and feebly she repeated the wo