n storm of rage, of scorn, of incredulity, swept over me at this,
and seemed to carry my senses away.

"_You_!" I cried. "Gianetta marry you! I don't believe it."

"I wish I had not believed it," he replied, looking up as if puzzled by
my vehemence. "But she promised me; and I thought, when she promised it,
she meant it."

"She told me, weeks ago, that she would never be your wife!"

His colour rose, his brow darkened; when his answer came, it was as calm
as the last.

"Indeed!" he said. "Then it is only one baseness more. She told me that
she had refused you; and that was why we kept our engagement secret."

"Tell the truth, Mat Price," I said, well-nigh beside myself with
suspicion. "Confess that every word of this is false! Confess that
Gianetta will not listen to you, and that you are afraid I may succeed
where you have failed. As perhaps I shall--as perhaps I shall, after
all!"

"Are you mad?" he exclaimed. "What do you mean?"

"That I believe it's just a trick to get me away to England--that I don't
credit a syllable of your story. You're a liar, and I hate you!"

He rose, and, laying one hand on the back of his chair, looked me sternly
in the face.

"If you were not Benjamin Hardy," he said, deliberately, "I would thrash
you within an inch of your life."

The words had no sooner passed his lips than I sprang at him. I have
never been able distinctly to remember what followed. A curse--a blow--a
struggle--a moment of blind fury--a cry--a confusion of tongues--a circle
of strange faces. Then I see Mat lying back in the arms of a bystander;
myself trembling and bewildered--the knife dropping from my grasp; blood
upon the floor; blood upon my hands; blood upon his shirt. And then I
hear those dreadful words:

"O, Ben, you have murdered me!"

He did not die--at least, not there and then. He was carried to the
nearest hospital, and lay for some weeks between life and death. His
case, they said, was difficult and dangerous. The knife had gone in just
below the collarbone, and pierced down into the lungs. He was not
allowed to speak or turn--scarcely to breathe with freedom. He might not
even lift his head to drink. I sat by him day and night all through that
sorrowful time. I gave up my situation on the railway; I quitted my
lodging in the Vicolo Balba; I tried to forget that such a woman as
Gianetta Coneglia had ever drawn breath. I lived only for Mat; and he
tried to live more, I