d, and, without any
other word, rode off towards his home in the glistening white light, to
stable his weary horse, and to saddle another to ride into the larger
village of Sant' Arturo. It was past midnight; he could do no good; he
could see no one; but it was a relief to him to be in movement; he felt
that it would choke him to sit and sup and sleep and smoke as usual in
his quiet house among the magnolias and the myrtles, whilst the love of
his life lay alone in her misery.

All gladness which would at any natural death of Tasso Tassilo's have
filled his soul was quenched in the darkness of horror in which her fate
was snatched from him and plunged into the mystery and the blackness of
imputed crime.

He never actually suspected her for a moment; but he knew that others
would no doubt do more than suspect.

"Perhaps the brute killed himself," he thought, "that the blame of the
crime might lie on her and part her from me."

Then he knew that such a thought was absurd. Tasso Tassilo had loved his
life, loved his mill, and his money, and his petty power, and his
possession of his beautiful wife; and, besides, what man could stab
himself from behind between the shoulders? It was just the blow that a
strong yet timid woman would give. As he walked to and fro on the old
terrace whilst they saddled the horse, he felt a sickening shudder run
through him. He did not suspect her. No, not for an instant. And yet
there was a dim, unutterable horror upon him which veiled the remembered
beauty of her face.

The passing of the days which came after this feast of the two apostles
was full of an unspeakable horror to him, and in the brief space of them
he grew haggard, hollow-cheeked, almost aged, despite his youth. The
dread formalities and tyrannies of the law seized on the quiet village
and tortured every soul in it: every one who had seen or heard or known
aught of the dead man was questioned, tormented, harangued, examined,
suspected. Don Gesualdo himself was made subject to a searching and
oft-repeated interrogation, and severely reproved that he had not let
the body lie untouched until the arrival of the officers of justice. He
told the exact truth as far as he knew it, but when questioned as to the
relations of the murdered man and his wife he hesitated, prevaricated,
contradicted himself, and gave the impression to the judicial
authorities that he knew much more against the wife than he would say.
What he tried to do w