and went through all the ceremonials of
his office, hardly more conscious of what he did than the candles which
his sacristan lighted. The confession made to him haunted him night and
day. He saw it, as it were, written in letters of blood on the blank
white walls of his bedchamber, of his sacristy, of his church itself.
The murderer was there, at large, unknown to all,--at work like any
other man in the clear, sweet sunshine, talking and laughing, eating and
drinking, waking and sleeping, yet as unsuspected as a child unborn. And
all the while Generosa was in prison. There was only one chance left; if
she should be acquitted by her judges. But even then the slur and stain
of an imputed, though unproved, crime would always rest upon her and
make her future dark, her name a by-word in her birthplace. Yes, after
what her lover had said, no mere acquittal, leaving doubt and suspicion
behind it, would give her back to the light and joy of life. Every man's
hand would be against her; every child would point at her as the woman
who had been accused of the assassination of her husband.

One day he sought Falko Melegari when the latter was making up the
accounts of his stewardship at an old bureau in a deep window-embrasure
of the villa.

"You know that the date of the trial is fixed for the 10th of next
month?" he said, in a low, stifled voice.

The young man, leaning back in his wooden chair, gave a sign of assent.

"And you," said Gesualdo, with a curious expression in his eyes,--"if
they absolve her, will you have the courage to prove your own belief in
her innocence? Will you marry her when she is set free?"

The question was abrupt and unlooked for. Falko changed color: he
hesitated.

"You will not!" said Gesualdo.

"I have not said so," answered the young man, evasively. "I do not know
that she would exact it."

Exact it! Gesualdo did not know much of human nature, but he knew what
the use of that cold word implied.

"I thought you loved her! I mistook," he said, bitterly. A rosy flush
came for a moment on the wax-like pallor of his face.

Falko Melegari looked at him insolently.

"A churchman should not meddle with these things! Love her! I love
her,--yes. It ruins my life to think of her yonder. I would cut off my
right arm to save her; but to marry her if she come out absolved,--that
is another thing; one's name a by-word, one's credulity laughed at,
one's neighbors shy of one,--that is another thing, I