Ranuzi did not perceive them; he was too inattentive, too confident of success, to entertain doubt or distrust.

"Hear the oath!" said she, after a pause. "'I, Count Carlo Ranuzi, swear that I love no other woman but Marietta Taliazuchi; I swear that, since I have loved her, I have not nor ever shall kiss or breathe words of love to any other woman. May G.o.d's anger reach me, if my oath is false!'"

The words fell slowly, singly from her lips, and she gazed with unflinching eyes up at him.

Not a muscle in his countenance moved. Laughing gayly, he repeated her words; then bent and kissed her black, shiny hair. "Are you satisfied now, you silly child?"

"I am satisfied, for you have sworn," said she, rising from her knees.

"Will this quiet you now, Marietta?"

"Yes, forever."

"Well, then, now a moment to business. There are two important letters, my beautiful darling. You see how boundless my love for you is--I confide these letters to your care, and entreat you to post them as usual. My heart and my secrets are in your lovely hands."

He kissed the hands, and gave her the letters.

Marietta took and looked at them in a timid, fearful manner.

"Do they contain dangerous secrets?" said she.

"Dangerous in the extreme, my lovely one."

"Were they intercepted and opened, would you be liable to death?" said she, in a low, trembling voice.

He saw in these words only her solicitude and love for him.

"Certainly, I would be lost--I would have to die were these letters opened. But fear not, my beauteous Marietta--they will not be opened; no one would dream of intercepting the harmless letters you direct to your friends at Magdeburg. Apart from that, no one is aware of our close connection. We have carefully guarded the holy secret of our love; when your husband returns from Italy, this bad world will have no evil rumors to tell of us, and you will be enclosed in his arms as his faithful wife. When does he come?"

"I expect him in three weeks."

"Many glorious, quiet evenings will we enjoy together before his return.

And now, farewell--I must leave you."

"You must leave me?"

"I must, Marietta."

"And where are you going?" said she, looking at him earnestly.

"Jealous again," said he, laughing. "Calm yourself, Marietta, I go to no woman. Besides this, have you not my oath?"

"Where are you going?" said she, with a sharp questioning look.

"I have an engagement to meet some friends--the meeting takes place in the house of a Catholic priest. Are you satisfied, Marietta? or do you still fear that some dangerous rendezvous calls me from you?"

"I fear nothing," said she, smiling; "you have rea.s.sured me."

"Then, my beloved, I entreat you to command me to go, for if you do not, though I know I ought, I cannot leave you. But, no--first I will see you direct these letters."

"You shall," said she, taking a pen and directing them.

Ranuzi took the letters and examined them.

"This simple feminine address is the talisman that protects me and my secret. And this I owe to you, my darling, to you alone. But will you finish your work of mercy? Will you post these letters at once?"

"I will do so, Carlo."

"Will you swear it?" said he, laughing; "swear it to me by our love."

"I swear it--swear it by my love."

"And now, farewell, Marietta!--farewell for to-day. To-morrow I hope to see you again."

He took her in his arms and whispered words of love and tenderness in her ear. He did not notice, in his impatience to leave, how cold and quiet she was. He took his hat, and bowing gayly left the room.

She stood where he had left her, her arms hanging listlessly at her side, her head bowed upon her breast. She listened intently to his every movement. Now he was on the last stair, now in the hall--when he had crossed it he would be at the street door. With a wild shriek she fled from the room, and hastened down the steps.

"Carlo! Carlo! wait a moment!"

His hand was on the door-k.n.o.b; he stood still and looked back. She was by his side--pale, with burning eyes and trembling lips, she threw her arms around him and kissed him pa.s.sionately.

"Farewell, my Carlo!--farewell, thou lover of my soul, thou light of my eyes!"

She kissed his mouth, his eyes, his hands; she pressed him to her heart, and then she pushed him from her, saying, in cold, rough tones, "Go! go, I say!"

Without again looking at him she hurried up the stairs. Ranuzi, laughing and shaking his head at her foolishness, left the house with a contented and a.s.sured heart.

CHAPTER VII. THE ACCUSATION.

This time Marietta did not call him back; she did not gaze after him from the window, as she was accustomed to do; she stood, pale as death, in the middle of the room, with panting breath, with flashing eyes; motionless, but with eager and expectant mien, as if listening to something afar off.

To what was Marietta listening? Perhaps to the echo of his step in the silent, isolated street; perhaps to the memories which, like croaking birds of death, hovered over her head, as if to lacerate and destroy even her dead happiness; perhaps she listened to those whispering voices which resounded in her breast and accused Ranuzi of faithlessness and treachery. And was he, then, really guilty? Had he committed a crime worthy of death?

Marietta was still motionless, hearkening to these whispered voices in her breast.

"I will deliberate yet once more," said she, walking slowly through the room, and sinking down upon the divan. "I will sit again in judgment upon him, and my heart, which in the fury of its pain still loves him, my heart shall be his judge."

And now she called back once again every thing to her remembrance. The golden, sunny stream of her happy youth pa.s.sed in review before her, and the precious, blissful days of her first innocent love. She recalled all the agony which this love had caused her, to whose strong bonds she had ever returned, and which she had never been able to crush out of her heart. She thought of the day in which she had first seen Ranuzi in Berlin; how their hearts had found each other, and the old love, like a radiant Phoenix, had risen from the ashes of the past, to open heaven or h.e.l.l to them both. She remembered with scornful agitation those happy days of their new-found youthful love; she repeated the ardent oaths of everlasting faith and love which Ranuzi had voluntarily offered; she remembered how she had warned him, how she had declared that she would revenge his treachery and inconstancy upon him; how indolently, how carelessly he had laughed, and called her his tigress, his anaconda.

She then recalled how suddenly she had felt his love grow cold, how anxiously she had looked around to discover what had changed him--she could detect nothing. But an accident came to her a.s.sistance--a bad, malicious accident. During the war there were no operas given in Berlin, and Marietta was entirely unoccupied; for some time she had been giving singing lessons--perhaps for distraction, perhaps to increase her income; she had, however, carefully preserved this secret from Ranuzi--in the unselfishness of her love she did not wish him to know that she had need of gold, lest he might offer her a.s.sistance.

One of her first scholars was Camilla von Kleist, the daughter of Madame du Trouffle, and soon teacher and scholar became warm friends. Camilla, still banished by her mother to the solitude of the nursery, complained to her new friend of the sorrows of her home and the weariness of her life. Carried away by Marietta's sympathy and flattering friendship, the young girl had complained to the stranger of her mother; in the desire to make herself appear an interesting sacrifice to motherly tyranny, she accused that mother relentlessly; she told Madame Taliazuchi that she was always treated as a child because her mother still wished to appear young; that she was never allowed to be seen in the saloon in the evening, lest she might ravish the worshippers and lovers of her mother.

Having gone so far in her confidences, the pitiable daughter of this light-minded mother went so far as to speak of her mother's adorers.

The last and most dangerous of these, the one she hated most bitterly, because he came most frequently and occupied most of her mother's time and thoughts, she declared to be the Count Ranuzi. This was the beginning of those fearful torments which Marietta Taliazuchi had for some months endured--tortures which increased with the conviction that there was truly an understanding between Ranuzi and Madame du Trouffle; that Ranuzi, under the pretence of being overwhelmed with important business, refused to pa.s.s the evening with her, yet went regularly every evening to Madame du Trouffle.