“If she heard, she would shield me and defend me at the cost of her own life!” he said—­“She was always like that!  She would never listen to anything that was said against me,—­and if she lived, she would love me still, and never say that I had tried to kill her!” and he actually smiled at the thought.  “How strangely some women are constituted!—­especially women like Angela, who set up an exalted standard of life, and accommodate their daily conduct to it!  They are sublime fools!—­and so useful to men!  We can do anything we like with them.  We can ruin them—­and they bear their shame in silence.  We can laugh away their reputations over a game at billiards, and they are too pure and proud to even attempt to defend themselves.  We can vilify whatever work they do, and they endure the slander,—­we can murder them—­” he paused,” Yes, we can murder them, and they die, without so much as leaving a curse behind them!  Extraordinary!- -angelic—­superb!—­and a wise Fate has ordained that we men shall never sacrifice ourselves for such women, or go mad for the love of them!  We love the virago better than the saint; we are afraid of the woman who nags at us and gives us trouble—­who screams vengeance upon us if we neglect her in a trifle—­who clamours for our money, and insists on our gifts—­and who keeps our lives in a perpetual fever of excitement and terror.  But the innocent woman we hate—­very naturally!  Her looks are a reproach to us, and we like to kill her when we can—­and we often succeed morally,—­but that is not called murder.  The other way of killing is judged as a crime—­and—­then—­ the punishment is death!”

As this word passed his lips in a whisper, he trembled violently.  Death!  It had a chill sound—­yet he had not thought so when he associated it with Angela.  For of course Angela was dead.  Was she not?  Surely she must be—­he had driven the dagger straight home!

“She could not possibly live,” he muttered—­“Not after such a well directed blow.  And that amazing picture!  If I could but claim it as my work, I should be the greatest artist in the world!  It would be quite easy to make out a proof—­only that cursed dagger-sheath is in the way!”

He was startled out of his reverie by another stoppage of the carriage, and this time the driver jumped down from his box and came to the door.

“This is as far as I can take you, Signor,” he said, looking curiously at his passenger,—­“It is quite half way to Frascati.  There is the inn I told you of—­where those lights are,” and he pointed towards the left,—­“The carriage road does not go up to it.  It is a great place for artists!”

“I am not an artist!” said Varillo brusquely.

“No?  But artists are merry company, Eccellenza!—­” suggested the driver, wishing to make up for his previous sulkiness by an excess of amiability—­“And for a night, the albergo is a pleasant resting place on the way to Frascati, for even the brigands who sup there are good-natured!”