He resumed his smoking, and we all three lapsed into silence.  The drive seemed very long, though in reality the distance was not great.  At last we passed the Casa Ghirlande, a superb chateau belonging to a distinguished nobleman who in former days had been a friendly neighbor to me, and then our vehicle jolted down a gentle declivity which sloped into a small valley, where there was a good-sized piece of smooth flat greensward.  From this spot could be faintly discerned the castellated turrets of my own house, the Villa Romani.  Here we came to a standstill.  Vincenzo jumped briskly down from his seat beside the coachman, and assisted us to alight.  The carriage then drove off to a retired corner behind some trees.  We surveyed the ground, and saw that as yet only one person beside ourselves had arrived.  This was the surgeon, a dapper good-humored little German who spoke bad French and worse Italian, and who shook hands cordially with us all.  On learning who I was he bowed low and smiled very amiably.  “The best wish I can offer to you, signor,” he said, “is that you may have no occasion for my services.  You have reposed yourself?  That is well—­sleep steadies the nerves.  Ach! you shiver!  True it is, the morning is cold.”

I did indeed experience a passing shudder, but not because the air was chilly.  It was because I felt certain—­so terribly certain, of killing the man I had once loved well.  Almost I wished I could also feel that there was the slightest possibility of his killing me; but no!—­all my instincts told me there was no chance of this.  I had a sort of sick pain at my heart, and as I thought of her, the jewel-eyed snake who had wrought all the evil, my wrath against her increased tenfold.  I wondered scornfully what she was doing away in the quiet convent where the sacred Host, unveiled, glittered on the altar like a star of the morning.  No doubt she slept; it was yet too early for her to practice her sham sanctity.  She slept, in all probability most peacefully, while her husband and her lover called upon death to come and decide between them.  The slow clear strokes of a bell chiming from the city tolled six, and as its last echo trembled mournfully on the wind there was a slight stir among my companions.  I looked and saw Ferrari approaching with his two associates.  He walked slowly, and was muffled in a thick cloak; his hat was pulled over his brows, and I could not see the expression of his face, as he did not turn his head once in my direction, but stood apart leaning against the trunk of a leafless tree.  The seconds on both sides now commenced measuring the ground.

“We are agreed as to the distance, gentlemen,” said the marquis.  “Twenty paces, I think?”

“Twenty paces,” stiffly returned one of Ferrari’s friends—­a battered-looking middle-aged roue with ferocious mustachios, whom I presumed was Captain Ciabatti.