In accordance with my instructions a rich crimson carpet had been laid down from the very edge of the pavement right into the church as far as the altar; a silken awning had also been erected, under which bloomed a miniature avenue of palms and tropical flowers.  All eyes were turned upon me curiously as I stepped from my carriage and entered the chapel, side by side with the duke, and murmurs of my vast wealth and generosity were audibly whispered as I passed along.  One old crone, hideously ugly, but with large, dark piercing eyes, the fading lamps of a lost beauty, chuckled and mumbled as she craned her skinny throat forward to observe me more closely.  “Ay, ay!  The saints know he need be rich and generous—­pover’uomo to fill her mouth.  A little red cruel mouth always open, that swallows money like macaroni, and laughs at the suffering poor!  Ah! that is bad, bad!  He need be rich to satisfy her!”

The Duke di Marina caught these words and glanced quickly at me, but I affected not to have heard.  Inside the chapel there were a great number of people, but my own invited guests, not numbering more than twenty or thirty, were seated in the space apportioned to them near the altar, which was divided from the mere sight-seers by means of a silken rope that crossed the aisle.  I exchanged greetings with most of these persons, and in return received their congratulations; then I walked with a firm deliberate step up to the high altar and there waited.  The magnificent paintings on the wall round me seemed endowed with mysterious life—­the grand heads of saints and martyrs were turned upon me as though they demanded—­“Must thou do this thing?  Hast thou no forgiveness?”

And ever my stern answer, “Nay; if hereafter I am tortured in eternal flame for all ages, yet now—­now while I live, I will be avenged!”

A bleeding Christ suspended on His cross gazed at me reproachfully with long-enduring eyes of dreadful anguish—­eyes that seemed to say, “Oh, erring man, that tormentest thyself with passing passions, shall not thine own end approach speedily?—­and what comfort wilt thou have in thy last hour?”

And inwardly I answered, “None!  No shred of consolation can ever again be mine—­no joy, save fulfilled revenge!  And this I will possess though the heavens should crack and the earth split asunder!  For once a woman’s treachery shall meet with punishment—­for once such strange uncommon justice shall be done!”

And my spirit wrapped itself again in somber meditative silence.  The sunlight fell gloriously through the stained windows—­blue, gold, crimson, and violet shafts of dazzling radiance glittered in lustrous flickering patterns on the snowy whiteness of the marble altar, and slowly, softly, majestically, as though an angel stepped forward, the sound of music stole on the incense-laden air.  The unseen organist played a sublime voluntary of Palestrina’s, and the round harmonious notes came falling gently on one another like drops from a fountain trickling on flowers.