“Shall I drive up to the house?” he asked, looking as though he would rather be spared this trouble.

“No,” I answered, indifferently, “you need not.  The distance is short, we will walk.”

And I stepped out into the road and paid him his money.

“You seem anxious to get back to the city, my friend,” I said, half jocosely.

“Si, davvero!” he replied, with decision, “I hope to get many a good fare from the Count Oliva’s marriage-ball to-night.”

“Ah! he is a rich fellow, that count,” I said, as I assisted my wife to alight, keeping her cloak well muffled round her so that this common fellow should not perceive the glitter of her costly costume; “I wish I were he!”

The man grinned and nodded emphatically.  He had no suspicion of my identity.  He took me, in all probability, for one of those “gay gallants” so common in Naples, who, on finding at some public entertainment a “dama” to their taste, hurry her off, carefully cloaked and hooded, to a mysterious nook known only to themselves, where they can complete the romance of the evening entirely to their own satisfaction.  Bidding me a lively buona notte, he sprung on his box again, jerked his horse’s head violently round with a volley of oaths, and drove away at a rattling pace.  Nina, standing on the road beside me, looked after him with a bewildered air.

“Could he not have waited to take us back?” she asked.

“No,” I answered, brusquely; “we shall return by a different route.  Come.”

And passing my arm round her, I led her onward.  She shivered slightly, and there was a sound of querulous complaint in her voice as she said: 

“Have we to go much further, Cesare?”

“Three minutes, walk will bring us to our destination,” I replied, briefly, adding in a softer tone, “Are you cold?”

“A little,” and she gathered her sables more closely about her and pressed nearer to my side.  The capricious moon here suddenly leaped forth like the pale ghost of a frenzied dancer, standing tiptoe on the edge of a precipitous chasm of black clouds.  Her rays, pallidly green and cold, fell full on the dreary stretch of land before us, touching up with luminous distinctness those white mysterious milestones of the Campo Santo which mark where the journeys of men, women, and children began and where they left off, but never explain in what new direction they are now traveling.  My wife saw and stopped, trembling violently.

“What place is this?” she asked, nervously.

In all her life she had never visited a cemetery—­she had too great a horror of death.

“It is where I keep all my treasures,” I answered, and my voice sounded strange and harsh in my own ears, while I tightened my grasp of her full, warm waist.  “Come with me, my beloved!” and in spite of my efforts, my tone was one of bitter mockery.  “With me you need have no fear!  Come.”

And I led her on, too powerless to resist my force, too startled to speak—­on, on, on, over the rank dewy grass and unmarked ancient graves—­on, till the low frowning gate of the house of my dead ancestors faced me—­on, on, on, with the strength of ten devils in my arm as I held her—­on, on, on, to her just doom!