THE FOOL ERRANT - World eBook Library - World Public Library

I!" Quivering, breathing fire and anger, beautiful as a goddess and wicked as a fiend—what was I to say to this terrible witness?
She had stayed for lack of breath, panting, tapping her foot, her bosom heaving like the sea under her close arms—and I was
face to face with her, alone, with ruin between us. So with a stamp of her little foot, so with a flick of the fingers, it seems, she
had broken her own image and killed love outright. There and then love died, and his funeral knell was the horrid barking
laughter with which I greeted this end of her story.
"Madam," I said, when I had laughed hatefully and long, "I have robbed you of a lover, and you, in return, have robbed me of
my love. You ought to be as much obliged to me as I am to you."
She scowled at me darkly. I think she would have stabbed me gladly, but just then the warder entered with my servant, and an
official from the palace. This latter, with a profound salutation, handed me a letter from the count. Asking leave, I opened it and
read as follows:
MY DEAR DON FRANCIS,—I have just learned, with concern, that you are in prison upon two charges—one false, and
another which is trumpery. I hasten to assure you that orders have been given which will satisfy your sense of justice, and, I
hope, improve your opinion of myself. I believe that by this time you will have been assured that it was not I who betrayed your
confidences to Semifonte—who, between you and me, has got his deserts, or (according to the orthodox) must now be getting
them. As for my more recent offence—the real ground of our little encounter—I can assure you of this, that if I ever make any
such assertion again, and you again call me a liar, I shall not resent it; for a liar I shall be. I kiss your hands and am, with the
most perfect esteem,
"My dear Don Francis,
"Your most obedient, faithful, humble servant,
"COUNT AMADEO GIRALDI.
"P. S.—It may be discreet in you to repair to Lucca for the summer heats. Pray command me in any occasion you may have."
My doors were set open. The first use I made of my freedom was to escort Donna Aurelia to her chair. Without a word
spoken between us, I handed her in and shut to the door. The chairman asked me for a direction.
"To the house of Dr. Lanfranchi the learned judge," I said.
CHAPTER XLVII. THE FINAL PROOF
Free in every sense of the term—free, of prison, free of debt (for if Aurelia had paid me, I had now paid her husband), free of
every obligation but guilt, I was all on fire for Lucca and that service which is perfect freedom, voluntary bondage to Virginia,
whom I could now love whole-heartedly as she deserved. Artemis! Artemis! Chaster than a fire— what wonder is it that she
had prevailed in that dream-strife which I had witnessed in the villa garden, what wonder when she had to contend with the
soiled wife of a vile man—with Aurelia, the lovely, caressing, silken woman, bought by a place, bought by a house, who,
possessed by two men, sought yet another. Ah, thou glowing, honey-tongued, unhappy one, in what a horrible web of affairs
was I enmeshed along with thee! What a world was that into which I went ruffling with my money, and rank and fine prospects!
Never more, never more would I enter that world of bargain and sale.
So I swore, and so purposed; but in pursuance of a plan which I had formed in my most private mind, I travelled to Lucca in a
coach and four horses, with postillions before and my body-servant behind. On this occasion I was furnished with a passport
and abundance of money. All my property in Florence, all my household gear had been transferred to the city of my choice. I
left behind me in Florence not one vestige of myself, and (so far as I know) not one true friend. I intended to be two days upon
the road, and lay the night at Empoli; early on the following morning, a fine day in early autumn, I departed from the inn for my
final stage, and fared without incident as far as Ponte a Cappiano.
Before the hill of Altopascio is reached, the traveller must accomplish a lonely stretch of road, which runs for some three miles
through a ragged wood. This place bears a bad name; it is debatable land, as we say, between the Republic of Lucca and the
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