Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 2).djvu/195

 by the ghastly story. Passion and death seemed to pass by her like the scorch of fire, like the chill of a grave.

'Does that old wicked man still live?' she asked.

'No doubt. He had his vengeance. After love it is the sweetest thing on earth. I know not how I came to touch the dagger, the foul thing, but being thus found with it in my hand was proof enough for the dolts who were my jury. Besides, old Piero di Albano was a man of weight in our poor ruined city, and I was an idler and a titled beggar. So he had his way. He laid her in her grave with a black cruel hole in her beautiful breast, and he sent me out amongst felons, to parch my life away like a dog chained in the sun, without a drop of water near, who looks up at the hot brazen skies till he is mad. Whilst I was in my cell a written paper, unsigned, was brought to me, which told me she had been as faithless to me as to her lord. It might be so; I know not. Or it might be but her husband's lie. This I know—love is a sorcerer's poison. It burns the brain to ashes, and shrivels the soul up in its heat, till it is no more than the cast coat of the tree-cricket.'