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 him, and went to the place where Joconda's coffin lay, even as she had done the night before. She shut to the stone doors and threw herself upon her knees, and prayed passionately.

He dared not follow her.

He remained in the gloom of the Lucumo's chamber, alone with his thoughts.

Before his vision stretched the pale, cold body of his murdered mistress, with the moonbeams finding out the death-wound in her breast. Her voice that was for ever silent seemed to rise and cry at his ear:

'Our hours of joy cost me my life; and already hast thou forgotten?'

Already he had forgotten; rather had done worse than forget; had upbraided and cursed her memory because of the fate that through her had befallen him; had done his very uttermost to thrust away from him remembrance of one in whom for three long years he had seen his heaven, his arbiter, his treasure, his supreme destiny.

A vague sense of shame stole on him.

Did he love this other now, he who in the moonlit luminous Mantuan nights had sworn his love eternal as the stars?

Was this new-born passion love indeed?