Page:Maurice Hewlett--Little novels of Italy.djvu/225

Rh what he read as they glimmered over his wife. In one of his hands (never still) he had a long knife, very lean in the blade.

"Ah, what do you want of me more, Amilcare?" It was Molly spoke first, in a whisper.

He croaked his reply. "I am going to kill you."

"Oh! oh! You are going to kill me, my lord?"

"You have sold me to my enemy. He is your lover."

"No, no! I have no lover, Amilcare; I have never had a lover."

"Liar!" he thundered. "If he had not been your lover you would not have spared his life. There can be no other reason. I am not a fool."

To Grifone that was just what he appeared. To her some ray of her own soul's honest logic showed at the last.

"Amilcare!" she cried out, on her knees, "Amilcare, listen, I pray you. I have done you no wrong; I implore you not to hurt me; I have done you honour. It was because I loved you that I saved his life. I speak the truth, my lord, I speak the truth."

"I have never thought you to speak otherwise; but I have been wrong, it appears. The excuse is monstrous. I am going to kill you."

The miserable girl turned him a pinched face. She searched for any shred of what she had known in him, but all the deadly mask of him she saw told her nothing. She began to be witless again, to wring her hands, to whimper and whine.

Amilcare looked fixedly at her, every muscle in his face rigid as stone. So, as he ruminated, some whisp [sic] of his racing thought caught light