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D'Arbino and Finello exchanged glances behind him as he rose from the sofa on which he had hitherto been lying. "We will help you in everything," said D'Arbino, soothingly. "Trust in us to the end. What do you wish to do first?" "The figure must have gone through this room. Let us descend the staircase and ask the servants if they have seen it pass." They inquired down to the very courtyard.
"It is not for want of perseverance on my part," said D'Arbino, after a moment of silence, "that we are still left in the dark. Ever since the extraordinary statement of the coachman who drove the woman home, I have been inquiring and investigating.
He must be carefully prepared for all that we have to tell him; and must be kept quite in the dark until those preparations are made." D'Arbino answered the doctor's summons in person; and Nanina repeated her story to him. He and the doctor remained closeted together for some time after she had concluded her narrative and had retired.
"You are prepared, then," pursued Brigida, smiling, "to give a reward of two hundred scudi to any one able to tell you who the woman is who wore the yellow mask at the Marquis Melani's ball, and how she contrived to personate the face and figure of the late Countess d'Ascoli?" "Of course we are prepared," answered D'Arbino, a little irritably.
Fabio started up, and his friend followed his example. Again the gleaming black eyes rested steadily on the young nobleman's face, and again their look chilled him to the heart. "Yellow Lady, do you know my friend?" exclaimed D'Arbino, with mock solemnity. There was no answer. The fatal eyes never moved from Fabio's face. "Yellow Lady," continued the other, "listen to the music.
D'Arbino led Fabio in this direction, exchanging greetings as he advanced with a gentleman who stood near the glass looking into it, and carelessly fanning himself with his mask. "My dear friend!" cried D'Arbino, "you are the very man to lead us straight to the best bottle of wine in the palace.
The instant the last answer was given, he reeled back with a cry of horror. "Where have you taken her to now?" asked D'Arbino. He looked about him nervously as he put the question, and spoke for the first time in a whisper. "To the Campo Santo again," said the coachman. Fabio suddenly drew his arms out of the arms of his friends, and sank to his knees on the ground, hiding his face.
Glasses there! three glasses, my lovely shepherdess with the black eyes the three largest you have got." The glasses were brought; the Cavaliere Finello chose a particular bottle, and filled them. All three gentlemen turned round to the sideboard to use it as a table, and thus necessarily faced the looking-glass. "Now let us drink the toast of toasts," said D'Arbino.
This was a fortunate movement; for the doctor's last words were hardly out of his mouth before Brigida seized a heavy ruler lying, with some writing materials, on the table. In another instant, if D'Arbino had not caught her arm, she would have hurled it at Nanina's head.
"Proofs! there you will find one proof that establishes my claim beyond the possibility of doubt." The doctor opened the box, and looked at the wax mask inside it; then handed it to D'Arbino, and replaced the bag of scudi on the table. "The contents of that box seem certainly to explain a great deal," he said, pushing the bag gently toward Brigida, but always keeping his, hand over it.
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