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Scarcely had Abellino achieved the bloody deed which employed every tongue in Venice, when he changed his dress and whole appearance with so much expedition and success as to prevent the slightest suspicion of his being Matteo's murderer. He quitted the gardens unquestioned, nor left the least trace which could lead to a discovery. He arrived at Cinthia's dwelling. It was already evening.
He and Pepina had no time, now that the vintage had begun, to attend to such affairs, even if they knew how. Silvia grew pale. She had not expected to go before the spring, and now all was arranged without a word being said to her, and she was to go without saying good-bye to any one. Matteo's sharp eyes were watching her.
He waited till the sound of closing doors and wandering voices told that the inhabitants gathered for the evening in the Lungara were separating to their homes, then went reluctantly away. Matteo would be at home, and Matteo's face might look down at him from that other window beside Silvia's.
An hour after Matteo left him, a retainer of the family brought Francis a letter from Signor Giustiniani, inviting him to come to his house that evening, as many of Matteo's comrades on board the Pluto would be present.
"You know as well as I that these miniatures are very mediocre, and that they do not in the least resemble Matteo's compact work; and another proof is that the prayerbook is dated 1554. See!" and, with his remaining hand, very adroitly he showed the merchant the figures; "and as I have quite a memory for dates, and as I am interested in Siena, I have not forgotten that Matteo died before 1500.
But Francis paid no attention to Matteo's words. He was gazing down into the clear smooth water, which was so transparent that every stone and pebble at the bottom could be seen. "The water looks extremely shallow, Giuseppi. What do you think?" "It seems to me, signor, that there is not a foot of water between the rocks and the shore."
He thought that Don Teodoro looked ill and tired, and as it was a fine day they walked the short distance from Don Matteo's house to the café where the priest had sat with Bosio, and they each drank a cup of chocolate. Don Matteo observed that the tenth of December had been a fine day in the preceding year, too, and Don Teodoro tried to remember in what year it had last rained on that date.
"Why, of course," the signora replied, rather confused by this irresistible argument, "you have the right, and no one will resist you. But as a favor now " and the signora assumed her most coaxing smile, and even advanced a plump white hand to touch Matteo's sleeve. She might as well have tried to bewitch and persuade the bronze Augustus on the Capitoline Hill.
Without uttering a single cry, sank the banditti captain at the feet of Abellino: the death-rattle was heard in his throat, and after a few horrible convulsions all was over. Now did Matteo's murderer look again towards the arbour, and beheld Rosabella half senseless, as she lay on the bank of turf.
"Confusion!" exclaimed Parozzi, a Venetian nobleman of the first rank, as he paced his chamber with a disordered air on the morning after Matteo's murder; "now all curses light upon the villain's awkwardness; yet it seems inconceivable to me how all this should have fallen out so untowardly. Has any one discovered my designs? I know well that Verrino loves Rosabella.
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