"Lives!" He muttered. "She lives! Then it must be by a miracle! For
I drove the steel deep . . . deep home!"
Gherardi looked at him curiously, with the air of a scientist
watching some animal writhing under vivisection.
"Perhaps Cardinal Felix prayed for her!" he said mockingly, "and
even as he healed the crippled child in Rouen he may have raised his
niece from the dead! But miracle or no miracle, she lives. That is
why I am here!"
"Why--you--are--here?" repeated Varillo mechanically.
"How dull you are!" said Gherardi tauntingly. "A man like you with a
dozen secret intrigues in Rome, should surely be able to grasp a
situation better! Angela Sovrani lives, I tell you,--I am here to
help you to kill her more surely! Your first attempt was clumsy,--
and dangerous to yourself, but--murder her reputation, amico, murder
her reputation!--and so build up your own!"
Slowly Varillo turned his eyes upon him. Gherardi met them
unflinchingly, and in that one glance the two were united in the
spirit of their evil intention.
"You are a man," went on Gherardi, watching him closely. "Will you
permit yourself to be baffled and beaten in the race for fame by a
woman? Shame on you if you do! Listen! I am prepared to swear that
you are innocent of having attempted the murder of your affianced
wife, and I will also assert that the greater part of her picture
was painted by you, though you were, out of generosity and love for
her, willing to let her take the credit of the whole conception!"
Varillo started upright.
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