"Your husband!" He strode
forward with a threatening movement--then stopped short, as he
confronted Aubrey Leigh. "Your husband! So! You are married then!"--
and he laughed fiercely--"Married by the law, and excommunicated by
the Church! A pleasant position for the last of the Hermensteins!
Contessa, by your own act you have ruined the fortunes of your
friends! I would have held my peace at your will,--but now all Rome
shall know the truth!" "The truth according to the convenience of
papal Rome?" queried Aubrey Leigh--"The truth, as expounded to the
Comtesse Hermenstein in your interview with her yesterday?"
Gherardi looked him over with superb indifference.
"My interview with the Comtesse Hermenstein was a private one"--he
said,--"And if a spy was present, he must prove himself a spy. And
we of the Church do not accept a spy's testimony!"
White with indignation Aubrey sprang forward,--but Cyrillon
Vergniaud restrained him. "Patience!" he said in a low tone--"Let
him have his way for the moment--it will then be my turn!"
"My word is law in Rome!"--went on Gherardi--"Whatsoever I choose to
say will be confirmed and ratified by the greatest authority in the
world--the Pope! I am ready to swear that Florian Varillo painted
that picture,--and the Pope is ready to believe it! Who will admit
such a masterpiece to be a woman's work? No one! Each member of the
house of Sovrani can bear witness to the fact that no one ever saw
Angela Sovrani painting it! But I know the whole story--I was the
last to see Florian Varillo before his death--and he confessed the
truth--that he had worked for his betrothed wife in order to give
her the greater fame! So that he was not, and could not have been
her assassin--"
"Then her assassin must be found!" said Prince Pietro suddenly.
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