he women had always
hated her for her superior beauty, and the men had always borne her a
grudge for her saucy disdain of them, and that way of bearing herself as
though a beggar from Bocca d'Arno were a queen.

"Neighbors put up with her pride while she was on the sunny side of the
street," said Candida, with grim satisfaction, "but now she is in the
shade they'll fling the stones fast enough." And she was ready to fling
her own stone. Generosa had always seemed an impudent jade to her,
coming and talking with Don Gesualdo, as she did, at all hours, and as
though the church and the sacristy were open bazaars!

How that day passed, and how he bore himself through all its functions,
he never knew. It was the dead of night, when he, still dressed, and
unable even to think calmly, clasping his crucifix in his hands, and
pacing to and fro his narrow chamber with restless and uneven steps,
heard his name called by the voice of a man in great agitation, and,
looking out of his casement, saw Falko Melegari on his gray horse, which
was covered with foam and sweating as from a hard gallop.

"Is it true?" he cried, a score of times.

"Yes, it is all true," said Gesualdo. His voice was stern and cold: he
could not tell what share this man might not have had in the crime.

"But she is innocent as that bird in the air," screamed her lover,
pointing to a scops owl which was sailing above the cypresses.

Gesualdo bowed his head and spread out his hands, palm downward, in a
gesture which meant hopeless doubt.

"I went away at dark into the town to buy cattle," said the steward,
with sobs in his throat. "I rode out by the opposite road. I knew naught
of it. Oh, my God, why was I not here? They should not have taken her
without its costing them hard."

"You would have done her no good," said Gesualdo, coldly. "You have done
her harm enough already," he added, after a pause. Falko did not resent
the words: the tears were falling like rain down his cheeks, his hands
were clinched on his saddle-bow, the horse stretched its foam-flecked
neck unheeded.

"Who did it? Who could do it? He had many enemies. He was a hard man,"
he muttered.

Gesualdo gave a gesture of hopeless doubt and ignorance. He looked down
on the lover's handsome face and head in the moonlight. There was a
strange expression in his own eyes.

"Curse you for a cold-hearted priest," thought the young steward, with
bitterness. Then he wheeled his horse sharply roun