“I trust you were not offended at my remark concerning Nina Romani’s marriage with you?  I fear I was too hasty?”

“Not so, madame,” I answered, with all the earnestness I felt.  “Nothing is more pleasant to me than a frank opinion frankly spoken.  I have been so accustomed to deception—­” Here I broke off and added hastily, “Pray do not think me capable of judging you wrongly.”

She seemed relieved, and smiling that shadowy, flitting smile of hers, she said: 

“No doubt you are impatient, signor; Nina shall come to you directly,” and with a slight salutation she left me.

Surely she was a good woman, I thought, and vaguely wondered about her past history—­that past which she had buried forever under a mountain of prayers.  What had she been like when young—­before she had shut herself within the convent walls—­before she had set the crucifix like a seal on her heart?  Had she ever trapped a man’s soul and strangled it with lies?  I fancied not—­her look was too pure and candid; yet who could tell?  Were not Nina’s eyes trained to appear as though they held the very soul of truth?  A few minutes passed.  I heard the fresh voices of children singing in the next room: 

  “D’ou vient le petit Gesu? 
    Ce joli bouton de rose
    Qui fleurit, enfant cheri
   Sur le coeur de notre mere Marie.”

Then came a soft rustle of silken garments, the door opened, and my wife entered.

CHAPTER XXVII.

She approached with her usual panther-like grace and supple movement, her red lips parted in a charming smile.

“So good of you to come!” she began, holding out her two hands as though she invited an embrace; “and on Christmas morning too!” She paused, and seeing that I did not move or speak, she regarded me with some alarm.  “What is the matter?” she asked, in fainter tones; “has anything happened?”

I looked at her.  I saw that she was full of sudden fear, I made no attempt to soothe her, I merely placed a chair.

“Sit down,” I said, gravely.  “I am the bearer of bad news.”

She sunk into the chair as though unnerved, and gazed at me with terrified eyes.  She trembled.  Watching her keenly, I observed all these outward signs of trepidation with deep satisfaction.  I saw plainly what was passing in her mind.  A great dread had seized her—­ the dread that I had found out her treachery.  So indeed I had, but the time had not yet come for her to know it.  Meanwhile she suffered—­suffered acutely with that gnawing terror and suspense eating into her soul.  I said nothing, I waited for her to speak.  After a pause, during which her cheeks had lost their delicate bloom, she said, forcing a smile as she spoke—­

“Bad news?  You surprise me!  What can it be?  Some unpleasantness with Guido?  Have you seen him?”

“I have seen him,” I answered in the same formal and serious tone; “I have just left him.  He sends you this,” and I held out my diamond ring that I had drawn off the dead man’s finger.