I sat long with my head on my hands, thinking—­the world about me in ruins, never to be built up.  Then I went up to my room, paused at the wardrobe, changed my black coat to that in which I had arrived, and went softly down-stairs again.  The waning moon had just risen late, and threw a weird light over the ranges of buildings, the gateways and towers.

I walked swiftly to the outer gate, and, there leaping a hedge of flowering plants, I fled down the mountain through the vineyards.  I went swiftly, eager to escape from Castel del Monte, but in the tangle of walls and fences it was not easy to advance.  At the parting of three ways I paused, uncertain in which direction to proceed.  Suddenly, without warning, a dark figure stepped from some hidden place.  I saw the gleam of something bright.  I knew that I was smitten.  Waves of white-hot metal ran suddenly in upon my brain, and I knew no more.

When I awoke, my first thought was that I was back again in the room where Lucia and I had talked together.  I felt something perfumed and soft like a caress.  It seemed like the filmy lace that the Countess wore upon her shoulder.  My head lay against it.  I heard a voice say, as it had been in my ear, through the murmuring floods of many waters—­“My boy! my boy!  And I, wicked one that I was, sent you to this!”

All the time she who spoke was busy binding something to the place on my side where the pain burned like white metal.  And as she did so she crooned softly over me, saying as before—­“My poor boy! my poor boy!” It was like the murmuring of a dove over its nestling.  Again and again I was borne away from her and from myself on the floods of great waters.  The universe alternately opened out to infinite horrors of vastness, and shrank to pinpoint dimensions to crush me.  Through it all I heard my love’s voice, and was content to let my head bide just where it lay.

Ever and anon I came to the surface, as a diver does lest he die.  I heard myself say—­“It was an error in judgment!” ...  Then after a pause—­“nothing but an error in judgment.”

And I felt that on which my head rested shake with a little earthquake of hysterical laughter.  The strain had been too great, yet I had said the right word.

“Yes,” she said softly, “my poor boy, it has been indeed an error in judgment for both of us!”

“But a blessed error, Lucia,” I said, answering her when she least expected it.

A dark shape flitted before my dazzled eyes.

The Countess looked up.  “Leonardi!” she called, “tell me, has one of your people done this?”

“Nay,” said the man, “none of the servants of the Bond nor yet of the Mafia.  Pietro the muleteer hath done it of his own evil heart for robbery.  Here are the watch and purse!”

“And the murderer—­where is he?” said again Lucia.  “Let him be brought!”

“He has had an accident, Excellency.  He is dead,” said Leonardi simply.