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.
If she had been pale before, she grew paler now. All the brilliancy of her complexion faded for the moment into an awful haggardness. She took the ring with fingers that shook visibly and were icy cold. There was no attempt at smiling now. She drew a sharp quick breath; she thought I knew all. I was again silent. She looked at the diamond signet with a bewildered air.
"I do not understand," she murmured, petulantly. "I gave him this as a remembrance of his friend, my husband, why does he return it?"
Self-tortured criminal! I studied her with a dark amusement, but answered nothing. Suddenly she looked up at me and her eyes filled with tears.
"Why are you so cold and strange, Cesare?" she pleaded, in a sort of plaintive whimper. "Do not stand there like a gloomy sentinel; kiss me and tell me at once what has happened."