"
And presently Madonna Gemma, peering from her chamber window, saw
her husband, with a ghastly pretense of care, lead young Raffaele
Muti down the hill into the darkness from which there came never a
sound. It was midnight when Lapo Cercamorte reentered the castle,
and called for food and drink.
Now the shadow over the Big Hornets' Nest obscured even the glare of
the summer sun. No winsome illusion of nature's could brighten this
little world that had at last turned quite sinister. In the air that
Madonna Gemma breathed was always a chill of horror. At night the
thick walls seemed to sweat with it, and the silence was like a great
hand pressed across a mouth struggling to give vent to a scream.
At dinner in the hall she ate nothing, but drank her wine as though
burning with a fever. Sometimes, when the stillness had become
portentous, Lapo rolled up his sleeves, inspected his scarred,
swarthy arms, and mumbled, with the grin of a man stretched on the
rack:
"Ah, Father and Son! if only one had a skin as soft, white, and
delicate as a girl's!"
At this Madonna Gemma left the table.
Once more her brow became bleaker than a winter mountain; her eyes
were haggard from nightmares; she trembled at every sound.
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