"The English signore is in the garden," he said. Marcantonio smiled more sweetly than ever and got out of his conveyance.
"You can wait," he said to the driver, and the latter touched his battered straw hat.
Marcantonio followed the man through a great court, where there were trees, into a long, tiled passage that seemed to run through the house, and, on the other side, he emerged into a garden, thick with laurel-trees and geraniums. The man led the way. Marcantonio's hand crept stealthily into his breast pocket underneath his coat, and raised the lock of the revolver very slowly. The man in front did not hear the small, sharp click.
"Where is he?" asked Marcantonio, very gently, still smiling an unnaturally sweet smile. The servant had stopped and was looking about.
"I was told they were here," said he; "but they must be in the summer-house outside."
Again he led the way to a small door in the garden wall. It was open.
"There they are, signore," said he, pointing with his finger and standing aside to let Marcantonio pass.
He looked, and saw two people sitting in the dilapidated old bower above the water, not twenty yards from where he stood.
It was five o'clock in the afternoon. Diana had taken the train at two, and could not reach Cuneo till six.
Leonora's utter recklessness of delight could not last very long. It was a strange mood, as unnatural and uncontrollable at first as her husband's madness. She could not help enjoying to the utmost the new life that had so suddenly begun for her. She knew in her heart that she had bought it at a great price, and she knew that she must make the most of it, or she would have to reproach herself with the bargain.
It was easy enough at first. The quick change had thrown all her thoughts into a new channel. From the midnight departure she had no more time to think, until the long, quiet days at Pesio. There were moments when she was on the verge of thinking, of remembering the past, and wondering how her husband had acted. But she felt that it would be very unpleasant to reflect on these things. It might take her a long time to get out of the train of thought, as it used to do long ago whenever she had one of her fits of philosophical despair; she was able to put it off, and she seemed to be saying to herself, 'I shall have time to think about it, and to satisfy my conscience by feeling the proper amount of regret by and by.'