In five
minutes he had fallen fast asleep, and it was with difficulty she could
persuade him to abandon the couch and drag his weary limbs up to bed,
where he threw himself down in a profound slumber. Harriet was also
tired. Her husband was breathing heavily as she slipped into her place
beside him. His arm was thrown out over her pillow, as though he feared
she might go to sleep without remembering to wish him good-night! She
bent over him and kissed him passionately on the lips. “Good-night, my beloved,” she whispered, “sleep well, and wake in
happiness!”

She kissed the big hand too that lay upon her pillow and composed
herself to sleep while it still encircled her. The dawn is early in Florence, but it had broken for some time before
she roused herself again. The sun was streaming brightly into the
long, narrow, uncurtained windows, and everything it lighted on was
touched with a molten glory. Harriet started up in bed. Her husband’s
arm was still beneath her body. “Oh! my poor darling!” she exclaimed, as though the fault were her own,
“how cramped he must be! How soundly we must have slept not to have
once moved through the night!”

She raised Tony’s arm and commenced to chafe it. How strangely heavy
and cold it felt. Why! he was cold all over! She drew up the bedclothes
and tucked them in around his chin. Then, for the first time, she
looked at his face. His eyes were open. “Tony, Tony!” she exclaimed, “are you making fun of me? Have you been
awake all the time?”

She bent over his face laughingly, and pressed a kiss upon his cheek. How stiff it felt! My God! what was the matter? Could he have fainted? She leapt from the bed, and running to her husband’s side, pulled down
the bedclothes again and placed her hand upon his heart. The body was
cold--cold and still all over! His eyes were glazed and dull. His
mouth was slightly open. In one awful moment she knew the truth. Tony
was--_dead_! She stood for some moments--some hours--some months--she could not
have reckoned the time, silent and motionless, trying to realise what
had occurred. Then--as it came upon her, like a resistless flood which
she could not stem, nor escape, Harriet gave one fearful shriek which
brought the servants hurrying upstairs to know what could be the
matter. “I have killed my husband--I have killed him--it was I myself who did
it!” was all that she would say. Of course they did not believe her. They accepted the unmeaning words
as part of their mistress’s frenzy at her sudden and unexpected loss. They saw what had happened, and they ran breathlessly for a doctor, who
confirmed their worst fears--the Signor was dead! The old palazzo became like a disturbed ant-hill. The servants ran
hither and thither, unknowing how to act, whilst the mistress sat by
the bedside with staring, tearless eyes, holding the hand of her dead
husband. But there were a dozen things to be done--half a hundred
orders to be issued. Death in Florence is quickly followed by burial. The law does not permit a mourner to lament his Dead for more than
four-and-twenty hours. But the signora would give no orders for the funeral nor answer any
questions put to her! She had no friends in Florence--for ought they
knew, she had no money--what were they to do? At last one of them
thought of the neighbouring Convent of the Annunciation and ran to
implore one of the good sisters to come to their mistress in her
extremity. Shortly afterwards, Sister Angelica entered the bedroom where Harriet
sat murmuring at intervals, “It is _I_ who have killed him,” and
attempted to administer comfort to the young mourner. But her words
and prayers had no effect upon Harriet. Her brain could hold but one
idea--she had killed Tony! Doctor Phillips was right--it was she who
had killed Margaret Pullen’s baby and Bobby Bates, and to look further
back, little Caroline, and now--now, her Tony! the light of her life,
the passion of her being, the essence of all her joy--her hope for
this world and the next. She had killed him--_she_, who worshipped
him, whose pride was bound up in him, who was to have helped him and
comforted him and waited on him all his life--she had killed him! Her dry lips refused to say the words distinctly, but they kept
revolving in her brain until they dazed and wearied her. The little
sister stood by her and held her hand, as the professional assistants
entered the death chamber and arranged and straightened the body for
the grave, finally placing it in a coffin and carrying it away to a
mortuary where it would have to remain until buried on the morrow, but
Harriet made no resistance to the ceremony and no sign. She did not
even say “Good-bye” as Tony was carried from her sight for ever! Sister
Angelica talked to her of the glorious Heaven where they must hope that
her dear husband would be translated, of the peace and happiness he
would enjoy, of the reunion which awaited them when her term of life
was also past. She pressed her to make the Convent her refuge until the first agony
of her loss was overcome--reminded her of the peace and rest she would
encounter within the cloisters, and how the whole fraternity would
unite in praying for the soul of her beloved that he might speedily
obtain the remission of his sins and an entrance into the Beatific
Presence. Harriet listened dully and at last in order to get rid of her
well-intentioned but rather wearisome consoler, she promised to do all
that she wished. Let the sister return to the Convent for the present,
and on the morrow if she would come for her at the same time, she
might take her back with her. She wanted rest and peace--she would be
thankful for them, poor Harriet said--only to-night, this one night
more, she wished to be alone. So the good little sister went away
rejoicing that she had succeeded in her errand of mercy, and looking
forward to bearing the poor young widow to the Convent on the morrow,
there to learn the true secret of earthly happiness. When she had gone and the old palazzo was quiet and empty, the
bewildered girl rose to her feet and tried to steady her shaking limbs
sufficiently, to write what seemed to be a letter but was in reality a
will. “I leave all that I possess,” so it ran, “to Margaret Pullen, the wife
of Colonel Arthur Pullen, the best woman Tony said that he had ever
met, and I beg her to accept it in return for the kindness she showed
to me when I went to Heyst, a stranger. Signed, HARRIET PENNELL.”

She put the paper into an envelope, and as soon as the morning had
dawned, she asked her servant Lorenzo to show her the way to the
nearest notary in whose presence she signed the document and directed
him to whom it should be sent in case of her own death. And after another visit to a _pharmacien_, she returned to the palazzo
and took up her watch again in the now deserted bedchamber. Her servants brought her refreshments and pressed her to eat, without
effect.