A sudden thought entered Marianne's mind and settled there, tormenting her until, unable to wait until morning for an answer, she strode over to the bell-rope hanging by her bedside and tugged it furiously, as if it were a matter of life and death. Dona Lavinia appeared almost at once, dad in her shift and a nightcap on her head, quite clearly terrified and fearing the worst. Finding Marianne out of bed and to all appearances perfectly cool, she let out a sigh of relief.
'Dear God, you frightened me! I thought your highness must be ill—'
'Do not alarm yourself, Dona Lavinia, I am quite well. I am truly sorry to have woken you but I want you to tell me something, at once, and as clearly as you can.'
The candle in Lavinia's hand trembled so violently that she was obliged to set it down.
'What is it you wish to know, my lady?'
Marianne gestured towards the open window by which she still stood and her eyes fixed themselves imperiously on the housekeeper's face which had turned chalk white in the moonlight.
'You know quite well, Dona Lavinia, what it is I wish to know, or you would not look so pale. Who was the man I saw just now, riding like the wind across the park? The horse he rode was Ilderim, whom I have not so far known anyone to mount. Tell me, who was he?'
'My lady – I —'
The unfortunate woman seemed scarcely able to stand. She clutched at a chair back for support but Marianne advanced on her relentlessly and seized her arm in a painful grip.
Who – was – it?'
'P-prince Corrado.'
Marianne's pent-up breath was released in a long sigh. She felt no surprise. Ever since she had first set eyes on the blurred figure of the rider, she had been prepared for this answer. But Dona Lavinia had dropped into a chair, and was weeping softly, her head in her hands. At the sight of her grief, Marianne was instantly filled with remorse and fell on her knees beside her, trying desperately to calm her.
'Calm yourself, Dona Lavinia. I did not mean to hurt you by questioning you like that, but you must see how dreadful it is for me to find myself in the midst of all this mystery!'
'I know – I do understand,' sobbed Lavinia. 'I knew, of course, that some night you were bound to see him and to ask me, but I hoped – God knows what I hoped.'
'That I would not remain long enough to see him, perhaps?'
'Perhaps. But it was a childish hope, because sooner or later… You see, my lady, he goes out like this nearly every night. He gallops for hours on Ilderim whom no one but himself can mount. It is his greatest joy – the only one he permits himself.' The housekeeper's voice broke. Marianne took both her hands and held them gently.
'Surely, he is too hard on himself, Dona Lavinia?' she said softly. 'The man I saw is not crippled or an invalid, if he were he could not ride Ilderim. He did not seem to me in any way abnormal. I thought he looked tall and, to all appearances, strong. Why should he hide himself like this, why condemn himself to this dreadful seclusion, why bury himself alive?'
'Because it is impossible for it to be otherwise. Impossible! Believe me, Princess, it is no morbid love of mystery or any wish to be eccentric which makes my poor boy hide himself from the world like this. It is because he cannot help himself.'
'But, the person I caught a glimpse of was in no way repulsive. He looked – he looked perfectly normal.'
'Perhaps it is – otherwise with his face.'
'That could only be an excuse. I have seen men with ghastly faces, disfigured by injuries, men one could hardly bear to look at, yet they still lived openly. I have even known men to wear masks,' she added, remembering Morvan and his scarred face.
'Corrado wears one when he goes out like this. Darkness and the shadow of a hat and cloak he does not think enough to hide him. But in the full light of day, even the mask would not be enough. I beg you, my lady, believe me, and do not try to find out, or to see him. He – he might die of shame!'
'Of shame?'
Dona Lavinia rose, painfully, and drew Marianne to her feet also. She was no longer crying and her face had become very calm. She seemed in some way relieved to have spoken. Looking Marianne straight in the eyes, she continued, with great earnestness: 'You see, Corrado is the victim of a curse which once fell on this house that was formerly so strong and powerful, a curse that bore the face of an angel. Only the child that you will give him can exorcise it, not Corrado himself, for his sufferings there is no cure, but at least the house of Sant'Anna, so that it may shine once more among men. Good night, your highness. Try and forget what you have seen.'
This time, Marianne, defeated, did not insist. She let Dona Lavinia go without a word. She felt wearied to her very soul, and utterly depressed. The mystery of Corrado filled her whole being, obsessed her, like an insoluble torment. Her excited curiosity urged her to commit the wildest follies, such as hiding where she could watch the phantom horseman ride by or throwing herself under Ilderim's hooves so as to force him to stop. But something she could not explain held her back. It might have been Dona Lavinia's words: 'He might die of shame…', words as heavy with sadness as the voice that spoke out of the depth of the mirror.
In an effort to soothe her nerves and cool her burning head, she went into the bathroom and bathed her face and hands and sprinkled her whole body with eau-de-Cologne but when she lay down again sleep still refused to come. The oppressive heat and the thoughts that jangled wildly in her head drove it relentlessly away. Her ear was still tuned to the vague sounds of the night, listening for the distant sound of a horse galloping. But the hours passed and no sound came until at last Marianne sank, exhausted, into a kind of torpid doze that was neither sleep nor waking. Strange images passed through her mind, as in a dream, and yet it seemed to her that she was not asleep. There were vague, cloudy forms and sometimes the characters on the ceiling seemed to have come down to dance around her, grinning and gibbering, or strange, unnatural flowers leaned over her and turned into faces, and then it was the wall of her bedchamber that opened suddenly to reveal a head, and the head belonged to Matteo Damiani…
Marianne woke abruptly with a cry. The final impression had been so strong that it had ripped through the mists of sleep and jerked her back into reality, gasping and pouring with sweat. She sat up in bed, tossed back the long, damp strands of hair that had fallen over her face and stared about her. Dawn was breaking, filling her room with a pale, mauve light that was already beginning to be tinged with the rosy colour of sunrise. Away in the countryside, cocks were beginning to crow, their harsh cries taken up from one farm to the next. Cool air was coming in from the garden and Marianne felt suddenly chilled in her damp bed with her nightshirt clinging to her body. She got up to take it off and find a dry one and a dressing-gown, when suddenly her eyes fell on the place where, in her nightmare, she had seen Matteo's head appear and she uttered a cry of amazement. There, just below the gilt edge of one of the mirrors, was a dark line on the wall, a dark line she had never seen before.
Making no more sound than a cat in her bare feet, Marianne crept up to it with a pounding heart, and felt a faint draught. The panel yielded quietly to her hand, revealing the black opening of a narrow spiral stair, cut in the thickness of the wall.
At once, everything fell into place in her mind. So she had not been dreaming! As she lay there half-asleep, she really had seen Matteo Damiani's face look through that opening. But why? What did he want? How many times already had he dared to come into her room like this while she slept? At that moment, she recalled the face which she had caught sight of in the mirror on the night of her wedding, while she was undressing. So that, too, had not been a dream! He had indeed been there, and at the recollection of the naked lust in his face, Marianne's own cheeks flushed scarlet, with anger as much as injured modesty. She was seized with a furious rage. So, not content with persecuting Agathe, that vile creature had actually dared to enter her room, the room of his own master's wife, and pry into her most private moments! What was his object in creeping in like a thief in the night? What mad act might he not have committed one day, this very morning perhaps, if she had not discovered the panel which, in his hurried retreat, no doubt, he had forgotten to close properly.