Mezzoni the Brigand — page 114: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

106 MEZZONI THE BRIGAND. to come to her fora few moments, if for the last time. “You must come,”’ she said. Alberto hesitated. He had never been inside of the Amadeo palace since her marriage with the count. He had an instinctive dread to meet her alone, but at last he said: “She has a right to demand a last interview. I will go,’’ and he went at once to meet her. He was shown, as she had directed, into her pri- vate boudoir, and found the countess sitting there as she had been when she dispatched her last hasty summons to him. ‘‘T have come as you desired.”’ ‘Oh, Alberto, how can you cast me off?” ‘“Nay, signora, my letter tells you all.’’ ‘It is killing me!’’ “Can you not understand how I felt, then, years ago, when desperation filled my heart? Ay, and made me what I am!”’ he said, gloomily. ‘‘T knew not that you loved mein those days so earnestly.’ ee true. “But if I had I could not have averted the fate which was marked out for me.”’ “True again.”’ “But now, Alberto,’? she said, rising and ap- proaching him, ‘‘we are free!”’ “You are free, but lam bound more closely than as though my wrists were hung with chains.”’ ‘“‘T do not understand you.”’ *“My letter was very plain.’’ ‘“‘But these cords?”’ “Our sins bind us as surely as iron chains,” he re- plied, solemnly. COImICDOOK