“I want you to look at this,” Walter said quietly. “It is a diary written by your late friend Count Flavio, whose handwriting you will, of course, recognise. The diary came into the hands of Silva after his master’s death. Now Silva told me some time ago—in fact, during that memorable interview in your studio—that he had in his possession documentary evidence which would prove that his mistress was an injured woman, and his master a scoundrel of the deepest dye. When I asked him why he did not produce this book at the trial, he shrugged his shoulders, and said that it would have been useless. Public opinion against the Countess ran so high that nobody would have believed that it was anything but a forgery. But that will be for you to judge. Before we go any further, I want your assurance that this is your dead friend’s own handwriting.”
Lord Ravenspur turned over the leaves of the manuscript, more or less languidly. One leaf after another he fluttered over; then he handed the book back to Walter again.
“I am not going to contest the point,” he said. “Beyond question, this is my unfortunate friend’s handwriting; though the letters are quite plain, the writing could not be easily forged. Indeed, to forge such an amount as that would be the work of half a lifetime. But what do you want me to do?”
Walter signified that he would like his uncle to read the whole of the volume, but Lord Ravenspur shook his head.
“I am afraid I cannot,” he said. “I can speak Italian fairly enough, as you know, but that is merely colloquial, and I had never time really to master the language. But, seeing that you spent three years of your life there, don’t you think that you had better read it out to me. I suppose it is interesting?”
“I never read anything that fascinated me more,” Walter said. “Mind you, this is the secret diary of Count Flavio. He had no idea that anybody would ever read it. I have gone through the volume from start to finish, and I am forced to the conclusion that your friend was the poisonous scoundrel that Silva declares him to be. I tell you, if this book was published, it would cause a great sensation from one end of Europe to the other. It is the work of a brilliant man with a fine style and an imaginative mind—the history of an attempt to deprive a woman of her will, and of her reason. For the three years during which the Count and Countess Flavio lived together the woman’s life was one long, incessant torture. Mind you, there was no actual violence, but the tortures were exquisite and cruel all the same. And here we have them in the Count’s own words. It is absolutely necessary that you should listen to some extracts from this amazing work.”
“Go on,” Ravenspur said quietly; “I am all attention.”
Walter bent back the book, and began to read:
“. What man is there who has ever succeeded in penetrating the unfathomable depths of a woman’s mind? What fools we men are to assume a knowledge of the sex until we are married, and have the object lesson before us day by day! There is Carlotta, for example. Carlotta’s prevailing trouble is that she is jealous of me. She seems to think that because she cut herself off from her family for my sake, I am to be at her beck and call henceforth and forever. This peculiar form of jealousy interests and amuses me. It is a pleasure to study it from a scientific basis. This morning I told her I was going to Florence for a day or two, and she wept because I would not allow her to accompany me. I could see that she does not trust me, wherefore I caused a friend of mine who can imitate a woman’s writing excellently, to write me a passionate love-letter, which fell quite naturally into Carlotta’s hands.
“The scene which followed was exquisitely amusing. I have never seen a woman weep to such an extent before. Positively my charming Carlotta was enchanting. I was quite sorry at length when she assumed a mantle of dignity, and left me. Still, this is only the first of many such scenes if I engineered them properly. I see that Carlotta is in possession of all the emotions, so that, by studying her alone, I shall be in a position to add some really extraordinary chapters to my great book on women and their ways.
“. Carlotta has afforded me a month of absolute enjoyment. Why do people pay money to sit in stuffy theatres and watch comedies and tragedies when they can see and hear the real, palpitating thing for nothing? Outwardly, Carlotta and myself are at daggers drawn. She thinks I am unrepentant and angry, but, as to myself, I have never been more cheerful and happy in my life. And when Carlotta threatens to leave me, I ask her why she is going, knowing perfectly well that she has not the slightest intention of leaving me. Women are very much like cats in these matters—they will make many sacrifices for the sake of the domestic hearth. I was talking to Dr. Sacci, the great surgeon, the other day, and he was telling me of the fierce joy that comes through some new discovery which has been the outcome of vivisection. But, then, Sacci is only working in the interests of humanity, whereas my vivisection allows me to see the exquisite suffering of the patient. I can study the nerves, and the palpitating wound, at the very moment when the knife enters.
“. The last chapter in my book is
