CHAPTER VIII.
SIMON TURCHI TRIES TO CONCEAL HIS CRIME.
After having accompanied Deodati to his residence, Simon Turchi went to his own dwelling near the bridge _De la Vigne_.
He was greatly excited, either by extreme anxiety or by a feverish impatience; for he descended to the ground-floor, entered his office, pretended to be looking for some papers, went up stairs again, paced the room, opened the window, looked up and down the street, closed the window petulantly, and at last, stamping his foot, he angrily exclaimed: "The miserable gamester! he is in some tavern drinking, gambling, amusing himself, while I am here on burning coals, almost overpowered by anxiety and terror! Julio, Julio, if I escape the fate which now threatens me, I will have my revenge for your ingratitude!" Again he went to the window, and again he was disappointed.

Thoroughly discouraged, he threw himself upon a chair, heaved a heavy sigh, and after a moment's silence exclaimed in accents of despair: "Alas! alas! is it then true that my crime cannot remain concealed?
Who was it, to my great misfortune, who sent the Dominican brother just to the spot to meet Geronimo, and thus furnished the bailiff with a clue to the murder?
Who put the Jewish banker on his track, so that the constables might be led to my garden?
Who suggested the idea to the bailiff to search the cellars?
Was it chance?
But chance is blind, and does not proceed with such precision to the fulfilment of a purpose.

How frightful if God himself conducted justice! if the Supreme Judge, who cannot be deceived, has condemned me to an infamous death! How vain then all hope, all effort to escape!" Overpowered by these reflections, Simon Turchi bowed his head upon his breast; his hands worked convulsively, and at intervals heart-rending sighs escaped him.
Confusedly arose before him a horrible vision: he saw the scaffold erected; he beheld the sword of the executioner glitter in the sunlight; he heard the shouts of the populace calling down the vengeance of heaven upon his guilty head and devoting his name to eternal infamy; he seemed to feel the mysterious stroke from the uplifted blade, for his frame shook violently, and he uttered a piercing cry of anguish.
He thrust his hand into his doublet, and drew from it slowly a small phial half filled with a yellow liquid, and held it before him with a shudder of disgust and horror.
"Poison, deadly poison!" he muttered.

"He who has the courage to take a few drops will sleep a sweet sleep from which there is no awakening.

And is this my only refuge from the ignominy of the scaffold?
Instead of wealth and happiness, is a miserable death to be the price of my crime?
No, no; I must chase away these horrible thoughts." He replaced the phial in his doublet, and abandoned himself again to his dark reflections; but at last he conquered, in a measure, his dejection, and he said, less despairingly but still sorrowfully: "And yet everything was going on so smoothly! I had recovered my note; the possession of the ten thousand crowns enabled me to conceal for the present the ruined condition of my affairs; Mary did not appear indifferent to me, and Geronimo being out of the way, I was certain of succeeding with her in the course of time.