Beautiful Rienzi; or, The Secret Vendetta — page 285: what you’re looking at

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

278 : BEAUTIFUL RIENZI. « You scoff at their temples, signora. What does that mean?’ demanded my master. ‘7 laughed scornfully. << ‘Tt means that there isno God on my earth!’ I said. ‘God? Who is he? An essence—a myth? You are my God! I bow to but one divinity!’ . «‘You went.away, and I laughed nntil my maid knelt at my feet, and implored me to be calm. I pictured how my passionate love would craze your young heart with joy when alone. «The next day a letter from you was brought to my silken pillow. It was not a lover’s frenzied prayer for pardon for your harshness; it was a demand to know what creed I pro- fessed. «© My creed was the shortest on earth; I was an infidel. I had always been one. I believe I was born without a soul. Gayly I told you so, but added that my heart was more to you than a thousand souls. What calmness—what lack of worldly wisdom you displayed! You came to me loaded with the gifts I had lavished on you—the love-tokens, the honors—and flung them back to me. «¢ ‘Henceforth, Guiseppe is bound no more to a woman without a God,’ you said. passion rose. I demanded—threathened. You €é owed no fear, but sternly silenced me. J to be threatened thus! **T rose humiliated, overcome, terrified, and begged for- giveness, and you left me with my tears undried. Gemma Lancinetto was forsaken by the obscure stripling whom she had proudly worn next her heart. JI met the curled lip, the vailed eye, the cynical smile when I ventured forth from my angry solitude. ‘Those who before had worshiped my shadow shrugged their shoulders and crossed themselves. I was branded as ‘the woman without a soul,’ and was fabled a Xantippe. All shunned me, but the lowest and most sordid of my once countless throng of lovers. I found at the age of twenty-one that my life was blasted. 1 stood, as it were, unvailed before a hissing world, and it execrated me. ‘‘'Then in my heart of hearts, I made my vendetta against Guiseppe Rienzi. Oh, it was bitter, deep, lasting! ‘Shall I detail my reckless life to you? No! You shall comicbooks (qo)