In
a quiet composed attitude stretched on her back, she lay in the
light white dress she had put on for her excursion with Ludovico.
With the exception of a broad blue ribbon round the waist, and
another which bound her wealth of auburn hair, her entire dress was
white. It was now scarcely whiter than her face. But there was on
the features neither disorder nor sign of pain.
From a feeling of natural respect for death, and perhaps, also, for
the extreme beauty of the young face in death, the bearers of the
body had covered it with a coarse linen sheet, such as they had
chanced to find to hand. But the duty of the officers of the gate
would have required them to uncover the face, even if Ludovico in
the first agony of his doubt had not already done so. There, amid
the pitying throng of rough men, she lay beneath the sombre old
gateway vault. The extraordinary abundance of her hair fell in great
loose tresses, some making rich contrast with the white dress that
covered her shoulders, and some of it thrown back behind over the
door on which the body lay.
A terrible and deadly sickness came over Ludovico, and his face
became almost as white as that of the corpse. His head swam round;
and, reeling back from the sight that met his eyes, he swooned, and
would have fallen to the ground had the lawyer not caught him.
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