Page:Matteo Bandello - twelve stories (IA cu31924102029083).pdf/248

how he himself had seen her borne to the sepulchre, her death, as they said, being due to grief. The dread news nearly drove Romeo out of his mind, and, leaping from his bed in a frenzy, he cried: "Ah! traitorous Romeo, perfidious, disloyal, and of all men most ungrateful! Not grief it is that has slain your lady-love, for of grief one dies not, but it is you, cruel man, you that have been her executioner; you have been her assassin; you have done her to death! She herself wrote to you that she would die rather than become another's bride, and besought you to take her away at all hazards from her father's house. But you, ungrateful one, laggard in love, and wretched mongrel that you are, you gave her your word that you would go and do everything, and bade her be of good cheer, while from day to day you put it off, never resolving to do her will. Now you have chosen to stay with your hands at your girdle; and Giulietta is dead. Dead she is; and you are alive! Oh! traitor, how often did you write it to her, and with your own lips tell her that you could not live without her! But you are living at this moment. Where, think you, is she? There in twilight beyond the