But is the tie that once bound us, completely broken?
Agnes asks herself this question several times after her husband deserts her and marries the Countess Narona. She is burning their love letters, but her heart is still not at peace with what happened. She is not ready to move on just yet, feeling that their fates are still intertwined.
The silence that followed was, literally, the silence of fear on both sides.
Countess Narona, or former Lady Montbarry, frantically pays a visit to Agnes to inquire about her involvement in the positioning of Mr. Ferrari as her late husband’s courier. Lady Montbarry has shown fear of Lady Agnes from the first moment she laid eyes on her, seeing her doom and judgement in the woman. Agnes isn’t aware of this fear she provokes and is in turn, also the one who feels fear. On this visit, the Countess reveals her beliefs of their intertwined fate and that Agnes will be the cause of her death.
In a week’s time, I shall know whether Destiny does indeed decide my future for me, or whether I decide it for myself.
The Countess finds her way back to Venice just before Lady Agnes’s arrival, whether on purpose or accidentally, it is left ambiguous. Countess explains that it is their Destiny to meet again, that she can’t help but go to the Hotel and meet with the woman she so fears. Aside from the supernatural factor, it could be Countess’s guilty consciousness at work making her do self-destructive things, and finally drive her mad to write down a confession of what happened in a form of play.
