away.
The arm is now in plaster, and they won't be able to tell for weeks
whether he ever can move his elbow again. They brought him home a couple
of hours ago. He is now a little feverish, but a sister has come to
nurse him, and we have left him to rest." Then Sansevero turned to his
wife: "It all sounds very queer to me, Leonora. What was the matter with
the boy, anyway? Why did he not send for me? And why did he not go to
bed like a sensible human being and stay there?"

Nina was on tenterhooks. She so wanted to ask her aunt and uncle what
they really thought! She wondered if they truly had no suspicions. Or
were they perhaps dissimulating as she herself was trying with poor
success to do? She could not understand how the princess, who was
usually quick of perception, could possibly be blind to the real facts
of the case. She felt choked--as if she herself had fired the shot that
might bring far more horrible consequences than her aunt and uncle knew.

The princess, seeing Nina's face grow whiter and whiter, asked anxiously
if she felt ill.

"No--not a bit!" Nina answered, looking as though she were about to
faint. After several unsuccessful attempts to turn the conversation into
happier channels, the princess met with some success in the topic of
John Derby and the miracles with which rumor credited him. Nina listened
with half-pathetic interest, but her hands trembled, and the few
mouthfuls she took almost refused to go down her throat. In her heart,
at that moment, everything gave way to Giovanni. She reproached herself
deeply for lack of belief in him. Always she had acknowledged that he
was charming, but the doubt of his sincerity had weighed against her
really caring for him. She had accepted John Derby's casual words, "The
Europeans do a lot of beautiful talking and picturesque posing, but when
it comes to real devotion you will find that one of your Uncle Samuel's
nephews will come out ahead."

All that was ended; there was no more question about what the Europeans
would do when it came to a test. Giovanni had done far more than say
beautiful, graceful things--he had proved to her that her honor was
dearer to him than his life, and she was stirred to the very depths of
her soul. In the midst of Eleanor's talk of John Derby, she tried to
imagine what John would have done in Giovanni's place. He would have
thrashed the man within an inch of his life--that she knew. But, manly
as that would have been, it cou