is weakness,
and had failed. Then, almost without an outward sign, she had made up
her mind. And now--he was gone. That was all she knew, or remembered,
for an hour, as she lay there on the sofa, biting the cushions. It would
have been far easier to kill Veronica, than to let him go. It was not
her conscience that suffered, but her heart, and it could suffer still.

It would have been worse, had that been possible, if she had known what
Bosio felt at that moment. Happily for her, she never knew. For in the
midst of the life-and-death terror of the situation, he was conscious
that he rejoiced at being unexpectedly free at last from the slavery of
her power. It was perhaps the satisfaction of an aspiration, good in
itself, of a long-smouldering revolt against the life of deception she
had imposed upon him; but in respect of his manhood, it was mean. For
good is what men are, when they are doing good. It cannot be the good
itself, which, though it profit many, may be so done as to stab and
wound the secret enemy of the man's own heart. The good such a man does
the whole world is but the knife in his hand wherewith to hurt the one.
But Bosio hurt only himself, and little, at that, for he was almost past
hurting; and Matilde never knew what he felt. And though he suffered
most of all, perhaps, between the beginning and the end, there was no
one moment of all his suffering which was like the agony of the strong
and evil woman when she had driven him away, and was quite alone. She
knew, now, what it meant to be alone.

When she rose at last, her face was changed; there was a keen, famished
look in her eyes, and her movements were steady and direct. Her nature
was very unlike Bosio's, for she was able to drive her will into action,
as it were, and she could be sure that it would not turn and bend, and
disappoint her. But, for the present, she could do little more, and she
knew it. She could only hope that all things might go well, standing
ready at hand to throw her weight upon the scale-beam if fate alone
would not bear down the side that bore her safety. She had said all
that she could say to Veronica and to Bosio. Gregorio Macomer, her
husband, whom she hated and despised, but whom she was saving, or trying
to save, with herself, carried the effrontery of his sham-honest face
and cold manner through it all, unmoved, so far as she could see. Only
once or twice in the course of the day he had laughed suddenly and
nervously, w