he had taken the will into her
dressing-room and had hidden it temporarily in another drawer. To
distract her mind during dinner, she tried to think of a better place
for it, and at last determined to unscrew the wooden back of a large old
silver mirror which stood on her dressing-table, and to lay the two open
sheets of the document upon the back of the looking-glass. When it was
all screwed up again, it would not be easy to find Veronica's will.
Matilde also thought of the aconite which Gregorio had recommended her
to keep, and of where she could put it, out of the way of the servants.

Once, towards the end of dinner, Gregorio's terrifying laugh broke out
suddenly, as the butler was offering him something. The man started back
a little and stared, and the spoon and fork clattered to the ground over
the edge of the silver dish. Bosio started, too, but Matilde fixed her
eyes sternly on Gregorio's face. He saw that she looked at him, and he
nodded, suddenly assuming the expression of docility she had noticed for
the first time in the afternoon.

Before they left the table they were all three in that excruciating
state of rawness of the nerves, in which a man has the sensation that
his brain is a violent explosive which a single jarring sound or word
must ignite and blow to atoms, like a bomb-shell.

And all the while Veronica sat peacefully in her room, before her fire,
wrapped in a loose soft dressing-gown, her little feet upon the fender
before her and a book in her hand. A lamp in an upright sliding stand
was on one side of her, and on the other stood a small table. From time
to time her maid brought her something from dinner, of which she ate a
mouthful or two between two paragraphs of her novel.

It was a great pleasure to her to dine in this way, alone, but it was
one she rarely had an opportunity of indulging. Even when her aunt and
uncle dined out she generally had her dinner in the dining-room with
Bosio, who scarcely ever went into society at all. On such occasions
they generally sat together half an hour after the meal was over, before
separating, and it was then that they really enjoyed each other's
conversation. It was very rarely that Veronica yielded to her wish to
be alone and pleaded a more or less imaginary indisposition in order to
stay in her room. Even then, she was not quite sure of being alone for
the whole evening, for Matilde sometimes came in after dinner and
remained with her for half an ho