's tones sank to a whisper.

She looked down at her strong hands that had grown thinner during the
past days, but were strong still. Gregorio waited a few moments and then
roused himself and bent over his papers again.

"You cannot see any way out of it, can you?" asked his wife at last. "Is
there no possibility of keeping afloat until things go better?"

"No," answered Macomer, not looking up. "There is nothing to go better.
You know it all. There is only that one way. Failing that, I must go
mad. One can recover from madness, you know."

"Yes," said Matilde, thoughtfully. "But it is a very difficult thing to
do well. They have expert doctors, who know the real thing from the
imitation."

Gregorio looked up suddenly.

"She could not go mad, could she?" he asked, a quiver of cunning
intelligence making his stony mask quiver. "Are there not things--is
there not something--you know--something that produces that? What is all
this talk, nowadays, about hypnotic suggestion?"

"Fairy tales!" exclaimed Matilde, incredulously. "The other is sure.
This is no time for experiments. There are thirteen days left in this
year. If we are to do it at all, we must do it quickly."

"I do not like the idea of the pillow," said Macomer, speaking very low
again.

Matilde's shoulders moved uneasily, as though she were chilly, but her
face did not change.

"It is of no use to talk of such things," she answered. "Besides," she
added, "you are dull. Only remember that you have just thirteen days
more, after to-day."

"Remember!" his voice told all his terror of the limit.

Then Matilde did not speak again. She rested her elbows on the table,
and her chin upon her hands, staring at him as though she did not see
him, evidently in deep thought. He bent over his papers, but was aware
that her eyes were on him. He glanced up nervously.

"Please do not look at me in that way. You make me nervous," he said.

With a scornful half-laugh she rose from her seat.

"Good night," she said indifferently, and in her soft felt slippers she
noiselessly went away.

She had not come in the expectation of help from her husband in
anything that was to be done. But besides the bond of fear by which they
were drawn together, there was the feeling that his presence, especially
in that room, brought before her vividly the necessity for action.
Under such pressure, an idea might come to her which would be worth
having. It had come to-night, but it was