, two chairs, a shabby chest
of drawers, a deal washstand--that was all. Italian servants are not
accustomed to very luxurious quarters. A couple of coarse, uncoloured
prints of saints were tacked to the wall over the bed, and a bit of a
dusty olive branch, from the last Palm Sunday, nine months ago, was
stuck behind one of them.

Matilde looked about her, and hesitated a moment. Then, setting the
candlestick down, she knelt upon the floor, and thrust the package as
far as she could under the chest of drawers. Of all the things she had
to do, in the course of that night and the following day, this was the
only one with which any danger was connected, for at any moment Elettra
might have come from Veronica's room to her own. The thing was possible,
but not probable, between three and four o'clock in the morning. It did
not happen, and when Matilde left the room and softly closed the door
behind her, all was safe.

Before she went to bed, she entered the dining-room, poured herself out
a glass of strong Sicilian wine from a decanter on the sideboard and
drank it at a draught, for she was very tired. She left the decanter and
the glass on the table, so that any one might see them. If by any remote
possibility some wakeful person had chanced to hear her moving about in
the night, she would say that she had felt ill, and had left her room in
order to find the stimulant. She thought of every possible detail which
could in any way hereafter be brought up in evidence.

At last she went back to her room, unlocked the door, and locked herself
in.

Her plan was simple, though the details of it were complicated, so far
as the preparation was concerned. It was an extremely bold plan, but one
not at all likely to fail in the execution. Almost all the difficulty
had lain in the preparations, and she had spared no pains and no
suffering for herself, in the preliminaries.

She knew the story of Elettra's husband very well, and of how he had
been murdered by peasants near Muro in trying to collect the exorbitant
rents Macomer had attempted to exact. She was a good enough judge of
character to see that Elettra had the revengeful disposition common to
many of the southern hill people, and the woman's dark complexion,
sombre eyes, and thin frame would all help to strengthen the impression
in the mind of an unprejudiced judge.

She intended to make it appear that Elettra had poisoned the whole
family, beginning with Matilde herself, o