t
in threading the intricate, dark streets she would almost forget what
she was to do that day, in the mad hope of the one more word from
beyond. She had not known that at the thought her eyes would brighten
eagerly, the colour would come back to her cheeks, and the strength to
her limbs as she walked. After all, the strongest thing that had ever
been in her, or ever could be, was that passionate, dominating,
despotic devotion to one being; and the merest suggestion that he might
not be gone quite beyond the reach of spiritual touch had power to veil
the awful future of the day, when her hand was already uplifted to kill.
She was not a woman to hesitate at the last moment, unstrung and
womanishly trembling because the victim was young, and smiled, and had
innocent eyes. And yet, perhaps, had she not gone that day to answer the
spirit-seer's summons and to catch at the straw thrown to her from
beyond the grave, she might have seen a reason for changing her mind,
and all might have happened very differently. But Fate does not sleep,
though she seems sometimes to nod and forget to kill.

Matilde came to the house as the clock struck eleven, and entered by the
dark, arched door, and went up the damp, stone steps, as Bosio had done
a fortnight earlier. She was admitted by the decent woman whose one eye
was of a china blue, and she waited for Giuditta in the same small
sitting-room, of which the one heavily curtained window looked out upon
an inner court. She did not know that Bosio had ever been there, but in
her thoughts of him she felt his presence, and turned, with a shiver
under her hair, to look behind her as she stood waiting before the
window, just where he had stood. The day was dark, and the room was all
dim and cold, with its stiff, ugly furniture and its bare, tiled floor.
The corners were shadowy, and her eyes searched in them uneasily, and
she would not turn her back upon them again and look out of the windows.
Then the door opened noiselessly, and Giuditta Astarita entered, in her
loose black silk gown, with her little bunch of charms against the evil
eye, hanging by a chain from a button hole.

The china blue eyes looked steadily at Matilde, out of the unhealthy
face, but the woman gave no sign to show that she knew who her visitor
was. Her hoarse voice pronounced the usual words: "You wish to consult
me?"

"You wrote to me. I am the Countess Macomer," answered Matilde, lifting
her veil, which was a thick o