rime she had tried to commit
all fell upon him, and she was willing that he should face Veronica, and
realize what he had done. At the same time she believed herself so safe
as still to be able to throw the suspicion entirely upon Elettra, though
Veronica would protect her. Moreover, though she would not have admitted
the fact, her strength was momentarily so broken that she felt it easier
to obey the young girl than to visit her and fight out the interview
alone.

Veronica did not move while she was gone, but stood quite still,
watching the door. She was very pale, with illness and rising anger, but
she was not weak, as Matilde was. She had not gone through half so much.
Presently Matilde returned, followed by Macomer, wrapped in a dark
velvet dressing-gown, his face white and twitching, his usually smooth
grey beard unbrushed, and his grey hair in disorder. With drawn lids he
looked at Veronica, and in his terror he tried to smile, but there was
something at once cowardly and insolent in the expression--there was
something else, too, which the young girl did not understand, a sort of
vacancy of the brow and unnatural weakness of the mouth.

"I am glad that you have come," she said, when the door was shut. "I
have not much to say, and I wish you to hear it."

They were all standing. Gregorio steadied himself by the head of the
couch, and was as erect as ever.

"I will tell you something which you do not know," said Veronica, fixing
her eyes on him. "Before Bosio died he told the whole truth to Don
Teodoro Maresca, his friend. And the day after his death, Don Teodoro
came and told it all to me."

"Bosio!" exclaimed Gregorio, his knees shaking. "Bosio told--"

"What did Bosio tell?" asked Matilde, interrupting her husband in a loud
voice to cover any mistake he might be about to make.

But Veronica had seen Macomer's face and had heard his tone of dread.
Whatever doubts she still had, disappeared for the last time.

"He told his friend the whole truth about your management of my
fortune," she answered steadily. "He told how you had lost your own in
speculation and had taken everything of mine upon which you could lay
hands--all my income and much more, so long as you were still my
guardian--you and Lamberto Squarci, helping each other. And I
understand now why you would not give me that money the other day. You
had not got it to give me. My aunt must have borrowed it. And Bosio told
Don Teodoro, that unless he w