f him was an
integral part of her life. But there was something of him for which she
felt that she hardly cared at all.

She was probably selfish in the common sense of that ill-used word. It
is generally applied to persons who do not love those that love them,
but are glad of their existence, as it were, for the sake of something
they receive and perhaps return--as Veronica did. But she did not ask
herself questions, for she had never had the smallest inclination to
analysis or introspection. It was as clear to her as ever that she did
not love Gianluca in the least, but that she should find it hard to be
happy without him. She had been nearer to loving poor Bosio than
Gianluca, though the truth was that she had never loved any one yet.

But she pitied Gianluca with all her heart. That was the most she could
do for that part of him which was nothing to her, and her face grew very
sad as she thought of what he might be suffering, and of how hard it
must be to die so young, with all the world before one. She could not
imagine herself as ever dying.

She sat still a long time and tried to think of what she should do. But
her thoughts wandered, and presently she found that she was asking
herself whether it were her destiny to be fatal to those who loved her.
But the mere idea of fatality displeased her as something which could
oppose her, and perhaps defy her. After all, Gianluca might not die. She
looked over Taquisara's letter again.

He was a man who meant what he said, and he wrote in earnest. There was
something in him that appealed to her, as like to like. He had been rude
and had spoken almost insolently, and even now he dared to write that he
meant what he had said and only regretted the words he had used. For
them, indeed, his apology was sufficient--for the rest, she was
undecided. She went on to what referred to Gianluca, and her face grew
grave and sad again. It must be true.

She laid the letter in the drawer where she kept Gianluca's, but in a
separate corner, by itself. Then she took up her pen to write to
Gianluca, intending to take up the daily written conversation at the
point where she had last broken off, on the previous evening. With an
effort, she wrote a few words, and then stopped short and leaned back in
her chair, staring at the tapestry. It was a grim farce to write about
her streets and her houses and her charities to a man who was dying--and
who loved her. Yet she could not speak of his il