lness without letting
him know that Taquisara had informed her of it. She tried to go on, and
stopped again. Poor Gianluca--he was so young! All at once her pity
overflowed unexpectedly, and she felt the tears in her eyes and on her
cheeks. She brushed them away, and left her letter unfinished.

Half an hour later she was with Don Teodoro, busy about her usual
occupations and plans. But she was absent-minded, and matters did not go
well. She left him earlier than usual and shut herself up in her own
room. She had not been there a quarter of an hour, however, before she
felt stifled and oppressed by the close solitude, and she came out again
and climbed to the top of the dungeon tower, where the little plot of
cabbages had been converted into a tiny flower garden, and the roses
were all in bloom.

With the rising of her pity had come the desire to see Gianluca and talk
with him. She could not tell why she wished it so much, after having
felt so horribly indifferent at first, but the wish was there, and like
all her wishes, now, it must be satisfied without delay. She was
supremely powerful in her little mountain town, and on the whole she was
using her power very wisely. But her dominant character was rapidly
growing despotic, and it irritated her strangely to want anything which
she could not have. She had almost forgotten that society had any
general claims upon people who chance to belong to it, and the sudden
recollection that if she went down to Naples, she could not go and see
Gianluca, even under his father's and mother's roof, and talk with him
if she pleased, was indescribably offensive to her over-grown sense of
independence. Nor could she invite herself to Avellino to pay a visit to
Gianluca's mother. She understood enough of the customs of the world
with which she had really lived so little, to know that such a thing was
impossible.

If she could not see him in Naples and could not go to see him at his
father's place, he must come to Muro. It flashed upon her that she had a
right to ask the whole Della Spina family to spend a week with her if
she chose. They might think it extraordinary if they pleased--it would
be an invitation, after all, and the worst that could happen would be
that the old Duchessa might refuse it. But Veronica never anticipated
refusals.

As for Gianluca, if he were well enough to be taken to Avellino, he
could be brought to Muro. A journey by carriage was no more tiring than
one by