distracted. But neither she nor her husband
knew that the doctors despaired of his life. The truth had been kept
from them, and Taquisara had extracted it from one of the physicians
with considerable difficulty, having more than half guessed it during
the past two months.

At the mere suggestion of going to Muro, Gianluca had revived, reading
Veronica's letter alone to himself in his room. When he heard that the
invitation had actually come, he seemed suddenly so much better that
the tears started to the old Duca's weak eyes.

"We must go," said the old gentleman to his wife, as they left Gianluca
to consult together. "What is the use of denying it? It is passion. If
he does not marry that girl, he will die of it."

"Of course she means to marry him," answered the Duchessa, her voice
tremulous with nervous delight. "It is not imaginable that she should
ask us to visit her, unless she means that she has changed her mind! It
would be an outrage--an insult--it would be nothing short of an
abominable action--I would strangle her with these hands!"

The prematurely old woman shook her weak fingers in the air, and her
passionate love for her son lent her feeble features the momentary
dignity of righteous anger.

"I should hardly doubt that she would marry him after this," said the
Duca, thoughtfully. "And besides--where could she find a better husband?
It is passion that has made him ill."

But it was not. In what they said of Veronica's probable intention they
were not altogether wrong, however, from their point of view. They were
in complete ignorance of the long-continued correspondence between her
and Gianluca, and had they known of it, they could not possibly have
understood her way of looking at the matter. Such a character as hers
was altogether beyond their comprehension, and they practically knew
nothing of the circumstances that had lately developed it so quickly. As
for her mode of life, they believed, as most people did, that she had a
companion in the person of an elderly gentlewoman whom she had chosen
for the purpose among her distant relations.

Even Taquisara thought substantially as they did, and he was a man
singularly regardless of conventions. It was true that he was almost as
ignorant of the state of affairs as Gianluca's father and mother. After
the first exchange of letters Gianluca had grown suddenly reticent. So
long as Veronica had seemed altogether beyond his reach he had not
hesitated to c