n fainted. He opened his eyes, and smiled, and tried to speak again,
but could not.

Veronica's lips moved, too, as she stood there, supporting him a little
with her arm and stiffened with terror for his life. But she could not
speak either. She watched his face with most intense anxiety. Again and
again, he opened his eyes, and saw her, and he felt her arm under him.

"It is nothing," he said suddenly. "I was a little faint."

She drew away her arm with a deep breath of relief, and he sighed when
it was gone. But neither of them spoke. Veronica rang, and sent for his
favourite wine, and he drank a little of it. Then she sat down beside
him, where she had sat before, and the room was very still.

It was hot, too, for no one had opened the window since it had stopped
raining. Veronica rose and undid the fastenings and threw back the
glass, and the cool air rushed in, laden with the sweet smell of the wet
earth. As she came back, she saw that his eyes followed all her
movements, gravely, as a sick child watches its nurse moving about its
room. There was no reproach in their look, but they were still fixed on
her, when she sat down again by his side.

"Veronica," said the faint, far voice, presently. "May I ask you one
question, that I have no right to ask?"

"Anything," she answered. "And you have the right to ask anything."

"No--not this. Do you love another man?"

The still blue eyes widened, in earnestness.

"No, Gianluca. No--by the truth of God--no living man!"

"Nor one dead?" His tone sank almost to a whisper, and still his eyes
were wide for her answer.

A faint and tender light came into her face, so faint, so far reflected
from an infinite somewhere, that only such eyes as his could have seen
it.

"There was Bosio," she said softly. "He spoke to me the night he
died--I could have married him--I should have loved him--perhaps."

If the little phrases were broken, it was not by hesitation; it seemed
rather as though what they meant must find each memory to have meaning,
one by one, and word by word--and finding, wondered at what had once
been true.

And Gianluca smiled, as he lay still, and the lids of his eyes closed
peacefully and naturally, opening again with another look. He was too
weak to be surprised by what he had only vaguely guessed, from some word
she had let fall, but he knew well enough, from her voice and face, that
she had never loved Bosio Macomer, nor any other man, dead or living