you answered
her sarcastically. Many little things make me think that you do not like
her."

"You are mistaken," said Taquisara, gravely. "I like Donna Veronica very
much. Indeed, I always did, ever since I first saw her. I am sorry that
my manner should have given you a wrong impression. I always feel that I
am in the way when I am with you two."

"You are never in the way," answered Gianluca.

After that, Taquisara was very careful, but more than ever he did his
best not to remain as a third when the Duca and Duchessa were away, and
Veronica and Gianluca could be together. The fencing alone was
inevitable, and he hated it, though he went through it with a good grace
almost every day, since Veronica seemed so unreasonably fond of the
exercise.

She and Gianluca did not refer to what had happened, and to what had
been said, when she had told him the truth. She, on her part, felt that
she had done right, and that it was the sort of right which need not be
done again. But he, poor man, was not so wholly undeceived as she
thought him to be. Since she loved no one else, he could still hope that
she might love him.

Yet he felt his life slipping from him, and he made desperate efforts to
get well, insisting upon every detail of his invalid existence as though
each several minute of the day had a healing virtue which he must not
lose. He was sure that his chance of winning the woman he loved lay in
living to win her, and he grappled his soul to his frail body with every
thrill of energy that his dying nerve had left, with all the tense moral
grip that love and despair can give. And yet it seemed hopeless, for his
strength sank daily. At last he could not even sit up at table, and
remained lying in his low chair, while the others ate their meals
hastily in order not to leave him long alone.

The doctor came, a clever young man, whom Veronica had procured for the
good of the village. He shook his head, though he tried to speak
cheerfully to Gianluca's father and mother. But he advised them to send
for the great authority whom they had consulted in Naples, and under
whom he himself had studied. Veronica spoke with him in an outer room.

"I fear that he cannot live, but I am not infallible," he said.

"How long will he live, if he is going to die?" asked Veronica, pale and
quiet.

"Do not ask me--it is guess-work," answered the young doctor. "I think
he may live a fortnight. He is practically paralyzed from his waist