downwards--it is almost complete. What he eats does not nourish him."

"What has caused this?"

The doctor shrugged his shoulders, smiled faintly, and made a gesture
which in the south signifies the inevitable.

"It is a decayed race," he said; "a family too old--there is no more
blood in them--what shall I say?"

"I do not believe that has anything to do with it," replied Veronica,
rather proudly. "The Serra are as old as they. Did you see that
gentleman who is Don Gianluca's friend? He is descended from Tancred."

"It is other blood," said the doctor.

He went away, and the great physician who lived in Naples was sent for
at once. A carriage went down to Eboli to meet him. He came, looked,
asked questions, and shook his head, very much as his pupil had done. He
stayed a night, and when it was late, Veronica and Taquisara were alone
with him. He was a fat man, with enormous shoulders and very short
legs, and a round face and dreamy eyes set too low for proportion of
feature. Taquisara thought that he was like a turtle standing on its
hind flippers, preternaturally endowed with a hemispherical black
stomach, and a large watch chain; but the idea did not seem comic to
him, for he was in no humour to be amused at anything.

The professor--for he was one--talked long and learnedly, using a number
of Latin words with edifying terminations. In spite of this, however, he
was not without common sense.

"I have known people to recover when they seemed to have no chance at
all," he said.

"But you do not expect him to live?" asked Taquisara, pressing him.

"It is a desperate case," answered the physician.

Being very fat, and having travelled all day, he went to bed. Veronica
remained alone in the drawing-room with Taquisara. The latter slowly
walked up and down between two opposite doors. Veronica kept her seat,
her head bent, listening to his regular footsteps.

"Donna Veronica--" he stopped.

"Yes," she answered, not looking up, but starting slightly at the sound
of his voice. "What do you wish to say?"

"You know that I have not always been fortunate in what I have said to
you, and that makes me hesitate to speak now. But it seems to me that,
as Gianluca is really in the care of us two--"

"Well?" Still she did not turn to him, though he paused awkwardly, and
began to walk again.

"Gianluca asked me the other day whether I disliked you," he said.

"Well? Do you?" Her tone was unnaturally cold, even to he