es as could be imagined. To let Gianluca know the
truth would have been almost certain to kill him. To speak of it to
Veronica for the present seemed almost equally impracticable, though it
was quite impossible to take any steps towards the annulling of the
marriage without her open concurrence and help, as well as Taquisara's.
Meanwhile, not only she and Gianluca, but the Duca and Duchessa, too,
regarded the matter as altogether settled and accomplished. At any
moment Veronica had it in her power to send for the syndic of Muro and
cause the necessary formalities of the municipal marriage to be properly
executed. She would then be legally married to Gianluca, while in the
eyes of the Church she was already Taquisara's wife, by the fact of form
though not by the intention of any one.

It did not occur either to Taquisara or to the priest that they could
keep their secret forever and allow matters to proceed to such a
conclusion. Don Teodoro was far too earnest a believer and a churchman
at heart to allow what he should consider a great sin to be committed
without any attempt to hinder it, and with the Sicilian the point of
honour was concerned, as well as a deeply rooted adherence to social
tradition and to the forms and ceremonies of religion in which he had
been brought up. They were neither of them men to have so repudiated all
they held the most sacred in faith and honour, even if either of them
had held the secret alone without the other's knowledge.

But each knew that the other knew the truth, and on that first day, each
departed to his own room lest he should be suddenly brought face to face
again with the other.

It was his unwillingness to allow a thing to be done which, as a man and
a gentleman, he thought both dishonourable and wrong, that prevented
Taquisara from leaving Muro at once. For himself, his first impulse was
to escape from the situation, from the horrible temptation he endured
when he was with Veronica, from the barest possibility of any
unfaithfulness to his friend. At that time the Italians were fighting in
Massowah and as an officer of the reserve he could have volunteered for
active service at a moment's notice--with a terribly good prospect of
never coming back alive.

But even his death would hardly have mended matters, in his scrupulous
opinion, unless Veronica should of her own accord and without any
especial reason insist upon being again married in church, contrary to
the Church's ow