eading lest some one might be there to see. But she
was quite alone, and she wondered at herself. It must be shame, she
thought, at the mere idea of marrying another man when she was
Gianluca's wife. At all events, she said in her heart, she would not
think of such things again. It was probably a sin, and she would
remember to speak of it, at her next confession. Don Teodoro would tell
her what he thought. For in lonely Muro, she had no other confessor, nor
desired any. Her faults, great and small, were such as she would have
acknowledged and discussed with the good man, in her own drawing-room as
willingly as in church--as, indeed, she often did. But not wishing to be
alone with herself any longer on that day, she came down from the tower
and went to her room, where she spent an hour with Elettra in examining
the state of her very much reduced wardrobe.

"Your Excellency is in rags," observed the woman. "You cannot appear in
Naples as a bride with any of the things you have. In the first place,
you have scarcely anything that is not black or white. But also, though
some of these clothes had a cheerful youth, their old age is very sad."

Veronica laughed at Elettra's way of expressing herself, and they went
over all the wardrobe together that afternoon.

As Taquisara saw how those around him seemed to have recovered from the
terrible emotions through which they had passed, and how the life in the
castle quickly subsided again to its monotonous level and ran on in its
old channel, the temptation to solve all difficulties by letting matters
alone presented itself to him with considerable force. Ten days had gone
by, and he had not once found himself alone with Don Teodoro. When they
met, they avoided each other's eyes, and each remained separately face
to face with the same trouble, while each had a trouble of his own with
which the other had nothing to do.

There was little or no change now from what had formerly been the daily
round. Again, as before, Taquisara carried his friend daily from his own
room to the large one in which Veronica and the Sicilian again fenced
almost every day. Sometimes, when it was fine and warm, Gianluca was
taken out upon the balcony for a couple of hours. He no longer suffered
in being moved; but his lower limbs were now completely paralyzed. He
hardly thought of the fact, in his constant and increasing happiness. It
was only when he saw the fencing that he sometimes looked down sadly at