ke yours. I cannot
let it go down into the grave with me. I have kept it long enough, and I
should have kept it longer, if this had not happened. I shall probably
go to Naples to-morrow. You must prevent them from publishing the banns
until I come back, or until you hear from me. I may never come back. It
is possible."
"What do you mean?" asked Taquisara, for he saw a strange look in the
old man's clear eyes.
"I shall not end my life here," he said quietly.
"You? End your life? You, commit suicide? Are you mad, Don Teodoro?"
"Oh no! I may live many years yet. I hope that I may, for I have much to
repent of. But I shall not live here."
"I hope you will," said Taquisara. "But if you know my secret--keep it."
"As I have kept mine till now," answered the old man.
So they parted, and Taquisara went back to the castle, leaving the
lonely priest among his books.
CHAPTER XXVII.
Veronica did not wish the people of Muro to believe that she was
marrying a cripple. That was the reason why she did not at once agree to
Gianluca's proposal and send for the syndic to perform the legal
ceremony. She had persuaded herself that by quick degrees of
improvement, he would recover the power to stand upright, at least to
the extent to which he had still retained his strength when he had first
arrived. Since he had lived through the crisis, she grew sanguine for
him and hoped much.
Her feeling was natural enough in the matter, though it was made up of
several undefined instincts about which she troubled herself very
little--pride of race, pride of personal wholeness and soundness, pride
of womanhood in the manhood of a husband. Veronica named none of these
in her thoughts, but they were all in her heart. Few women would not
have felt the same in her place.
She was sure that he was to get better, if not quite well, and she
wished that he might be well enough to stand beside her on his feet when
they should be formally married. If he continued to improve as rapidly
as during the past fortnight, she believed that the day could not be far
off. When he could stand, in another month, perhaps, the syndic should
come. It was even possible that by that time he might be able to walk a
little with her in the village.
Her people were a sort of family to her. That was a remnant of feudalism
in her character, perhaps, which had suddenly developed during the
months she had spent in Muro. But that, too, was natural, as it was
|