refuge of Italians in difficulties.  But he had exhausted all he could touch, had gambled, and had lost it.  If he fled now, it must be as a penniless emigrant.  As he had no taste for such adventures, at his age, there was but one chance for him, and that lay in somehow getting control of Veronica’s fortune before the end of the month.  As for getting any more of the income, in time to be of any use in staving off the tidal wave of ruin that rose against him, there was no chance of that.  The farmers all over the country paid their quarter’s rents on the first of January, or should do so, but there was often difficulty in collecting, and the money would not really get to Macomer’s hands much before February.  By that time all would be over; and it was not the idea of bankruptcy which frightened Gregorio; it was the certainty that a declaration of bankruptcy must lead to, and involve, a minute examination into his past transactions which had led to it.

Matilde knew all the truth, as has been shown.  What she suffered in remaining in Naples, in going and coming through the familiar rooms, in spending her evenings in that room, of all others, in which she had last seen Bosio alive, no one knew.  She went about silently, and her face grew daily paler and thinner.  In her behaviour she was subdued and silent, though she treated Veronica with greater consideration than before.  They had never spoken together of the possible reasons for Bosio’s death, but it had been publicly stated that he had been insane, and Matilde, to all appearances, accepted the explanation as sufficient.  It was made the more reasonable by the evident fact that Gregorio’s mind was unsettled, and that he himself was in imminent danger of going mad.  That, at least, was the impression produced upon the household.

As the days went by, the gloom deepened in the Palazzo Macomer, and when the three met at their meals, or sat together for a short time in the evening, the silence was rarely broken.

At first, it was congenial to Veronica; for if her grief was not passionate nor destined to be everlasting, her sorrow was profoundly sincere.  It was the companionship of Bosio that she missed most keenly and constantly, through the long, empty hours.

No one who called was received during those first days.  It chanced that Cardinal Campodonico had gone to Rome to attend one of the consistories for the creation of new cardinals, which are often held shortly before Christmas.  Had he been in Naples, he would of course have been admitted.  He wrote to Gregorio, and to Veronica, short, stiff, but sincere, letters of condolence.  He was a man of a large heart, which was terribly tempered by a very narrow understanding; generous, rather than charitable; sincere, more than expansive; tenacious, not sanguine; keen beyond measure in ecclesiastical affairs, devoted to a cause, but unresponsive to the touch and contact of humanity; hot in strife, but cold in affection.