Matilde came to the house as the clock struck eleven, and entered by the dark, arched door, and went up the damp, stone steps, as Bosio had done a fortnight earlier.  She was admitted by the decent woman whose one eye was of a china blue, and she waited for Giuditta in the same small sitting-room, of which the one heavily curtained window looked out upon an inner court.  She did not know that Bosio had ever been there, but in her thoughts of him she felt his presence, and turned, with a shiver under her hair, to look behind her as she stood waiting before the window, just where he had stood.  The day was dark, and the room was all dim and cold, with its stiff, ugly furniture and its bare, tiled floor.  The corners were shadowy, and her eyes searched in them uneasily, and she would not turn her back upon them again and look out of the windows.  Then the door opened noiselessly, and Giuditta Astarita entered, in her loose black silk gown, with her little bunch of charms against the evil eye, hanging by a chain from a button hole.

The china blue eyes looked steadily at Matilde, out of the unhealthy face, but the woman gave no sign to show that she knew who her visitor was.  Her hoarse voice pronounced the usual words:  “You wish to consult me?”

“You wrote to me.  I am the Countess Macomer,” answered Matilde, lifting her veil, which was a thick one.

The expression in the woman’s eyes did not change, but she still looked steadily at Matilde for three or four seconds.

“Yes,” she said.  “I thought so.  I am glad that you have come, for I have suffered much on your account.”

She looked as though she were suffering, Matilde thought.  Then she placed the chairs, made the countess sit down, and drew the curtains, just as she had done for Bosio.

Then, in the dark, there was silence.  It seemed to Matilde a long time, and she grew nervous, and moved uneasily.  Then, without warning, she heard that other voice, clear, deep, and bell-like, which Bosio had heard, and she trembled.

“I see a name written on your breast,—­Bosio Macomer.”

The darkness, the voice, the shiver of anticipation, unnerved the strong woman.

“What does he say to me?” she asked unsteadily.

Again there was a long silence, longer than the first, and by many degrees more disturbing to Matilda, as she waited for the answer.

“Bosio loves you,” said the voice.  “He is watching over you.  He tells you to remember what you promised each other in the room that is all yellow, long ago,—­that the one that should die first would visit the other.  He tells you that it is possible, and that he has kept his promise.  He loves you always, and you will be spirits together.”

Matilde felt that in the darkness she was horribly pale, but she was no longer frightened.

“Will he come to me when I am alone?” she asked, and her voice did not shake.

“I will ask him,” answered the clear voice, and again there was silence, but only for a few seconds.  “This is his answer,” continued the voice.  “He cannot come to you when you are alone, as yet.  By and by he will come.  But he watches over you.  For the present he can only speak with you through Giuditta Astarita, who is now asleep.”