“Where did you find it?” she asked faintly.

“In the drawer, here, Excellency.”

“In the drawer!” cried Matilde, starting up, and leaning on her elbow, as though electrified.  “In the drawer?  Here, in my room?  Why—­it was—­”

Her head sank back, and her eyes closed.  She had nearly betrayed herself, for she was very weak.

“It was not there yesterday—­I am sure of it,” she said feebly.

“Give it to me,” said the doctor, sternly, and he put it into his pocket.

All that day Matilde lay in her room.  Gregorio had recovered.  He came to her, and when they were alone, he reproached her bitterly and upbraided her in unmeasured language for her failure.  Veronica was alive, and his terror of the ruin before him grew stronger with the physical weakness.  He was a coward always, but he was now half mad with fear.  He laughed hideously, and his face twitched.  He sawed the air with extraordinary gestures while he walked up and down in his wife’s room, speaking excitedly in a low tone.  Matilde turned to the wall and answered nothing.  For she could not have found anything to say.

From time to time, during the day, she had news of Veronica.  Elettra never left her mistress but once, shortly before twelve o’clock.  She went out for a quarter of an hour, and came back bringing fresh eggs, bread, and wine, which she had bought herself.

“It is poor fare, Excellency,” she said, as she boiled the eggs in the tea-urn, “but it is safe.  If you are strong enough this afternoon, we will go away.  This is not a good house.  I do not understand what was done; but it was done to kill you and not to hurt them.”

“I think it was,” said Veronica.  “I am not frightened, but I do not think that I am safe here.”

After she had eaten a little and drunk some wine, she felt stronger and wrote a line to the Princess Corleone, asking the latter to receive her for a few days, as she was in trouble.  In an hour she had an answer.  Bianca, of course, was ready for her whenever she might come.  Elettra quickly began to pack such things as her mistress might need immediately.

Veronica lay still, listening to Elettra’s movements in the next room.  In a flash she had guessed half the truth, and reflexion now brought her most of the rest.  She remembered Don Teodoro’s earnest face and the quiet eyes that had looked at her through the silver spectacles while he had been speaking.  There had been conviction in them, and even then she had felt that he believed the truth of what he said, however mistaken he might be.  And now she felt that it was not he who had spoken, but Bosio, through him, that the warning came from beyond the grave, and that she had risked her life in disregarding it.  She believed that Bosio had been a truthful man, and each detail of what had happened fitted itself to the next, to make up the whole story which the priest had told her.  All but Bosio’s