love for Matilde, and in that Don Teodoro had misunderstood him.  He might have loved her in the past.  That was possible, and to the young girl’s mind, in comparison with all that had recently happened, the wrong of that love dwindled to an insignificant detail.  She had not been near enough to loving the man herself to be jealous of his past.  And she was glad that he had not told Don Teodoro of his love for herself.

The rest all grew to distinctness and to the coincidence of the fact with the warning.  She was brave enough to face danger as well as a man, but there was no reason why she should stay where she was, waiting to be murdered.  She had a right to save herself without despising herself as a coward.  She therefore said nothing to stop Elettra in her preparations, and the maid silently went on with her work in the other room.

She still felt ill and terribly shaken, but she rose softly, to try her strength, and she found that after the first moment’s dizziness she could stand and walk alone.  She looked at her hands, and she thought that they had shrunk and were thinner than ever.  Then she lay down again and called Elettra, and bade her prepare her own belongings and then come and dress her, when she should have finished.

“Yes, Excellency.”

That was almost all that the woman had said, since she had boiled the eggs for her mistress’s luncheon, and Veronica herself did not speak except to give an order about some detail of the packing.  It would have been impossible to talk of what had happened without speaking clearly about Matilde, and Veronica did not wish to do that, though Elettra was of her own people and devotedly attached to her.

Elettra had been careful that no one in the household should learn her mistress’s intention of leaving the palace.  Veronica intended to go away in a cab, and it would be the question of a moment only to call one.  When all was ready, Elettra went out for that purpose herself, and Veronica went without hesitation to Matilde’s room.  When she entered, the countess was alone, propped with pillows on a low couch near the fire.  Her large white hands lay listlessly upon the dark shawl that was drawn over her, and she had thrown a piece of thick black lace over her head.  It was nearly four o’clock, and the light was already waning, so that, as she lay with her back to the window, Veronica could hardly see her face.  She raised her head slowly and wearily as the young girl entered, and then started visibly, as she recognized her.

“It is I,” said Veronica, when she had closed the door.

She came and stood beside the couch on which her aunt lay, and she looked down at the reclining woman.  Matilde’s listless hands suddenly clasped each other.

“Yes,” she answered, with an effort.  “Are you going out?  Are you well enough to go out?” she asked, adding the last question quickly.

“I should go if I were much more ill than I have been,” Veronica replied.  “I am not coming back.”