But then, when she sat beside him on the balcony in the shady hours, and the great wave of life came up to her from the southern valley, she could not believe that he was really to die.  And then, she hesitated, and she wished to do what was right and true by him, pain or no pain.  Sometimes there was a little colour in his face, and often the deep blue light came into his beautiful eyes.  He was to live, then, and she felt that she was cruel, and base, and cowardly to let his thoughts of her grow.

Those were the good days.  There were worse ones, when he lay like a dead angel before her, and only in his eyes there was a little life.  Then more than once, she gave him the magic of her touch, laid one hand softly upon one of his, or smoothed his silk pillow and arranged the shawl about him.  Perhaps she was wrong to do such things, just because she was so young; but when she did them he breathed freely again, and the faint false dawn of a new day that might never brighten rose in the alabaster cheeks.

Once, Taquisara, standing on the great round bastion below, unnoticed by them both under the spreading vine, turned suddenly by chance and looked up through the leaves, and he saw how Veronica was bending forward towards his friend and touching one hand of his—­for it was not far to see.  Taquisara did not look again, but presently he went in, and there was less of unconcern in his handsome bronze face that day, and his dark eyes were harder and colder than they were wont to be.

Veronica liked him, and forgot altogether the unpleasantness which there had been between them.  He was as gentle as a woman with Gianluca.  He seemed to be strong, too, for on the bad days when his friend could not walk at all, he carried him like a child from room to room.  Veronica saw how necessary he was, and he knew it himself, for after his first protest he made no attempt to go away.  Gianluca, naturally sensitive and abnormally impressionable, hated to be touched by servants, as some invalids do, and Taquisara’s constant presence saved him much suffering, none the less acute because it was imaginary.

At luncheon, at dinner, whenever the Duca and Duchessa were present, Taquisara did his best to help the conversation and always seemed cheerful, unconcerned, and hopeful for Gianluca’s recovery.  It was on rare occasions, when Veronica found herself alone with him for a few moments, or together with him and Don Teodoro, that the man appeared to her silent, morose, and sometimes almost ill-tempered.  He did not again speak rudely in her presence, but she guessed that the unspoken thought was constantly in his mind—­that, and something else which she could not understand.  Daily, hourly perhaps, he was inwardly accusing her of playing with Gianluca, as he had expressed it.

Strange to say, she began to care for his opinion and to wish that he could understand her better; and because he could not, she resented the opinion which she thought he held of her.  When she was with him, she felt something which she did not recognize in herself—­a desire to attack him, for no reason whatever, and at the same time a wish that he might like her better.  Even in her childhood she had never cared very much whether people liked her or not.