“Yes—­of course!”

“Then we will do it again, every day.  I am glad of a little practice, and it will not hurt him either.  A descendant of Tancred ought to fence better than that!  I suppose that your mother would be horrified.”

“She might be a little surprised.”

“Shall we tell her?”

“Not unless we are obliged to,” answered Gianluca, with a smile.  “We do not tell her everything.”

“No,” said Veronica, acquiescing rather thoughtfully.

Gianluca was in that state in which there is a delight in having little, harmless secrets from the world in common with one much loved, but not yet wholly won, and each small secrecy was to the bond that held him what the silver threads are to Damascus steel, welded into the whole that the blade may bend double without breaking.  But to Veronica it was different; for she guessed instinctively how he looked upon such trifles, and she did not wish them to multiply unduly.  Each one was a sting to her conscience.

“I hate secrets,” she said gravely, after a pause.  “Let us tell her.  It is much better.”

“As you like,” answered Gianluca, with a little disappointment, which she did not fail to notice.

“You think that she will be scandalized?  And that we shall not fence any more?  Why?  I am sure, if she could see us, she would think it very proper.  It is not improper, is it?” She asked the last question anxiously, as though in an after-thought.

“Improper?  No!  How absurd!  If everything that is unusual were to be considered improper, our writing to each other would be improper, too.  But we kept it a secret, all the same.  I cannot imagine talking about it.  For me—­everything that belongs to you is a secret.”

Veronica leaned back in her chair, and her face grew still more grave, but she did not answer.  The struggle had begun again, and the hesitation.  Should she tell him, once for all, that she really never could love him?  Should she leave him the illusion he loved so well?  Was he to die, or was he to live?  The answer to each question seemed to lie in the query of the next.  He spoke again before she broke the silence.

“Do you not feel that—­a little—­not as I do, but just a little, about me?” he asked in a voice not timid, but very soft.

“No,” she answered sadly.  “Not as you do.  No; it is quite different.”

She did not look at him at once, for she was almost afraid to meet his eyes, but she heard him catch his breath, as though to strangle a sigh by main force, and his head moved on the cushion.

She had begun to hurt him.

“I thought you might,” he said, faintly but steadily.  “I almost thought you did.”

“No,” she repeated, with ever-increasing gentleness.  “No.  Do not think that—­please do not!”

He said nothing, but again he moved his head.  Then, seeing that the moment had come, and that she must face it with truth or lie to him while he lived, she turned her face bravely towards him, to tell him all her heart.