The foil with the green hilt was the sharp one which had got among the others by mistake.  Taquisara smiled indifferently.

“My life is at your service,” he said, in a tone that seemed a little sarcastic.

“Keep it for those who need it,” she answered, laughing again, and glancing at Gianluca.

Her tone was a little scornful, too, and Gianluca watched them both with some surprise.  Almost any one would have thought that they disliked each other, but such a possibility had never struck him before.  He would have admitted that Veronica might not like Taquisara, but that any one in the world should not like Veronica was beyond his comprehension.  He spoke to his friend about it when they were alone.

“What is the matter between you and Donna Veronica?” he asked that evening, before dinner.

“Nothing,” answered Taquisara, stopping in his walk.  “What do you mean.”

“I think you dislike her,” said Gianluca.

“I?” The Sicilian’s strong voice rang in the room.  “No,” he added quietly, and recovering instantly from his astonishment.  “I do not dislike her.  What makes you think that I do?”

“Little things.  You seem so silent and out of temper when she is in the room.  To-day when she was laughing about the pointed foil you answered her sarcastically.  Many little things make me think that you do not like her.”

“You are mistaken,” said Taquisara, gravely.  “I like Donna Veronica very much.  Indeed, I always did, ever since I first saw her.  I am sorry that my manner should have given you a wrong impression.  I always feel that I am in the way when I am with you two.”

“You are never in the way,” answered Gianluca.

After that, Taquisara was very careful, but more than ever he did his best not to remain as a third when the Duca and Duchessa were away, and Veronica and Gianluca could be together.  The fencing alone was inevitable, and he hated it, though he went through it with a good grace almost every day, since Veronica seemed so unreasonably fond of the exercise.

She and Gianluca did not refer to what had happened, and to what had been said, when she had told him the truth.  She, on her part, felt that she had done right, and that it was the sort of right which need not be done again.  But he, poor man, was not so wholly undeceived as she thought him to be.  Since she loved no one else, he could still hope that she might love him.

Yet he felt his life slipping from him, and he made desperate efforts to get well, insisting upon every detail of his invalid existence as though each several minute of the day had a healing virtue which he must not lose.  He was sure that his chance of winning the woman he loved lay in living to win her, and he grappled his soul to his frail body with every thrill of energy that his dying nerve had left, with all the tense moral grip that love and despair can give.  And yet it seemed hopeless, for his strength sank daily.  At last he could not even sit up at table, and remained lying in his low chair, while the others ate their meals hastily in order not to leave him long alone.