“You?” he faltered.  “Wish for you?  Ah God!  Veronica—­” his face grew dead again.  “No—­no—­I did not understand—­”

“But I mean it!” she said, in desperate, low tones, for she thought he was sinking back.  “I will marry you, Gianluca!  I will, dear—­I will—­I am in earnest!”

Slowly his eyes opened again and looked at her, wide, startled, and half blind with joy.  So the leader looks who, stunned to death between the door-posts of the hard-won gate, wakes unhurt to life in the tide of the victory he led, and hears the strong music of triumph, and the huge shout of brave men whose bursting throats cry out his name for very glory’s sake, their own and his.

Gianluca’s eyes opened, and with sudden pressure he grasped the hand that had so long held his, believing because he held it and felt the flesh and blood and the warmth in his own shadowy hold.

“Veronica—­love!” She would not have thought that he could press her fingers so hard, weak as he was.

The word smote her, even then, with a small icy chill, and though she smiled, there was a shadow in her face.  Again he doubted.

“Veronica—­for the love of God—­you are not deceiving me, to save my life?” The vision of despair rose in his eyes.

“Deceive you?  I?” she cried, with sudden energy.  “Indeed, indeed, I mean it, as I said it.”

“Yes—­but—­but if, to-morrow—­” Again his voice was failing, and she was hand to hand with death, for him.

“No!  There shall be no to-morrow for that—­it shall be now!”

“Now?  To-day?  Now?”

He seemed to rise and sink, and sink and rise again, on the low-surging waves of his life’s ebbing tide.

“Yes—­now!” she answered.  “This moment Don Teodoro is in the house—­I will call him—­let me go for a moment—­only one moment!”

“No—­no!  Do not leave me!” He clung frantically to her hand.  “But—­yes—­call him—­call him!  And Taquisara.  He is my friend—­Oh!  It kills me to let you go!”

It was indeed the very supreme moment.  The great burst of happiness had almost killed him, and he was like a child, not knowing what he wanted.  Still he clutched her hand.  A quick thought crossed her mind.  She had gone to the window for a moment, to fasten it back, and had seen Taquisara walking under the vines.  He might be there.

“Let me go to the window,” she said, regaining her self-possession.  “Taquisara may be on the bastion—­I saw him there.  He will call Don Teodoro, and I shall not have to leave you.”

Any reasoning which kept her by his side was divinely good.  Her words calmed him a little, and his hands gradually loosened themselves.  But as she turned quickly, he uttered a very low cry, and tried to catch her skirt.  She did not hear him.  She was already speaking from the window; for the Sicilian was still there, walking up and down, as he had done for more than an hour.  She called to him.  He started, and looked up through the broad leaves.