But Veronica did not answer him.  She was close to Taquisara now, clutching his arm with both hands and staring at the wire mask which covered his face.

“You are hurt!  I know you are hurt!” she said, in a voice faint with fear.

“Oh no!” he answered, with a short laugh.  “I was a little surprised.  Take another foil.  It is nothing, I assure you.”

“I know you are hurt,” she repeated.  “Oh God!  I might have killed you—­”

She felt dizzy, and sick with horror, and she clung to his arm, now, for support.

“Do you mean to say that you had the sharp foil?” asked Gianluca, beginning to understand.

“It is nothing at all,” said Taquisara.  “It ran through my jacket, just under the arm.  It did not touch me.”

“It might have run through you,” said Gianluca, gravely.  “It might have killed you.”

“Oh—­please—­please—­” cried Veronica, still clinging to Taquisara’s arm and turning her pale face to Gianluca.

He looked on, and his face changed.  There was something in her attitude, just for a few seconds, in her ghastly pallor, in the tones of her voice, that went through Gianluca like a knife.  The dreadful instinctive certainty that she loved the man she had so nearly killed, took possession of him in a dark prevision of terror.  Veronica was strong and brave, but it would have been strange indeed if she had shown nothing of what she felt.

It did not last long, and perhaps she knew what she had shown, for she dropped Taquisara’s arm, and the colour rushed to her face as she stooped and picked up the foil with the green hilt.  The hilts of the others were blue, like those of many Neapolitan foils, and in the lamp-light she could hardly distinguish the difference.

With sudden anger Veronica set her foot upon the steel and bent it up, trying to break it.  She could not, for it was of soft temper, but she bent it out of all shape, so as to be useless.

She forced herself to take another, and they fenced again for a few minutes.  Gianluca watched them at first, but soon his head fell back, and he stared at the ceiling.  Death had entered into his soul.  He had guessed half the truth.  But in the state in which he was on that evening, and after what had passed between him and Veronica, the suspicion alone would have been enough.  Nothing could have saved him from it, since it was indeed the truth.  Such passionate, strong love could only hide itself so long as it lived in the even, unchanging light of monotonous days.  In the flash of a danger, a terror, a violent chance, its shape stood out for an instant and was not to be mistaken.

Gianluca scarcely spoke again on that evening.  The next morning, before he left his own room, Taquisara was with him, walking up and down and smoking while Gianluca drank his coffee.  They had been discussing the accident of the previous evening, and Taquisara had laughed over it.  But Gianluca was sad and grave.