As she moves to and fro she catches sight of herself reflected in one of the many mirrors encased in what were once gorgeous frames hanging on the wall.  She stops and fixes her keen black eyes upon her own worn face.  “I am not old,” she says aloud, “only fifty-five this year.  I may live many years yet.  Much may happen before I die!  Cesare Trenta says I am ruined”—­as she speaks, she turns her face toward the streaks of light that penetrate the shutters.—­“Not yet, not ruined yet.  Who knows?  I may live to redeem all.  Cesare said I was ruined after that last suit with the chapter.  He is a fool!  The money was well spent.  I would do it again.  While I live the name of Guinigi shall be honored.”  She pauses, as if listening to the sound of her own voice.  Then her thoughts glance off to the future.  “Who knows?  Enrica shall marry; that may set all right.  She shall have all—­all!” And she turns and gazes earnestly through the open doors of the stately rooms on either hand.  “Enrica shall marry; marry as I please.  She must have no will in the matter.”

She stops suddenly, remembering certain indications of quiet self-well which she thinks she has already detected in her niece.

“If not”—­(the mere supposition that her plans should be thwarted—­thwarted by her niece, Enrica—­a child, a tool—­brought up almost upon her charity—­rouses in her a tempest of passion; her face darkens, her eyes flash; she clinches her fist with sudden vehemence, she shakes it in the air)—­“if not—­let her die!” Her shrill voice wakes the echoes.  “Let her die!” resounds faintly through the gilded rooms.

At this moment the cathedral-clock strikes four.  This is the first sound that has reached the marchesa from the outer world since she has entered these rooms.  It rouses her from the thralldom of her thoughts.  It recalls her to the outer world.  Four o’clock!  Then she has been shut up for five hours!  She must go at once, or she may be missed by her household.  If she is missed, she may be followed—­watched.  Casting a searching look round, to assure herself that all is in its place, she takes from her girdle the key she always wears, and lets herself out into the great hall.  She relocks the door, drawing the velvet curtains carefully over it.  With greater caution she unfastens the other door (the entrance) on the staircase.  Peeping through the curtains, she assures herself that no one is on the stairs.  Then she softly recloses it, and rapidly ascends the stairs to the second story.

That day six months, on the anniversary of Castruccio’s birth, which falls in the month of March, she will return again to the state-rooms.  No one has ever accompanied her on these strange vigils.  Only her friend, the Cavaliere Trenta, knows that she goes there.  Even to him she rarely alludes to it.  It is her own secret.  Her inner life is with the past.  Her thoughts rest with the dead.  It is the living who are but shadows.