“To think of his breaking up so suddenly, in such a way as this.  No stamina!  Why, he must be twenty years my junior; and I don’t feel a day older than I did ten years ago, not a day.  He has led a steady life too; and seemed as likely a man to last as one would wish to look at.  I suppose everything will go to the nephew,—­legacies to servants, and something, I should not wonder, to the town hospital,- -not that I think he can have saved much, if any thing.  I should like that little cabinet Guido and I don’t suppose Signor Ludovico would care a rush about it.”

With these thoughts in his mind Signor Fortini presented himself at the door of the Castelmare palace within ten minutes of the time when he had received the summons of the Marchese, and was immediately ushered into the library.

A bright ray of sunshine was streaming in at the large window, and flooding half the room with its comfortable warmth and cheerful light.  But the Marchese, though he held a scaldino (a little earthenware pot filled with burning braise) in his hand, and was apparently shivering with cold, sat in his large library-chair, drawn into the darkest corner of the room, cowering over this scaldino, which be held between his knees.  He jumped up from his seat, however, to receive his visitor with an air, one would have said, of having been startled by his entrance.

“It is kind of you to come to me so quickly, Signor Giovacchino,” he said; and then turning angrily to the servant, who was leaving the room, added in a cross and irritable voice, very unlike his usual manner, “Why are not those persiane shut?  Close them directly, and then begone—­quick!”

The man, with a startled look, did as he was bid; and the heavy wooden jalousies thus shut reduced the room to comparative darkness.

“I am afraid I find you very far from well, Signor Marchese.  Would not a little sun be pleasant this bright morning? the air is quite fresh despite the sunshine.”

“I don’t like the sun indoors!  I don’t know how my rascals came to leave the persiane open.”

“I thought you seemed cold, Signor Marchese,” said the lawyer, kindly.

“So I am cold—­very cold,” he said, and his teeth chattered as he said it; “but the light hurts my eyes.”

“It very often does so when one is not well.”

“Not well!  I’m well enough, man alive.  But I think I must have caught a little cold at the ball last night,” rejoined the Marchese, striving hard to speak in his usual manner.

The lawyer, whose eyes had by this time become accustomed to the diminished light, looked hard at his old friend from beneath his great shaggy black eye-brows, with a shrewdly examining glance, and then slightly shook his head.

“Well, I daresay you’ll be all right again in a day or two.  But any way, I am glad you sent for me all the same.  These things have to be done, you know.  And a man does not die a bit the sooner for doing them.  For my part, I always advise my friends to have all such matters settled while they are in health.”