"My poor son! My poor Gianluca!" he said, and then shuffled round the bastion again.

Taquisara scarcely left the sick man's side except when Gianluca could be alone with Veronica. He was evidently very anxious, though his face betrayed little of what he felt. He knew it, and was glad that nature had given him that bronze-like colour, which could hardly change at all.

When the whole party were together, he talked; he talked when he was alone with Gianluca; but when he was with Gianluca and Veronica he spoke in monosyllables. Once she noticed that he was biting his lip nervously, just as he turned away his face.

Though Gianluca was worse, without doubt, he insisted that there should be no change in his way of spending the day. To amuse him, Veronica and Taquisara fenced a little of an afternoon. But the Sicilian had no heart in it, and evidently did not care whether Veronica touched him or not, and his indifference annoyed her, so that she sometimes worked herself into little furies of attack, and he, rather than really attack her in return and oppose his strength, broke ground and let himself be driven back across the room.

"Some day I shall take the foil with the green hilt," laughed Veronica.

"Then you will really take the trouble to fight me."

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 d.u.c.h.essa 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.

The doctor came, a clever young man, whom Veronica had procured for the good of the village. He shook his head, though he tried to speak cheerfully to Gianluca's father and mother. But he advised them to send for the great authority whom they had consulted in Naples, and under whom he himself had studied. Veronica spoke with him in an outer room.

"I fear that he cannot live, but I am not infallible," he said.

"How long will he live, if he is going to die?" asked Veronica, pale and quiet.

"Do not ask me--it is guess-work," answered the young doctor. "I think he may live a fortnight. He is practically paralyzed from his waist downwards--it is almost complete. What he eats does not nourish him."

"What has caused this?"

The doctor shrugged his shoulders, smiled faintly, and made a gesture which in the south signifies the inevitable.

"It is a decayed race," he said; "a family too old--there is no more blood in them--what shall I say?"

"I do not believe that has anything to do with it," replied Veronica, rather proudly. "The Serra are as old as they. Did you see that gentleman who is Don Gianluca's friend? He is descended from Tancred."

"It is other blood," said the doctor.

He went away, and the great physician who lived in Naples was sent for at once. A carriage went down to Eboli to meet him. He came, looked, asked questions, and shook his head, very much as his pupil had done. He stayed a night, and when it was late, Veronica and Taquisara were alone with him. He was a fat man, with enormous shoulders and very short legs, and a round face and dreamy eyes set too low for proportion of feature. Taquisara thought that he was like a turtle standing on its hind flippers, preternaturally endowed with a hemispherical black stomach, and a large watch chain; but the idea did not seem comic to him, for he was in no humour to be amused at anything.

The professor--for he was one--talked long and learnedly, using a number of Latin words with edifying terminations. In spite of this, however, he was not without common sense.

"I have known people to recover when they seemed to have no chance at all," he said.

"But you do not expect him to live?" asked Taquisara, pressing him.

"It is a desperate case," answered the physician.

Being very fat, and having travelled all day, he went to bed. Veronica remained alone in the drawing-room with Taquisara. The latter slowly walked up and down between two opposite doors. Veronica kept her seat, her head bent, listening to his regular footsteps.

"Donna Veronica--" he stopped.

"Yes," she answered, not looking up, but starting slightly at the sound of his voice. "What do you wish to say?"

"You know that I have not always been fortunate in what I have said to you, and that makes me hesitate to speak now. But it seems to me that, as Gianluca is really in the care of us two--"

"Well?" Still she did not turn to him, though he paused awkwardly, and began to walk again.

"Gianluca asked me the other day whether I disliked you," he said.

"Well? Do you?" Her tone was unnaturally cold, even to her own ears.

He stood still on the other side of the table, looking towards her.

"No," he said, as though he were making an effort. "If he asked me the question, it must be that I have behaved rudely to you before him. Have I?"

"I have not noticed it," answered Veronica, as coldly as before.

"It would certainly not have been intentional, if there had been anything to notice. If I speak of it now, it is because Gianluca spoke to me, and because, if we are to talk about him, the way must be clear.

You say that it is? May I go on?"

Veronica did not answer at once. Then she rose slowly, turned, and stood before the low, long chimneypiece.

"Why should we talk about him at all?" she asked, at length determining what to say. "We shall not agree, and we can only repeat what we have both said before now. It can be of no use."

"I have something more to say," replied Taquisara.

"Yes. There may be more to be said, that may be better not said. I know what it is. You once accused me of playing with him. You said it rudely and roughly, but I have forgiven you for saying it. You would have more reason for saying it now than you had then, and I should be less angry.

You have a better right to speak, and I have less right to defend myself. But I will speak for you. I am not afraid."

"No. That is the last thing any one could say of you!"