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He was not, under any circumstances, a man to speak of such things to a third person. Then, how did this Giuditta Astarita know what Matilde had said and done? It was not natural, and not natural meant supernatural supernatural meant the possibility of communication, and she had loved the dead man with all her big, sinful soul.
Matilde unlocked her door when she felt that she was once more mistress of herself and able to face the world. A woman does not lead the life she had led for years without at least knowing herself well and understanding exactly how far she can rely upon her face and voice.
She felt sure that if any attempt were made to poison her, Matilde would manage it quite alone; and she seriously expected that such an attempt would be made, after what Don Teodoro had told her. Veronica, like most Italians in the south, never took any regular breakfast, beyond a cup of coffee, or tea, or chocolate, with a bit of bread or a biscuit, as soon as she awoke.
The other two were husband and wife, Gregorio and Matilde, Count and Countess Macomer; and the countess was the young girl's aunt, being the only sister of Don Tommaso Serra, Prince of Acireale, Veronica's dead father. She looked on, with an eager, pleased expression, standing upright and bending her head in order to see the point of the pen as it moved over the rough paper.
"She could not go mad, could she?" he asked, a quiver of cunning intelligence making his stony mask quiver. "Are there not things is there not something you know something that produces that? What is all this talk, nowadays, about hypnotic suggestion?" "Fairy tales!" exclaimed Matilde, incredulously. "The other is sure. This is no time for experiments. There are thirteen days left in this year.
When she looked up, Matilde was holding out her cup to her, having put some cream into it and a lump of real sugar to really sweeten the tea. Veronica thanked her, drew a little nearer to the table, held her cup on her knee, and took a thin slice of bread and butter, which she proceeded to eat, stirring the tea slowly with her left hand.
She measured, at a glance, the distance that now separated her from them; but she said nothing. "It hasn't occurred to her that they meant to insult her," said Matilde; "she neither colored nor turned pale. How vexed these girls will be if she likes her new place as well as the old! You are out of bounds, mademoiselle," she added, aloud, addressing Ginevra.
But that was not what I meant. I cannot believe that Veronica is really inclined to marry me. It seems to me that she might be my daughter " "If you had been married at fifteen," suggested Matilde, laughing softly. "Because you feel tired and harassed to-day, you feel a hundred years old. It is no compliment to me to say so, for I am even a little older than you, I think.
Only once or twice in the course of the day he had laughed suddenly and nervously, with a contraction of the face and a raising of the flat upper lip that showed his sharp yellow teeth. No one noticed it but Matilde, and it frightened her. But hitherto he had said nothing more since he had first confided to her, as to his only possible helper, the nature of his danger.
She looked at the quiet old priest, with his extraordinary face and quiet manner, and it was far easier to believe that a man with such features might be mad than that her Aunt Matilde meant to kill her. He was silent for a few moments. "There is a terrible logic in the absurdity," he said at last.
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