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Of the persons who had been witnesses of the scene, the Doctor and Ugo Severi could be trusted, and Princess Chiaromonte was too much afraid of Giovanni to brew gossip about his love-affair.
The Marchesa did, indeed, take charge of everything in the Palazzo Chiaromonte within an hour of her brother-in-law's death; she locked the drawers of his private desk herself, sent for the notary and had the customary seals placed on the doors of the inner apartments 'in the name of the heirs'; she spoke with the undertaker and made every arrangement for the customary lying in state of the body during the following night and day; saw to the erection of the temporary altar at which masses for the dead would be celebrated almost without interruption from midnight to noon by sixteen priests in succession; gave full instructions to the effect that the men-servants should take their turn of duty in regular watches, day and night, until the funeral; and finally left the palace, after showing herself to be an exceedingly practical woman.
Fate does not always kill, it is true; but you have not that one chance against her which your weapon gives you against the lion, and she may maul you badly before she has done with you, even worse than the biggest cat would. It was not Ugo Severi's fate that was waking, and that began to look towards Monteverde when Princess Chiaromonte paid him a visit. It was not even the Princess's own.
Moreover, he endeavoured to imagine what the nun, as distinguished from the mere woman, must have felt when she found herself trapped in a man's rooms and locked in. Even his unbelief instinctively placed Sister Giovanna higher in the scale of goodness than Angela Chiaromonte; he was an unbeliever, but not a scoffer, for somehow the rule of honour influenced him there, too.
'I suppose I never realise how changed we all are, she said thoughtfully. 'But do you not think the Princess Chiaromonte may remember you when she hears your name? 'Many Sisters have taken it, Sister Giovanna answered. 'And, after all, what harm can there be? If she recognises me and is angry, she can only send me away, and meanwhile she will be taken care of, at least for the night.
Ugo had been introduced to her long afterwards, when she was the Princess Chiaromonte, and she had shown that she liked him, and had asked him to a dance, to which he had not gone simply because he had given up dancing.
On the walls there were four or five first-rate pictures, the largest of which was a magnificent portrait of a former Chiaromonte by Vandyke; there was a Holy Family by Guercino, another by Bonifacio, a Magdalen with the box of ointment, by Andrea del Sarto, and one or two smaller paintings of no inconsiderable value.
'I am sorry I was impatient, he said, and his large brown eyes softened behind his round spectacles as he turned to enter the sick-room. It was not his business to ask what had so greatly disturbed the peace of Sister Giovanna. When the Princess Chiaromonte was getting well, she asked some questions of her doctor, to which he replied as truthfully as he could.
Thus analysed, Angela Chiaromonte would not have known herself, any more than those who knew her best, such as Madame Bernard and her aunt the Princess, would have recognised her.
No one knew how near forty the Princess might be, for she appeared in the Almanach de Gotha without a birthday, and only the date of her marriage was given; but the year was 1884, and people said it was impossible that she should have been less than seventeen when her parents had brought her to Rome and had tried to marry her to the elder of the Chiaromonte family; as twenty years had passed since they had succeeded in capturing the second son for their daughter, it was clear that she could not be under thirty-seven.
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