"I did not expect to see—your husband,"
said Barletti, not accepting the proffered
chair, but standing before her as she sat,
and looking down upon her.

A vivid blush crimsoned her face and
neck. Barletti had spoken with intention,
and she had noted that he had done so.
She tried to mask her real emotion by a
feigned one, and threw some haughty
resentment into her voice as she replied: "You
did not expect to see him? Why, then,
did you come at this hour? I should not
have received you, but that I thought you
had some real business with Sir John."

"I came to see you, Veronica."

"Then you acted imprudently and
inconsiderately."

"Imprudently for myself, perhaps. It
may be that the most prudent thing I could
do, would be to see you no more.  But I
have not acted inconsiderately towards you
in coming. You have no longer any reason
to fear Sir John Gale's anger or caprice.
Yesterday it would have been different."

She put her hand on her breast, which
was rising and falling quickly. She
preserved the haughty attitude of her head as
she looked up at him; but her lips quivered
in spite of herself, and she could not trust
them to frame a word.

"I saw you being rowed to the landing-place,"
he proceeded. "And then I
accidentally got into conversation with an
English officer of marine who belonged to the
ship that you—visited this morning. I
could scarcely believe my eyes or my ears
at first. But then suddenly a great many
things that had puzzled me, grew clear."

Still she was silent; but her head drooped
a little, and she turned her eyes away from
him. He had not expected this. He had
thought to see her triumphant, but she
seemed downcast and oppressed. Or was
this the beginning of the change in her
towards himself, which he had dimly
foreboded?

"Veronica," he said, pleadingly, "you
might have trusted me! I should have
been true to you. But you were so proud
and so secret. How you must have
suffered!"

She had been oppressed by a crowd of
confused feelings: surprise, mortified pride,
an undefined sense of relief in the
knowledge that Cesare knew the real facts of
her position and was still devoted to her;
at the same time a hostile movement of
amour propre which shuddered at the idea
of falling from the high place she had
occupied in his thoughts. His last words,
and the tone of compassion in his voice,
touched a morbidly sensitive chord in her
over-strained nerves, and, suddenly dropping
her face upon her open palms, she
burst into a passion of crying. Perplexed
and distressed he came and leaned over her
chair, murmuring her name at intervals,
and timidly touching the folds of her long
sweeping gown. Her tears relieved and
soothed her, and as she cried she thought.
Even after the first burst of weeping had
exhausted itself she kept her face hidden,
feeling that her attitude and her distress
afforded a kind of ambush wherein to collect
her thoughts.

"Veronica, you are not angry with me?"
said Barletti.

She had by this time been inspired with
an idea which was as balm to her hurt
pride.  It was intolerable to her to be an
object of pity to the man who had
worshipped her. Sympathy—even compassion,
so long as it were blended with sufficient
admiration—she could endure. But
she must regain the level she fancied she
had lost. She would reveal to Barletti the
fact of their relationship. She had
concealed it until she could look her kinsman
freely in the face without communicating
any breath of dishonour to her mother's
race!  As the thought passed through her
mind, she began to believe in it, as an actor
believes for the moment in his mimic
sorrows. And she felt quite magnanimous
with a sense of noble self-sacrifice.
The anticipated enjoyment of her coming
"point" gave her face an expression of
exaltation as she raised it from her concealing
hands, and pushed the clustering hair back
from her forehead.

"Cesare," she said, in a voice which had
not quite regained its steadiness,"I have
something to tell you."

It was the first time she had ever called
him "Cesare," and the sound of his name
uttered by her lips overpowered him with
joy. He fell on his knees and kissed her
hand in his demonstrative southern way.

"Anima mia, do I not know already
what you would tell me?"

"No;" replied Veronica, with a faint
melancholy smile, "you do not know or
guess. Sit down there, opposite to me,
and listen. You said a reproachful word
to me just now, about not having trusted
you. I want you to understand how little I
deserve a reproach from you."

Barletti began to protest that he had
never meant to reproach her; but she
checked him.

"No, no, say no more. Hear me out.
Last autumn at the Villa Chiari, when I