"Oh—please—please—" cried Veronica, still clinging to Taquisara's arm and turning her pale face to Gianluca.
He looked on, and his face changed. There was something in her attitude, just for a few seconds, in her ghastly pallor, in the tones of her voice, that went through Gianluca like a knife. The dreadful instinctive certainty that she loved the man she had so nearly killed, took possession of him in a dark prevision of terror. Veronica was strong and brave, but it would have been strange indeed if she had shown nothing of what she felt.
It did not last long, and perhaps she knew what she had shown, for she dropped Taquisara's arm, and the colour rushed to her face as she stooped and picked up the foil with the green hilt. The hilts of the others were blue, like those of many Neapolitan foils, and in the lamp-light she could hardly distinguish the difference.
With sudden anger Veronica set her foot upon the steel and bent it up, trying to break it. She could not, for it was of soft temper, but she bent it out of all shape, so as to be useless.
She forced herself to take another, and they fenced again for a few minutes. Gianluca watched them at first, but soon his head fell back, and he stared at the ceiling. Death had entered into his soul. He had guessed half the truth. But in the state in which he was on that evening, and after what had passed between him and Veronica, the suspicion alone would have been enough. Nothing could have saved him from it, since it was indeed the truth. Such passionate, strong love could only hide itself so long as it lived in the even, unchanging light of monotonous days. In the flash of a danger, a terror, a violent chance, its shape stood out for an instant and was not to be mistaken.
Gianluca scarcely spoke again on that evening. The next morning, before he left his own room, Taquisara was with him, walking up and down and smoking while Gianluca drank his coffee. They had been discussing the accident of the previous evening, and Taquisara had laughed over it. But Gianluca was sad and grave.
"I wish to ask you a question," he said, after a short silence. "When I fainted, that day—did Don Teodoro pronounce all the proper words? You must have heard him. Was it a real marriage, without any defect of form?"
Taquisara stopped in his walk and hesitated. After all, since Don Teodoro had written to him that the marriage must be performed again, it was much better that Gianluca should be prepared for it, since he himself had put the question.
"Since you ask me," answered Taquisara, after a moment's thought, "I may as well tell you what I know. After it was done, both Don Teodoro and I had doubts as to whether the marriage were perfectly valid, and he determined to consult a bishop. I suppose that he has done so, for he has written to me about it. He says that the ecclesiastical authority before whom the matter was laid declares that there were informalities, and that you must be married again. You see, in the first place, there were no banns published in church, and there was no permission from the bishop to omit publishing them. But, of course, that might be set aside. I fancy that the real trouble may have been that you were unconscious. At all events, it is a very simple matter to be married again."
"In other words, it is no marriage at all. I thought so—I thought so."
Gianluca repeated the words slowly and sadly.