"This whole evening you have not found a minute's time to go and see her! It is not the first time that you neglect her. You have given your heart to Raymond."
XLIII.
The following morning Dr. Jemma examined the child and declared that he was perfectly healthy. He attached no importance whatever to the cough noticed by my mother. Then, smiling at the excess of cares and anxiety, he recommended caution during the very cold days, advised extreme prudence in washing and bathing.
I was present while he spoke of those things before Juliana, and two or three times my eyes met hers, in fugitive flashes.
So, then, Providence would not come to my aid. I must act; I must profit by an opportune moment, hasten the event. I made up my mind. I waited for the evening to commit the crime resolved upon.
I gathered together all that yet remained of my energy; I sharpened my perspicacity; I studied all my words, all my acts. I said nothing, I did nothing that could awaken suspicion, provoke surprise. My circumspection did not relax for a second. Not for a moment did I feel a sentimental weakness. My inner sensibility was compressed, suffocated, and my mind concentrated every useful faculty to prepare the way for the solution of a material problem that was expressed as follows: to succeed at evening, to remain alone with the intruder for several minutes, under certain precise conditions of security.
In the course of the day I entered the nursery several times. Anna was always at her post, an impassable guardian. If I addressed a few questions to her, she answered in monosyllables. Her voice was guttural, of singular quality. Her silence and inertia irritated me.
As a rule, she did not go out except at meal-time; and then, as a rule, she was replaced by my mother or by Miss Edith, or by Cristina, or by some other of the maid-servants. In the last case I could easily rid myself of the witness by giving an order. But there always remained the danger that some one would unexpectedly come at the critical moment. Moreover, I was at the mercy of chance, since I was not able to select the substitute myself. That evening, as on several evenings past, it would probably be my mother. However, it seemed to me impossible to indefinitely prolong my espionage and anguish, to keep watch endlessly, to live in this continual expectation of the fatal hour.
While I was in this perplexity Miss Edith entered with Maria and Natalia: two little graces animated by a run in the open air, enveloped in their sable fur mantles, with their hoods over their heads, gloved hands, and cheeks rosy from the cold. When they perceived me, they came rushing towards me joyously, and for several minutes the room was full of their chatter.
"The mountaineers have come," cried Maria. "The nine days' prayers begin this evening in the chapel. If you saw the manger that Pietro has made! You know, grandmother has promised us a Christmas-tree. Didn't she, Miss Edith? We must put it in mamma's room. Mamma will be well by Christmas, won't she? Oh! do try and make her well!"