Antonio Amati met Margherita the maid on the staircase as she was going in, too, rather tired. Brusquely, as if he would have preferred not to speak, perhaps, he asked her:
'How is your mistress?'
'She is better,' the old domestic said in a low voice. 'Why have you not been to see her, sir?'
'I have a lot to do,' the doctor muttered, without, however, knocking at his door.
'That is true; but you are so kind, sir.'
'And then there was no need of me,' he added in a hesitating tone.
'Who can tell?' Margherita retorted in a still lower and mysterious voice. 'Why don't you come in now, sir?'
'I will come,' he said, with his head down, as if he was giving in to a superior will.
She put a key in the lock and opened it, going before the doctor into the quiet house, right on to the drawing-room, and he, though accustomed to keep down his own impressions, felt at once the cold silence and emptiness of the big room. He found the girl in black before him, smiling vaguely, holding out her hand—a long, cold, tiny one, which he kept a minute in his, more as a doctor than a friend.
'Are you quite well again?'