rs.--"Not yet, not ruined
yet. Who knows? I may live to redeem all. Cesare said I was ruined
after that last suit with the chapter. He is a fool! The money was
well spent. I would do it again. While I live the name of Guinigi
shall be honored." She pauses, as if listening to the sound of her own
voice. Then her thoughts glance off to the future. "Who knows? Enrica
shall marry; that may set all right. She shall have all--all!" And she
turns and gazes earnestly through the open doors of the stately rooms
on either hand. "Enrica shall marry; marry as I please. She must have
no will in the matter."

She stops suddenly, remembering certain indications of quiet self-well
which she thinks she has already detected in her niece.

"If not"--(the mere supposition that her plans should be
thwarted--thwarted by her niece, Enrica--a child, a tool--brought up
almost upon her charity--rouses in her a tempest of passion; her face
darkens, her eyes flash; she clinches her fist with sudden vehemence,
she shakes it in the air)--"if not--let her die!" Her shrill voice
wakes the echoes. "Let her die!" resounds faintly through the gilded
rooms.

At this moment the cathedral-clock strikes four. This is the first
sound that has reached the marchesa from the outer world since she has
entered these rooms. It rouses her from the thralldom of her thoughts.
It recalls her to the outer world. Four o'clock! Then she has been
shut up for five hours! She must go at once, or she may be missed by
her household. If she is missed, she may be followed--watched. Casting
a searching look round, to assure herself that all is in its place,
she takes from her girdle the key she always wears, and lets herself
out into the great hall. She relocks the door, drawing the velvet
curtains carefully over it. With greater caution she unfastens the
other door (the entrance) on the staircase. Peeping through the
curtains, she assures herself that no one is on the stairs. Then
she softly recloses it, and rapidly ascends the stairs to the second
story.

That day six months, on the anniversary of Castruccio's birth, which
falls in the month of March, she will return again to the state-rooms.
No one has ever accompanied her on these strange vigils. Only her
friend, the Cavaliere Trenta, knows that she goes there. Even to him
she rarely alludes to it. It is her own secret. Her inner life is with
the past. Her thoughts rest with the dead. It is the living who are
but shadow