ettra. Do you know her?
Her husband was under-steward, and was killed."

"I know of her--I buried him," answered the priest.

She led the way to her own part of the house, to the large room which
served her as dressing-room and boudoir. After all, as he had said, he
was a priest and an old man. She made him sit down beside her fire, in
her own low easy-chair, for he looked thin and cold, she thought, and
she felt charitably disposed towards him, not dreaming what he was going
to say, and supposing that he had exaggerated the importance of his
errand.

"Princess--" he began, and paused, choosing his words.

"Do not call me that," she said. "Nobody does. Call me Donna Veronica."

"I am old fashioned," he answered. "You are my princess and feudal liege
lady. Never mind. It would be better for you if you were in your own
castle of Muro, with your own people about you, though it is a gloomy
place, and the scenery is sad. You would be safe there."

"You speak as though we lived in the Middle Ages," said the young girl,
with a faint smile.

"We live in the dark ages. You are not safe here. Do you know why my
dear friend Bosio killed himself last night?"

"It was an accident! It must have been an accident!" Veronica's face was
very sorrowful again.

"I wish it had been," said Don Teodoro. "They will say so, in charity,
in order to give him Christian burial. But it was not an accident,
princess. My friend told me all the truth, the day before yesterday. It
is very terrible. He killed himself in order not to be bound to marry
you."

The round, silver-rimmed spectacles turned slowly to her face.

"In order not to marry me! You must be mad, Don Teodoro! Or you do not
know the truth--that is it! You do not know the truth. It was only last
night that he asked me to marry him--that is--it had been my aunt who
had asked me, and I gave him the answer."

"You consented?"

"Yes. I consented--"

"That is why he killed himself," said the priest, sadly. "I knew he
would, if it came to that. It is a terrible story."

Veronica stared at him in silence, really believing that he was out of
his mind, and beginning to feel very nervous in his presence. He shocked
her unspeakably, too, by what he said about Bosio; for if the wound was
not deep, perhaps, it was fresh, and his words were brine to it. He saw
what she felt, and made haste to be plain.

"I am sorry that I am obliged to tell you this," he continued, after a
short pau