"Are the affairs of your family finally settled?" he enquired, without
changing his tone.

Sabina was so much surprised that she waited a moment before
answering. Her first instinct was to ask him stiffly why he put such a
question, and she would have replied to it in that way if it had come
from any other guest in the room; but she changed her mind almost
instantly.

"No one has told me anything," she said simply, in a low voice.
Malipieri turned his head a little with a quick movement, and clasped
his brown hands over one knee.

"You know nothing?" he asked. "Nothing whatever about the matter?"

"Nothing."

He bit his lip as if he were indignant, and were repressing an
exclamation.

"No one has written to me--for a long time," Sabina said, after a
moment.

She had been on the point of saying that she had never received a line
from any member of her family since the crash, but that seemed to
sound like a confidence, and what she really said was quite true.

"Has not the Senator told you anything either?" Malipieri asked.