She did not relate the particulars of Don Giuseppe's death to Noemi, but
pondered them herself with a vague, deeply bitter consciousness of how
different her destiny might have been, had she been able to believe;
for at the bottom of Piero Maironi's soul there had always lurked a
hereditary tendency to religion, and to-day she was convinced that when,
on the night of the eclipse, she had confessed her unbelief, she had
written her own condemnation in the book of destiny. Then her thoughts
dwelt on another painful passage in the letter from Italy which she had
not mentioned. But, in spite of her silence, her misery was evident.
Noemi pressed her lips to Jeanne's forehead, and letting them rest there
in silence, touched by the secret sorrow which accepted her sympathy.
Then she slowly drew away from the long embrace as if fearful of
severing some delicate thread which bound their two souls together.

"Perhaps that good old man knew where--Do you think he was in
communication with ----" she murmured.

Jeanne shook her head in denial. During the September following that
sad July, Jeanne's unfortunate husband had died in Venice of delirium
tremens. She had gone to the Villa Flores in October, and there in that
same garden where the Marchesa Scremin had once laid bare her poor,
suffering old heart to Don Giuseppe, had expressed a desire that Piero
should be told of her husband's death, should realise that he might
henceforth think of her without a shadow of guilt, if indeed he still
wished to think of her at all. Don Giuseppe first gently urged her
not to abandon herself to this dream, and then avowed to her in all
sincerity that no tidings of Piero had reached him since the day of his
disappearance.

Fearing other questions, and unwilling any longer to expose her wound