“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 pause.  “I cannot help it.  The only thing I can do for my dead friend is to save you, if I can.  I saw the account of his death in a newspaper an hour ago, and I came at once.  Will you please not think that I am mad, until you have heard me?  I was his friend, and I have eaten your bread these many years.  I must speak.”

“Tell me your story,” said Veronica, leaning back in her chair and folding her hands.

He began at the beginning, and told her all, as Bosio had told him.  He omitted nothing, for he had the astonishing memory which sometimes belongs to students, besides the desire to be perfectly accurate, and to exaggerate nothing.  For he knew that she would find it hard to believe him.

She listened; and as he went on, describing the struggle in poor Bosio’s heart between the desire to save the woman he loved and the horror of sacrificing Veronica as a means to that end, she leaned forward again, drawing nearer to him, and watching his face keenly.  Her eyes were wide, and her lips parted a little; for whether true or not, the story was terrible as he told it, and as he had said that it would be.