When she rose at last, her face was changed; there was a keen, famished look in her eyes, and her movements were steady and direct.  Her nature was very unlike Bosio’s, for she was able to drive her will into action, as it were, and she could be sure that it would not turn and bend, and disappoint her.  But, for the present, she could do little more, and she knew it.  She could only hope that all things might go well, standing ready at hand to throw her weight upon the scale-beam if fate alone would not bear down the side that bore her safety.  She had said all that she could say to Veronica and to Bosio.  Gregorio Macomer, her husband, whom she hated and despised, but whom she was saving, or trying to save, with herself, carried the effrontery of his sham-honest face and cold manner through it all, unmoved, so far as she could see.  Only once or twice in the course of the day he had laughed suddenly and nervously, with a contraction of the face and a raising of the flat upper lip that showed his sharp yellow teeth.  No one noticed it but Matilde, and it frightened her.  But hitherto he had said nothing more since he had first confided to her, as to his only possible helper, the nature of his danger.

She had not reproached him with what he had done.  The danger itself was too great for that, and perhaps she had suspected its approach too long to be surprised at his confession.  She had paid very little attention to the words he used; for, considering his nature, it was natural that he should, even in such extremity, attempt to throw a side-light of dignity upon his misfortunes, and should call crimes by names which suggested honest dealing to the ordinary hearer, such as ‘transference of title,’ ‘reinvestment,’ ‘realization,’ and the like; all of which, in plain language, meant that he had taken what was not his, without the shadow of authorization from any one, in the quite indefensible way which the law calls ‘stealing.’

Matilde had been amazed, however, at the impunity he had hitherto enjoyed.  The mere fact that the estate had never been handed over by the guardians, of whom she was one and Cardinal Campodonico the third, was probably in itself actionable, had Veronica chosen to protest; and it was an indubitable fact that Gregorio Macomer had taken large sums after the guardianship had legally expired.  There had been none to hinder him and Lamberto Squarci from doing as they pleased.  The cardinal was deeply engaged in other matters, and was, moreover, not at all a man of business.  He believed Gregorio to be honest, and now and then, when he talked with Veronica, he applauded her wisdom in leaving the management of her affairs in such experienced hands.