It was not ajar this time, but
closed. Matilde did not hesitate, and began to turn the handle very
slowly. Then she pushed the door and looked in, shading her candle with
her hand, from her eyes, so as to look over it. She had determined, if
she found the woman in bed, to wake her boldly, to say that she felt ill
again and to tell her to go and heat some water. That would have taken
some time. But Elettra was not there, and the bed, as usual of late, was
untouched.
Matilde looked about her hastily, at the same time extracting the
package from the wide pocket of her dressing-gown. The furniture was
scant and simple--the bed, a table covered with things belonging to
Veronica, beside which lay sewing-materials, two chairs, a shabby chest
of drawers, a deal washstand--that was all. Italian servants are not
accustomed to very luxurious quarters. A couple of coarse, uncoloured
prints of saints were tacked to the wall over the bed, and a bit of a
dusty olive branch, from the last Palm Sunday, nine months ago, was
stuck behind one of them.
Matilde looked about her, and hesitated a moment. Then, setting the
candlestick down, she knelt upon the floor, and thrust the package as
far as she could under the chest of drawers. Of all the things she had
to do, in the course of that night and the following day, this was the
only one with which any danger was connected, for at any moment Elettra
might have come from Veronica's room to her own.
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