And so it all happened just as she foresaw. But she had not known that
in threading the intricate, dark streets she would almost forget what
she was to do that day, in the mad hope of the one more word from
beyond. She had not known that at the thought her eyes would brighten
eagerly, the colour would come back to her cheeks, and the strength to
her limbs as she walked. After all, the strongest thing that had ever
been in her, or ever could be, was that passionate, dominating,
despotic devotion to one being; and the merest suggestion that he might
not be gone quite beyond the reach of spiritual touch had power to veil
the awful future of the day, when her hand was already uplifted to kill.
She was not a woman to hesitate at the last moment, unstrung and
womanishly trembling because the victim was young, and smiled, and had
innocent eyes. And yet, perhaps, had she not gone that day to answer the
spirit-seer's summons and to catch at the straw thrown to her from
beyond the grave, she might have seen a reason for changing her mind,
and all might have happened very differently. But Fate does not sleep,
though she seems sometimes to nod and forget to kill.
Matilde came to the house as the clock struck eleven, and entered by the
dark, arched door, and went up the damp, stone steps, as Bosio had done
a fortnight earlier. She was admitted by the decent woman whose one eye
was of a china blue, and she waited for Giuditta in the same small
sitting-room, of which the one heavily curtained window looked out upon
an inner court.
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