Several of her people followed her, and one went before with a
huge bunch of ancient keys, opening and shutting all manner of big and
little doors before her and after her. Now and then one of the men in
green coats lighted a lantern and showed her where steep black steps led
down into dark cellars, and vaults, and underground places.
She saw it all, but she was glad to get back to the room she already
loved best, from which the balcony outside the windows looked down upon
the valley.
And there she began at once to install herself, causing her books to be
unpacked and arranged, as well as the few objects familiar to her eyes,
which she had brought with her. Among these was the photograph of Bosio
Macomer. Those of Gregorio and Matilde had disappeared. She hesitated,
as she held the picture in her hand, as to whether she should keep it in
her bedroom, or in the sitting-room, in which she meant chiefly to live,
and she looked at it with sad eyes. She decided that it should be in the
sitting-room. Where everything was hers, she had a right to show what
had been all but quite hers at the last. The six brass candlesticks were
taken away, and Bosio's photograph was set upon the long, low
mantelpiece. His death had after all been more a surprise, a horror, a
disappointment, than the wound it might have been if she had really
loved him, and it is only the wound that leaves a scar. The momentary
shock is presently forgotten when the young nerves are rested and the
vision of a great moment fades to the half-tone of the general past.
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