At the mere suggestion of going to Muro, Gianluca had revived, reading
Veronica's letter alone to himself in his room. When he heard that the
invitation had actually come, he seemed suddenly so much better that
the tears started to the old Duca's weak eyes.
"We must go," said the old gentleman to his wife, as they left Gianluca
to consult together. "What is the use of denying it? It is passion. If
he does not marry that girl, he will die of it."
"Of course she means to marry him," answered the Duchessa, her voice
tremulous with nervous delight. "It is not imaginable that she should
ask us to visit her, unless she means that she has changed her mind! It
would be an outrage--an insult--it would be nothing short of an
abominable action--I would strangle her with these hands!"
The prematurely old woman shook her weak fingers in the air, and her
passionate love for her son lent her feeble features the momentary
dignity of righteous anger.
"I should hardly doubt that she would marry him after this," said the
Duca, thoughtfully. "And besides--where could she find a better husband?
It is passion that has made him ill."
But it was not. In what they said of Veronica's probable intention they
were not altogether wrong, however, from their point of view. They were
in complete ignorance of the long-continued correspondence between her
and Gianluca, and had they known of it, they could not possibly have
understood her way of looking at the matter.
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