"I am very glad, my dear Princess," he said, and his voice trembled in
the reaction after his own anxiety. "You do not wish me to go to Naples,
now?" he said with an interrogation, after a brief pause. "You would
rather that I should wait until Christmas?"
"Of course--if you can," answered Veronica, somewhat surprised at his
change of tone. "But if you really must go, if you are so very anxious
to go at once, I must not hinder you."
"I will see," said Don Teodoro. "I will think of it. Perhaps it can be
arranged--indeed, I think it can."
He was old, she thought, and he had never been decided in character,
except about doing good to poor people, and studying Church history. So
she did not press him with questions, but let him do as he would; and he
did not go to Naples then, but he went and found Taquisara within the
hour, and told him what Veronica had said about her marriage.
The Sicilian heard him in silence, as they stood together on the lower
bastion where they had met, but Don Teodoro saw the high-cut nostrils
quiver, while the even lips set themselves to betray nothing.
"If matters go no further than they have gone," he said at last, as the
priest waited, "we need do nothing."
So they did nothing, and Don Teodoro did not go to Naples.
The daily life ran on in its channel. But Gianluca did not continue to
improve so fast. Then it seemed as though improvement had reached its
limit, and still he was helpless to stand, being completely and
hopelessly paralyzed in his lower limbs.
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