Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/307

 where Palestrina lay; her heart was heavy; her pulse was quick; her conscience was ill at ease; her thoughts were restless and perturbed. Solitude and reflection were so new to her; they appalled her. When she had been unwell before, which had been but seldom, she had always beguiled herself by looking over the jewels in their cases, sorting rare old Marcantonios and Morghens, skimming French feuilletons, or planning new confections for her vast stores of old laces. But now none of these distractions were possible to her; she sat doing nothing, weary, feverish, and full of a passionate pain.

The fact which her brother had told to Della Rocca was that, if she married again, all her riches would pass away from her.

At the time of her marriage her father had been deeply involved in debt; gambling, racing, and debts of every other kind had been about him like spiders' webs; the great capitalist, Vorarlberg, had freed him on condition of receiving the hand of his young daughter in exchange. She was allowed to know nothing of these matters; but under such circumstances it