He had spent the six hours between midnight and the December dawn in his easy-chair before the fireplace.
Once or twice, towards morning, he had felt sleep creeping upon him through sheer physical exhaustion, but he had fought it off, afraid to lose one of the precious moments which he still had before him in which to think over what he should do.

They were few enough, for a man of his nature.
He knew the absolute truth of all that Matilde had told him, and he had even suspected much of it before she had first spoken.

He knew that his brother had secretly ruined himself in financial speculations, in which he had employed Lamberto Squarci as his agent, and that, with Squarci's assistance, Gregorio had staved off the consequences of his actions by a fraudulent use of Veronica's fortune,--of such part of it as he could control, of course,--absorbing much of the enormous income, and even, from time to time, obtaining the consent of Cardinal Campodonico for the sale of certain lands, on pretence of making more profitable investments.

During fully ten years, Gregorio's management of the estate must have been a systematic fraud upon Veronica Serra, carried on with sufficient skill to evade all inquiry from the cardinal.

Gregorio's fictitious reputation as a strictly honourable man had helped him, together with the fact that his wife was the ward's own aunt, which was a strong presumption in favour of her honesty as a guardian.