Her nerves were singularly good, but since Bosio's death she did not like to be alone in that room at night.
Bosio had been fond of dabbling in spiritism and such things, and they had often talked about the possibility of coming back after death, in that very room, promising each other that, if it were possible, the one who died first would try to communicate with the other.

Matilde turned aside from the room in which they had said those things to each other.
She walked more and more cautiously as she came to the other end of the long apartment, where Veronica lived, and she stopped in a dark corridor before the door of Elettra's room.

It was not ajar this time, but closed.

Matilde did not hesitate, and began to turn the handle very slowly.

Then she pushed the door and looked in, shading her candle with her hand, from her eyes, so as to look over it.