His feeling for Giovanna could never be what it once had been; he had, indeed, resumed his relations with her, but she could never mean the same thing to him again after having deserted him in his hour of need. The very pleasure which he felt in their clandestine intercourse was due in part to his hatred of the Dejases. The Dejases! The mere thought of the joy which his death would afford them, even now, aroused him and put new life into his veins! "They have stolen everything else of mine," he thought, "and now they want to take my life as well. But they shan't have it; I will kill one of them first." He recalled a trial at which he had once been present, where the accused had proved that he had been attacked, and had struck back in order to defend himself; the jury had acquitted him. "Well, they will acquit me; I shall be striking in self-defence. And if they don't acquit me----!" There arose before him the faces of his fellow-convicts. The _King of Spades_ smiled at him lugubriously, and behind him he could see the gloomy walls of the prison courtyard. At least, though, _they_ had been friendly; they might have been murderers, but they had never tried to assassinate him. On the third day of his seclusion in Uncle Isidore's hut a storm came up. Nothing could exceed the comfortless desolation of the poor little abode. The black clouds travelling overhead seemed to break directly against the small, bare window; presently some big drops fell from the roof; one leak in especial, directly over the black, cold fireplace was so persistent that at last, seeing that the water was forming into a thin stream, the young man reached out and shoved Uncle Isidoro's earthenware saucepan beneath it. Drip, drip, drip, the sound was like the monotonous and melancholy ticking of a clock. Night descended, if anything colder and more dreary than before; the rain came down steadily, and the drops fell into the saucepan with the regularity of a machine. Costantino did not move; he had neither wood wherewith to build a fire, nor any more food, and it did not occur to him to get up, to bestir himself, to go out, to live. Perhaps Uncle Isidoro was stalled in some neighbouring village by the storm, and would not get back.