a_. At his heels ran Tibaldo and the two
women. The huge man, in his day the fastest runner in England, overtook
them in a few bounds. Now his head was clear. Now he knew what was
needed and exactly how to get it. He leaped into the racer, Luigi after
him. Within eight minutes they were at Intra. Claudio Mora, a young
doctor from Turin, returned with them.

XL

Mora succeeded in checking the boy's spasms, but was much relieved when
Sophy asked to have Cesare Camenis in consultation--there were things
about the case that he could not understand. He said so frankly. That
such a robust, sunburnt little fellow, past the age for teething, should
have convulsions baffled him. Camenis arrived at five o'clock. To him
Sophy told the whole truth. He was a quiet, grey man of about sixty,
whose own life had been tragic. The comprehension of dominated sorrow
was in his face. Sophy felt that she could trust him, and that he should
know all if he was to save Bobby for her. She could not have spoken to
Mora. He was too young--and he was still encased in the hard shell of
happiness. She could not have laid the wound of her life bare to him, as
she did to this quiet, sad-eyed man whose only son was a cripple born,
and whose wife had left him for a singer.

After hearing her, Camenis released his young _confrere_ from further
responsibility. He would stay himself that night, he said, at Villa
Bianca.

Bobby was very ill for some days. He had fever and was delirious. Sophy
never left the nursery. Camenis stayed with her till the crisis was
past--being taken to and fro between Stresa and the Villa during the day
in the launch.

Chesney avoided being alone with the doctor. He had his meals served at
different hours, also in his room, for the most part. When he could not
avoid meeting Camenis, he would halt awkwardly for a moment, and say:
"Little chap going on well?" or, "Don't let Mrs. Chesney break down,
will you?" or some such commonplace. He did not like to feel those
shrewd, sad eyes of the Genoese physician on his face. He had slipped
into the way of taking morphia pretty regularly, ever since that fatal
afternoon. To face the prospect of Bobby's possible death, with clear,
undrugged mind, was too much for him. And Sophy would not see him--had
sent him a sealed line as soon as she could command herself enough to
write, saying that she would not.

"Do not try to see me," she had written. "It is all I ask of you."

It wa