-or
excite him?"

The moment had come, and Folco's nerve was restored with the sense of
danger. His face grew cold and expressionless as he waited for the
answer.

"He speaks most affectionately of you. But you had better not come until
this afternoon, and then you must not stay long. The doctors say he must
rest quietly."

"I will come at four o'clock. Thank you. Good-bye."

"Good-bye."

The click of the instrument, as Folco hung the receiver on the hook, and
it was over. He shut his eyes and leaned back in his chair, his arms
hanging by his sides as if there were no strength in them, and his head
falling forward till his chin rested on his chest. He remained so for a
long time without moving.

But in the room at the hospital Marcello lay in bed with his head bound
up, his cheek on the pillow, and his eyes fixed on Regina's face, as she
knelt beside him and fanned him slowly, for it was hot.

"Sleep, heart of my heart," she said softly. "Sleep and rest!"

There was a sort of peaceful wonder in his look now. Nothing vacant,
nothing that lacked meaning or understanding. But he did not answer her,
he only gazed into her face, and gazed and gazed till his eyelids
drooped and he fell asleep with a smile on his lips.

CHAPTER IX

Two years had passed since Marcello had been brought home from the
hospital, very feeble still, but himself again and master of his memory
and thoughts.

In his recollection, however, there was a blank. He had left Aurora
standing in the gap, where the storm swept inland from the sea; then the
light had gone out suddenly, in something violent which he could not
understand, and after that he could remember nothing except that he had
wandered in lonely places, trying to find out which way he was going,
and terrified by the certainty that he had lost all sense of direction;
so he had wandered on by day and night, as in a dark dream, and had at
last fallen asleep, to wake in the wretched garret of the inn on the
Frascati road, with Regina kneeling beside him and moistening his lips
from a glass of water.

He remembered that and other things, which came back to him uncertainly,
like the little incidents of his early childhood, like the first words
he could remember hearing and answering, like the sensation of being on
his mother's knee and resting his head upon her shoulder, like the smell
of the roses and the bitter-orange blossoms in the villa, like the first
sensation of being