don't forget this now! When she comes again, you must stand by
her at the door there, and tell her not to be frightened: I am not so
very ill. Tell Nina not to be frightened. She used not to be frightened.
Ask her to remember the afternoons when I had the broken ankle--she and
Sabetta Debernardi used to come nearly every day--and Sabetta brought
her zither--and Nina and I played dominoes. Maurice, you never heard
Nina sing to herself--just to herself, not thinking--and sometimes
Sabetta would play a _barcarola_--oh, there was one that Nina used to
sing sometimes--'_Da la parte de Castelo_--_ziraremo mio tesoro_--_mio
tesoro!_--_la passara el Bucintoro_--_per condur el Dose in mar'_--I
heard it last night again--but--but all stringed instruments--and the
sound of wind and waves--it was so strange and terrible--when I was
listening for Nina's voice. I think it was at Capri--along the
shores--but it was night-time--and I could not hear Nina because of the
wind and the waves. Oh, it was terrible, Maurice! The sea was roaring
all round the shores--and it was so black--only I thought if the water
were about to come up and drown me, it might--it might take me away
somewhere--I don't know where--perhaps to the place where Nina's ship
went down in the dark. Why did she go away, Maurice?--why did she go
away from us all?--the poor _cianciosella_!"

These rambling, wearied, broken utterances were suddenly arrested:
there was a tapping at the outer door--and Lionel turned frightened,
anxious eyes on his friend.

"I'll go and see who it is," Mangan said, quietly. "Meanwhile you must
lie perfectly quiet and still, Linn, and be sure that everything will
come right."

In the next room, at the open door, he found the reporter of a daily
newspaper which was in the habit of devoting a column every Monday
morning to music and musicians. He was bidden to enter. He said he
wished to have the last authentic news of the condition of the popular
young baritone, for of course there would be some talk, especially in
"the profession," about Mr. Moore's non-appearance on the preceding
night.

"Well," said Maurice, in an undertone, "don't publish anything alarming,
you know, for he has friends and relatives who are naturally anxious.
The fever has increased somewhat; that is the usual thing; a nervous
fever must run its course. And to-night he has been slightly
delirious--"

"Oh, delirious?" said the reporter, with a quick look.

"Slightly--