But just as they were setting off he encountered the face of Lucrezia close to the window. She was saying goodbye in a few friendly words and was offering him a box of chocolates. He took it mechanically and gave her a low, frigid bow, then flung the box peevishly on to the nearby seat.

Salvator did not notice the action. Half out of the carriage he was still throwing kisses to Madame Floriani and her little daughters who, having left their beds and still partly dressed, were waving gracefully to him with their pretty bare arms.

When there was nothing more to see than the trees and the walls of the villa, Salvator felt his warm Italian heart, so fickle, yet so sincere, swell and burst He covered his face with a handkerchief and shed a few tears. Then, ashamed of this sign of weakness and afraid of appearing ridiculous to his friend, he wiped his eyes, turned to him, slightly shamefaced, to say: “Come, don’t you agree that Madame Floriani is not exactly what you thought her?”

But the words died on his lips when he saw the drawn features and the livid pallor of his friend. Karol’s lips were as white as his cheeks, his eyes were glazed and lack-lustre, his teeth were clenched. Salvator called out to him and shook him, but to no avail; he neither felt nor heard anything; he had fainted. For a few moments Salvator hoped to restore him to consciousness by rubbing his hands. But seeing that he was icy cold and apparently dead, he was seized with sudden panic. He shouted to Celio, had the carriage stopped and opened all the doors to give him air. Everything was useless. Karol gave no other sign of life save deep sighs and convulsive shudders.

Young Celio who had his mother’s courage and presence of mind went back on to his seat, whipped up the horses and brought Prince Karol back to the house where fate had decreed that he should learn to know a new life.

11.

Towards the end of the last chapter the reader will have anticipated that Prince de Roswald would develop an illness which would compel him to remain at the Villa Floriani. I hope you do not consider the incident extraordinary and that is why I do not pass over it in silence.

If I had made a mystery of it, how would the development of this story remain true to life? It is evident that if there is something fatal about great passions, the fulfilment of this fatality is always explained and supported by very natural circumstances. If by symptoms preceding the illness, and if by the overwhelming nature and disorder of the illness itself, Karol had not been predisposed and constrained to come under the influence of passion, it is probable that he would have resisted the attacks of this strange and wild emotion.

He did not resist because he was indeed very ill and because for several weeks Madame Floriani almost never left his bedside. This excellent woman, as much from friendship for Salvator Albani as in obedience to a feeling of religious hospitality, made it her duty to nurse the prince, just as she would have done for his best friend or one of her own children.

In this time of trial Providence had indeed sent to Karol the person most capable of helping and saving him. Lucrezia Floriani had an almost miraculous instinct for judging the condition of a patient and the treatment he required. Perhaps this instinct was merely a matter of memory. At the age of ten, in this same house of which she was now mistress, she had been a servant, just a servant of her godmother, the Signora Ranieri, a sickly, nervous woman whom she had nursed with a love, devotion and tenderness beyond her age. This was the primary reason for the signora’s affection for her which went as far as securing for her an education above her station and later wishing to marry her to her son.

So Lucrezia had learned very early to be a nurse and almost a doctor when the necessity arose. Later she had had sick friends, sick children and sick servants, as everyone is likely to have, and she had tended them herself, as everyone does not do. By making passionate efforts to discover what could relieve them and by noting attentively and scrupulously the good or bad effects of any particular medical treatment, she had acquired some very sound ideas on what suits different physical constitutions, and an excellent memory for infinite detail. She remembered the harm which had been done to her beloved mistress by the rule-of-thumb methods of the Italian doctors; she was convinced that after she herself had left the village, they had killed her. So she did not wish to summon them for the prince and she took it upon herself to treat him.

Salvator was very frightened at the responsibility which she wanted to assume and which weighed heavily on him too. But Madame Floriani’s confident and courageous character won the day. Salvator wearied her with his anxieties and indecision; so she sent him away from the sick-room, saying: “Go and look after the children, amuse them, take them for walks and forget that your friend is ill; for I assure you that you are utterly useless with your childish, anxious solicitude. I shall look after him. He is my responsibility, I shan’t leave him for a single minute.”

Salvator had great difficulty in keeping calm. Karol’s prostration terrified him and seemed to call for prompt and active help.

Madame Floriani had seen such nervous phenomena before and when she looked at the prince’s delicate hands, his white transparent skin and his fine, silky hair, the whole picture both collectively and in detail was so significant that she easily recognised certain similarities between his and Signora Ranieri’s illness which did not deceive her woman’s heart.

Her main object was to calm Karol without weakening him, and being convinced that for such highly sensitive constitutions there are magnetic influences of a superior order which elude common observation, she often summoned her children to the prince’s bedside, when once she had made sure that his condition was not contagious. She believed that the presence of those strong, young, healthy beings would have a mysterious beneficent power, both morally and physically, which would kindle the flickering flame of life in the young patient.

And who can say with certainty that she was deluding herself in this matter? Whether or no the imagination plays a considerable part in nervous illness, the fact remains that Karol breathed more easily when the children were there and their pure breath, mingled with that of their mother, made the air seem easier and milder to his fevered breast We are prepared to accept that patients experience repugnance when they are approached by people who fill them with disgust and anxiety, consequently we should also recognise the physical well-being which they feel when they are cared for or merely surrounded by beings who are sympathetic and pleasant-featured. If, when our last hour comes, instead of the sinister trappings of death we could bring down celestial figures to surround our bed and lull us with the music of the seraphim, we should endure the bitter moment of death without effort or agony.

Karol, tossed by painful dreams, awoke at times in terror and despair.