To be sure he did not realise it and for the fortnight during which he was suffering the worst of the illness he forgot the shock which had precipitated it But this love continued and grew without his awareness, like that of a child in the cradle for the woman who feeds it. An instinctive attachment, indissoluble and imperious, took possession of his poor distressed soul and tore him away from the cold fingers of death. He fell under the ascendancy of this woman to whom he was no more than a patient to be nursed and to whom he transferred all the love he had felt for his mother and the love he thought he had had for his sweetheart.

In the early stages of his delirium he was obsessed by the idea that his mother, by a miracle of maternal love, had left her grave to come and help him to die and he kept on mistaking Lucrezia for her. It was this delusion which explained why she found him submissive to all her treatment, attentive to all she said and forgetful of all the mistrust with which her character had originally inspired him. When he was oppressed to the extent of being unable to breathe he sought her shoulder on which to rest his head and sometimes he would doze for an hour in that position without suspecting his mistake.

Then, one day, his delirium was gone and as his sleep had been more unbroken and wholesome he opened his eyes and fixed them, astonished, on the pale face of this woman, wearied with all the attentions and sleepless nights she had devoted to him. It seemed to him that he had come out of a long dream and he asked her if he had been ill long and was it she whom he had always seen by his side. “Good heavens,” he said when she had replied, “you certainly do look like my mother. Salvator,” he went on, recognising his friend who was approaching his bed, “doesn’t she look like my mother? I was completely thunderstruck by it when I saw her the first time.”

Salvator did not consider it opportune to contradict him, although he could not see the slightest similarity between the beautiful, shapely Lucrezia and the tall, gaunt, austere Princess de Roswald.

On another occasion, Karol still leaning on Madame Floriani’s arm, tried to support himself unaided “I feel better,” he said “I have more strength. I have tired you too much. I don’t understand how I could take advantage of your kindness to such an extent”

“No, no, lean on me, my child,” she answered gaily, using the familiar form of address which was a habit she easily adopted with people who interested her, and in Karol’s case she had come to regard him almost as a son.

“Are you my mother, then? Are you really my mother?” asked Karol whose mind was beginning to become confused again.

“Yes, yes, I am your mother,” she replied, without thinking that for Karol such a statement might be sacrilege. “Rest assured that at this moment it is absolutely the same thing.”

Karol said nothing, then his eyes filled with tears and he began to weep like a child and pressed her hand against his lips.

“My dear son,” she said, kissing him on the brow several times, “you must not weep, it may overtire you. If you think of your mother, think that she sees you from Heaven and blesses you, knowing that you will soon be better.”

“You are wrong,” Karol replied “High in Heaven, my mother has been calling a long time and urging me to go and join her. I can hear her clearly, but I, in my ingratitude, haven’t the courage to give up life.”

“How can you argue so mistakenly, child that you are?” said Lucrezia, with the tender seriousness and calm she would have used in chiding Celio. “When it is God’s will that we should live, our parents cannot summon us to them in the other world They neither wish it nor should wish it. So you must have dreamed it all; when one is ill one has many dreams. If your mother could make herself heard by you she would tell you that you have not lived long enough to deserve to go and join her.”

Karol turned round with an effort, possibly surprised to hear Madame Floriani preaching to him. He looked at her again, then as if he had not heard or understood what she had just said, he cried: “No, I haven’t the strength to die. You are holding me back and I cannot leave you. May my mother forgive me, I want to stay with you.”

And exhausted by his emotion he fell back in Lucrezia’s arms and sank into sleep once more.

12.

One evening, when the prince who was convalescing by now, had apparently fallen gently asleep, and Madame Floriani had put the children to bed, she was sitting with Salvator on the terrace, enjoying the cool air.

“My dear Lucrezia,” he said to her, “the time has come at last for us to speak of real life, for we have been traversing a twenty day nightmare which is now fading, thank God, – I should say thank you, for you have saved my friend, and you have added to my affection for you a gratitude which it is impossible to express. But now tell me, what are we going to do when once our dear patient is fit to travel?”

“We haven’t reached that stage yet,” she replied “He will not be able to leave even after a fortnight. He can barely walk round the garden at present and, as you know, strength returns much more slowly than it goes.”

“Let us suppose that this convalescence lasts another month. There is an end to everything. We can’t remain a burden on you eternally, and we shall have to part one day.”

“Certainly, but I want it to be delayed as long as possible. You are no burden to me; I am well rewarded for the attentions I have given to your friend by the happiness I feel in knowing that I have saved him. Moreover, his gratitude is so great, so genuine and tender, that I have begun to love him, almost as much as you love him yourself. It is natural to nurse and comfort those whom one loves. So I do not see that there is any occasion for thanking me so much.”

“You seem unwilling to understand me, my dear Lucrezia. It is the future which disturbs me.”

“What? The prince’s life? It has not been imperilled at all by this illness. I have studied him. He has an excellent constitution.