"Hush!" he whispered, "do you hear the Berwen?" and he ate his gingerbread slowly, sighing heavily when it was finished.
This was good news for Dr. Belton, told garrulously at tea by his young son, and more circumstantially by Sister Vera; but for long afterwards there was no further sign of improvement in Cardo.
It was not until three more months had passed that another sign of reviving memory was seen in him, and again it was Jack who awoke the sleeping chord.
"Isn't it a shame?" he said, excitedly running into the room one day; "mother is cutting Ethel's hair; says she's getting headaches from the weight of it. Rot, I call it! See what a lovely curl I stole," and he handed it to Cardo, who first of all looked at it with indifference, but suddenly clutching it, curled it round his finger, and became very excited.
"Whose is it?" said Sister Vera, standing over him.
His lips trembled and with a husky voice he said.
"Valmai—" The sound of the name seemed to charm his ear, for he continued to speak it in all sorts of varying tones—sometimes in whispering tones of love—at others in loud and imploring accents. "Oh, Valmai, Valmai!" he called, and when Dr. Belton entered the room, he held out his hands towards him, and in a beseeching voice cried, "Valmai! Valmai!"
There was no rest for anyone in the hospital that night, for all night long the house echoed with the cry of "Valmai! Valmai!"
On the following morning, endeavouring to create some distraction from this ever-recurring cry, Dr. Belton drove his patient with him for some miles into the bush; the fresh air and motion seemed to quiet his brain, and he fell into the silent stupor so constantly hanging over him.
"Come, Williams," said the doctor at last, as they emerged into a well-kept road leading up to a handsome house which stood on a rising ground before them, surrounded by its broad acres of well-cultivated land. "You must brighten up now, for I am going to take you to see an old friend of mine. Why, here he is!" and they were greeted by a jovial shout as a portly, pleasant-faced man caught them up.