Suddenly he caught her in his arms as on the day before in the Villa garden.
"Don't forget that you are the blood of my soul...." he said in a strangled voice.
She sobbed out his name—put up her arms about his neck. He kissed her rather wildly and went without another word.
That strange phrase of his rang in her mind all night, mingled with her frantic, confused thoughts of Bobby—and anguish of dread about what Lady Wychcote might say and do before Mr. Surtees could hear the true facts.
Amaldi had spoken in Italian as he nearly always did in moments of great feeling. She could hear his choked voice saying those strange, intense words ... "sei il sangue del anima mia"—the blood of his soul ... she was that to him. And yet, as she lay on the bed that Bobby had shared with her only last night, she felt as if her son were the true blood of her own soul ... that if she lost him by any dreadful, unspeakable chance—her soul would bleed away ... there would be no love left in her for any one.... And she began to reproach herself bitterly through the endless, sleepless night. She had been wrapped up in her own life ... she had not thought as she should of the precious little life derived from hers.... She should have foreseen. Knowing Lady Wychcote as she knew her, she ought to have had such a possibility as this that had happened always before her.
Then again she would think of Amaldi with a throb of pain and yearning. How pale he had looked ... how worn. She could not sleep. Her head and heart both were burning. Now Loring's face came before her. It blended with Amaldi's, blurring it, blotting it out. Now it was Cecil who looked straight at her with hard, angry eyes. "Where is my son, eh?... What have you done with my son?" he seemed to say.
She rose from the bed finally, lighted a candle and began to pack her travelling bags. As soon as daylight came, she asked Rosa to make her some coffee. Then, in spite of the woman's protests, helped her with the other packing. Once when they were folding Bobby's little garments, she put down her head on Rosa's shoulder and began to sob. Then she controlled herself again. She would need all her strength for the hours and days that lay before her.
LV
Later in the morning, when she was on her way to the station alone with Amaldi, it was even worse, but she had no temptation to cry now. This new pain that had sprung suddenly to life in her had the searing quality of hot iron. She kept stealing glances at his face, as he sat beside her in the gondola looking straight ahead, his under-lids drawn slightly up. It gave him a queer, short-sighted yet uncanny look, as though he were trying to focus some apparition of the future. He was thinking: