CHAPTER XCIII.
"SAY THAT YOU FORGIVE ME."
On the following day, again early in the morning, Mrs. Trevelyan and Stanbury were driven out to Casalunga. The country people along the road knew the carriage well, and the lady who occupied it, and would say that the English wife was going to see her mad husband. Mrs. Trevelyan knew that these words were common in the people's mouths, and explained to her companion how necessary it would be to use these rumours, to aid her in putting some restraint over her husband even in this country, should they fail in their effort to take him to England. She saw the doctor in Siena constantly, and had learned from him how such steps might be taken. The measure proposed would be slow, difficult, inefficient, and very hard to set aside, if once taken;—but still it might be indispensable that something should be done. "He would be so much worse off here than he would be at home," she said;—"if we could only make him understand that it would be so." Then Stanbury asked about the wine. It seemed that of late Trevelyan had taken to drink freely, but only of the wine of the country. But the wine of the country in these parts is sufficiently stimulating, and Mrs. Trevelyan acknowledged that hence had arisen a further cause of fear.
They walked up the hill together, and Mrs. Trevelyan, now well knowing the ways of the place, went round at once to the front terrace. There he was, seated in his arm-chair, dressed in the same way as yesterday, dirty, dishevelled, and gaudy with various colours; but Stanbury could see at once that his mood had greatly changed. He rose slowly, dragging himself up out of his chair, as they came up to him, but shewing as he did so,—and perhaps somewhat assuming,—the impotency of querulous sickness. His wife went to him, and took him by the hand, and placed him back in his chair. He was weak, he said, and had not slept, and suffered from the heat; and then he begged her to give him wine. This she did, half filling for him a tumbler, of which he swallowed the contents greedily. "You see me very poorly, Stanbury,—very poorly," he said, seeming to ignore all that had taken place on the previous day.
"You want change of climate, old fellow," said Stanbury.
"Change of everything;—I want change of everything," he said. "If I could have a new body and a new mind, and a new soul!"
"The mind and soul, dear, will do well enough, if you will let us look after the body," said his wife, seating herself on a stool near his feet. Stanbury, who had settled beforehand how he would conduct himself, took out a cigar and lighted it;—and then they sat together silent, or nearly silent, for half an hour. She had said that if Hugh would do so, Trevelyan would soon become used to the presence of his old friend, and it seemed that he had already done so. More than once, when he coughed, his wife fetched him some drink in a cup, which he took from her without a word. And Stanbury the while went on smoking in silence.
"You have heard, Louis," she said at last, "that, after all, Nora and Mr. Stanbury are going to be married?"