Towards the last of June a long expedition was planned, an expedition into "Titian's country," which was to last three days. This little pilgrimage had been talked about for a long time, Mrs. Lenox being as much interested in it as the others. Whether she would have had the courage to take Theocritus, even in his best estate, is a question; but after the time was finally set and all the arrangements made, his worst asserted itself, and so markedly that it was plain to all that she could not go. Something was said about postponement, but it was equally plain that if they were to go at all they should go at once, as the weather was rapidly approaching a too great heat. Claudia wished particularly to take this little journey; she had set her heart upon seeing the Titians and reputed Titians said to be still left in that unvisited neighborhood. Blake asserted that she even expected to discover one. It was next proposed (although rather faintly) that Mr. Lenox should be excused from the pilgrimage. But it could not be denied that the little boy had been quite as ill (and irritable) several times before in Venice, and that he had always recovered in a day or two. Not that Mrs. Lenox denied it; on the contrary, she was the one to mention it. She urged her husband's going; it was the excursion of all others to please him the most. It ended in his consenting; it seemed, indeed, too much to give up for so slight a cause.
"She looks a little anxious," observed Blake, as they waited for him in the gondola which was to take them to the railway station. Lenox had said good-bye to her, and was now coming down the long stairway within, while she had stepped out on her balcony to see them start.
"Do you think so?" said Mrs. Marcy. "To me she always looks just the same, always so unmoved."
Lenox now came out, and the gondola started. Claudia looked back and waved her hand, Mrs. Lenox returning the salutation.
On the evening of the third day, at eleven o'clock, a gondola from the railway station stopped at the larger palace's lower door, and three persons ascended the dimly lighted stairs.
At the top Mrs. Lenox's servant was waiting for them. "Oh, where is signore? Is he not with you? He has not come? Oh, the poor signora—may the sweet Madonna help her now!" cried the girl, with tears in her sympathetic Italian eyes. "The poor little boy is dead."
They rushed up the higher stairway and across the hall bridge. But it was as the woman had said. There, on his little white bed, lay the child; he would be troublesome no more on this earth; he was quiet at last. Mrs. Lenox stood in the lighted doorway of her room as they came towards her. When she saw that her husband was not with them, when they began hurriedly to explain that he had not come, that he had stayed behind, that he had sent a note, she swayed over without a word and fainted away.
It was only over-fatigue, she explained later. The child had lain in her arms for thirty hours, most of the time in great pain, and she had suffered with him. She soon recovered consciousness and was quite calm—more calm than they had feared she would be. They were anxiously watchful; they tended her with the most devoted care. Blake did what he could, and then waited. After a while, when Mrs. Lenox had in a measure recovered, he softly beckoned Mrs. Marcy out.
"You must tell her that her husband will not be back in time for—that he will not be back for at least six days, and very likely longer. And as his route was quite uncertain, we cannot reach him; there is no telegraph, of course, and even if I were to go after him I could only follow his track from village to village, and probably come back to Venice behind him."
"How can I tell her!" said the tearful lady. "Perhaps Claudia—"