She smiled brightly through the tears which she could not hide.
"Of course I have. Who has a better right, I should like to know?"
He sighed and closed his eyes. In a few minutes he was asleep.
For a fortnight his life had hung upon a thread, and even when the doctor had declared him out of danger, the question of his sanity or insanity quivered upon the balance for another week. He would either awake perfectly reasonable, in all respects his old self, or he would open his eyes upon a world, the keynote to which he had lost forever. In other words he would either awake a perfectly sane man, or hopelessly and incurably insane. There would be no middle course. That was the doctor's verdict.
And through all those long days and nights Margharita had watched over him as though he had been her own father. All the passionate sympathy of her warm southern nature had been kindled by the story of his wrongs. Day by day the sight of his helpless suffering had increased her indignation toward those whom she really believed to have bitterly wronged him. Through those long quiet days and silent nights, she had brooded upon them. She never for one moment repented of having allied herself to that wild oath of vengeance, whose echoes often at dead of night seemed still to ring in her ears. Her only fear was that he would emerge from the fierce illness under which he was laboring, so weakened and shaken, that the desire of his life should have passed from him. She had grown to love this shrunken old man. In her girlhood she had heard stories of him from her nurse, and many times the hot tears had stood in her eyes as she conjured up to herself that pathetic figure, waiting and waiting, year by year, for that liberty which was to come only with old age. She had thought of him, sad-eyed and weary, pacing his lonely prison cell, and ever watching through his barred window the little segment of blue sky and sunlight which penetrated into the high-walled court. How he must long for the scent of flowers, the fresh open air, the rustle of leaves, and the hum of moving insects. How his heart must ache for the sound of men's voices, the touch of their hands, some sense of loving or friendly companionship to break the icy monotony of his weary, stagnant existence. Her imagination had been touched, and she had been all ready to welcome and to love him as a hero and a martyr, even if he had appealed to her in no other way. But when she had seen him stricken down and helpless, with that look of ineffable sadness in his soft dark eyes, it was more than her sympathy which was aroused, more than her imagination which was stirred. Her large pitying heart became his absolutely. She was alone in the world, and she must needs love some one. For good or for evil, fate had brought this strange old man to her, and woven this tie between them.
That night she scarcely slept at all, and before daybreak she stole softly over to the window and looked out. The roar of the great city was hushed and silent. Below, the streets and squares were white and empty in the gray light of the approaching dawn. The mists were rising from the river, and the yellow light was dying out of the room. Away eastward, there was a break in the sky, a long thin line of amber light which widened even while she watched it. Below, the sky was red, a dull brick red, as though the yellow fog had mingled with the fainter and rosier coloring. Gradually the two came nearer together. In the distance a cock crew, and a cab drove across the empty square at the end of the street. A lamplighter came round the corner, whistling, and, one by one, the row of gaslights beneath were extinguished. Even in that moment or two a brighter shade had stolen into the eastern sky. That bank of dull purple clouds was breaking away, and a few brilliant specks of cloudlets were shot up toward St. Paul's. Then the sun showed a rim, and almost its first pale beam quivered upon the great church dome, traveled across a thousand slate roofs, and fell upon the girl's white, upturned face, and across the white coverlet.
"Margharita!"
She turned round quickly. He was sitting up in bed, and the sunbeam was traveling up toward him.
"Are you awake? Did I disturb you?" she asked tenderly.
He shook his head.