"Unfortunately, nature has not provided that form of cure for invalids," said Savelli, with a laugh. "But we will do our best," he added, always willing to humour his wife in anything reasonable.
The servants' quarters were very far away, and several minutes elapsed before a man appeared, and Francesco could give the necessary orders. The gloom deepened, and Adele came from her place at the window, evidently in some sort of distress. She sat down close to her husband—almost cowering at his side. He could not see her face clearly, but he understood that she was frightened.
"I wish you would tell me what it is you see in the dark," he said, with a sort of good-natured impatience.
"Oh, please do not talk about it!" she cried. "Talk to me of something else—talk, for Heaven's sake, talk, until they bring the lamps! I sometimes think I shall go mad when there is no light."
It is not a particularly easy affair to comply, at short notice, with such a request for voluble conversation, especially when there is no extraordinary sympathy between two people, nor any close community of ideas. But it chanced that Savelli had been reading the papers he had brought with him, and he began to tell Adele the news he had read, so that he managed to keep up a fairly continuous series of sentences until the first lamp was placed on the table.
"Thank you, Carissimo," she said. "No shade!" she exclaimed quickly, as the man was about to slip one over the light.
"Do you feel better now?" inquired Francesco, with some amusement.
"Yes—much better," she answered, drawing a long breath, and seating herself by the table in the full glare of the unshaded lamp. "I only ask one thing," she continued: "Do not leave me if you can help it, and go with me when we go to our room. I am ashamed of it, but I am so nervous that I am positively afraid to be alone."
"Would it not be better to have a nurse out, to stay with you all the time?" inquired Francesco, who had an eye to his own liberty and comfort, and had no idea of spending several weeks in perpetual attendance on his wife. "And there is your maid, too. She might help."
"I have taken such a dislike to that woman that I hate the sight of her."