Diana started quickly, and then looked away to hide her astonishment.
"Of course," she answered, "it is very much cooler there."
Did he really fancy he was going to Pegli? Had he forgotten Turin and his errand? Was he gone stark mad? She could not tell, and was frightened. It might have been a slip of the tongue,—but he said it very quietly, as though he were anticipating the delights of the climate. Nevertheless, she did not dare to pause, and she talked bravely on in the heat and the dust.
At one of the stations the train stopped ten minutes for refreshments. Marcantonio said he would get out and buy a sandwich and a bottle of wine. He sprang nimbly from the step, and Diana watched him as she sat by the open door of the carriage. He looked more like his old self than she had seen him since the catastrophe, and she watched him with loving eyes, wondering how he would bear what was to come, and for the first time wishing that he might be kept always in this state, without the necessity of a meeting with Batiscombe.
Presently he returned with the provisions,—a brace of rough-looking sandwiches, and a bottle of wine.
"It is the best I could do," he remarked. "It is the last place in the world."
He still looked cheerful and entirely himself. Diana watched him closely, hoping and praying with all her might that he might remain so—forever, even if he were out of his mind. Anything would be better than to see him suffer as he had been suffering that morning. She began to talk again, eating a little of the sandwich, for she was tired, and needed all her strength. He ate, too, and drank some of the wine, but he no longer listened as he had done before, and he did not answer nor make a remark of any kind. Diana had taken up what he said about the station, and was talking about travelling in France.
Suddenly Marcantonio's colour changed; he grew pale again, his eyes stared, and he dropped the bread he was eating. Diana was terrified, brave as she was, for she knew that his mind had gone back to his trouble,—how, she could not tell; but it was clear that for a space he had wholly forgotten it. He seemed to take up the thread of his terrible narration at the point at which he had been led away from it.
"Temistocle brought me the key," he said, and his voice sounded hollow again and far away. "He had told the servants she had gone to Rome before daybreak, and that I had gone with her,—ha! ha!—he is a cunning fellow. I gave him something for himself,—I think I did,—I am not quite certain." Again his ideas seemed to wander, and he tried to remember the detail that had escaped his grasp. Quick as thought Diana seized the opportunity.
"Did you give it to him in the evening?" she asked.