"Leonora? Ah!" he cried with a sort of muffled scream. "It belonged to Leonora—Ugh!" With a quick movement he flung the jewel at the window. It chanced that the pane was raised to keep out the smoke on that side. The heavy cross cracked the plate glass and knocked a small piece out of the middle, but fell to the floor.
Marcantonio remained in the very act, as he had thrown it, for one instant. Then his head sank on his breast and his hands fell to his sides helplessly.
"Oh, Diana, Diana," he moaned piteously, "I am mad." Then he began to rock himself backward and forward as though in pain.
It was no time to break down in horror or grief, and Diana was not the woman to waste idle tears. The cross had fallen at her feet. She had instantly stooped and picked it up and hid it away, lest he should see it again. Then she heard him say that he was mad, and she made a desperate effort. She took him strongly in her arms, almost lifting him from the ground, and laid his head upon her breast and supported it, and took his hand. He was quite passive; she could do anything with him for the moment—he might have been a child.
Diana bent down as she held him in her arms and kissed him tenderly on the forehead and breathed soft words. It was a prayer.
Poor woman! what could she do? Driven to the last extremity of agony and horror, sitting by and seeing her brother going mad—raving mad—before her very eyes, unable to soothe his grief or to strengthen his soul by any words of her own, not knowing but that at any moment he might turn upon herself—poor woman, what could she do? She breathed into his ear an ancient Latin prayer. What a very foolish thing to do! She was only a woman, poor thing, and knew no better.
O woman, God-given helpmate of man, and noblest of God's gifts and of all created things—is there any man bold enough to say that he can make praises for you out of ink and paper that shall be worthy to rank as praise at all by the side of your good deeds? You, who bow your gentle heads to the burden, and think it sweet, out of the fulness of your own sweet sympathy—you, whose soft fingers have the strength to bind up broken limbs and rough, torn wounds—you, who feel for each living thing as you feel for your own bodily flesh, and more—you, who in love are more tender and faithful and long-suffering than we, and who, even erring, err for the sake of the over-great heart that God has given you—is it not enough that I say of you, "You are only women, and you know no better"? What greater, or higher, or nobler thing can I say of you, in all humbleness and truth, than that you are what you are, and that you know no better? What better things can any know, than to bear pain bravely, to heal the wounded, to feel for all, even for those who cannot feel for themselves, and to be tender and faithful and kind in love? And even, being given of Heaven and loved of it, that you should turn in time of need and trouble and say a prayer for strength and knowledge, even that is a part of you, and not the least divine part. So that when the man who cannot suffer what you can suffer, nor do the good that you can do, sneers and scoffs at your prayers and your religion, I could wring his cowardly neck to death. Even poor Leonora, praying philosophical prayers to a power in which she did not in the least believe, was not ridiculous. She was pathetic, mistaken, miserable, perhaps, but not ridiculous.
Perhaps Diana had done the best thing, out of pure despair. The long familiar words, spoken in her soothing voice, at the very moment when he was conscious that he was on the verge of insanity, chained his faculties and gradually brought him to a calmer state. Perhaps, also, the strong magnetic power of his sister acted more forcibly on him from the moment when he suddenly abandoned himself to her influence. Like many people who possess that strange gift, she was wholly unconscious of it, and she sometimes wondered why it was that those about her yielded so easily to her will. Be that as it may, Marcantonio lay quite still in her arms, and at last his eyelids drooped, his limbs relaxed, and he fell into a deep sleep. The hot hours wore on, and the train rolled by the towns and hamlets and castle-crested hills towards Florence, and still he slept, and Diana tenderly supported him, though her arm ached as though it must break, and her eyes were dimmed from time to time with the sight and consciousness of so much misery.
At length, as they entered the station, she waked him. He was quite calm again, and collected, but very sad, as she had seen him that morning.
"Have I slept like this so long?" he asked.