“Of course, since you are here. It is easy to see that you would never have left her. But did she fall into actual want before her death? I am anxious to know the whole story.”
“No, thank God; she was spared that misfortune. I do not know what might have happened if all her means had been expended, and I had been obliged to leave her for the sake of earning our living. But that consideration was not the one that troubled me. Notwithstanding her calmness, I could see that she was rapidly failing. At the end of about two years, one evening when we were sitting by the shore of the lake, she took my hand and said, with a strange inflection in her voice:
“‘Cristiano, I think I have fever. Feel my pulse, and tell me what you think.’
“This was the first time, since her misfortunes, that she had referred to her health. I perceived that she was really in a violent fever. I took her into the house and sent for a physician.
“‘She is very ill, it is true,’ he said to me, ‘but possibly it may be a favorable crisis!’
“In fact, she had never had any fever at any time since her disorder had seized her.
“But I felt no hope. She fell into a state of profound lethargy, upon which no treatment produced the least effect, and the progress of her decline was so rapid as to be plainly visible. A few moments before she died she seemed to recover strength, and to awaken as if from a long dream. She asked me to lift her in my arms, and feebly whispered in my ear:
“‘I bless you, Cristiano; you have saved me. I think I have been insane, and that I have been a trouble to you. Silvio has this moment been blaming me for it. I just saw him, there; he told me to rise up and follow him. Help me to escape out of the tomb where I have shut myself up so foolishly! Come! The ship is setting sail! Let us go!’
“And with one supreme effort to arise, she fell back dead into my arms.
“I know nothing of what happened for some days. I felt as if I had no further concern with life, since I had no longer any one but myself to care for.