"Yes, but you will convey the infection to your relatives."
"I will not leave the room, doctor," said Joseph resolutely. "No inmate of the palace shall receive the infection through me. I myself will be Isabella's nurse until—"
He could speak no more; he covered his face with his hands, and his tears fell in showers over the pillow of his unconscious wife.
Van Swieten opposed him no longer. He was suffered to remain, nursing the archduchess with a love that defied all fatigue.
Of all this Isabella was ignorant. Her large, staring eyes were fixed upon her tender guardian, but she knew him not; she spoke to him in words of burning tenderness, such as never before had fallen from her lips; but while she poured out her love, she called him by another name, she called him Riccardo—and while she told him that he was dearer to her than all the world beside, she warned him to beware of her father. Sometimes, in her delirium, she saw a bloody corpse beside her, and she prayed to die by its side. Then she seemed to listen to another voice, and her little hands were clasped in agony, while, exhausted with the horror of the vision, she murmured, "Three years! three years! O God, what martyrdom! In three years we meet again!"
Her husband heeded not her wild language, he listened to the music of her voice. That voice was all that was left to remind him of his once beautiful Isabella; it was still as sweet as in the days when her beauty had almost maddened him—that beauty which had flown forever, and left its possessor a hideous mass of blood and corruption.
On the sixth day of her illness Isabella recovered from her delirium. She opened her eyes and fixed them upon her husband with a look of calm intelligence. "Farewell, Joseph!" said she softly. "Farewell! It is over now, and I die."
"No, no, darling, you will not die," cried he, bursting into tears. "You would not leave me, beloved, you will live to bless me again."
"Do not sorrow for me," said she. "Forgive and forget me." As Joseph, overcome by his emotion, made no reply, she repeated her words with more emphasis: "Forgive me, Joseph, say that you forgive me, for otherwise I shall not die in peace."
"Forgive thee!" cried he. "I forgive thee, who for three years hast made my life one long sunny day!"