Vera was standing at the end of the corridor when he came back, and this time he saw her, and stopped to speak. "Ah, Miss Davis, the hour I have foreseen for a long time has come. I have thought of it every day of my life, and I have dreamt of it a hundred times; but the reality is worse than my worst dream."
He was passing her, and turned back.
"We dare not let her speak—every breath is precious. To-day she must see no one but her nurse—not even me; but if she should be a shade better to-morrow, will you come to her? I know she will want to see you."
"I will come at any hour, night or day. I hope you know how dearly I love her," Vera answered, and then broke down completely and sobbed aloud.
When she uncovered her face Provana was gone, and she went slowly back to the upper floor, where Grannie was waiting for her to sympathise with her indignation at certain offensive—or supposed to be offensive—remarks in the letters of a sister-in-law, a niece, and a dear friend.
"But indeed, dear Grannie, that could not be meant unkindly," urged Vera; for this offender was her favourite aunt, Lady Okehampton, who had been kind to her.
"Not meant? What could it mean but a sneer at my poverty?"
"I know Aunt Mildred wouldn't knowingly wound you."
"Don't contradict, Vera. I know my nephew's wife—a snob to the tip of her nails. She feels sure San Marco must be just the place for us—'so pretty and so quiet, and so inexpensive.' She dared not say cheap. And she does not wonder that I have stayed longer than I talked about staying when I left London."
Lady Felicia had remained in the dull Hôtel des Anglais six weeks beyond her original idea—six weeks longer than the London doctor had insisted upon; she had stayed into the celestial light of an Italian April, to the delight of Vera, who had thus enjoyed a new life with her new friend. She was not frivolous in her attachments, or ready to fall in love with new faces; but, in sober truth, she had never before had the chance of such a friendship—a girl of her own age, highly cultivated, attractive, and sympathetically eager to give her the affection of a sister. It would have been too cruel if Grannie's predetermination to leave Italy in the first week of March had cut short that lovely friendship.