Again Giulia's tremulous hand wrote:
"Don't go till they send you away. Sit by me, and let me look at you. Oh, what happy days we have had—among the lovely hills. You will think of me in years to come, when you are in Italy."
"Always, always, I shall think of you and remember you, wherever I am. And now I won't talk any more, but I will stay till Miss Thompson takes me away."
Miss Thompson came very soon, and Vera bent over the dying girl and kissed the cold brow.
"A riverderci, Carissima; I shall come again when Miss Thompson fetches me."
She left the bedside with that word of hope, the luminous eyes following her to the door. The dogs did not stir, nor the figure in the balcony. Miss Thompson and the nurse sat silent and motionless. A stillness so intense seemed strange in a sunlit room, gay with flowers.
It was late next morning when Vera fell into a troubled sleep, filled with cruel dreams—dreams that mocked her with visions of Giulia well and joyous—in one of those romantic scenes where they had been happy together, in hours that were so bright that Vera had forgotten the shadow that followed them.
Lidcott came with the morning tea, and there was a letter on the tray.
"From the foreign gentleman," said Lidcott, who had never attempted Signor Provana's name.