“Rest and happiness will no doubt do much for me,” I answered, “still I warn you, cara mia, that in accepting me as your husband you take a broken-down man, one whose whims are legion and whose chronic state of invalidism may in time prove to be a burden on your young life. Are you sure your decision is a wise one?”
“Quite sure!” she replied firmly. “Do I not love you! And you will not always be ailing—you look so strong.”
“I am strong to a certain extent,” I said, unconsciously straightening myself as I stood. “I have plenty of muscle as far as that goes, but my nervous system is completely disorganized. I—why, what is the matter? Are you ill?”
For she had turned deathly pale, and her eyes look startled and terrified. Thinking she would faint, I extended my arms to save her from falling, but she put them aside with an alarmed yet appealing gesture.
“It is nothing,” she murmured feebly, “a sudden giddiness—I thought—no matter what! Tell me, are you not related to the Romani family? When you drew yourself up just now you were so like—like FABIO! I fancied,” and she shuddered, “that I saw his ghost!”
I supported her to a chair near the window, which I threw open for air, though the evening was cold.
“You are fatigued and overexcited,” I said calmly, “your nature is too imaginative. No; I am not related to the Romanis, though possibly I may have some of their mannerisms. Many men are alike in these things. But you must not give way to such fancies. Rest perfectly quiet, you will soon recover.”
And pouring out a glass of water I handed it to her. She sipped it slowly, leaning back in the fauteuil where I had placed her, and in silence we both looked out on the November night. There was a moon, but she was veiled by driving clouds, which ever and anon swept asunder to show her gleaming pallidly white, like the restless spirit of a deceived and murdered lady. A rising wind moaned dismally among the fading creepers and rustled the heavy branches of a giant cypress that stood on the lawn like a huge spectral mourner draped in black, apparently waiting for a forest funeral. Now and then a few big drops of rain fell—sudden tears wrung as though by force from the black heart of the sky. My wife shivered.
“Shut the window!” she said, glancing back at me where I stood behind her chair. “I am much better now. I was very silly. I do not know what came over me, but for the moment I felt afraid—horribly afraid!—of YOU!”
“That was not complimentary to your future husband,” I remarked, quietly, as I closed and fastened the window in obedience to her request. “Should I not insist upon an apology?”