Vincenzo kept them off. He was always there, sitting by the door, and when he was called he came running to his master’s bedside.
“Where is she? Don’t let her be drowned! Don’t let the octopi get her! Vincenzo! Vincenzo!” he cried, and the good fellow tried to reassure him.
“Sia benedetto, signorino! They shall not have her. I will cut them in pieces with my knife.”
“What is the matter? I am quite well. Is it only the tyre? There is Orvieto, and the sun just risen. Is it still raining?”
“No, signorino. The sun shines and it has not rained for days. It will soon be May.”
Very slowly the tide of feverish dreams ebbed, and Jean became aware of the iris pattern on the curtains of the bed; of the ray of sunlight that danced every morning on the ceiling and passed away; of the old woman who gave him his medicine. She was kind, and he liked to see her sitting sewing by lamplight, and to watch her distorted shadow looming gigantic in an angle of the wall. Hilaire was there too, but sometimes he was called away, and then Jean would hear his uneven step going to and fro across an uncarpeted floor, and the sound of hushed voices in the next room.
“Hilaire, is—is it all right?”
“Yes, do not be afraid. Get well,” the elder man answered, but Jean still lay with his face turned to the wall. He was afraid. The longing to see Olive, to hold her once more in his arms, burned within him. He moved restlessly and laid his clenched hands together on the half-healed wound in his side.
One night he slept soundly, dreamlessly, as a child sleeps, and woke at dawn. He raised himself on his elbow in the bed and looked about him, and Vincenzo came to him at once and asked him what he wanted.
“Go out,” he said, “and leave me alone for a while.”