They told him that they could not certainly promise recovery, but there were reasonable grounds for hope. Of course, much depended on his constitution, on careful nursing, et cetera.
“Thank you,” he said, and, turning to Augustus Frayne, who stood beside his pillow, he said:
“If the minister has not gone, and if Fair and her mother will consent, I should like to have the interrupted ceremony go on, as, in the event of my death, I wish Fair to have all my property.”
He had remembered that Fair would be friendless and penniless if Mrs. Howard should die, and he wished to place her at once beyond either possibility.
No one liked to tell him that, while he lay unconscious, the mad prince had claimed Fair as his wife. Indeed, no one credited the statement. All believed it the disjointed raving of a lunatic—at least, all but Beatrix Consani. She remembered the story Prince Gonzaga had told her yesterday, and she repeated it to all who would listen.
Most of the guests had gone away, leaving the bridal banquet untasted. A few yet lingered in the grand drawing-room, waiting to hear whether Bayard Lorraine would live or die, and these the beautiful Beatrix entertained with her story.
“I believe that he was telling me his own story, with just enough changes in it to mislead me,” she said. “I thought he seemed very much excited, and that his interest in the girl was very great. There is some mystery about it. She cannot really be Mrs. Howard’s daughter, for he declared that she was poor and of obscure birth.”
Then Augustus Frayne came among them, declaring that the physicians were uncertain whether their patient would live or die, and desiring his sisters to ask Mrs. Howard to go at once to the wounded man, as he particularly wished to see her and Fair.
Fair had come out of her swoon, and lay sobbing in her adopted mother’s arms. No one had asked her any questions yet—waiting until they should hear from the wounded man.
Nettie Frayne came in with a solemn face, and delivered the message.