"My friend, if you care for me, for my safety and my peace of mind, you must not use that name. Collect yourself. We will have explanations. But first, remember, I am Vittoria Fabrizi, the nurse, a poor girl."
"I shall remember. I don't understand; but I shall be careful. I don't know what it all means, why you—didn't let me know." In spite of his effort at self-control he fell again into a delicious bewilderment. His spirits leaped, he felt unaccountably young and exhilarated; he laughed senselessly and yet with a deep throbbing undernote of delight. "What are names and reasons, anyhow? What are worries and hopes and despairs? I've found you. You live; you are safe; you are young. I feared you were old and changed—it has seemed so long and—and my search dragged so. But I never ceased thinking and caring—I never ceased hoping—"
She laid a gentle hand upon his arm. "Come, come! You are upset. It will all seem natural enough when you know the story."
"Tell me everything, all at once. I can't wait." He led her to a low French lit de repos near by, and seated himself beside her. Her nearness thrilled him with the old intoxication, and he hardly heeded what he was saying. "Tell me how you came to be Vittoria Fabrizi instead of Margherita Ginini; how you came to be here; how you knew of my presence and yet—Oh, tell me everything, for I'm smothering. I'm incoherent. I—I—"
"First, won't you explain how you happened to come looking for me?"
He gathered his wits to tell her briefly of Myra Nell, feeling a renewed sense of strangeness in the fact that these two knew each other. She made as if to rise.
"Please!" he cried; "this is more important than Miss Warren's predicament. She's really delighted with her adventure, you know."
"True, she is in no danger. There is so much to tell! That which has taken four years to live cannot be told in five minutes. I—I'm afraid I am sorry you came."
"Don't destroy my one great moment of gladness."
"Remember I am Vittoria Fabrizi—"