"No; but who knows? one might come. Then, you are not to go; you are not to leave me for a second."
"I've no thought of it," replied Richard; "you may rest easy.... He's a trifle light in the head," was Richard's reflection.
After that Torrini dozed rather than slumbered, rousing at brief intervals; and whenever he awoke the feverish activity of his brain incited him to talk,--now of Italy, and now of matters connected with his experiences in this country.
"Naples is a pleasant place!" he broke out in the hush of the midnight, just as Richard was dropping off. "The band plays every afternoon on the Chiaia. And then the festas,--every third day a festa. The devil was in my body when I left there and dragged little Brigida into all this misery. We used to walk of an evening along the Marinella,--that's a strip of beach just beyond the Molo Piccolo. You were never in Naples?"
"Not I," said Richard. "Here, wet your lips, and try to go to sleep again."
"No, I can't sleep for thinking. When the Signorina came to see me, the other day, her heart was pierced with pity. Like the blessed Madonna's, her bosom bleeds for all! You will let her come to-morrow?"
"Yes, yes! If you will only keep quiet, Margaret shall come."
"Margherita, we say. You are to wed her,--is it not so?"
Richard turned down the wick of the lamp, which was blazing and spluttering, and did not answer. Then Torrini lay silent a long while, apparently listening to the hum of the telegraph wires attached to one end of the roof. At odd intervals the freshening breeze swept these wires, and awoke a low æolian murmur. The moon rose in the mean time, and painted on the uncarpeted floor the shape of the cherry bough that stretched across the window. It was two o'clock; Richard sat with his head bent forward, in a drowse.
"Now the cousin is dead, you are as rich as a prince,--are you not?" inquired Torrini, who had lain for the last half hour with his eyes wide open in the moonlight.