Gallardo seemed shrunk by pain, pale and weak, with an almost childish resignation. Nothing remained of the proud and gallant fellow who had delighted the populace with his audacity. He seemed daunted by the terrible operations endured in full consciousness, all his indifference to pain had vanished and he moaned at the slightest discomfort.
After ten days stay in Seville, the Doctor returned to Madrid.
"Now, my lad," he said to the sick man, "you don't require me any longer, and I have a great deal to do. Now don't be imprudent, and in a couple of months you will be well and strong. It is possible you may feel your leg a little, but you have a constitution of iron, and it will go on getting better."
Gallardo's cure progressed, as Doctor Ruiz had foretold. At the end of a month the leg was liberated from its enforced quiet, and the torero, weak and limping slightly, was able to sit in a chair in the patio, and receive his friends.
During his illness, when fever ran high, and gloomy nightmares troubled him, one thought always remained steadfast in his mind, in spite of all restless wanderings—the remembrance of Doña Sol. Did that woman know of his accident?
While he was still in bed, he had ventured to question the manager about her when they chanced to be alone.
"Yes, my man," said Don José, "she has remembered you. She sent me a wire from Nice, enquiring after you, two or three days after the accident. Most probably she saw it in the papers. They spoke about you everywhere, as if you were a king."
The manager had replied to the telegram, but had not heard subsequently from her.
Gallardo appeared satisfied for some days with this explanation, but afterwards asked again, with a sick man's persistence, had she not written? Had she not enquired again after him?... The manager tried to excuse Doña Sol's silence, and console him. He must remember she was always moving about. Goodness knows where she might be at that time.
But the torero's despair, thinking himself forgotten, forced Don José to pious lies. Some days before, he had received a short letter from Italy, in which Doña Sol inquired after him.