"Oh, yes, yes," Lionel went on, as quickly as his laboring breath would allow. "How can I go abroad without saying good-bye to Nina? Tell Jenkins to go down to Sloane Street at once—at once, Maurice—before she leaves for the theatre. I have been waiting for her all day—I heard the people coming up—one after another—but not Nina. And I cannot go without saying good-bye. I want to tell her something. She must make friends with Miss Burgoyne, now she has got into the theatre. Lehmann will give her a better part by and by—oh, yes, I'll see to that for Nina—and I must write to Pandiani, to tell him of her success—"
"Oh, but that's all settled, Linn," his friend broke in, perceiving the situation at once. "Now you just keep quiet, and it will be all perfectly arranged—perfectly. Of course I know you are glad your old friend and companion has got a place in the theatre."
"Yes, she was my friend—she was my friend once," he said, and he looked appealingly at Maurice? "but—but I sometimes think—sometimes it is my head—that there is something wrong. Can you tell me, Maurice? There is something—I don't know what—but it troubles me—I cannot tell what it is. When she was here to-day, she would not speak to me. She came and looked. She stood by the door there. She had on the black dress and the crimson bonnet—but she had forgotten her music. I thought, perhaps, she was going down to the theatre—but why wouldn't she speak to me, Maurice? She did not look angry—she looked like—like—oh, just like Nina—and I could not ask her why she would not say anything—my throat was so bad—"
"Yes, I know that, Linn," Maurice said, gently, "and that is why you mustn't talk any more now. You must lie still and rest, so that you may take your place in the theatre again—"
"But haven't they told you I am never going to the theatre again?" he said, eagerly. "Oh, no; as soon as I can I am going away abroad—I am going away all over the world—to find some
one. You said she was my friend and my good comrade—do you think I could let her be away in some distant place, and all alone? I could not rest in my grave! It may be Malta, or Cairo, or Australia, or San Francisco; but that is what I am set on. I have thought of it so long that—that I think my head has got tired, and my heart a little bit broken, as they say, only I never believed in that. Never mind, Maurice, I am going away to find Nina—ah, that will be a surprise some day—a surprise just as when she first came here—into the room—in the black dress and the crimson bonnet—la cianciosella, she was going away again!—she was always so proud and easily offended—always the cianciosella!"
He turned a little, and moaned, and lay still; and Maurice, fearing that his presence would only add to this delirious excitement, was about to slip from the room, when his sick friend called him back.
"Maurice, don't forget this now! When she comes again, you must stand by her at the door there, and tell her not to be frightened: I am not so very ill. Tell Nina not to be frightened. She used not to be frightened. Ask her to remember the afternoons when I had the broken ankle—she and Sabetta Debernardi used to come nearly every day—and Sabetta brought her zither—and Nina and I played dominoes. Maurice, you never heard Nina sing to herself—just to herself, not thinking—and sometimes Sabetta would play a barcarola—oh, there was one that Nina used to sing sometimes—'Da la parte de Castelo—ziraremo mio tesoro—mio tesoro!—la passara el Bucintoro—per condur el Dose in mar'—I heard it last night again—but—but all stringed instruments—and the sound of wind and waves—it was so strange and terrible—when I was listening for Nina's voice. I think it was at Capri—along the shores—but it was night-time—and I could not hear Nina because of the wind and the waves. Oh, it was terrible, Maurice! The sea was roaring all round the shores—and it was so black—only I thought if the water were about to come up and drown me, it might—it might take me away somewhere—I don't know where—perhaps to the place where Nina's ship went down in the dark. Why did she go away, Maurice?—why did she go away from us all?—the poor cianciosella!"
These rambling, wearied, broken utterances were suddenly
arrested: there was a tapping at the outer door—and Lionel turned frightened, anxious eyes on his friend.