At another time, when both Helen and Inez were sitting near by, his eyes opened, and he seemed to be looking directly at his wife.
“She refuses to continue the work, Helen,” he said, as she sprang to his side, believing that at last his mind had cleared—“you were quite wrong, do you not see?”
Helen looked at Inez quickly, noting the swift color which suffused her pale face, but before a word could be spoken the invalid had relapsed into his former condition. Inez made an excuse to escape from the room for a moment. “You were quite wrong—do you not see?” she repeated Armstrong’s words to herself. Was he simply rambling, or had the subject been brought up for previous discussion? Inez’ conscience, sensitive from the load already resting upon it, quivered with new apprehensiveness. Yet Helen’s attitude toward her had in no way changed—in fact, the awful anxiety of the first suspense, together with the later mutual responsibilities which they had shared, had seemed to Inez to draw them even more closely to each other. She tried to gain an answer to her inward questionings from Helen’s face as she re-entered the room, but found there nothing but cordiality and friendliness.
“He must be getting nearer and nearer to a return of consciousness,” Helen had said, quite naturally; “but how he wanders!” She looked over affectionately to her husband, still and helpless, but breathing with the steady regularity of convalescence. “Sometimes it is about his work at the library—sometimes it is about me. What agony of spirit he must be passing through if he realizes any of it!”
“He loves you, Helen,” Inez cried, impulsively—“he loves you now, just as he always has!”
“Of course.” Helen looked up questioningly from her fancy work. She was not yet ready to take Inez into her confidence. “What a strange remark, dear! Is it not quite natural that my husband should love me?”
Helen’s smiling face, as she asked her simple but disconcerting question, completely unnerved Inez.
“He has been so worried about the time which his work compelled him to be away from you,” Inez replied, at length, trying to conceal her confusion. “He finished the first draft of the book the day of the accident. His first thought, after he put down his pen, was to return to the villa, that he might surprise you at lunch.”
“Cerini!” called Armstrong.
Helen placed her hand upon his forehead soothingly.