“Madonna mia!” he cried aloud once, cringing in excruciating pain. “How I suffer! I wonder how long it must be before I give out. Dio! Is this the punishment of hell?”
Then he turned his eyes upon me—those wide-open, horrified eyes—in a look the remembrance of which is even to-day still before me, the recollection of which I shall carry with me to the grave.
There was something indescribable about that expression, uncanny, fascinating, inhuman. They were the eyes of a man who, though still alive, was obtaining his first glance into the awful mysteries of the eternity.
At half-past seven Tulloch returned and brought him a soothing draught, so that he slept, and I then left the sick-room to dress and breakfast.
With Mrs Gilbert, Sammy and I agreed that no word of the painful affair should be told to our fellow-guests, because illness in a boarding-house always causes the visitors to make excuses for departure. So we said nothing.
Sampson had some urgent business with his solicitor in the City that day, therefore I remained at home, acting as nurse to the unfortunate man whose end was now so near.
Three times during the day Tulloch returned, but all he did proved unavailing. The stranger could not possibly live, he said. It was a wonder that he had had strength to withstand the journey to England. It was the reaction that was proving fatal—internal haemorrhage.
Just before six o’clock, when I crept on tiptoe back to the mysterious man’s darkened room to see if he still slept, he called me eagerly in a low whisper, saying that he wished to speak to me in strict confidence.
I therefore seated myself at his bedside and bent down, so that the effort of speaking should be as little as possible.
“There is still one further favour I would beg of you, Signor Leaf. I wonder whether—whether you would grant it?” he asked very feebly, stretching out his thin hand until it rested upon my wrist.