By Berwen Banks Part 36

Cardo continued to look at the gingerbread. Suddenly he held up his finger and seemed to listen intently.

"Hush!" he whispered, "do you hear the Berwen?" and he ate his gingerbread slowly, sighing heavily when it was finished.

This was good news for Dr. Belton, told garrulously at tea by his young son, and more circ.u.mstantially by Sister Vera; but for long afterwards there was no further sign of improvement in Cardo.

It was not until three more months had pa.s.sed that another sign of reviving memory was seen in him, and again it was Jack who awoke the sleeping chord.

"Isn't it a shame?" he said, excitedly running into the room one day; "mother is cutting Ethel's hair; says she's getting headaches from the weight of it. Rot, I call it! See what a lovely curl I stole," and he handed it to Cardo, who first of all looked at it with indifference, but suddenly clutching it, curled it round his finger, and became very excited.

"Whose is it?" said Sister Vera, standing over him.

His lips trembled and with a husky voice he said.

"Valmai--" The sound of the name seemed to charm his ear, for he continued to speak it in all sorts of varying tones--sometimes in whispering tones of love--at others in loud and imploring accents.

"Oh, Valmai, Valmai!" he called, and when Dr. Belton entered the room, he held out his hands towards him, and in a beseeching voice cried, "Valmai! Valmai!"

There was no rest for anyone in the hospital that night, for all night long the house echoed with the cry of "Valmai! Valmai!"

On the following morning, endeavouring to create some distraction from this ever-recurring cry, Dr. Belton drove his patient with him for some miles into the bush; the fresh air and motion seemed to quiet his brain, and he fell into the silent stupor so constantly hanging over him.

"Come, Williams," said the doctor at last, as they emerged into a well-kept road leading up to a handsome house which stood on a rising ground before them, surrounded by its broad acres of well-cultivated land. "You must brighten up now, for I am going to take you to see an old friend of mine. Why, here he is!" and they were greeted by a jovial shout as a portly, pleasant-faced man caught them up.

"h.e.l.lo! doctor, glad to see you; you havent honoured us with a visit for some time."

"I have been so busy lately, and even now you see I have brought a patient with me. I thought a little change would do him good."

"Of course, of course! the more the merrier. I'll ride on and prepare Nellie for your coming," and off he galloped on his well-kept, spirited horse, looking as he felt, perfectly at home in the saddle.

"Nellie," a sweet-looking lady with a brunette's face, which retained much of the beauty of youth, although she had now attained to middle age, was as hearty as her husband in her greeting.

"So glad to see you--you are just in time for dinner; for a wonder Lewis is punctual today."

She shook hands with Cardo, and placed a chair for him at the well-filled table. He took his seat with a pleasant smile, but soon fell into his usual dreamy state, which the company at a sign from Dr.

Belton took no notice of.

"I do believe, Williams," said Dr. Belton at last, "that I have never introduced you to my friends. These are Mr. and Mrs. Wynne."

Cardo looked up almost eagerly.

"Cardo Wynne?" he said.

"No," said the doctor; "Mr. Lewis Wynne. But do you know that name?"

"Yes, Cardo Wynne."

"Is that your name?" asked the shrewd doctor.

"Yes, Cardo Wynne."

"Merciful goodness!" said the host, in excited astonishment, which his wife seemed in a great measure to share, "that is the name of my brother's son, Caradoc, commonly called Cardo Wynne; that is what Dr.

Hughes told us, Nellie, didn't he?"

"Yes, I have often thought of the name and wondered what he was like.

How sad," she said, "and such a handsome fellow, too."

"Caradoc!" Dr. Belton called suddenly.

"Yes," said Cardo, with one of his pleasant smiles, "Cardo Wynne, Brynderyn."

"Good heavens!" said Mr. Wynne, "there can be no doubt about it; that is my brother's home."

And both he and Dr. Belton, aided by Mrs. Wynne's gentle suggestions, made every endeavour to elicit further information from Cardo, but in vain. He had fallen again into an apparently unconscious and deadened stupor.

"Sunstroke, did you say? are you sure of that, Belton?"

"Not at all," said the doctor; "in fact, I have had serious doubts of it lately, and to-day's experience decides me. I will have a thorough examination of his skull."

"I will ride in to-morrow, to hear what further discoveries you have made," said Mr. Wynne. And Dr. Belton returned home early, leaving his host and hostess deeply interested.

Calling Sister Vera to him he told her of his plans.

"I have long thought it possible that poor fellow might have had a blow of some kind on his head, and that he is still suffering from the effects of it. I shall at once administer an anaesthetic and have a thorough examination of his head. The idea of sunstroke was so confirmed by the symptoms when he was brought to the hospital that no one thought of anything else."

"How soon?" asked the nurse.

"To-morrow--three o'clock."

And the next afternoon, Cardo's head was thoroughly examined, with the result that Dr. Belton soon found at the back of the skull near the top a small but undoubted indentation.

"Of course," he said, "we must have been blind not to guess it before; but we are blind sometimes--very blind and very stupid."

Cardo was kept under the influence of a sedative that night, and next day Dr. Belton, with the promptness of action which he now regretted he had not sooner exercised, procured the help of one of the most noted specialists in Sydney, and an operation was successfully performed.

Mr. and Mrs. Wynne's visits of inquiry and sympathy were of almost daily occurrence during the next month, while Cardo in the darkened, quiet room, slowly regained his powers of mind and body. It was a very slow progress, though it did not seem to be wholly unsatisfactory to Dr. Belton. That good man, after weeks, nay months, of anxious interest, was, however, at last rewarded by the pleasant spectacle of a young and ardent temperament gradually re-awakening to the joys of life.

The mind which had been darkened for so long could not be expected to regain its elasticity and spring at once, in an hour, or a day. But it was evident to the doctor that the healing process which had begun would continue, unless r.e.t.a.r.ded by some unforeseen accident. Gradually the children were admitted into his presence, and while they played with Cardo, Mrs. Belton came and chatted with Sister Vera.

A few days later on Mr. and Mrs. Wynne entered through the verandah with Dr. Belton, and although Cardo looked a little fl.u.s.tered and puzzled, the pleasant smile and warm clasp of the hand with which he greeted them showed there was no great depth of distrust or fear in his mind. His uncle and aunt possessed much good sense and judgment, and did not hurriedly thrust the recognition of themselves upon their nephew, but waited patiently, and let it dawn gradually upon him.

One afternoon, while Cardo, accompanied by his uncle and aunt, were walking up and down the verandah conversing on things in general, in a friendly and unconstrained manner, he suddenly stopped, and looking full into his uncle's face, said:

"Uncle Lewis, I cannot imagine how you and I have come here together; some things seem so very clear to me, and others so dim and indistinct."

"But every day they grow clearer, do they not?"

"Yes, I think so. Have I been ill?"

"Yes, my dear fellow," said his uncle, gently laying his hand on his arm, "you have been very ill, and your recovery depends entirely upon your keeping your mind calm and restful. Do not attempt to remember anything that does not come clearly into your mind; in fact, live in the present as much as you can, and the past will come back to you gradually."