Whosoever Shall Offend Part 18

"You promised that they should not tease me any more," he said querulously. "Make them go away! I want to sleep."

Regina came to his side at once, and faced the two men across the bed.

"What is all this for?" she asked, with a little indignation. "You know that he cannot remember you, even if he ever saw you before. Cannot you leave him in peace? Come back after the operation. Then he will remember you, if you really know him."

"Who is this girl?" asked Corbario of the Superintendent.

"She took care of him when he had the fever, and she managed to get him here. She has undoubtedly saved his life."

At the words a beautiful blush coloured Regina's cheeks, and her eyes were full of triumphant light; but at the same words Corbario's still face darkened, and as if it had been a mask that suddenly became transparent, the girl saw another face through it, drawn into an expression of malignant and devilish hatred.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "HE MOVED A STEP TOWARDS THE BED, AND THEN ANOTHER, FORCING HIMSELF TO GO ON."]

The vision only lasted a moment, and the impenetrable pale features were there once more, showing neither hate nor fear, nor any feeling or emotion whatever. Corbario was himself again, and turned quietly to the Superintendent.

"She is quite right," he said. "His memory is gone, and we shall only disturb him. You tell me that the doctors have found a very slight depression in his head, as if from a blow. Do you think--but it will annoy him--I had better not."

"What do you mean?" asked the other, as he hesitated.

"It is such a strange case that I should like to see just where it is, out of pure curiosity."

"It is here," said Regina, answering, and setting the tip of one straight finger against her own head to point out the place.

"Oh, at the back, on the right side? I see--yes--thank you. A little on one side, you say?"

"Here," repeated Regina, turning so that Corbario could see exactly where the end of her finger touched her hair.

"To think that so slight an injury may have permanently affected the young man's memory!" Corbario appeared much impressed. "Well," he continued, speaking to Regina, "if we ever find out who he is, his relations owe you a debt of grat.i.tude quite beyond all payment."

"Do you think I want to be paid?" asked Regina, and in her indignation she turned away and walked to the window.

But Marcello called her back.

"Please, Regina--please tell them to go away!" he pleaded.

Corbario nodded to the Superintendent, and they left the room.

"There is certainly a strong resemblance," said Folco, when they were outside, "but it really cannot be my poor Marcello. I was almost too much affected by the thought of seeing him again to control myself when we first entered, but when I came near I felt nothing. It is not he, I am sure. I loved him as if he were my own son; I brought him up; we were always together. It is not possible that I should be mistaken."

"No," replied the Superintendent, "I should hardly think it possible.

Besides, from what the girl has told me, I am quite sure that he lay ill near Tivoli. How is it possible that he should have got there, all the way from the Roman sh.o.r.e?"

"And with a fractured skull! It is absurd!" Corbario was glad to find that the Superintendent held such a strong opinion. "It is not Marcello.

The nose is not the same, and the expression of the mouth is quite different."

He said these things with conviction, but he was not deceived. He knew that Marcello Consalvi was living and that he had seen him, risen from the dead, and apparently likely to remain among the living for some time. The first awful moment of anxiety was past, it was true, and Folco was able to think more connectedly than he had since he had received the telegram recalling him from Paris; but there was to be another. The doctors said that his memory would return--what would he remember? It would come back, beginning, most probably, at the very moment in which it had been interrupted. For one instant he would fancy that he saw again what he had seen then. What had he seen? That was the question. Had he seen anything but the sand, the scrubby bushes, and the trees round the cottage in the distance? Had he heard anything but the howling of the southwest gale and the thundering of the big surf over the bar and up the beach? The injury was at the back of his head, but it was a little on one side. Had he been in the act of turning? Had he turned far enough to see before the blow had extinguished memory? How far was the sudden going out of thought really instantaneous? What fraction of a second intervened between full life and what was so like death? How long did it take a man to look round quickly? Much less than a second, surely! Without effort or hurry a man could turn his head all the way from left to right, so as to look over each shoulder alternately, while a second pendulum swung once. A second was a much longer time than most people realised. Instruments made for scientific photography could be made to expose the plate not more than one-thousandth of a second. Corbario knew that, and wondered whether a man's eye could receive any impression in so short a time. He shuddered when he thought that it might be possible.

The question was to be answered sooner than he expected. The doctors had reported that a week must pa.s.s before Marcello would be strong enough to undergo the operation, but he improved so quickly after he reached the hospital that it seemed useless to wait. It was not considered to be a very dangerous operation, nor one which weakened the patient much.

Regina was not allowed to be present, and when Marcello had been wheeled out of his room, already under ether, she went and stood before the window, pressing down her clasped hands upon the marble sill with all her might, and resting her forehead against the green slats of the blind. She did not move from this position while the nurse made Marcello's bed ready to receive him on his return. It was long to wait.

The great clock in the square struck eleven some time after he had been taken away, then the quarter, then half-past.

Regina felt the blood slowly sinking to her heart. She would have given anything to move now, but she could not stir hand or foot; she was cold, yet somehow she could not even shiver; that would have been a relief; any motion, any shock, any violent pain would have been a thousand times better than the marble stillness that was like a spell.

Far away on the Janiculum Folco Corbario sat in his splendid library alone, with strained eyes, waiting for the call of the telephone that stood on the polished table at his elbow. He, too, was motionless, and longed for release as he had never thought he could long for anything. A still unlighted cigar was almost bitten through by his sharp front teeth; every faculty was tense; and yet it was as if his brain had stopped thinking at the point where expectation had begun. He could not think now, he could only suffer. If the operation were successful there would be more suffering, doubt still more torturing, suspense more agonising still.

The great clock over the stables struck eleven, then the quarter, then half-past. The familiar chimes floated in through the open windows.

A wild hope came with the sound. Marcello, weak as he was, had died under ether, and that was the end. Corbario trembled from head to foot.

The clock struck the third quarter, but no other sound broke the stillness of the near noon-tide. Yes, Marcello must be dead.

Suddenly, in the silence, came the sharp buzz of the instrument. He leapt in his seat as if something had struck him unawares, and then, instantly controlling himself, he grasped the receiver and held it to his ear.

"Signor Corbario?" came the question.

"Yes, himself."

"The hospital. The operation has been successful. Do you hear?"

"Yes. Go on."

"The patient has come to himself. He remembers everything."

"Everything!" Corbario's voice shook.

"He is Marcello Consalvi. He asks for his mother, and for you."

"How--in what way does he ask for me? Will my presence do him good--or excite him?"

The moment had come, and Folco's nerve was restored with the sense of danger. His face grew cold and expressionless as he waited for the answer.

"He speaks most affectionately of you. But you had better not come until this afternoon, and then you must not stay long. The doctors say he must rest quietly."

"I will come at four o'clock. Thank you. Good-bye."

"Good-bye."

The click of the instrument, as Folco hung the receiver on the hook, and it was over. He shut his eyes and leaned back in his chair, his arms hanging by his sides as if there were no strength in them, and his head falling forward till his chin rested on his chest. He remained so for a long time without moving.

But in the room at the hospital Marcello lay in bed with his head bound up, his cheek on the pillow, and his eyes fixed on Regina's face, as she knelt beside him and fanned him slowly, for it was hot.

"Sleep, heart of my heart," she said softly. "Sleep and rest!"

There was a sort of peaceful wonder in his look now. Nothing vacant, nothing that lacked meaning or understanding. But he did not answer her, he only gazed into her face, and gazed and gazed till his eyelids drooped and he fell asleep with a smile on his lips.

CHAPTER IX