Chapter XI: Part 11

When he reached the terrace, he saw Luigi, like a little black hare, scudding towards the _banchetta_. At his heels ran Tibaldo and the two women. The huge man, in his day the fastest runner in England, overtook them in a few bounds. Now his head was clear. Now he knew what was needed and exactly how to get it. He leaped into the racer, Luigi after him. Within eight minutes they were at Intra. Claudio Mora, a young doctor from Turin, returned with them.

XL

Mora succeeded in checking the boy's spasms, but was much relieved when Sophy asked to have Cesare Camenis in consultation--there were things about the case that he could not understand. He said so frankly. That such a robust, sunburnt little fellow, past the age for teething, should have convulsions baffled him. Camenis arrived at five o'clock. To him Sophy told the whole truth. He was a quiet, grey man of about sixty, whose own life had been tragic. The comprehension of dominated sorrow was in his face. Sophy felt that she could trust him, and that he should know all if he was to save Bobby for her. She could not have spoken to Mora. He was too young--and he was still encased in the hard shell of happiness. She could not have laid the wound of her life bare to him, as she did to this quiet, sad-eyed man whose only son was a cripple born, and whose wife had left him for a singer.

After hearing her, Camenis released his young _confrere_ from further responsibility. He would stay himself that night, he said, at Villa Bianca.

Bobby was very ill for some days. He had fever and was delirious. Sophy never left the nursery. Camenis stayed with her till the crisis was past--being taken to and fro between Stresa and the Villa during the day in the launch.

Chesney avoided being alone with the doctor. He had his meals served at different hours, also in his room, for the most part. When he could not avoid meeting Camenis, he would halt awkwardly for a moment, and say: "Little chap going on well?" or, "Don't let Mrs. Chesney break down, will you?" or some such commonplace. He did not like to feel those shrewd, sad eyes of the Genoese physician on his face. He had slipped into the way of taking morphia pretty regularly, ever since that fatal afternoon. To face the prospect of Bobby's possible death, with clear, undrugged mind, was too much for him. And Sophy would not see him--had sent him a sealed line as soon as she could command herself enough to write, saying that she would not.

"Do not try to see me," she had written. "It is all I ask of you."

It was the fourth day of Bobby's illness. The late September evening was still as warm as August. Chesney lay on his bed in the darkness, his hands under his head, staring out at the onyx wall of the Sasso di Ferro, that rose against a sky pricked with stars. The fronds of a big mimosa tree just outside his window, furled sensitively from the heavy dew, made a delicate pattern against the sombre stolidity of the mountain. Through them, as though winking with sardonic humour, the red eye of the Chaldee lime-kiln glowed intermittently. Chesney was not undressed, though he lay upon his bed. He lay there because he felt dead tired, soul and mind and body, and because he had just taken his evening dose of morphia. He was so tired that he was not even thinking his own thoughts. Emile Verhaeren was thinking for him--Verhaeren, the one poet that he had ever really cared for. The great Belgian's volcanic and almost demoniacally virile imagination had appealed to him from the first, as no other had ever done. His own tempestuous, rebellious, intolerant nature echoed to these trumpets of anguish and defiance and exultation. Spirit writhing in the blast-furnace of untempered and primordial sensuality, the distorted religious instinct easing its throes with supernal blasphemies, a dark Prometheus thrusting with his defiant torch at the eye-sockets of the God from whom he had filched it--these things stirred him to the very depths. And, to-night, it was as if Verhaeren had written for him and him alone. Who but he and Verhaeren had ever felt what these words expressed?--these words that thundered and howled through his mind translating himself to himself, with such appalling fitness:

"_Dites suis-je seul avec mon ame,
Mon ame helas maison d'ebene
Ou s'est fendu sans bruit un soir
Le grand miroir de mon espoir._"

And again:

"_Aurai-j'enfin l'atroce joie
De voir nuit apres nuit comme une proie
La demence attaquer mon cerveau,
Et detraque, malade, sorti de la prison
Et des travaux forces de sa raison
D'appareiller vers un lointain nouveau?_"

* * * * *

He lay there thinking through the terrible, implacable mind of Verhaeren until midnight. Then a foot on the stair roused him. It was light and swift--a running step--Sophy's. Was the boy worse? Was he dying, perhaps? He leaped to the door, jerked it open. His haggard, drug-ravaged face stared out between the cheap yellow wood of the newel-post and the door. Sophy was coming down the stair opposite. She looked like a somnambule in her long white dressing-gown, with eyes fixed before her. He came out and stood facing her. She looked straight at him, but her face was blank of recognition.

"Sophy!" he muttered--there was anguish in his hoarse voice: "Sophy!"

For all response, she leaned over the banister.

"_Dottore! Dottore!_" she called.

"_Vengo--vengo, signora!_" came at once the reply of Camenis. As soon as he answered, she turned and ran fleetly up the stairs again. She had not even glanced towards Chesney. Then Camenis went by, also very quickly. Chesney wanted to ask what it was ... he could not speak. Later, he waylaid the doctor coming back. Yes--the boy was conscious again. He would live. The crisis was past.

Chesney hung so heavily on the door that it swung back a little with him.

"Can I do anything for you, signore?" said Camenis, hesitating. "You look ill yourself."

"No--thanks--the--shock----" Chesney mumbled. He retreated, closing the door. Camenis stood a second looking at the closed door. Then he passed on to his own room.

The next day he said to Sophy:

"Signora, now that the little one is out of danger, I feel that I must speak to you about your husband."

He saw her grow rigid.

"Signora," he pursued very gently, "one forgives much to illness. Your husband is an ill man, signora." He saw her eyes waver, but her nostrils were still set.

"You have been kind enough to trust me with your confidence, signora," Camenis went on in his flat, gentle voice. "And so I feel it my duty to speak quite plainly to you."

"Yes," said Sophy mechanically.

Camenis looked at her with that tender pity, which from the wise eyes of a kindly priest or physician does not hurt. His look reminded Sophy of Father Raphael of the Poor. She braced herself to meet what was coming.

"Then, signora," said Camenis, "I will remind you that your husband came to me two weeks ago, to consult me about a severe attack of sciatica. He asked for a palliative. I told him that I knew of none save opium--morphia ... that I did not give it except in extreme cases. Now, signora, from what you have told me--about the unfortunate habit that your husband has only lately escaped from.... You will pardon my perfect frankness, signora?"

"Yes.... Yes...."

"Then.... You must not be too shocked--too horrified. We, who have not endured it, cannot imagine this terrible temptation of morphia. But to one, only so lately cured ... to whom severe pain comes...."

He hesitated again, and Sophy said in a hard, clear voice:

"Do you mean that my husband is taking morphia again?"

"I fear so, signora," said Camenis very gently.

Sophy sat looking down at her hand which she clenched and unclenched as it lay on her knee.

"Yes--I think it's very likely," she said at last, still in that hard, resonant voice.

Camenis was silent for a time; then he said:

"I think your husband has suffered much for what he did the other day, signora."

Sophy's face flamed. Her eyes glittered.

"Don't speak of it ... don't speak of it...!" she cried, as though suffocating.

Again Camenis waited.

"Forgive me, signora," he then said, "but I must tell you that I think this is a crisis for your husband as well as for your son."

Sophy turned suddenly and hid her face against the back of her chair.

The tired, kind eyes of Camenis looked at the bent head compassionately. After another pause, he said:

"I think--as a physician--if you could go to him--gently--he would confess and try once more to--to be what you would have him be, signora."

Then Sophy broke down and wept like a desperate child.

"I can't! Oh, I can't!" she sobbed. "You don't know.... I can't bear even the memory of his face--his voice! How am I to go to him? I can't! I can't!"

The little doctor's face looked very worn as he sat watching her, while she clung to the big, ugly chair as to a rock of refuge, clutching it with her white hands that had grown thin in this one week of Bobby's illness--staining its gay chintz cover with her tears. Suddenly he rose, and went over to her.

"_Bambina_ ... _bambina_ ..." he said tenderly, "when you have saved him, you will love him. We always love what we have saved."

He just touched her hair softly, once, as a father would have done.

"_Coraggio_ ..." he murmured, in his kind, faded voice. Then he left her.

Chesney was filling his hypodermic syringe that evening, about seven, when there came a low knock at his door. He started, nearly dropping the little instrument.

"Who's there?" he called sharply. In every nerve he felt the need of this dose that he was preparing--so soon does the tyrant morphia assert its sway. He was transfixed to hear Sophy's voice reply:

"It's I, Cecil."

Hurriedly, his hands shaking as with ague, he bundled everything into a drawer, and closed it. Then he went to the door. He stood with it in his hand, staring at her as though just waked.

"May I come in?" she said very low. "I--I want to talk with you."

He was still too overcome to speak. Silently he stepped aside, drawing the door with him. She entered quickly, her head a little bent, her hands clasped nervously in front of her. The weather was still very warm; she had come from the nursery, and wore a long peignoir of white muslin. The soft, straight folds made her seem taller than ever. Her bent head contradicted the haughtiness of her body. It was as if she wanted to command a mood of gentleness by forcing its physical semblance.

"Will you sit here?" asked Chesney. His voice shook.

"Thanks...." she murmured, and took the chair that he pushed forward.

She didn't seem able to say what she had come for. She sat silent so long that he felt forced to speak.

"Is ... is Bobby all right?" he faltered.

The colour streamed across her cheek at these words, as though he had struck her.

"Forgive me," he said humbly. "I.... I really care, you know."

"He is better," she managed to reply. Her lips moved stiffly. Then she lifted her head with a sort of desperation of resolve. Her eyes fixed on his.

"Cecil...." she said, "I've come ... one, last time...." She broke off; then went on: "This one, last time," she repeated, "to see if you ... if we ... if together...." Again words failed her. Looking firmly at him, she ended more quietly: "I've come to beg you to tell me the truth," she said, and her dark eyes rested on him full of doubt and pain.

He could scarcely have grown paler, but his head drooped; he sat looking down at his great hands which he clasped and unclasped nervously.

"Well...." she whispered finally. "Will you?.... It's our last ... last chance."

With difficulty he articulated, "Try me."

"Then ..." she went on, after a slight pause, still whispering, "are you ... taking morphine again?"

There was no pause before his answer.

"Yes," he said, his face still drooped away from her.

She caught one hand to her breast. She could not believe her own ears. Had he said "Yes" at once--simply--outright like that, to such a question? Something fine and brave in her throbbed response to that unequivocal "Yes."

"Cecil...." she said.

All at once he tossed up his hands to his bent face. His great figure, huddled on the little chair, began shaking from head to foot.

"Oh, my God!" he said. "My God! Don't be kind to me ... don't be kind!"

And dreadful sobs began heaving through him.

"Oh ... _poor Cecil_...!" came from her in a gasp.

And then he fell forward on his knees before her, his face in her lap, his hands grasping the soft folds of her gown. His tumultuous, painful sobbing shook them both--as if torn up by bloody roots came the great sobs.

"Sophy.... God.... Sophy.... I've suffered.... I've suffered.... If he'd died.... Yes ... one shot ... yes ... one...."

And his passion of grief, torrential as his passion of love, flooded her, shook her with its cyclonic abandonment, until she seemed one flesh with him in this unmeasured tragedy of wild remorse.

Through her thin gown she felt his tears soak to her very skin--a hot chrism baptising her once more his in this terrific rite of sorrow.

She bent over him, her hands upon his head, her own tears falling.

"No ... no!" she pleaded. "No ... no, Cecil! Don't ... don't despair like this ... we will begin again.... The truth.... You have told the truth...."

She began to sob herself now.

"And the truth shall make you free ... the truth shall make you free, dear...." she kept sobbing.

Now she had his head against her breast--her cheek pressed down on it. As she held Bobby to comfort him, when he was frightened, so she held the great man. He was afraid now--afraid of himself--like a child. Close she held him to comfort him ... close ... close....

XLI

That night they talked things over quietly. Sophy was very gentle with him--almost incredibly generous, he thought. With his permission, she consulted Camenis about the amount of morphia that he ought to have, to "tail off," as he said humbly--in order to get him back to England without too much discomfort from the sciatic pains and the sudden snapping of the habit that he had formed again--albeit to such a moderate extent. Camenis gave his opinion, and Sophy undertook to give her husband the properly diminished doses. Chesney was almost pathetically humble. It hurt her in some subtle nerve to see the big, domineering man, so subdued, so timidly anxious to conciliate her, to redeem himself in her opinion. It was beyond doubt that he had suffered excruciatingly over the boy's illness and his part in it.

"The little chap won't be able to bear the sight of me, I suppose," he had ventured once, and she saw his lips quiver as he said it.

She felt a submerging pity for him.

"Leave that to me," she answered gently. "I've thought of a way.... I think I can manage ... but it will take time, of course."

Another thing that proved to her the depth of his self-humiliation and genuine regret was the fact that he wished to apologise to Amaldi.

"I shall tell him the brute fact," he said, "that I was drunk with that _Grappa_ stuff. He can accept my apology or not, as he chooses."

He wrote the note of apology the morning after their talk.

"Shall I post it or send it by Luigi?" he asked, looking not at her but the letter which he was holding. Sophy thought a moment, then she said:

"We are leaving Wednesday, and I ought to see the Marchesa before I go. Suppose you let me take it! I can leave it with her."

"Do," he said, giving her the letter; then he took her hand in both his. "Thanks, Sophy," he added, under his breath.

Sophy started for Le Vigne about ten o'clock. She took Luigi with her to run the launch--he was fortunately cleverer as a _meccanico_ than as a valet. The sky was coloured like blue morning-glories, and the lake like gentian. Clouds and foam dissolved on the great sheets of blue like snow melting upon flame. But the beauty of the day seemed cruel to Sophy. It was like the laughter of water in sunlight above the place where a ship has foundered. Camenis had happened to mention the fact that Amaldi was in Milan, else she could not have gone for that farewell visit, onerous as she felt it to be.

And even as it was, she shrank from seeing the Marchesa. Had Amaldi told her? Her cheek tingled shame at the thought. But the next instant she felt that she knew him better than that. No; he would not have told any one of that scene which had been so degrading for her.

But when she reached Le Vigne, she found that the Marchesa had gone to Belgirate for the day. Old Carletto seemed deeply sorry for her disappointment.

"_Che peccato, signora! Che peccato!_" he kept saying, shaking his white head slowly and clicking his tongue. The Signora Marchesa would be so sad, so very sad to miss the signora. Then he brightened up.

"But the Marchesino is here, signora!" he exclaimed. "The Marchesino is very busy in his study ... but he would wish me to disturb him on such an occasion. He will know how to find the Signora Marchesa."

Sophy had started for the darsena again in real panic. She even forgot to leave Cecil's letter with the old butler.

"No--no! Don't disturb the Marchese," she called back. "I desire you not to do it."

As she was speaking, Carletto, who was following her as fast as his bent legs would amble, called out:

"_Ma, eccolo! Ecco il Marchesino, signora!_"

She hurried on, her head bent, the letter in the pocket of her gown seeming to scorch her fingers. Amaldi overtook her, just before she reached the darsena. They murmured vague greetings. Both were very pale. A trembling had seized Sophy. Everything grew dim before her in that moment. Amaldi, seeing how it was with her, offered her his arm. She took it from the sheer instinct of self-preservation. The ground seemed falling from beneath her feet in slanting jerks.

"You are tired...." he said, speaking with an effort. "There is a seat here ... among these ilex shrubs.... You must rest a moment."

Walking giddily along the unstable, sliding earth, she allowed him to guide her to the old stone seat on the south terrace. The dark foliage screened them from the house. Between them and the blue dazzle of the lake was a low balustrade of stone. Amaldi helped her to the seat, and then went and leaned upon this balustrade.

The faintness passed, and Sophy sat thinking feverishly how she must act. The directness of her nature guided her. She drew the letter from her pocket, and, rising, went towards Amaldi. He turned when he heard her footstep. As he turned, she stopped where she was, holding out the letter to him.

"Marchese," she said, "I had meant to leave this letter with your mother. I was told you were in Milan. It--it is from--my husband.... Wait!" she cried almost imperiously, as she saw the recoil of his whole figure. "You must listen--you must understand. He ... my husband ... has been very ill. This ... this letter is an apology, Marchese--an apology to you."

Amaldi bowed formally, and took the letter. His face was inscrutable. He started to put the envelope unopened into his pocket.

Sophy, flushing deeply, murmured:

"Won't you even read it?"

Amaldi bowed again.

"There is no need," he said. "An apology offered in this manner"--his tone was rather bitter--"I accept without reading."

Sophy stood silent; then her head went down a little.

"I ... I thank you," she whispered.

A quick change came over Amaldi's face; but she was looking down on the flagged walk and did not see it.

"Do you go soon now?" he asked, his voice almost as low as hers.

"Yes ... on Wednesday."

"It will doubtless be long before you come again to Lago Maggiore?"

"Yes."

"Do not forget us ... entirely."

"No."

"You will not be forgotten...."

There was in his voice such an intensity of pain with difficulty subdued that the trembling seized her again despite all her will. He continued:

"This is farewell ... is it not?" he said.

She could not control her voice to answer. She moved her head in assent, her eyes still downcast.

"Then ..." said Amaldi, "will you not look at me--to say farewell?"

She lifted her eyes to his--it cost her much to lift them. But she looked up as he had desired, and it was into his bared soul that she looked. There was an instant's silence; then he spoke.

"It is my whole life that goes with you," he said.

She stood gazing at him as though spellbound. Then she half-lifted her hands like a suppliant. She was as white as her gown. But the flood-gates were open now. Neither of them could stay the flood.

"Yes," he went on, "I love you. I've loved you from the first ... with all my soul, with all my life.... I love you with my soul.... Do you understand?... with my soul...."

He took a step towards her. They were both trembling now.

"If you would trust me ... if you would let me shield you ... with my whole life ... with my love ... with love that is worship ... worship...."

She found her voice at last, and cried out to him as if for mercy:

"No, Amaldi; no! Oh, I implore you!... Stop! It can't be ... it can't be!"

He wheeled where he stood so that his face was hidden from her. It was the instinctive movement of the body that seeks to hide the bared soul. A moment passed. Then she said brokenly:

"I must go now.... I must go back...."

Now he turned to her again. His face was livid. His lips drew when he spoke.

"You will _go back_...?" he stammered. "You will go back to that ... that _Minotaur_?" His teeth ground on the word. It was terrible to see the man, usually so still, so self-controlled, stripped of all reserve.

"I must.... I must ... for my boy's sake. Ah, don't look at me with such eyes!... I can't bear your face ... so different!"

She trembled still more violently, put up her hand to shut out the ghastly, devastated look of his face.

"You go back? You go back to him?" he kept muttering. "_Che orrore_ ... _che orrore_...." All at once he gripped himself. He said in a strange, level tone: "There is nothing I can do, then. I would give my life ... yet there is nothing ... no way that I can serve you...."

"Amaldi ... Amaldi ..." she murmured. She caught his hand in both her own. "Oh, forgive me...." she said; "dear, dear Amaldi, forgive me!"

He bent and kissed the hands that clasped his.

"There is nothing to forgive," he answered.

It seemed to Sophy afterwards, when she came more to her usual self out there on the glee of blue waters, far from Le Vigne, that they two had been like actors moving through some pantomime, during those last moments. In silence they had walked together to the darsena; in silence he had assisted her into the launch; in silence she had sat watching Luigi start the engine. No other farewell had passed between them. In the moments following that disastrous, tragic crisis, all convention had withered. They had not even a subconscious sense of the mimic civilities due to Luigi's presence. And over Sophy stole that numbness which comes as anodyne to deep natures which have been called on to endure too many and too violent shocks within a short period. For a few moments, there face to face with Amaldi, she had suffered intensely. Now that was past. She felt quiet, and oddly cramped, as though crouching in a little capsule of stillness at the cyclone's heart....

* * * * *

They could not leave on Wednesday as they had expected. Bobby's fever had culminated in a sharp attack of jaundice--the result of fright, Camenis told her. But the little fellow recovered rapidly. Only his nerves seemed still taut from the shock. He would shriek out wildly in his sleep, and no one but his mother could soothe these paroxysms of terror. As he grew stronger, she began to pursue with him the course of which she had hinted to Chesney.

"My darling," she would coax, "dada was only showing you how strong he was ... how safe he could hold you. Why, dada wouldn't hurt his little boy for all the world! He's so strong, so strong! He _couldn't_ let Bobby fall. Don't you see, sweetheart?"

Thus she would coax him by the hour. At last it seemed to "seep" into his little brain. "Dada so st'ong," he would repeat. "Dada show Bobby 'ow st'ong! Good dada ... not dwop Bobby!"

At last Sophy ventured to ask one day:

"Don't you want to see poor dada? He's so afraid his little boy doesn't love him any more?"

But Bobby began to tremble.

"Dada _so_ st'ong...." he pleaded, clinging hard to Sophy's breast. At last, however, he consented to let his father come.

Chesney entered, hesitating--stood near the door. Sophy, who had her arm about Bobby as he lay against the pillows in his crib, beckoned him to come forward.

"Now, now, my little man ... my _brave_ little man...." she murmured in the child's ear, her cheek to his--encouraging, soothing him. Chesney came and got awkwardly on his knees beside the crib. He felt thankful to make himself smaller in the boy's eyes. Timidly he ventured to steal one of his great hands towards the little fist, clutched in Sophy's laces.

"How are you, little man?" he said, "gentling" his voice as to some shy animal. "Won't you say 'how d'ye do' to dada?"

The boy, trying so hard to "be a man," regarded him with wide eyes, and the most touching, wavering smile of courage on the verge of tears. Then he looked with desperate appeal up at his mother. The set, wavering smile grew pale.

"Dada _too_ st'ong...." he said. "Bobby _so_ little...."

Chesney put down his face upon the crib and wept. Sophy knew that he was weeping, though no sound came from him. Then she told Bobby that "poor dada had been very, very ill"--he wasn't "too st'ong" any more. And taking the little unwilling hand in hers, she "poored" his father's bent head with it. Chesney turned his face presently, kissed the little hand, then got up silently and left the room. Sophy went to him, five minutes later, and found him face down on his bed, sobbing like a child. His own nerves had gone completely under the dreadful shocks of the past ten days.

XLII

Bobby's attack of jaundice was soon over. After that glimpse of his father, so gentle and so very kind--kinder than Bobby had ever known him--the boy began to recover with the quick resilience of childhood. By the following Monday he was quite fit to travel, Camenis said.

Physically, Chesney was much better also. Camenis had succeeded in routing the sciatica. A strong tonic had somewhat restored his appetite. Altogether, he felt more fit than he had believed possible under the circumstances. At first, Camenis had wanted him to take hot hip-baths mixed with sea-salt. But here Chesney rebelled. He loathed hot baths. He demanded either a quick, cold tub in the morning, or else his usual swim in the lake. Camenis and he tussled for some hours over this question. Finally, it was agreed by the physician that as this September was such an unusually warm one, Chesney might have a very short swim during the hottest hours of the morning; then, after drying himself, lie and bake in the sun on the scorching pebbles of the shore. Late in the season as it was, he acquired the most beautifully toned mahogany-brown back and chest by this method. He was boyishly proud of this splendid tanning.

"The old boy'll think he's got a nigger-chief to monkey with, this time. Eh--what?" he asked Sophy, turning about before her in his short bathing-trunks that she might see the full glory of his sunburnt torso. She smiled approval, saying that to her he looked more like a well-roasted turkey than a "nigger." And she thought what a boy the big man was, at heart. It seemed pathetic and strange and very nice to her, all at the same time, that he could take such pleasure in such a thing, after all that had passed and was to come.

Sunday evening she spent in having the last things packed away. The dismantled villa looked the picture of sordid cheerlessness, when stripped of all the little touches she had given it. They dined by one, virulent jet of acetylene gas, blazing in an iron loop from the middle of the ceiling.

"By George, this _is_ funereal!" Chesney could not refrain from exclaiming. "Two more meals like this--is it? Well, they'll give me melancholia."

"We needn't have two more," Sophy consoled him. "I've thought it out already. To-morrow morning we can breakfast on the terrace. Then we can go to the Hotel Ghiffa for luncheon. Our boat doesn't leave until three."

He looked at her with cordial appreciation.

"Clever girl--so we can!" he said. "But, I say"--his face fell--"what about my swim and sun-bath? That would cut me short--lunching at Ghiffa, I mean."

"But there's a capital bathing-shore at the hotel," she reminded him. "You can have your swim there while they prepare luncheon."

About eleven o'clock next morning they sauntered together along the white high-road to Ghiffa.

"You will have a glorious swim...." Sophy said, looking at the lake that drowsed under the faint breath of a listless Tramontana.

"Those sleek, snaky trails on the water mean rain, they tell me," answered Chesney. "I'm in luck to have a sunny day for my last swim."

"Yes," she assented dreamily. "Rain isn't becoming to Italy. She's like a beautiful woman who doesn't know how to cry."

"Sophy! How feminine! Do _you_ know 'how to cry,' pray?"

"No. I haven't the knack at all." She laughed a little. "I make horrid faces.... I can feel myself making them."

"Poor lass!" he said in his abrupt way, suddenly gripped by this idea of her grimacing under sorrow. He had given her such a lot of it--by George! He grasped her hand with a quick gesture, and frown of pain, drawing it through his arm.

"It's to be a clean slate, my girl," he said, looking down at her.

He felt the slight fingers pinch into his arm.

"_Yes_," she said. "Yes, Cecil." But she looked in front of her face gave him another pang. He was glad that gether, as though the dazzle of the white road and clouds and walls along the way, hurt her eyes.

Chesney fought off a great fog of depression that seemed suddenly to settle down on him.

"'Cheerly! Cheerly!'" he cried, putting a bluff note into his voice that he was far from feeling. "What's it the old chap in _The Tempest_ says?--'Heigh, my hearts! Cheerly, cheerly, my hearts!' That's the 'barbaric yawp' for us, Sophy--eh? Don't you feel it so?"

"Yes.... I do.... I do, Cecil," she responded eagerly. Her grey eyes looked up at him now. The bright bravery of her face gave him another pang. He was glad that their next step brought them to the little Hotel Ghiffa. Sophy ran up to see how Bobby was faring, in the rooms that she had taken till the hour for leaving. She found him clamouring to go down and "p'ay ball wiv mens" in the garden. A game of _Boccie_ was going on there. She sent him down with Rosa to look on. Then she went out again to find Cecil. He met her at the door of the second bedroom. When he saw her, he stepped back into the room and signed her to come. He reached out and shut the door behind her. His face looked strange, all pale under its heavy coat of tan.

"Sophy," he said, "don't think me a sentimental ass--but you've never told me ... in so many words that ... well ... that you forgive me?"

He was gazing at her hungrily, with a look half ashamed, half determined. She went straight to him, and put her arms around him. It was queer how much he appealed to her as Bobby did.

"Oh, I'm so sorry that I've let you feel the need of words!" she said. "But if you want them I'll say them over and over----"

"No...." he stopped her; "I don't want them ... now. Will you...?" His arms held her painfully close. She turned her face to him and he kissed her--almost shyly. Her eyes stung. She put up her hand and pressed his cheek to hers....

"Now I'll go order our luncheon," she said gaily. But he knew well that there was no gaiety in her heart. And as he got out his bathing trunks, and took his bath-sheet on his arm, lines from Verhaeren began again to haunt him:

"_Je m'habille des logues de mes jours
Et le baton de mon orgeuil il plie,
Mes pieds dites commie ils sont lourds
De me porter, de me trainer toujours
Au long le siecle de ma vie_...."

Down to the sparkling hem of the lake the sombre voice accompanied him. He stood in a sort of muse, his bare feet wincing from the hot pebbles; then, letting the ripples lave them, he went on musing. And in a sort of dark flare the joyous scene vanished, and he saw smoke-blurred, autumnal London gape before him. Here, too, Verhaeren whispered with gloomy sympathy:

"_Gares de suie et de fumee ou du gaz pleure
Ses spleens d'argent lointain vers des chemins d'eclair,
Ou des betes d'ennui baillent a l'heure
Dolente immensement qui tente Westminster._"

He had a flash of grim amusement at the idea of "Westminster" used by the Belgian poet to rhyme with "eclair" ... then he flung himself forward into the glittering blue, and began to swim.... After all it was good to be alive no matter what the odds.... Perhaps the knowledge that this was his last swim for many months whetted his appreciation, but he had never felt more jocund a delight in the elastic clasp and purl of living water upon his naked flesh....

* * * * *

Sophy went out on the little terrace before the hotel to wait for his return. She had ordered luncheon served there, and a _cameriere_ was already throwing a fresh tablecloth over one of the iron tables. A late tea-rose nodded from the terrace railing in the languid wind. She went and leaned near it, watching her husband's splendid figure against the flickering, sunlit blue, as he stood those few moments musing, before he plunged forward for his swim. The late, wistful rose, its petals slightly shrivelled at the edges, kept tapping softly against her hand. She stroked it lightly with her finger tips. The Padrone bustled up.

"_Con permesso--con permesso, signora_," he smiled, unctuously affable. And with a table-knife he detached the rose and presented it, bowing low.

"_Grazie_," murmured Sophy. She was sorry that the poor, passee rose had been beheaded for her, but very kindly she fastened it in her belt. Then, leaning on the low railing, she watched the fine rhythm of Cecil's arm, as it rose and fell, shearing the blue water. He was only a few yards from shore. He swam in a big semi-circle. Now he was returning. She was glad he was coming back. It seemed to her that he had been long enough in the autumn-chilled water.... But now he seemed to have stopped swimming. Ah, he was treading water. She felt a little vexed with him for lingering--but then, she realised that this was to be his last free, vigorous pleasure for so long. Still, he really should be coming back. She stood up and called him:

"Cecil!... Do come out!"

She could see his face plainly. All at once she gave a startled movement. He was answering her with grimaces ... frightful grimaces. She knew his sardonic ideas of "fun," but this struck her as unnatural ... cruel.

"Don't ... don't...." she cried to him. "You frighten me.... Come back!"

The Padrone had approached again.

"_Il signore ama scherzare_" (The gentleman likes fun), he observed, smiling. Sophy did not hear him. Half frightened, half indignant, she was staring at the grimacing face. All this had passed within a few seconds. Suddenly Cecil went under---- She held her breath.

"_Che Ercole!_" (What a Hercules!), observed the Padrone admiringly.

But she was holding her breath with the man under water. It seemed to her as though he would never come up again. Then she saw him. And still he made those odious grimaces. But now he called something. What was it? Her heart checked. It seemed to her that he cried "Help!" and as he cried it, he went under the second time.

All at once the Padrone gave a howl of terror.

"_Ma! s'annega! s'annega!_" (He's drowning! He's drowning!), screamed the man.

In an instant the terrace swarmed with shouting people. Sophy rushed blindly for the shore. The crowd, still shouting, pressed after her. The water for yards out was horribly smooth. No object broke its surface.

"Help! Help!" Sophy cried, strangling. She looked for men to plunge at once into the Lake. Not one did so. A voice called: "A chair! Throw him a chair!" She dashed knee-deep into the water. Some one dragged her back. She was struggling with two cowards who dragged her back from that smooth, tranquil expanse under which Cecil was suffocating. A woman threw her arms around her, sobbing, "_Poverina! Poverina! E matta_...." She fought wildly against the heaving, enveloping breast of this woman.

"Cowards!" she cried. The Italian word came to her, "_Vigliacchi! Vigliacchi!_" she raged at them, beating the woman's heavy breast with her hands. The woman let her go, but a man caught her arms from behind. In her struggles her long hair came loose and blew back into the man's face, blinding him. Still he grasped her stoutly, though his face was covered with her thick hair, and her frantic movements dragged him inch by inch towards the water that he dreaded. Now there was a chair floating on it ... a little yellow chair that bobbed drolly with the motion of the bright wavelets. And still people shouted, and ran to and fro along the edge of the water, like terriers wildly excited over a flung stick which they are afraid to plunge in and fetch. One or two had rushed off towards Ghiffa, still shouting and gesticulating. Boats had put out from the village. The men in the boats shouted and gesticulated also. When they reached the spot where Chesney had gone down, they leaned over, gazing into the water. They rowed back and forth, stopping every now and then to gaze into the water. Suddenly there rose a cry: "_L'e li! L'e li! Vardel!_" (There he is! See!) But no one went overboard. It seemed to Sophy that her heart would burst her bosom. She tried to find some terrible word that would rouse them to manhood. But even her voice failed her. It was like trying to cry out in a nightmare. Only a hoarse sound escaped her. Her eyes felt full of blood.

Then suddenly a figure came running, bounding. "_Dove? Dove?_" (Where? Where?) it called as it pelted down the terrace steps.

It was Peppin, Amaldi's sailor, bare-armed and bare-legged, in blue singlet and canvas trousers rolled to the knee.

Sophy's haggard blood-shot eyes fixed on the half-naked sailor as though he had been God.

The little crowd on shore bristled with pointing arms. "Out there! Just there!" they called in unison.

Sophy tried to cry "Save him!" to Peppin, but her voice only croaked harshly in her throat.

He did not even hear her. He had thrown his whole seaman's consciousness ahead into that clear yet impenetrable water. Even as she tried to call to him, his body, flashing obedience to his thought, shot into the lake with the curved bound of a dolphin. The water leaped up about him as in applause. Here at last was a _man_.

"_Bravo, Marinaio! Bravo! Bravo!_" shrieked the craven throng.

Sophy stood still enough now. There was no need to hold her. She stood as though her soul had gone from her and entered the body of the sailor who was swimming strong and straight for the point where Cecil had gone down.

The Padrone, who had seemed paralysed until now, came as suddenly to life as Sophy had turned to stone.

"_Il dottore!_" he shouted imperiously. "_Vaa cercare il dottore!_"

Now Peppin had reached the spot about which the boats were gathered. He trod water with head bent low, peering intently into the blue depths. The boats hung near. The boatmen shouted more than ever. They pointed downwards. "_L'e lit! L'e lit!_" they cried eagerly. All at once the sailor dived. It was as if he turned a somersault in the water. His bare, wet legs flashed up into the sunshine as he plunged.

Long seconds went by ... an eternity of minute-long seconds. Yet through this horror of blank pause, wherein time seemed suspended ... which might have been a day or an aeon ... Sophy stood waiting for Peppin to bring her husband back to her. She was sure that Peppin would not come back without him. The primordial woman in her had recognised primordial man in the stout sailor. The feminine at its limit waited on the completion of virility. What she could not do, Peppin was doing. So she waited while cycles seemed to pass. She had lost her sense of time.

A sudden roar went up--from the shore, from the waiting boats. The dark blob of Peppin's head had appeared above water. Then it was submerged again for an instant. But now the boats were closer--arms reached out. He was caught--sustained by those eager arms--he and his burden. Ah!--they were trying to lift what Peppin grasped into a boat--but that huge, flaccid body dragged the boatedge over--down--down to the very water. A mass of clutching hands grasped here, there. Now it was half over the edge--but the boat lay on her side. The great, naked body glistened white like a monstrous fish in the sunlight. Now ... now ... all together!

There was another roar. Then the sailor also was hauled aboard.... The boat pulled for shore....

XLIII

They lifted him out and laid him on the warm beach. The crowd stood aside, respectful and expectant. All eyes turned to Sophy. They were waiting for the thrilling moment when the stone image would spring to life, shriek and cast itself upon her husband's body. There was a hush as in a theatre, just before the eagerly expected catastrophe breaks into a scream or dagger-stroke. But the moment failed of its zest. Slowly, as though moving in its sleep, the tall figure went over to the drowned man, knelt down beside him, laid a white hand on the drenched, sunburnt chest. Then she looked dully up at Peppin, who stood by, honest pity on his rough face, the water that streamed from his clothes making a little patter on the hot pebbles.

"It doesn't beat," she said in English, not heeding that the man could not understand her. "What will you do now...?" she asked. And her eyes still gazed up at the sailor as though he had been God.

The woman with the heavy breast, that Sophy had struck in her frantic efforts to escape, began to sob. The little, yellow wooden chair still bobbed up and down in the sunlight as some current bore it away towards Ghiffa.

Peppin kneeled down, too. He put his square, dark hand, with its broken nails and tattooed wrist, beside the white one.

Then he sprang up and began fiercely talking and gesticulating to the others. He was telling them that they must help him try to revive the _Scior_. They shrank. It is not considered wise on Lago Maggiore to meddle with a drowned man before the civil authorities come on the scene. One may get involved in all sorts of unpleasantness. Peppin berated them roundly, with good work-a-day oaths. He, too, called them "_Vigliacchi_." But though most of his angry dialect was but gibberish to Sophy, certain words she understood. And these words acted on her like an elixir of life. The blood flashed into her white face. She sprang to her feet.

"I will help you! Show me!" she cried. "_Io_.... _Io_...." (I--I) she kept repeating, striking her breast sharply to show him what she meant. She caught the sailor's hand in hers and drew him towards Chesney. She pointed to the drowned man, and then to herself and Peppin. In her broken Italian--stammering with eagerness--she urged the sailor to let her help revive her husband.

He understood, but he was at a loss. He knew that she could not assist in the violent measures that were necessary. The drowned man must first of all be made to disgorge the water that he had swallowed. This poor _Sciora_ could not help him. He stood bewildered while Sophy held his hand, pouring out her eager, broken words.... And as he stood there, at his wit's end, a new cry went up:

"_Il dottore! Il dottore!_"

The doctor, whose name was Morelli, had a way with him that Peppin thoroughly approved. He ordered the curious throng to keep back, in so sharp a tone of authority that he was actually obeyed. Then he spoke to Sophy, very gently, but in the same authoritative manner. He told her that she must leave him to take at once the necessary measures for reviving her husband.

"I implore you to return to the hotel, signora," he said earnestly. "It will not be well for you to remain here."

Sophy rose at once, but her eyes fastened on Peppin's face.

"Will _you_ stay with him, too?" she asked.

"_Si! Si! Sciora!_" he answered eagerly. "_Staro_" (I will stay).

The Padrone came up and offered her his arm. The fat, kind-hearted woman also came up, though her great bust still ached from Sophy's frenzied blows.

"_Cara signora_," she pleaded humbly, "allow me to accompany you."

Between the Padrone and this kindly soul Sophy went obediently back to the hotel.

Tilda and Rosa had both gone for a walk with Bobby along the high-road. Tilda had missed one of the smaller bags, and wished to see if it had been left by mistake with Luigi. So the two women had gone back to Villa Bianca, and were there when the accident happened. Not until Morelli and Peppin had been at work together over Chesney for twenty minutes did they return with Luigi, who, on hearing the terrible news, ran straight to help resuscitate his master. All the women in the hotel gathered round Rosa. She yielded Bobby to one of them, and began to sob and strike her breast and forehead in despair.

Tilda, her round face blotched with pallor, went straight to her lady. She found Sophy standing by a window that overlooked the shore.

"Oh, Mrs. Chesney!" faltered the girl, beginning to tremble. "May I stay with you?"

"No ... please...." said her mistress without turning. The girl went out obediently, and sat crouched in a chair near the door. Some women stole up and began whispering gruesome details to her. She listened half-unwilling, half-fascinated. The insatiable craving of the lower classes for "_le frisson_" made her listen, but she hated herself for doing it, and them for telling her so eagerly. The fat woman, whom Sophy had not permitted to remain with her, and to whose care Rosa had given Bobby, took the boy to her room and fed him bonbons, eating some herself to encourage him, and turning aside every now and then to cry again over the poor _tousin_ whose Babbo had just been drowned, and who was so innocently gay over this unexpected feast of sweetmeats.

And Sophy, all alone at her window in the bleak hotel bedroom, stood and gazed at the little group on the beach, where Morelli, Peppin, and Luigi were striving to restore her husband to life. The first rigorous methods having been used, they had moved him to the shadow of some trees and spread blankets under and over him--only his head and the upper part of his chest were now exposed. And on either side knelt the sailor and the doctor. They had each grasped one of the massive arms, and regularly, with a machine-like motion, they lifted these arms up above the prone head, then down again--up--then down again. So powerful did the huge man look, even thus outstretched upon the ground, that it seemed to Sophy as though with his naked, herculean arms, he were bending the two men back and forth--back and forth. She would not believe that he was dead. It was as if, should she allow herself for a moment to believe it, he would really die. It was as if his life depended on her will to believe in it. It was impossible--that thus, in the sunlight, within a few yards of shore, within the sound of her voice, with his midday-meal preparing for him, his clothes awaiting him on the warm beach--that thus in a moment--in the twinkling of an eye--he should be dead....

Up and down--up and down waved the massive arms, white and gleaming in the glare from sky and water. Another figure joined the group. Sophy recognised Tibaldo, the gardener's boy from Villa Bianca. The doctor said something, turning his head sharply. Then she saw Luigi turn back the blankets, and Tibaldo take up a bottle that had been standing near. He poured stuff from this bottle into Luigi's hands, then into his own. They began rubbing the naked man vigorously. The doctor and Peppin paused a moment. She saw Morelli mop his face with his handkerchief, and Peppin sling the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. A change was made. Now it was Luigi and Tibaldo who were moving the great arms up and down, while Peppin and Morelli rubbed the outstretched body vigorously....

All at once, without any warning, she could not see them any longer. All that she could see was an endless reach of gleeful, bright blue water, and floating on it, bobbing drolly, a small, yellow chair. Then she saw nothing--then dark clouds that coiled and swam. She did not regain consciousness for five hours. When she came to herself again, she was lying on the bed with Tilda kneeling at her feet, rubbing them. A man's face was bending over her--the face of Doctor Morelli. The Venetian blinds were closed, making a strange green light in the room ... it seemed to be under water. She struggled to rise, feeling suffocated--feeling as though she, too, were drowning. She heard Morelli take a breath as of relief. Tilda had put down her face upon the bedclothes.

"How is he?... How is my husband?" she managed to stammer.

She felt the girl sobbing against her feet.

"_Coraggio, signora_.... _Coraggio_...." murmured the doctor. Then she knew. He was dead. She sank again into merciful depths of unconsciousness.

* * * * *