"
But ere his father could arrive on Sunday, Paul was lying 'twixt life and
death, madly raving with brain fever.
And thus ended the three weeks of his episode.
CHAPTER XXI
Have any of you who read crept back to life from nearly beyond the grave?
Crept back to find it shorn of all that made it fair? After hours of
delirium to awaken in great weakness to a sense of hideous anguish and
loss--to the prospect of days of aching void and hopeless longing, to the
hourly, momentary sting of remembrance of things vaster than death, more
dear than life itself? If you have come through this valley of the shadow,
then you can know what the first days of returning consciousness meant to
Paul.
He never really questioned the finality of her decree, he _sensed_ it meant
parting for ever. And yet, with that spring of eternal hope which animates
all living souls, unbidden arguings and possibilities rose in his enfeebled
brain, and deepened his unrest. Thus his progress towards convalescence was
long and slow.
And all this time his father and Tompson had nursed him in the old Venetian
palazzo with tenderest devotion.
The Italian servants had been left, paid up for a month, but the lady and
her Russian retinue had vanished, leaving no trace.
Both Tompson and Sir Charles knew almost the whole story now from Paul's
ravings, and neither spoke of it--except that Tompson supplied some links
to complete Sir Charles' picture.
Pages:
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165