Part 62 (2/2)

It could not be very long, she said, with streaming eyes. She loved him still, in spite of everything, and she must remain with him while he breathed.

Edith willingly received Ino, saying she would be glad to keep him as long as was necessary; then Giulia went immediately back to her sad vigils beside the man who had caused her nothing but sorrow and shame.

But Emil Correlli did not die.

Very slowly and painfully he came back to life--to an existence, rather, from which he would gladly have escaped when he realized what it was to be.

When he first awakened to consciousness it was to find a pale, patient woman beside him--one who met his sighs and moans with gentle sympathy, and who ministered tirelessly to his every need and comfort.

No other hand was so cool and soft upon his heated head, or so deft to arrange his covers and pillows; no voice was so gently modulated yet so invariably cheerful--no step so quick and light; and, though the querulous invalid often frowned upon her, and chided her sharply for imaginary remissness, she never wavered in her sweetness and gentleness.

Thus, little by little, the selfish man grew to appreciate her and to yearn for her presence, if she was forced to be out of his sight for even a few minutes at a time.

”She has saved your life--she has almost forced life upon you,” the surgeon remarked to him one day, when, as he came to make his accustomed visit, Giulia slipped away for a moment of rest and a breath of fresh air.

The invalid frowned. It was not exactly pleasant to be told that he owed such a debt of grat.i.tude to the woman he had wronged. He was too callous to experience very much of grat.i.tude as yet. It was only when he was p.r.o.nounced well enough to be moved, and informed that he must make arrangements to be cared for outside, in order to make room for more urgent cases, that he began to wonder how he should get along without his faithful nurse and to realize how dependent he was upon her.

He knew that he would be a cripple for life; his broken bones had knitted nicely, and his limbs would be as sound as ever, in time; but his spine had been injured, and he would never walk upright again--henceforth he would only be able to get about upon crutches.

How, then, could he live without some one to wait upon him and bear with him in his future state of helplessness?

”Where shall I go?” he questioned, querulously, when, later, he told Giulia that his removal had been ordered. ”A hotel is the most dismal place in the world for a sick man.”

”Emil, how would you like a home of your own?” Giulia gravely inquired.

The word ”home” thrilled him strangely, making him think yearningly of his mother and the comforts of his childhood, and an irresistible longing took possession of him.

”A home!” he repeated, bitterly. ”How on earth could I make a home for myself?”

”I will make it for you--I will go to take care of you in it, if you like,” she quietly answered.

”You!” he exclaimed in surprise, while, with sudden discernment, he remarked a certain refined beauty in her face that he had never observed before.

Then he added, with a sullen glance at his useless limbs, a strange sense of shame creeping over him:

”Do you still care enough for me to take that trouble?”

”I am willing to do my duty, Emil,” she gravely replied.

”Ha! you evade me!” he cried, sharply, and piqued by her answer. ”Tell me truly, Giulia, do you still love me well enough to be willing to devote your life to such a misshapen wretch as I shall always be?”

The woman turned her face away from him, to hide the sudden light of hope that leaped into her eyes at his words, which she fancied had in them a note of appeal.

But she had been learning wisdom during her long weeks of service in the hospital--learning that anything, to be appreciated, must be hardly won; and so she answered as before, without betraying a sign of the eager desire that had taken root in her heart:

”I told you, Emil, that I was willing to do my duty. I bear your name--you are Ino's father--my proper place is in your home; and if you see fit to decide that we shall all live together under the same roof, I will do my utmost to make you comfortable, and your future as pleasant as possible. More than that I cannot promise--now.”

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