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The man who professed to have found a new power which would change the face of the world? ... He, this wreck? this blind, deaf lump of breathing clay? Surely he has not fallen on so horrible a destiny!" Tears rushed to Morgana's eyes, she could not answer. She could only bend her head in assent. Profoundly moved, Ardini took her hand, and kissed it with sympathetic reverence.
Her thoughts paraphrased the saying of Madame Roland on Liberty "Oh, Science! what crimes are committed in thy name!" She was anxious to see and speak with Professor Ardini, but came upon the Marchese Rivardi instead, who met her at the door of the library and caught her by both hands. "What is all this?" he demanded, insistently "I MUST speak to you! You have been weeping! What is troubling you?"
He turned to leave the loggia, but paused as he perceived Professor Ardini advancing from the interior of the house, his hands clasped behind his back and his furrowed brows bent in gloomy meditation. "You have a difficult case?" he queried. "More than difficult!" replied Ardini "Beyond human skill! Perhaps not beyond the mysterious power we call God." Rivardi shrugged his shoulders.
"If he ever loved her yes" and Morgana smiled rather sadly "But if he did not if the love is all on her side " Ardini shrugged his shoulders. "A great love is always on the woman's side," he said "Men are too selfish to love perfectly. In this case, of course, there is no emotion, no sentiment of any sort left in the mere hulk of man. But still I will continue my work and do my best."
He was a sceptic of sceptics and his modern-world experiences had convinced him that what man could not do was not to be done at all. "The latest remedy proposed by the Signora is love!" he said, carelessly "The girl who is here, Manella Soriso has made up her mind to be the wife of this unfortunate " Ardini gave an expressive gesture. "Altro!
Professor Ardini had selected two competent men attendants, skilled in surgery and medicine to watch Seaton's case with all the care trained nursing could give, and himself had undertaken to visit the patient regularly and report his condition.
Almost as if the uttered wish had touched some recess of her stunned brain, Manella's eyelids quivered and lifted, the great dark glory of the stars of her soul shone forth for an instant, giving sudden radiance to the pallor of her features then they closed again as in utter weariness. "Magnificent!" said Ardini, under his breath "And full of the vital light, she will live!"
"Strange enough for a man in his condition" replied Ardini "And always the same. What a 'master of the world' is there!" Morgana shuddered as with cold, shading her eyes from the radiant sunshine. "Does he say nothing else?" she murmured "Is there no name no place that he seems to remember?"
All these questions Rivardi discussed with Don Aloysius, who listened to him patiently without committing himself to any reply. Within forty-eight hours of Morgana's summons the famous specialist from Rome, Professor Marco Ardini, noted all over the world for his miraculous cures of those whom other physicians had given up as past curing, arrived.
Morgana stood in her rose-marble loggia, looking with a pathetic wistfulness at the beauty of the scene, and beside her stood Marco Ardini, scientist, surgeon and physician, looking also, but scarcely seeing, his whole thought being concentrated on the "case" with which he had been dealing.
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