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Pavilion and tea-table seemed an odd bit of convention, set down in the neglected wildness of this old garden, and Daphne watched it all with entire satisfaction over her Sevres teacup. Presently she was startled by seeing Assunta come hurrying back with a teacup and saucer in one hand, a hot water jug in the other.
The nurse tells me she dared not enter the mother's room to disturb her after midnight, otherwise she would have called her to see the child it is unfortunate, for now I can do nothing." I listened like one in a dream. Not even old Assunta dared to enter her mistress's room after midnight no! not though the child might be seriously ill and suffering. I knew the reason well too well!
He did not notice the rush of feet in the passage without, as Maria Luisa and Lucia and Gianbattista ran to the door, followed by old Assunta holding up her apron to her eyes. "Courage, Sor Marzio," said Gianbattista, drawing the artist back from the bed. "You will disturb him. Do you not see that he is conscious at last?"
For the assassination itself I had never felt any remorse. Poor Assunta had guessed all. She had profited by my absence, and furnished with the half of the linen, and having written down the day and hour at which I had deposited the child at the asylum, had set off for Paris, and had reclaimed it. No objection was raised, and the infant was given up to her.
"My child," said the monk, calmly but firmly, "put these thoughts away from your mind. They are idle and vain imaginations. Assunta knew nothing; Vincenza did not always speak the truth. In any case, it is impossible to prove the truth of her story. It is a sin to let your mind dwell on the impossible.
Daphne only smiled at her and went on winding white cord about the stems under green fronds where it could not be seen. "I was ready to buy a wreath of beautiful gauze flowers from Rome," ventured Assunta, "all colors, red and yellow and purple. I have plenty of silver for it upstairs in a silk bag.
The blinds were partially drawn as the strong light worried the child, and by the little white bed sat Assunta, her brown face pale and almost rigid with anxiety. At my approach she raised her eyes to mine, muttering softly: "It is always so. Our Lady will have the best of all, first the father, then the child; it is right and just only the bad are left."
I would not plead for him why should I? I had made my own plans for his comfort plans shortly to be carried out; and in the mean time Assunta nursed him tenderly as he lay speechless, with no more strength than a year-old baby, and only a bewildered pain in his upturned, lack-luster eyes.
"It is the blessed saints who have managed it," added Assunta devoutly. "A wreath of flowers from Rome, all gauze and spangles, will I lay at the shrine of our Lady, and there shall be a long red ribbon to say my thanks in letters of gold." The hope of the house was presented to the Signorina after breakfast.
They finished with a handful of cherries and then Assunta began to pluck leaves for her great basket while Jenny loitered a while and smoked a cigarette. It was a new habit acquired since her marriage. Presently she set to work and assisted her companion until they had gathered a full load of leaves.
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