“Indeed it will!”

Kalmon’s brown eyes beamed with pleasure at the thought of taking the kindly message to the dying girl.  He rose to his feet at once.

“There is no one like you,” he said, as he took her hand.

“It is nothing.  It is what Marcello’s mother would have done, and she was my best friend.  All I do is to take the responsibility upon myself, however Aurora may choose to act.  I will send you word, in either case.  If Aurora will not go, I will come myself, if I can be of any use, if it would make Regina feel happier.  I will come, and I will tell her what I have told you.  Good-night, dear friend.”

Kalmon was not an emotional man, but as he went out he felt a little lump in his throat, as if he could not swallow.

He had not doubted his friend’s kindness, but he had doubted whether she would feel that she had a right to “expose her daughter,” as the world would say, to meeting such a “person,” as the world called Regina—­“Consalvi’s Regina.”

CHAPTER XXII

All that night and the following day Regina recognised no one; and it was night again, and her strength began to fail, but her understanding returned.  Marcello saw the change, and made a sign to the nurse, who went out to tell Kalmon.

It was about nine o’clock when he entered the room, and Regina knew him and looked at him anxiously.  He, in turn, glanced at Marcello, and she understood.  She begged Marcello to go and get some rest.  Her voice was very weak, as if she were suffocating, and she coughed painfully.  He did not like to go away, but Kalmon promised to call him at midnight; he had been in the room six hours, scarcely moving from his seat.  He lingered at the door, looked back, and at last went out.

“Will she come?” asked Regina, when he was gone.

“In half an hour.  I have sent a messenger, for they have no telephone.”

A bright smile lighted up the wasted face.

“Heaven will reward you,” she said, as the poor say in Rome when they receive a charity.

Then she seemed to be resting, for her hands lay still, and she closed her eyes.  But presently she opened them, looking up gratefully into the big man’s kind face.

“Shall I be alone with her a little?” she asked.

“Yes, my dear.  You shall be alone with her.”

Again she smiled, and he left the nurse with her and went and waited downstairs at the street door, till the Contessa and Aurora should come, in order to take them up to the little apartment.  He knew that Marcello must have fallen asleep at once, for he had not rested at all for twenty-four hours, and very little during several days past.  Kalmon was beginning to fear that he would break down, though he was so much stronger than formerly.