“Yes, yes!  If you will only keep quiet, Margaret shall come.”

“Margherita, we say.  You are to we her,—­is it nnot so?”

Richard turned down the wick of the lamp, which was blazing and spluttering, and did not answer.  Then Torrini lay silent a long while, apparently listening to the hum of the telegraph wires attached to one end of the roof.  At odd intervals the freshening breeze swept these wires, and awoke a low aeolian murmur.  The moon rose in the mean time, and painted on the uncarpeted floor the shape of the cherry bough that stretched across the window.  It was two o’clock; Richard sat with his head bent forward, in a drowse.

“Now the cousin is dead, you are as rich as a prince,—­are you not?” inquired Torrini, who had lain for the last half hour with his eyes wide open in the moonlight.

Richard straightened himself with a jerk.

“Torrini, I positively forbid you to talk any more!”

“I remember you said that one day, somewhere.  Where was it?  Ah, in the yard!  ‘You can’t be allowed to speak here, you know.’  And then I struck at you,—­with that hand they’ve taken away!  See how I remember it!”

“Why do you bother your mind with such things?  Think of just nothing at all, and rest.  Perhaps a wet cloth on your forehead will refresh you.  I wish you had a little of my genius for not keeping awake.”

“You are tired, you?”

“I have had two broken nights, traveling.”

“And I give you no peace?”

“Well, no,” returned Richard bluntly, hoping the admission would induce Torrini to tranquilize himself, “you don’t give me much.”

“Has any one been here?” demanded Torrini abruptly.

“Not a soul.  Good Heaven, man, do you know what time it is?”

“I know,—­I know.  It’s very late.  I ought to keep quiet; but, the devil! with this fever in my brain! . . . .  Mr. Shackford!” and Torrini, in spite of his imprisoned limb, suddenly half raised himself from the mattress.  “I—­I”—­

Richard sprung to his feet.  “What is it,—­what do you want?”

“Nothing,” said Torrini, falling back on the pillow.

Richard brought him a glass of water, which he refused.  He lay motionless, with his eyes shut, as if composing himself, and Richard returned on tiptoe to his bench.  A moment or two afterwards Torrini stirred the blanket with his foot.

“Mr. Shackford!”

“Well?”

“I am as grateful—­as a dog.”

Torrini did not speak again.  This expression of his gratitude appeared to ease him.  His respiration grew lighter and more regular, and by and by he fell into a profound sleep.  Richard watched awhile expectantly, with his head resting against the rail of the bedstead; then his eyelids drooped, and he too slumbered.  But once or twice, before he quite lost himself, he was conscious of Brigida’s thin face thrust like a silver wedge through the half-open