A great silence pervaded the Palazzo d'Oro,--the strained silence of an intense activity weighted with suspense. Servants moved about here and there with noiseless rapidity,--Don Aloysius was seen constantly pacing up and down the loggia absorbed in anxious thought and prayer, and the Marchese Rivardi came and went on errands of which he alone knew the import. Overhead the sky was brilliantly blue and cloudless,--the sun flashed a round shield of dazzling gold all day long on the breast of the placid sea,--but within the house, blinds were drawn to shade and temper the light for eyes that perhaps might never again open to the blessing and glory of the day.
A full week had passed since the "White Eagle" had returned from its long and adventurous flight over the vast stretches of ocean, bearing with it the two human creatures cast down to death in the deep Californian canon,--and only one of them had returned to the consciousness of life,--the other still stayed on the verge of the "Great Divide." Morgana had safely landed the heavy burden of seeming death her ship had carried,--and simply stating to Lady Kingswood and her household staff that it was a case of rescue from drowning, had caused the two corpses--(such as they truly appeared)--to be laid, each in a separate chamber, surrounded with every means that could be devised or thought of for their resuscitation.
In an atmosphere glowing with mild warmth, on soft beds they were placed, inert and white as frozen clay, their condition being apparently so hopeless that it seemed mere imaginative folly to think that the least breath could ever again part their set lips or the smallest pulsation of blood stir colour through their veins. But Morgana never wavered in her belief that they lived, and hour after hour, day after day she watched with untiring patience, administering the mysterious balm or portion which she kept preciously in her own possession,--and not till the fifth day of her vigil, when Manella showed faint signs of returning consciousness, did she send to Rome for a famous scientist and physician with whom she had frequently corresponded. She entrusted the dispatch of this message to Rivardi, saying-"It is now time for further aid than mine. The girl will recover--but the man--the man is still in the darkness!"
And her eyes grew heavy with a cloud of sorrow and regret which softened her delicate beauty and made it more than ever unearthly.
"What are they--what is HE--to you?" demanded Rivardi jealously.