Morgana roused herself from the stupefaction of horror with which she had listened to this narration.
"Do not think of it any more!" she said in a low sad voice--"Try to forget it all. Yes, dear!--try to forget all the mad selfishness and cruelty of the man you love! Poor, besotted soul!--he has a bitter punishment!"
She could say no more then,--stooping, she kissed the girl on the white forehead between the rippling waves of dark hair, and strove to meet the searching eyes with a smile.
"Dear, beautiful angel, you will help me?" Manella pleaded--"You will help me to be his wife?"
And Morgana answered with pitiful tenderness.
"I will!"
And with a sign to Lady Kingswood to come nearer and sit by the girl as she lay among her pillows more or less exhausted, she herself left the room. As she opened the door on her way out, the strong voice of Roger Seaton rang out with singularly horrible harshness-"There shall be no more wars! There can be none! I say it! My great secret! I am master of the world!"
Shuddering as she heard, she pressed her hands over her ears and hurried along the corridor. 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?"
She drew her hands gently away from his.
"Nothing, Giulio!" and she smiled kindly--"I grieve for the griefs of others--quite uselessly!--but I cannot help it!"
"There is no hope, then?" he said.
"None--not for the man"--she replied--"His body will live,--but his brain is dead."
Rivardi gave an expressive gesture.
"Horrible! Better he should die!"
"Yes, far better! But the girl loves him. She is an ardent Spanish creature--warm-hearted and simple as a child,--she believes"--and Morgana's eyes had a pathetic wistfulness--"she believes,--as all women believe when they love for the first time,--that love has a divine power next to that of God!--that it will work miracles of recovery when all seems lost. The disillusion comes, of course, sooner or later,--but it has to come of itself--not through any other influence. She--Manella Soriso--has resolved to be his wife."