"That will do, Tompson," said Sir Charles, and he frowned.
The fatal letter, carefully sealed up in a new envelope, and the leather case were in his despatch-box. Tompson had handed them to him on his arrival. And one day when Paul appeared well enough to be lifted into a long chair on the side loggia, his father thought fit to give them to him.
Paul's apathy seemed paralysing. The days had passed, since the little Italian doctor had pronounced him out of danger, in one unending languid quietude. He expressed interest in no single thing. He was polite, and indifferent, and numb.
"He must be roused now," Sir Charles said to the doctor. "It is too hot for Venice, he must be moved to higher air," and the little man had nodded his head.
So this warm late afternoon, as he lay under the mosquito curtains--which the coming of June had made necessary in this paradise--his father said to him:
"I have a letter and a parcel of yours, Paul: you had better look at them--we hope to start north in a day or two--you must get to a more bracing place."
Then he had pushed them under the net-folds, and turned his back on the scene.
The blood rushed to Paul's face, but left him deathly pale after a few moments. And presently he broke the seal. The minute Sphinx in the corner of the paper seemed to mock at him. Indeed, life was a riddle of anguish and pain. He read the letter all over--and read it again. The passionate words of love warmed him now that he had passed the agony of the farewell. One sentence he had hardly grasped before, in particular held balm. "Sweetheart," it said, "you must not grieve--think always of the future and of our hope. Our love is not dead with our parting, and one day there will be the living sign--" Yes, that thought was comfort--but how should he know?
Then he turned to the leather case. His fingers were still so feeble that with difficulty he pressed the spring to open it.
He glanced up at his father's distinguished-looking back outlined against the loggia's opening arches. It appeared uncompromising. A fixed determination to stare at the oleanders below seemed the only spirit animating this parent.
Yes--he must open the box. It gave suddenly with a jerk, and there lay a dog's collar, made of small flexible plates of pure beaten gold, mounted on Russian leather, all of the finest workmanship. And on a slip of paper in his darling's own writing he read: