That evening Maurice was startled.  He had gone very quietly into the sick-room, just to see how his patient was getting on, and found him breathing heavily and also restlessly muttering to himself.  Perhaps even the slight noise of his entrance had attracted the notice of one abnormally sensitive; at all events, Lionel opened his eyes, which were no longer drowsy, but eager and excited, and said,

“Maurice, have you not sent for Nina yet?”

“For Nina?”

“Oh, yes, yes,” Lionel went on, as quickly as his laboring breath would allow.  “How can I go abroad without saying good-bye to Nina?  Tell Jenkins to go down to Sloane Street at once—­at once, Maurice—­before she leaves for the theatre.  I have been waiting for her all day—­I heard the people coming up—­one after another—­but not Nina.  And I cannot go without saying good-bye.  I want to tell her something.  She must make friends with Miss Burgoyne, now she has got into the theatre.  Lehmann will give her a better part by and by—­oh, yes, I’ll see to that for Nina—­and I must write to Pandiani, to tell him of her success—­”

“Oh, but that’s all settled, Linn,” his friend broke in, perceiving the situation at once.  “Now you just keep quiet, and it will be all perfectly arranged—­perfectly.  Of course I know you are glad your old friend and companion has got a place in the theatre.”

“Yes, she was my friend—­she was my friend once,” he said, and he looked appealingly at Maurice? “but—­but I sometimes think—­sometimes it is my head—­that there is something wrong.  Can you tell me, Maurice?  There is something—­I don’t know what—­but it troubles me—­I cannot tell what it is.  When she was here to-day, she would not speak to me.  She came and looked.  She stood by the door there.  She had on the black dress and the crimson bonnet—­but she had forgotten her music.  I thought, perhaps, she was going down to the theatre—­but why wouldn’t she speak to me, Maurice?  She did not look angry—­she looked like—­like—­oh, just like Nina—­and I could not ask her why she would not say anything—­my throat was so bad—­”

“Yes, I know that, Linn,” Maurice said, gently, “and that is why you mustn’t talk any more now.  You must lie still and rest, so that you may take your place in the theatre again—­”

“But haven’t they told you I am never going to the theatre again?” he said, eagerly.  “Oh, no; as soon as I can I am going away abroad—­I am going away all over the world—­to find some one.  You said she was my friend and my good comrade—­do you think I could let her be away in some distant place, and all alone?  I could not rest in my grave!  It may be Malta, or Cairo, or Australia, or San Francisco; but that is what I am set on.  I have thought of it so long that—­that I think my head has got tired, and my heart a little bit broken, as they say, only I never believed in that.  Never mind, Maurice, I am going away to find Nina—­ah, that will be a surprise some day—­a surprise just as when she first came here—­into the room—­in the black dress and the crimson bonnet—­la cianciosella, she was going away again!—­she was always so proud and easily offended—­always the cianciosella!”