The Pope’s paternal anxiety on the subject of Romayne’s health had chosen this wise and generous method of obliging him to try a salutary change of air as well as a relaxation from his incessant employments in Rome.
On the occasion of his departure we met again.
He looked like a worn-out old man.
We could now only remember his double claim on us—as a priest of our religion, and as a once dear friend—and we arranged to travel with him.
The weather at the time was mild; our progress was made by easy stages.
We left him at Paris, apparently the better for his journey.”
I asked if they had seen Stella on that occasion.
“No,” said Lord Loring. “We had reason to doubt whether Stella would be pleased to see us, and we felt reluctant to meddle, unasked, with a matter of extreme delicacy.
I arranged with the Nuncio (whom I have the honor to know) that we should receive written information of Romayne’s state of health, and on that understanding we returned to England.
A week since, our news from the Embassy was so alarming that Lady Loring at once returned to Paris.
Her first letter informed me that she had felt it her duty to tell Stella of the critical condition of Romayne’s health.
She expressed her sense of my wife’s kindness most gratefully and feelingly and at once removed to Paris, to be on the spot if her husband expressed a wish to see her.
The two ladies are now staying at the same hotel.
I have thus far been detained in London by family affairs. But, unless I hear of a change for the better before evening, I follow Lady Loring to Paris by the mail train.”
It was needless to trespass further on Lord Loring’s time.
I thanked him, and returned to Penrose.
He was sleeping when I got to the hotel.
On the table in the sitting-room I found a telegram waiting for me.
It had been sent by Stella, and it contained these lines: “I have just returned from his bedside, after telling him of the rescue of Penrose.
He desires to see you.
There is no positive suffering—he is sinking under a complete prostration of the forces of life.
That is what the doctors tell me.
They said, when I spoke of writing to you,
‘Send a telegram; there is no time to lose.’”
Toward evening Penrose awoke.
I showed him the telegram.
Throughout our voyage, the prospect of seeing Romayne again had been the uppermost subject in his thoughts.
In the extremity of his distress, he declared that he would accompany me to Paris by the night train.
Remembering how severely he had felt the fatigue of the short railway journey from Portsmouth, I entreated him to let me go alone.
His devotion to Romayne was not to be reasoned with.
While we were still vainly trying to convince each other, Doctor Wybrow came in.
To my amazement he sided with Penrose.
“Oh, get up by all means,” he said; “we will help you to dress.”
We took him out of bed and put on his dressing-gown.
He thanked us; and saying he would complete his toilet by himself, sat down in an easy chair.
In another moment he was asleep again, so soundly asleep that we put him back in his bed without waking him.
Doctor Wybrow had foreseen this result: he looked at the poor fellow’s pale peaceful face with a kindly smile.
“There is the treatment,” he said, “that will set our patient on his legs again.
Sleeping, eating, and drinking—let that be his life for some weeks to come, and he will be as good a man as ever.
If your homeward journey had been by land, Penrose would have died on the way.
I will take care of him while you are in Paris.”
At the station I met Lord Loring.
He understood that I too had received bad news, and gave me a place in the coupe carriage which had been reserved for him.
We had hardly taken our seats when we saw Father Benwell among the travelers on the platform, accompanied by a gray-haired gentleman who was a stranger to both of us.
Lord Loring dislikes strangers.
Otherwise, I might have found myself traveling to Paris with that detestable Jesuit for a companion.
Paris, May 3.—On our arrival at the hotel I was informed that no message had yet been received from the Embassy.
We found Lady Loring alone at the breakfast-table, when we had rested after our night journey.
“Romayne still lives,” she said. “But his voice has sunk to a whisper, and he is unable to breathe if he tries to rest in bed.
Stella has gone to the Embassy; she hopes to see him to-day for the second time.”