The darkness seems full of meaning; the hush, of sound.
God is beyond, holding the sunrise in his right hand, holding the sun of our earthly hopes as well,—will it dawn in sorrow or in joy?
We dare not ask, we can only wait.
A faint stir of wind and a little broadening of the light roused Katy from a trance of half-understood thoughts.
She crept once more into Amy's room.
Mrs. Swift laid a warning finger on her lips; Amy was sleeping, she said with a gesture.
Katy whispered the news to the still figure on the sofa, then she went noiselessly out of the room.
The great hotel was fast asleep; not a sound stirred the profound silence of the dark halls.
A longing for fresh air led her to the roof.
There was the dawn just tingeing the east. The sky, even thus early, wore the deep mysterious blue of Italy.
A fresh tramontana was blowing, and made Katy glad to draw her shawl about her.
Far away in the distance rose the Alban Hills above the dim Campagna, with the more lofty Sabines beyond, and Soracte, clear cut against the sky like a wave frozen in the moment of breaking.
Below lay the ancient city, with its strange mingling of the old and the new, of past things embedded in the present; or is it the present thinly veiling the rich and mighty past,—who shall say?
Faint rumblings of wheels and here and there a curl of smoke showed that Rome was waking up.
The light insensibly grew upon the darkness.
A pink flush lit up the horizon.
Florio stirred in his lair, stretched his dappled limbs, and as the first sun-ray glinted on the roof, raised himself, crossed the gravelled tiles with soundless feet, and ran his soft nose into Katy's hand.
She fondled him for Amy's sake as she stood bent over the flower-boxes, inhaling the scent of the mignonette and gilly-flowers, with her eyes fixed on the distance; but her heart was at home with the sleepers there, and a rush of strong desire stirred her. Would this dreary time come to an end presently, and should they be set at liberty to go their ways with no heavy sorrow to press them down, to be care-free and happy again in their own land?
A footstep startled her.
Ned Worthington was coming over the roof on tiptoe as if fearful of disturbing somebody.
His face looked resolute and excited.
"I wanted to tell you," he said in a hushed voice, "that the doctor is here, and he says Amy has no fever, and with care may be considered out of danger."
"Thank God!" cried Katy, bursting into tears.
The long fatigue, the fears kept in check so resolutely, the sleepless night just passed, had their revenge now, and she cried and cried as if she could never stop, but with all the time such joy and gratitude in her heart!
She was conscious that Ned had his arm round her and was holding both her hands tight; but they were so one in the emotion of the moment that it did not seem strange.
"How sweet the sun looks!" she said presently, releasing herself, with a happy smile flashing through her tears; "it hasn't seemed really bright for ever so long.
How silly I was to cry!
Where is dear Polly?
I must go down to her at once.
Oh, what does she say?"
CHAPTER XI.
NEXT.
Lieut. Worthington's leave had nearly expired.
He must rejoin his ship; but he waited till the last possible moment in order to help his sister through the move to Albano, where it had been decided that Amy should go for a few days of hill air before undertaking the longer journey to Florence.
It was a perfect morning in late March when the pale little invalid was carried in her uncle's strong arms, and placed in the carriage which was to take them to the old town on the mountain slopes which they had seen shining from far away for so many weeks past.
Spring had come in her fairest shape to Italy.
The Campagna had lost its brown and tawny hues and taken on a tinge of fresher color.
The olive orchards were budding thickly.
Almond boughs extended their dazzling shapes across the blue sky.
Arums and acanthus and ivy filled every hollow, roses nodded from over every gate, while a carpet of violets and cyclamen and primroses stretched over the fields and freighted every wandering wind with fragrance.
When once the Campagna with its long line of aqueducts, arches, and hoary tombs was left behind, and the carriage slowly began to mount the gradual rises of the hill, Amy revived.
With every breath of the fresher air her eyes seemed to brighten and her voice to grow stronger.
She held Mabel up to look at the view; and the sound of her laugh, faint and feeble as it was, was like music to her mother's ears.
Amy wore a droll little silk-lined cap on her head, over which a downy growth of pale-brown fuzz was gradually thickening. Already it showed a tendency to form into tiny rings, which to Amy, who had always hankered for curls, was an extreme satisfaction.
Strange to say, the same thing exactly had happened to Mabel; her hair had grown out into soft little round curls also!
Uncle Ned and Katy had ransacked Rome for this baby-wig, which filled and realized all Amy's hopes for her child.
On the same excursion they had bought the materials for the pretty spring suit which Mabel wore, for it had been deemed necessary to sacrifice most of her wardrobe as a concession to possible fever-germs.
Amy admired the pearl-colored dress and hat, the fringed jacket and little lace-trimmed parasol so much, that she was quite consoled for the loss of the blue velvet costume and ermine muff which had been the pride of her heart ever since they left Paris, and whose destruction they had scarcely dared to confess to her.
So up, up, up, they climbed till the gateway of the old town was passed, and the carriage stopped before a quaint building once the residence of the Bishop of Albano, but now known as the Hotel de la Poste.
Here they alighted, and were shown up a wide and lofty staircase to their rooms, which were on the sunny side of the house, and looked across a walled garden, where roses and lemon trees grew beside old fountains guarded by sculptured lions and heathen divinities with broken noses and a scant supply of fingers and toes, to the Campagna, purple with distance and stretching miles and miles away to where Rome sat on her seven hills, lifting high the Dome of St. Peter's into the illumined air.