Indeed, Cardo's gentle ways, together with his handsome person, had
endeared him to all who came in contact with him, and there was not one
in the house, from the cook in the kitchen to Dr. Belton's youngest
child, who would not have rejoiced to see health restored to the
invalid.
One evening, when Jack, a boy of twelve, returned from school, he came
bounding into the room in which Cardo sat with his eyes fixed on a
newspaper, which he had not turned nor moved for an hour, Sister Vera
sitting at the window with her work.
"See, Mr. Williams," said the boy, "what Meta Wright gave me, some
gilded gingerbread! isn't it pretty? I have eaten a pig and a
lamb--now there is a ship for you."
Cardo put down the paper, and taking the gingerbread in his thin
fingers, looked at it with eyes that gradually filled with tears.
"Gingerbread?" he said, looking next at the boy, "gilded gingerbread in
the moonlight!"
Sister Vera's eyes and ears were instantly on the alert, while she made
a sign of silence to the boy.
Cardo continued to look at the gingerbread. Suddenly he held up his
finger and seemed to listen intently.
"Hush!" he whispered, "do you hear the Berwen?" and he ate his
gingerbread slowly, sighing heavily when it was finished.
This was good news for Dr. Belton, told garrulously at tea by his young
son, and more circumstantially by Sister Vera; but for long afterwards
there was no further sign of improvement in Cardo.
It was not until three more months had passed that another sign of
reviving memory was seen in him, and again it was Jack who awoke the
sleeping chord.
"Isn't it a shame?" he said, excitedly running into the room one day;
"mother is cutting Ethel's hair; says she's getting headaches from the
weight of it. Rot, I call it! See what a lovely curl I stole," and he
handed it to Cardo, who first of all looked at it with indifference,
but suddenly clutching it, curled it round his finger, and became very
excited.
"Whose is it?" said Sister Vera, standing over him.
His lips trembled and with a husky voice he said.
"Valmai--" The sound of the name seemed to charm his ear, for he
continued to speak it in all sorts of varying tones--sometimes in
whispering tones of love--at others in loud and imploring accents.
"Oh, Valmai, Valmai!" he called, and when Dr. Belton entered the room,
he held out his hands towards him, and in a beseeching voice cried,
"Valmai! Valmai!"
There was no rest for anyone in the hospital that night, for all night
long the house echoed with the cry of "Valmai! Valmai!"
On the following morning, endeavouring to create some distraction from
this ever-recurring cry, Dr. Belton drove his patient with him for some
miles into the bush; the fresh air and motion seemed to quiet his
brain, and he fell into the silent stupor so constantly hanging over
him.