Mezzoni the Brigand — page 104: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

96 ; MEZZONI THE BRIGAND. to Paris, where she had so long desired to pass a season, and she should have her own special car- riage, a light and graceful toy which should be im- ported especially from America for her. He ap- peared to enjoy laying out plans for her future en- joyment as he lay there invalided. “You are only too good to me,’’ she would reply, with assumed tenderness. ‘‘Well, my dear, it is because you are so very good to me,’’ he would reply. And then she would leave him, and putting amie her hypocrisy, would sit gloomily alone, and brood over her passion for Alberto. The days passed rapidly on, and the count grew worse and worse, until his physician began to shake his head and talk about rapid consumption, to intimate that the pa- tient was a very sick man, in short that his symp- toms indicated rapid and fatal decay of vital powers. The wife heard this with well-affected sadness, and thought that it was by no means best to tell the count of his true condition unless it might render him fatally nervous. With this view of the Signora Amadeo concerning her husband, the physician and one of his profes- sional brethren called in for mere form’s sake, en- tirely agreed, and therefore the sick man sank grad- ually without himself being aware that he was so seriously ill, or so absolutely near to his end. Per- haps the possibility of his sickness proving fatal dawned upon him; if so, however, it must have been so faint as to make little impression. But the old man faded rapidly, day by day, so that there could be no doubt of his real condition. Friends be- gan to look grave. Finally the physician’s sense of professional duty