His head felt queer for a moment, and he wondered whether she would be standing on the same spot, with the same look, when he would be dying, a few days hence.

There were deep purplish-brown rings under her eyes, which seemed to have sunk deeper in their sockets; there was no colour in her lips, or scarcely more than a shade; her young cheeks had grown suddenly hollow.

For the Mother--her mother--had told her everything, and it was almost more than she could bear.
He looked at her two or three times, fixing his eyes on the ceiling in the intervals, to make sure that it was she and that he was awake; for there was something in his head that disturbed him now, a sort of beating on one side of the brain, with a dull feeling at the back, as if there were a quantity of warm lead there that kept his skull on the pillow.

It was the beginning of fever, but he did not know it; it was the forewarner of the death he was choosing.

The experienced nurse saw it in his face.
'Giovanni, do you know me ?' she asked softly, coming a step nearer.
Instantly, he had all his faculties again.
'Yes; come to me,' he answered.
She came nearer and stood beside him.
'Sit down,' he said.