"
"It is not for want of perseverance on my part," said D'Arbino,
after a moment of silence, "that we are still left in the dark.
Ever since the extraordinary statement of the coachman who drove
the woman home, I have been inquiring and investigating. I have
offered the reward of two hundred scudi for the discovery of her;
I have myself examined the servants at the palace, the
night-watchman at the Campo Santo, the police-books, the lists of
keepers of hotels and lodging-houses, to hit on some trace of
this woman; and I have failed in all directions. If my poor
friend's perfect recovery does indeed depend on his delusion
being combated by actual proof, I fear we have but little chance
of restoring him. So far as I am concerned, I confess myself at
the end of my resources."
"I hope we are not quite conquered yet," returned the doctor.
"The proofs we want may turn up when we least expect them. It is
certainly a miserable case," he continued, mechanically laying
his fingers on the sleeping man's pulse. "There he lies, wanting
nothing now but to recover the natural elasticity of his mind;
and here we stand at his bedside, unable to relieve him of the
weight that is pressing his faculties down. I repeat it, Signor
Andrea, nothing will rouse him from his delusion that he is the
victim of a supernatural interposition but the production of some
startling, practical proof of his error.
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