'Did you tell her that I am alive?' he asked.
'No. The Ministry has made an official secret of it, so I have told no one.'
'And you say that she will be at the hospital this morning! We shall meet, then. I wonder whether she will know me.'
'It is impossible, I should say,' Ugo answered, looking at his brother's lean face and heavy beard. 'I hardly recognise you even now!'
Giovanni finished dressing and came out at last, looking very smart in Ugo's clothes. He had asked no questions about Angela, for he felt tolerably sure that Ugo had never known her, and it was his intention to go directly from the hospital to Madame Bernard's lodgings, where he hoped to find them both as he had left them. He could not bring himself to make vague and roundabout inquiries just then, and he was still less inclined to confide his love story to this brother whom he hardly felt that he knew. So he kept his own counsel and waited, as he had learned to do in five years of slavery.
The Minister sent back a line by Pica to say that Giovanni was to come to him at noon, and would then receive his instructions as to a change of lodging, if any should seem advisable. There was a word of sympathy also for Ugo.
In less than an hour more, Giovanni had helped Pica to carry Ugo down to the Princess's motor, which had appeared punctually, bringing Doctor Pieri, and the wounded man was comfortably placed in the limousine with the surgeon beside him and Giovanni sitting opposite. Ugo introduced his brother as a relation who had arrived very opportunely that morning.
The motor buzzed away from the door, and reached the Convent of Santa Giovanna d'Aza in a few minutes. The sky had cleared after the rain and the April sun was shining gloriously.
Sister Giovanna was the supervising nurse for the week, and in the natural course of her duty it was she who went to the telephone when Doctor Pieri called up the hospital at seven o'clock. In a few words he explained the case as far as was necessary, and begged the Sister to have a good room ready for the patient; he believed that Number Two was vacant.
It was, and the wounded man could have it. The Doctor said he would bring him in a motor towards nine o'clock.
'The patient's name, if you please,' said Sister Giovanna in a businesslike tone.