His first recognition was of Zola, to her unbounded delight. She was seated at his bedside. During his delirium he had spoken her name many times. At first he feared she might be another vision. He reached out to touch her and reassure himself of her reality, only to sink back weakly. She caught his hand. “Do you know me now, Robert, darling?” she whispered, with eager tenderness. Robert pressed her hand happily, nodded, and promptly fell off into peaceful slumber--his first normal rest in many hours. When he again opened his eyes he was stronger and able to take some nourishment, which Zola fed him. She had not left his bedside since his first return to consciousness early that same morning. By the doctors’ orders she would not permit him to talk. But for lovers there are other means of communication than mere words. Both were infinitely happy. The effects of Zola’s continued vigil of the past three days and nights were visible in her face. Only at Robert’s insistence, and for fear that he would excite himself into a relapse, did she finally consent to take to her bed for sleep. She slept the entire afternoon and night without waking, and rose feeling greatly refreshed but with bitter reproachment on her lips for those who had permitted her to sleep so long. By this time Robert, much improved, was allowed to talk. Zola perched herself on the edge of his bed. “We are to be married as soon as you are up,” she announced, bending and kissing him as he started to splutter some inane reply. The emperor, coming in at the moment, laughed outright and made his exit quickly. “And I shall see and know that wonderful world of yours,” she continued. Her calm assertion swept Robert’s last scruples away. In his heart was a song of joy, and his boyish enthusiasm and anticipation ran riot. The thought of transplanting this desert flower from an unlovely, withered planet to his own luxuriant world was a prospect of boundless, delightful possibilities! It would seem a wonderland to her. She would be the happiest and most appreciative girl alive--and his! “You bet you shall, sweetheart,” he agreed. “You shall see our wonderful, rugged mountains, and beautiful green valleys; the winding rivers, the vast oceans, and the great lakes of water, the very drops of which are so precious here. Our clouds, the mysterious storms that will frighten you with their magnificence, and the silver rain; all these wonders and many more shall be yours.” “Do you really have big bodies and rivers of water, open and unprotected from the sun’s rays? Why doesn’t it evaporate, or sink into the soil and become lost?” “You shall see, sweetheart. You shall ride upon oceans more vast than your deserts, where nothing but rolling water can be seen.”