'My dear lady--there's nothing to be done with her whatever. She will not
yield one inch--and I cannot. But one thing at last is clear to me. The
mischief has made progress--I fear, great progress.'
Manisty had drawn his cousin into the garden, and they were pacing the
avenue. With his last words he turned upon her a grave significant look.
The cause of Alice Manisty's visit, indeed, had turned out to be precisely
what Manisty supposed. The sister had come to Marinata in order to persuade
her brother, as one of the trustees of her property, to co-operate with
her in bestowing some of her money on the French artist, Monsieur Octave
Vacherot, to whom, as she calmly avowed, her affections were indissolubly
attached, though she did not ever intend to marry him, nor indeed to
see much of him in the future. 'I shall never do him the disservice of
becoming his wife'--she announced, with her melancholy eyes full upon her
brother--'But money is of no use to me. He is young and can employ it.'
Manisty inquired whether the gentleman in question was aware of what she
proposed. Alice replied that if money were finally settled upon him he
would accept it; whereas his pride did not allow him to receive perpetual
small sums at her hands. 'But if I settle a definite sum upon him, he will
take it as an endowment of his genius. It would be giving to the public,
not to him. His great ideas would get their chance.'
Manisty, in his way as excitable as she, had evidently found it difficult
to restrain himself when M. Octave Vacherot's views as to his own value
were thus explained to him. Nevertheless he seemed to have shown on the
whole a creditable patience, to have argued with his sister, to have even
offered her money of his own, for the temporary supply of M. Vacherot's
necessities. But all to no avail; and in the end it had come of course
to his flatly refusing any help of his to such a scheme, and without it
the scheme fell. For their father had been perfectly well aware of his
daughter's eccentricities, and had placed her portion, by his will, in the
hands of two trustees, of whom her brother was one, without whose consent
she could not touch the capital.
'It always seemed to her a monstrous arrangement,' said Manisty, 'and I can
see now it galls her to the quick to have to apply to me, in this way. I
don't wonder--but I can't help it. The duty's there--worse luck!--and I've
got to face it, for my father's sake. Besides, if I were to consent, the
other fellow--an old cousin of ours--would never dream of doing it. So
what's the good? All the same, it makes me desperately anxious, to see the
effect that this opposition of mine produces upon her.'
'I saw yesterday that she must have been crying in the night'--said
Eleanor.
Her words evoked some emotion in Manisty.
'She cried in my presence, and I believe she cried most of the night
afterwards,'--he said in hasty pain. 'That beast Vacherot!'
'Why doesn't she marry him?'
'For the noblest of reasons!--She knows that her brain is clouded, and she
won't let him run the risk.'
Their eyes met in a quick sympathy. She saw that his poetic susceptibility,
the romantic and dramatic elements in him were all alive to his sister's
case. How critically, sharply perceptive he was--or could be--with regard
apparently to everybody in the world--save one! Often--as they talked--her
heart stirred in this way, far out of sight, like a fluttering and wounded
thing.
'It is the strangest madness'--said Manisty presently--'Many people would
say it was only extravagance of imagination unless they knew--what I know.
She told me last night, that she was not one person but two--and the other
self was a brother!--not the least like me--who constantly told her what to
do, and what not to do. She calls him quite calmly "my brother John"--"my
heavenly brother." She says that he often does strange things, things that
she does not understand; but that he tells her the most wonderful secrets;
and that he is a greater poet than any now living. She says that the first
time she perceived him as separate from herself was one day in Venice, when
a friend came for her to the hotel. She went out with the friend, or seemed
to go out with her--and then suddenly she perceived that she was lying
on her bed, and that the other Alice--had been John! He looks just like
herself--but for the eyes. The weirdness of her look as she tells these
things! But she expresses herself often with an extraordinary poetry. I
envy her the words, and the phrases!--It seemed to me once or twice, that
she had all sorts of things I wished to have. If one could only be a little
mad--one might write good books!'
He turned upon his companion, with a wild brilliance in his own blue eyes,
that, taken together with the subject of their conversation and his many
points of physical likeness to his sister, sent an uncomfortable thrill
through Eleanor. Nevertheless, as she knew well, at the very bottom of
Manisty's being, there lay a remarkable fund of ordinary capacity, an
invincible sanity in short, which had always so far rescued him in the long
run from that element which was extravagance in him, and madness in his
sister.
And certainly nothing could have been more reasonable, strong and kind,
than his further talk about his sister. He confided to his cousin that his
whole opinion of Alice's state had changed; that certain symptoms for which
he had been warned to be on the watch had in his judgment appeared; that he
had accordingly written to a specialist in Rome, asking him to come and see
Alice, without warning, on the following day; and that he hoped to be able
to persuade her without too much conflict to accept medical watching and
treatment for a time.
'I feel that it is plotting against her,' he said, not without feeling,
'but it has gone too far--she is not safe for herself or others. One of the
most anxious things is this night-wandering, which has taken possession of
her. Did you hear her last night?'
'Last night?'--said Eleanor, startled.
'I had been warned by Dalgetty,' said Manisty. 'And between three and four
I thought I heard sounds somewhere in the direction of the Albano balcony.
So I crept out through the salon into the library. And there, sitting on
the step of the glass passage--was Alice--looking as though she were turned
to marble--and staring at Miss Foster's room! To my infinite relief I saw
that Miss Foster's shutters and windows were fast closed. But I felt I
could not leave Alice there. I made a little noise in the library to warn
her, and then I came out upon her. She showed no surprise--nor did I. I
asked her to come and look at the sunrise striking over the Campagna.
She made no objection, and I took her through my room and the salon to
the salon balcony. The sight was marvellous; and first, it gave her
pleasure--she said a few things about it with her old grace and power.
Then--in a minute--a veil seemed to fall over her eyes. The possessed,
miserable look came back. She remembered that she hated me--that I had
thwarted her. Yet I was able to persuade her to go back to her room. I
promised that we would have more talk to-day. And when she had safely shut
her own door--you know that tiled ante-room, that leads to her room?--I
found the key of it, and locked it safely from outside. That's one access
to her. The other is through the room in which Dalgetty was sleeping. I'd
have given a good deal to warn Dalgetty, but I dared not risk it. She had
not heard Alice go out by the ante-room, but she told me the other day the
smallest sound in her own room woke her. So I felt tolerably safe, and I
went to bed.--Eleanor! do you think that child saw or knew anything of it?'
'Lucy Foster? I noticed nothing.'
The name, even on her own lips, struck Eleanor's aching sense like a
sound of fate. It seemed now as if through every conversation she foresaw
it--that all talk led up to it.
'She looks unlike herself still, this morning--don't you think?' said
Manisty, in disquiet.
'Very possibly she got some chill at Nemi--some slight poison--which will
pass off.'
'Well, now'--he said, after a pause--'how shall we get through the day? I
shall have another scene with Alice, I suppose. I don't see how it is to
be avoided. Meanwhile--will you keep Miss Foster here?'--he pointed to the
garden--'out of the way?'
'I must think of Aunt Pattie, remember,' said Eleanor quickly.
'Ah! dear Aunt Pattie!--but bring her too.--I see perfectly well that Alice
has already marked Miss Foster. She has asked me many questions about her.
She feels her innocence and freshness like a magnet, drawing out her own
sorrows and grievances. My poor Alice--what a wreck! Could I have done
more?--could I?'
He walked on absently, his hands behind his back, his face working
painfully.
Eleanor was touched. She did her best to help him throw off his misgivings;
she defended him from himself; she promised him her help, not with the old
effusion, but still with a cousinly kindness. And his mercurial nature soon
passed into another mood--a mood of hopefulness that the doctor would set
everything right, that Alice would consent to place herself under proper
care, that the crisis would end well--and in twenty-four hours.
'Meanwhile for this afternoon?' said Eleanor.
'Oh! we must be guided by circumstances. We understand each
other.--Eleanor!--what a prop, what a help you are!'
She shrank into herself. It was true indeed that she had passed through
a good many disagreeable hours since Alice Manisty arrived, on her own
account; for she had been left in charge several times; and she had a
secret terror of madness. Manisty had not given her much thanks till now.
His facile gratitude seemed to her a little tardy. She smiled and put it
aside.
* * * * *
Manisty wrestled with his sister again that morning, while the other three
ladies, all of them silent and perturbed, worked and read in the garden.
Lucy debated with herself whether she should describe what she had seen
the night before. But her instinct was always to make no unnecessary fuss.
What harm was there in sitting out of doors, on an Italian night in May?
She would not add to the others' anxieties. Moreover she felt a curious
slackness and shrinking from exertion--even the exertion of talking. As
Eleanor had divined, she had caught a slight chill at Nemi, and the effects
of it were malarious, in the Italian way. She was conscious of a little
shiveriness and languor, and of a wish to lie or sit quite still. But Aunt
Pattie was administering quinine, and keeping a motherly eye upon her.
There was nothing, according to her, to be alarmed about.
At the end of a couple of hours, Manisty came out from his study much
discomposed. Alice Manisty shut herself up in her room, and Manisty
summoned Eleanor to walk up and down a distant path with him.
When luncheon came Alice Manisty did not appear. Dalgetty brought a message
excusing her, to which Manisty listened in silence.
Aunt Pattie slipped out to see that the visitor had everything she
required. But she returned almost instantly, her little parchment face
quivering with nervousness.
'Alice would not see me,' she said to Manisty.
'We must leave her alone,' he said quickly. 'Dalgetty will look after her.'
The meal passed under a cloud of anxiety. For once Manisty exerted himself
to make talk, but not with much success.
As the ladies left the dining-room, he detained Lucy.
'Would it be too hot for you in the garden now? Would you mind returning
there?'
Lucy fetched her hat. There was only one short stretch of sun-beaten path
to cross, and then, beyond, one entered upon the deep shade of the ilexes,
already penetrated, at the turn of the day, by the first breaths of the
sea-wind from the west. Manisty carried her books, and arranged a chair for
her. Then he looked round to see if any one was near. Yes. Two gardeners
were cutting the grass in the central zone of the garden--well within call.
'My aunt, or Mrs. Burgoyne will follow you very shortly,' he said 'You do
not mind being alone?'
'Please, don't think of me!' cried Lucy. 'I am afraid I am in your way.'
'It will be all right to-morrow,' he said, following his own thoughts. 'May
I ask that you will stay here for the present?'
Lucy promised, and he went.
She was left to think first, to think many times, of the constant courtesy
and kindness which had now wholly driven from her mind the memory of his
first manner to her; then to ponder, with a growing fascination which her
own state of slight fever and the sultry heat of the day seemed to make it
impossible for her to throw off, on Alice Manisty, on the incident of the
night before, and on the meaning of the poor lady's state and behaviour.
She had taken Mrs. Burgoyne's word of 'mad' in a general sense, as meaning
eccentricity and temper. But surely they were gravely anxious--and
everything was most strange and mysterious. The memory of the white staring
face under the moonlight appalled her. She tried not to think of it; but it
haunted her.
Her nerves were not in their normal state; and as she sat there in the
cool, dark, vague, paralysing fears swept across her, of which she was
ashamed, One minute she longed to go back to them, and help them. The next,
she recognised that the best help she could give was to stay where she was.
She saw very well that she was a responsibility and a care to them.
'If it lasts, I must go away'--she said to herself firmly. 'Certainly I
must go.'
But at the thought of going, the tears came into her eyes. At most, there
was little more than a fortnight before the party broke up, and she went
with Aunt Pattie to Vallombrosa.
She took up the book upon her knee. It was a fine poem in Roman dialect,
on the immortal retreat of Garibaldi after '49. But after a few lines,
she let it drop again, listlessly. One of the motives which had entered
into her reading of these things--a constant heat of antagonism and of
protest--seemed to have gone out of her.
* * * * *
Meanwhile Aunt Pattie, Eleanor and Manisty held conclave in Aunt Pattie's
sitting-room, which was a little room at the south-western corner of the
apartment. It opened out of the salon, and overlooked the Campagna.
On the north-eastern side, Dalgetty, Alice Manisty's maid, sat sewing in a
passage-room, which commanded the entrance to the glass passage--her own
door--the door of the ante-room that Manisty had spoken of to Eleanor, and
close beside her a third door--which was half open--communicating with
Manisty's library. The glass passage, or conservatory, led directly to the
staircase and the garden, past the French windows of the library.
Dalgetty was a person of middle age, a strongly made Scotchwoman with
a high forehead and fashionable rolls of sandy hair. Her face was thin
and freckled, and one might have questioned whether its expression was
shrewd, or self-important. She was clearly thinking of other matters than
needlework. Her eyes travelled constantly to one or other of the doors in
sight; and her lips had the pinched tension that shows preoccupation.
Her mind indeed harboured a good many disagreeable thoughts. In the first
place she was pondering the qualities of a certain drug lately recommended
as a sedative to her mistress. It seemed to Dalgetty that its effect had
not been good, but evil; or rather that it acted capriciously, exciting as
often as it soothed. Yet Miss Alice would take it. On coming to her room
after her interview with her brother, she had fallen first into a long fit
of weeping, and then, after much restless pacing to and fro, she had put
her hands to her head in a kind of despair, and had bidden Dalgetty give
her the new medicine. 'I must lie down and sleep--_sleep!_'--she had said,
'or--'
And then she had paused, looking at Dalgetty with an aspect so piteous and
wild that the maid's heart had quaked within her. Nevertheless she had
tried to keep the new medicine away from her mistress. But Miss Alice had
shown such uncontrollable anger on being crossed, that there was nothing
for it but to yield. And as all was quiet in her room, Dalgetty hoped that
this time the medicine would prove to be a friend, and not a foe, and that
the poor lady would wake up calmer and less distraught.
She was certainly worse--much worse. The maid guessed at Mr. Manisty's
opinion; she divined the approach of some important step. Very likely she
would soon be separated from her mistress; and the thought depressed her.
Not only because she had an affection for her poor charge; but also because
she was a rather lazy and self-indulgent woman. Miss Alice had been very
trying certainly; but she was not exacting in the way of late hours and
needlework; she had plenty of money, and she liked moving about. All these
qualities suited the tastes of the maid, who knew that she would not easily
obtain another post so much to her mind.
The electric bell on the outer landing rang. Alfredo admitted the caller,
and Dalgetty presently perceived a tall priest standing in the library. He
was an old man with beautiful blue eyes, and he seemed to Dalgetty to have
a nervous timid air.
Alfredo had gone to ask Mr. Manisty whether he could receive this
gentleman--and meanwhile the stranger stood there twisting his long bony
hands, and glancing about him with the shyness of a bird.
Presently Alfredo came back, and conducted the priest to the salon.
He had not been gone five minutes before Mr. Manisty appeared. He came
through the library, and stood in the doorway of the passage room where she
sat.
'All right, Dalgetty?' he said, stooping to her, and speaking in a whisper.
'I think and hope she's asleep, sir,' said the maid, in his ear--'I have
heard nothing this half-hour.'
Manisty looked relieved, repeated his injunctions to be watchful, and went
back to the salon. Dalgetty presently heard his voice in the distance,
mingling with those of the priest and Mrs. Burgoyne.
Now she had nothing left to amuse her but the view through the glass
passage to the balcony and the lake. It was hot, and she was tired of her
sewing. The balcony however was in deep shade, and a breath of cool air
came up from the lake. Dalgetty could not resist it. She glanced at her
mistress's door and listened a moment. All silence.
She put down her work and slipped through the glass passage on to the broad
stone balcony.
There her ears were suddenly greeted with a sound of riotous shouting and
singing on the road, and Alfredo ran out from the dining-room to join her.
'_Festa!_'--he said, nodding to her in a kindly patronage, and speaking as
he might have spoken to a child--'_Festa!_'
And Dalgetty began to see a number of carts adorned with green boughs and
filled with singing people, coming along the road. Each cart had a band of
girls dressed alike--red, white, orange, blue, and so forth.
Alfredo endeavoured to explain that these were Romans who after visiting
the church of the 'Madonna del Divino Amore' in the plain were now bound to
an evening of merriment at Albano. According to him it was not so much a
case of 'divino amore' as of 'amore di vino,' and he was very anxious that
the English maid should understand his pun. She laughed--pretended--showed
off her few words of Italian. She thought Alfredo a funny, handsome little
man, a sort of toy wound up, of which she could not understand the works.
But after all he was a man; and the time slipped by.
After ten minutes, she remembered her duties with a start, and hastily
crossing the glass passage, she returned to her post. All was just as she
had left it. She listened at Miss Alice's door. Not a sound was to be
heard; and she resumed her sewing.
* * * * *
Meanwhile Manisty and Eleanor were busy with Father Benecke. The poor
priest had come full of a painful emotion, which broke its bounds as soon
as he had Manisty's hand in his.
'You got my letter?' he said. 'That told you my hopes were dead--that the
sands for me were running out?--Ah! my kind friend--there is worse to tell
you!'
He stood clinging unconsciously to Manisty's hand, his eyes fixed upon the
Englishman's face.
'I had submitted. The pressure upon me broke me down. I had given way. They
brought me a message from the Holy Father which wrung my heart. Next week
they were to publish the official withdrawal--"_librum reprobavit, et se
laudabiliter subjecit_"--you know the formula? But meanwhile they asked
more of me. His Eminence entreated of me a private letter that he might
send it to the Holy Father. So I made a condition. I would write,--but they
must promise, on their part, that nothing should be published beyond the
formal submission,--that my letter should be for his eyes alone, and for
the Pope. They promised,--oh! not in writing--I have nothing written!--so I
wrote. I placed myself, like a son, in the hands of the Holy Father.--Now,
this morning there is my letter--the whole of it--in the _Osservatore
Romano_! To-morrow!--I came to tell you--I withdraw it. I withdraw my
submission!'
He drew himself up, his blue eyes shining. Yet they were swollen with
fatigue and sleeplessness, and over the whole man a blighting breath of age
and pain had passed since the day in St. Peter's.
Manisty looked at him in silence a moment. Then he said--
'I'm sorry--heartily, heartily sorry!'
At this Eleanor, thinking that the two men would prefer to be alone, turned
to leave the room. The priest perceived it.
'Don't leave us, madame, on my account. I have no secrets, and I know that
you are acquainted with some at least of my poor history. But perhaps I am
intruding; I am in your way?'
He looked round him in bewilderment. It was evident to Eleanor that he
had come to Manisty in a condition almost as unconscious of outward
surroundings as that of the sleep-walker. And she and Manisty, on their
side, as they stood looking at him, lost the impression of the bodily man
in the overwhelming impression of a wounded spirit, struggling with mortal
hurt.
'Come and sit down,' she said to him gently, and she led him to a chair.
Then she went into the next room, poured out and brought him a cup of
coffee. He took it with an unsteady hand and put it down beside him
untouched. Then he looked at Manisty and began in detail the story of all
that had happened to him since the letter in which he had communicated to
his English friend the certainty of his condemnation.
Nothing could have been more touching than his absorption in his own
case; his entire unconsciousness of anything in Manisty's mind that could
conflict with it. Eleanor turning from his tragic simplicity to Manisty's
ill-concealed worry and impatience, pitied both. That poor Father Benecke
should have brought his grief to Manisty, on this afternoon of all
afternoons!
It had been impossible to refuse to see him. He had come a pilgrimage from
Rome and could not be turned away. But she knew well that Manisty's ear was
listening all the time for every sound in the direction of his sister's
room; his anxieties indeed betrayed themselves in every restless movement
as he sat with averted head--listening.
Presently he got up, and with a hurried 'Excuse me an instant'--he left the
room.
Father Benecke ceased to speak, his lips trembling. To find himself alone
with Mrs. Burgoyne embarrassed him. He sat, folding his soutane upon his
knee, answering in monosyllables to the questions that she put him. But
her sympathy perhaps did more to help him unpack his heart than he knew;
for when Manisty returned, he began to talk rapidly and well, a natural
eloquence returning to him. He was a South German, but he spoke a fine
literary English, of which the very stumbles and occasional naïvetés had
a peculiar charm; like the faults which reveal a pure spirit even more
plainly than its virtues.
He reached his climax, in a flash of emotion--
'My submission, you see--the bare fact of it--left my cause intact. It
was the soldier falling by the wall. But my letter must necessarily be
misunderstood--my letter betrays the cause. And for that I have no right.
You understand? I thought of the Pope--the old man. They told me he was
distressed--that the Holy Father had suffered--had lost sleep--through me!
So I wrote out of my heart--like a son. And the paper this morning!--See--I
have brought it you--the _Osservatore Romano_. It is insolent--brutal--but
not to me! No, it is all honey to me! But to the truth--to our
ideas.--No!--I cannot suffer it. I take it back!--I bear the consequences.'
And with trembling fingers, he took a draft letter from his pocket, and
handed it, with the newspaper, to Manisty.
Manisty read the letter, and returned it, frowning.
'Yes--you have been abominably treated--no doubt of that. But have you
counted the cost? You know my point of view! It's one episode, for me, in a
world-wide struggle. Intellectually I am all with you--strategically, all
with them. They can't give way! The smallest breach lets in the flood. And
then, chaos!'
'But the flood is truth!' said the old man, gazing at Manisty. There was a
spot of red on each wasted cheek.
Manisty shrugged his shoulders, then dropped his eyes upon the ground, and
sat pondering awhile in a moody silence. Eleanor looked at him in some
astonishment. It was as though for the first time his habitual paradox hurt
him in the wielding--or rather as though he shrank from using what was a
conception of the intellect upon the flesh and blood before him. She had
never yet seen him visited by a like compunction.
It was curious indeed to see that Father Benecke himself was not affected
by Manisty's attitude. From the beginning he had always instinctively
appealed from the pamphleteer to the man. Manisty had been frank, brutal
even. But notwithstanding, the sensitive yet strong intelligence of the
priest had gone straight for some core of thought in the Englishman
that it seemed only he divined. And it was clear that his own utter
selflessness--his poetic and passionate detachment from all the objects
of sense and ambition--made him a marvel to Manisty's more turbid and
ambiguous nature. There had been a mystical attraction between them from
the first; so that Manisty, even when he was most pugnacious, had yet a
filial air and way towards the old man.
Eleanor too had often felt the spell. Yet to-day there were both in herself
and Manisty hidden forces of fever and unrest which made the pure idealism,
the intellectual tragedy of the priest almost unbearable. Neither--for
different and hidden reasons--could respond; and it was an infinite relief
to both when the old man at last rose to take his leave.
They accompanied him through the library to the glass passage.
'Keep me informed,' said Manisty, wringing him by the hand; 'and tell me if
there is anything I can do.'
Eleanor said some parting words of sympathy. The priest bowed to her with a
grave courtesy in reply.
'It will be as God wills,' he said gently; and then went his way in a sad
abstraction.
Eleanor was left a moment alone. She put her hands over her heart, and
pressed them there. 'He suffers from such high things!'--she said to
herself in a sudden passion of misery--'and I?'
* * * * *
Manisty came hurrying back from the staircase, and crossed the library
to the passage-room beyond. When he saw Dalgetty there, still peacefully
sewing, his look of anxiety cleared again.
'All right?' he said to her.
'She hasn't moved, sir. Miss Manisty's just been to ask, but I told her
it's the best sleep Miss Alice has had this many a day. After all, that
stuff do seem to have done her good.'
'Well, Eleanor--shall we go and look after Miss Foster?'--he said,
returning to her.
They entered the garden with cheered countenances. The secret terror of
immediate and violent outbreak which had possessed Manisty since the
morning subsided; and he drew in the _ponente_ with delight.
Suddenly, however, as they turned into the avenue adorned by the battered
bust of Domitian, Manisty's hand went up to his eyes. He stopped; he gave a
cry.
'Good God!'--he said--'She is there!'
And halfway down the shadowy space, Eleanor saw two figures, one white, the
other dark, close together.
She caught Manisty by the arm.
'Don't hurry!--don't excite her!'
As they came nearer, they saw that Lucy was still in the same low chair
where Manisty had left her. Her head was thrown back against the cushions,
and her face shone deathly white from the rich sun-warmed darkness shed by
the over-arching trees. And kneeling beside her, holding both her helpless
wrists, bending over her in a kind of passionate, triumphant possession,
was Alice Manisty.
At the sound of the steps on the gravel she looked round; and at the sight
of her brother, she slowly let fall the hands she held--she slowly rose to
her feet. Her tall emaciated form held itself defiantly erect; her eyes
flashed hatred.
'Alice!'--said Manisty, approaching her--'I have something important to say
to you. I have reconsidered our conversation of this morning, and I came to
tell you so. Come back with me to the library--and let us go into matters
again.'
He spoke with gentleness, controlling her with a kind look. She shivered
and hesitated; her eyes wavered. Then she began to say a number of rapid,
incoherent things, in an under-voice. Manisty drew her hand within his arm.
'Come,' he said, and turned to the house.
She pulled herself angrily away.
'You are deceiving me,' she said. 'I won't go with you.'
But Manisty captured her again.
'Yes--we must have our talk,' he said, with firm cheerfulness; 'there will
be no time to-night.'
She broke into some passionate reproach, speaking in a thick low voice
almost inaudible.
He answered it, and she replied. It was a quick dialogue, soothing on his
side, wild on hers. Lucy, who had dragged herself from her attitude of
mortal languor, sat with both hands grasping her chair, staring at the
brother and sister. Eleanor had eyes for none but Manisty. Never had she
seen him so adequate, so finely master of himself.
He conquered. Alice dropped her head sullenly, and let herself be led away.
Then Eleanor turned to Lucy, and the girl, with a great sob, leant against
her dress, and burst into uncontrollable tears.
'Has she been long here?' said Eleanor, caressing the black hair.
'Very nearly an hour, I think. It seemed interminable. She has been telling
me of her enemies--her unhappiness--how all her letters are opened--how
everybody hates her--especially Mr. Manisty. She was followed at
Venice by people who wished to kill her. One night, she says, she
got into her gondola, in a dark canal, and found there a man with a
dagger who attacked her. She only just escaped. There were many other
things,--so--so--horrible!'--said Lucy, covering her eyes. But the next
moment she raised them. 'Surely,' she said imploringly, 'surely she is
insane?'
Eleanor looked down upon her, mutely nodding.
'There is a doctor coming to-morrow,' she said, almost in a whisper.
Lucy shuddered.
'But we have to get through the night,' said Eleanor.
'Oh! at night'--said Lucy--'if one found her there--beside one--one would
die of it! I tried to shake her off just now, several times; but it was
impossible.'
She tried to control herself, to complain no more, but she trembled
from head to foot. It was evident that she was under some overmastering
impression, some overthrow of her own will-power which had unnerved and
disorganised her. Eleanor comforted her as best she could.
'Dalgetty and Edward will take care of her to-night,'--she said. 'And
to-morrow, she will be sent to some special care. How she escaped from her
room this afternoon I cannot imagine. We were all three on the watch.'
Lucy said nothing. She clung to Eleanor's hand, while long shuddering
breaths, gradually subsiding, passed through her; like the slow departure
of some invading force.