“Lady Hamilton has just passed, driving to the palace. Her coach is
gilt, with four dapple-greys. Go secretly out by the back; make your
way there circumspectly, wait for her reappearance, and throw this in
at the window of her carriage. Then return here, but by a roundabout
way, and not till after dark. Be swift and sure. Everything--our
safety, our lives--depends on this opportunity.”
He groaned out a little sigh: “And our honour, Diana? Think of the
time when we shall be damned together, before you betray the child.”
I walked up and down in terrible agitation when he was gone. Betray!
Who had been the traitor, of us two? Not a drop of water for her,
though I were to lie in Abraham’s bosom!
Night came, but no Gogo. Tortured with doubts and apprehensions, I
could neither eat nor rest. Had he too repented at last of his
loyalty, and abandoned me in my need? They all fell from me, those I
had succoured and most trusted. Sometimes, in my agony of mind, I
upbraided his selfishness, cursed my own irreclaimable fondness in
putting faith in man. I believed he had sold himself--whether to
cupidity or an emotion, what did it matter. At length, quite exhausted
by my passions, I fell asleep on my bed, dressed as I was.
I slept far into the morning, and awoke to a consciousness of a
presence in the next room. Was it he, returned at last? Dazed, and
sick with excitement, I rose and ran to meet him. A lady only was
there, cloaked and mysterious. She lifted her veil, and showed me the
face I had desired.
It had not, indeed, so much altered in these years as her person’s
amplitude. Conceive, my dear friend, the head of a Circe on the body
of a hippopotamus! Now I perceived Nature’s forethought in the gift of
those immense feet. They were disproportionate no longer. She had
grown colossal. The mountain had come to Mahomet. It was wonderful
how, in spite of all, she could have retained the general fine contour
of her features. One would have thought she could hardly have kept her
countenance, seeing the changes below. I certainly found it difficult
to keep mine, as I fell on my knees before her, and, catching at her
hands, hung my head.
She stepped back from me, shaking the room. I understood then in a
moment that the old glamour was only to be recovered, if at all, with
discretion.
“Now, madam,” she said, “being come at your request, I must ask you
for your reason, and as short as you’ll please to make it.”
“My messenger”--I began.
“Your messenger,” she interrupted me promptly, “is put under lock and
key till we know more about him and you. He got a cut on the cheek
before he was took by the guards; but that wasn’t my fault.”