XIV.
"I never knew her to faint before," Deborah's voice was saying, as Mary emerged from an abyss of peaceful oblivion, to find herself deluged with eau de Cologne, and lying on the bed in her own room.
"Poor little soul!" answered Mrs. Holston's gentle voice. "It was a terrible shock, his going so suddenly. But, hush now, she is coming to herself."
No, not to herself; to a consciousness of nameless agony; to a sense of restlessness, without physical strength for action; to a crushing weight of misery which she must ask no living soul to share.
After some minutes, which seemed like hours of struggling to recover breath, and voice, and senses, she succeeded in thanking her kind nurses, and asking them to leave her alone for a little while.
An hour's solitude had restored her to complete consciousness, when a servant knocked on the door and asked whether she had any further occasion for the gondola, which had returned from carrying Captain Vane to the steamer. Her husband's request that she would see Padre Giulio occurred to her. Life must be taken up somewhere; why not in the performance of that duty, which would become harder with every day it should be deferred?
If she called upon Deborah for assistance, she would be prevented from leaving the house; so her preparations must be made alone. Giving orders for the gondola to wait, she put on hat and shawl with trembling hands, and walked down the long flights of marble stairs, holding on to the balustrade for support. It was useless to attempt her mission in that condition; perhaps an hour's row that soft, gray, overshadowed morning might restore her nerves to equilibrium. "Put up the awning and row on the lagoon for an hour," she said to the gondoliers. "Then take me to the Piazza San Marco without my giving you any further directions."
Through the open windows of the ducal palace she could see tourists wandering about, Murray in hand. Soldiers were lolling under the arcades; sight-seers were hurrying through to and fro, taking advantage of the cool day to get through a double amount of work. A sacristan was cleaning down the steps of Santa Maria della Salute, flinging away the broom, and sitting down to rest after the labor of sweeping each step.
Then came a long period of quiet, broken only by the steady dip of oars, and an occasional remark in gondolier slang made by the two boatmen. Pearly sky and pearly sea, a soft breeze and monotonous motion exercised a soothing influence over poor Mary, who never resisted comfort, no matter in how homely a form it might come. On the steps behind the Armenian convent sat a monk, looking over the lagoon. He was a commonplace old man enough in appearance, some insignificant lay brother resting from his labors in the garden. He saw the boat approach, and noticed probably the expression of suffering on Mary's face; for as she passed, a look of kindness, that was in itself a benediction, came into his wrinkled, brown face, and sank into her poor wounded heart, never to be forgotten. From that day she remembered the old Armenian in her prayers as one who had helped her in the sorest trial of her life.