He strove as best he could to comfort her, and presently she dried her eyes and gave a faint smile.
“You should not give way to idle fancies, my darling,” said the earl. “What is the matter?”
“You seem so strange—your manner is so different—you do not appear to be like your former self.”
“Bah! mere fancies. I am just the same as I always have been since you first knew me.”
“Are you?” said Agatha, seating herself in a chair and endeavouring to collect her thoughts, which, to say the truth, at that particular period were in rather a deranged state.
The sound as of a low moan, sigh, or wail, fell upon the ears of the earl; it seemed to proceed from one of the upper rooms.
Upon the impulse of the moment he rushed upstairs. On reaching the first landing he stumbled over something. Upon recovering himself he discovered that it was a prostrate figure of a human being, and upon closer inspection he found it to be the senseless form of Theresa Trieste, who had from some cause or other swooned.
Lord Ethalwood stooped down and raised the senseless Theresa, whom he carried into an adjoining room. He was so overcome with terror and anxiety that he did not know very well how to act, but after a moment’s reflection he laid her on a sofa and then sought for some vessel containing water. When this was found he bathed her forehead and temples. She heaved two or three deep-drawn sighs, and then opened her eyes.
“It is you, my lord. The saints be praised you are alive and well,” she ejaculated.
“Yes, dearest—I have returned, as you see. And you?”