“I would not stop to question if you were sick,” he said. She put her arm about him at once, and guided him into the house. Entered into its refuge, a little reassurance, as of a sanctuary gained, seemed to brace him. He moved of his own accord, and towards the stairs, making for the upper rooms. She never released him, until he was lying back on his own pillows. Then he seized her hands and kissed them as she knelt beside him.
“Dear wife,” he said, in great emotion. “I think, perhaps, the sun—and the excitement—of listening. There; I shall be well in a little—only rest—utter rest—I can see no one—no one: Yolande—it would be very bad for me—it—”
She soothed him.
“Why needst thou, most sweet, with me to stand between? If visitor there be, sleep here in confidence; thou shalt not be disturbed.”
A servant’s voice at the door announced that a stranger craved a word with Madame. Madame answered that she would be down in a minute. The invalid uttered a little tremulous cry.
“No, no, at once, in a second,” he urged in extremest agitation. “Think if he were to anticipate you by mounting to this room! My God! I have known him do it!”
“Him!” she exclaimed astonished. “Whom?”
“I have known people do it,” he responded in tremulous irritation—“ill-mannered people. Why do you delay? Do you want to drive me mad? If he comes in here, I will not answer for myself.”
Seeing him so wrought up, she felt it the wise policy to obey. With a last word or two of assurance, she went quickly from the room and down the stairs.
The old corridors, the old house, the old chinks piping-in the draughts which swayed the old tapestries, the old dust which seemed to crawl upon the floors, as if the swarming of their slow decay were for ever being disturbed by ghostly footfalls—in all, this dark old habitation, with its stony echoes, had never before seemed to her so instinct with the spirit of a watchful secrecy. Wickedness hung somewhere brooding in its vaulted silences. The air was thick with omen.