“What did you mean by——”
“By what?” she sharply demanded, turning on him the full gleam of her resplendent eyes, to which the light of reason for a moment returned.
“In the chapel you fancied you saw some one.”
“I fancied? How strange! I forget,” Lucia replied, laughing gaily. “Whom did I fancy I beheld?”
“You said some very singular words, my dear love.”
“What did I say?”
But before he could speak a word in reply, her glance became again wild and uncertain. She shuddered as if seized with ague, and then leaned forward, as if she again saw the phantom conjured up by her disordered brain in the chapel.
“He is here!” she whispered, half to herself. “He has followed to claim me. I can never escape him now. There is blood upon his wrist, where——It is useless to struggle. I must give way to my destiny. But I will never go with you,” she exclaimed, raising her voice. “Never—never!”
The prince caught her hand, which she snatched away, as if terrified, looking at him with a vacant eye, that evidently did not recognize him.
“You shall not take me,” she fiercely cried. “I did not do it—I swear I did not! I was not there.”