"She is not ill?" he asked anxiously.
"Nay, not ill," the girl answered. "It is but that she feels the cold. I will take the brazier." She looked at him with some surprise that he did not give it up.
"It is heavy," he warned her. "Stay one moment, I pray you. Will you not tell me your name? I have been in this house these many months, and never before have I seen you."
"I am called Eldris," she answered. "And I have been here also, but—it is true you have not seen me, although at times I have seen you. I have been seen by none save—"
"Save one, perhaps," said Nicanor, and looked into her eyes. "I bring you word from Hito—if you are she he told me to seek out. He saith that he, Hito, is willing to see you to-night; that he expects you, and that you will understand. He saith that he awaits you—you will know where; and if you do not come, he will find out why. Also—"
He stopped on the word. The girl had gone gray; and into her eyes there leaped a look of helpless terror, of dumb anguish and nameless fear. And at once, with the look, she became elusively familiar. A memory, half lost, beckoned to him, of a white and tortured face, of eyes which held the terror of a wounded animal at bay, of a long red welt across brown shoulders. His glance went to the girl's shoulders, white as milk, half hidden under her coarse white tunic.
"'You sent for me, Lady Varia?'"
"Hito!" the girl exclaimed below her breath; and again—"Hito!" She flung out her hands with a movement of bitter despair and hid her face in them. "What can I do? Where can I go?" she cried hopelessly. "Since the first day he saw me this hath hung over me—and what can I do? O my God! what can I do against him?"