"But—you are glad—now I'm here?" Victoria faltered.
"Of course," Saidee answered unhesitatingly. "I'm delighted—enchanted—for my own sake. If I'm frightened, if you think me strange—farouche—it's because I'm so surprised, and because—can you believe it?—this is the first time I've spoken English with any human being for nine years—perhaps more. I almost forget—it seems a century. I talk to myself—so as not to forget. And every night I write down what has happened, or rather what I've thought, because things hardly ever do happen here. The words don't come easily. They sound so odd in my own ears. And then—there's another reason why I'm afraid. It's on your account. I'd better tell you. It wouldn't be fair not to tell. I—how are you going to get away again?"
She almost whispered the last words, and spoke them as if she were ashamed. But she watched the girl's face anxiously.
Victoria slipped a protecting arm round her waist. "We are going away together, dearest," she said. "Unless you're too happy and contented. But, my Saidee—you don't look contented."
Saidee flushed faintly. "You mean—I look old—haggard?"
"No—no!" the girl protested. "Not that. You've hardly changed at all, except—oh, I hardly know how to put it in words. It's your expression. You look sad—tired of the things around you."
"I am tired of the things around me," Saidee said. "Often I've felt like a dead body in a grave with no hope of even a resurrection. What were those lines of Christina Rossetti's I used to say over to myself at first, while it still seemed worth while to revolt? Some one was buried, had been buried for years, yet could think and feel, and cry out against the doom of lying 'under this marble stone, forgotten, alone.' Doesn't it sound agonizing—desperate? It just suited me. But now—now——"
"Are things better? Are you happier?" Victoria clasped her sister passionately.
"No. Only I'm past caring so much. If you've come here, Babe, to take me away, it's no use. I may as well tell you now. This is prison. And you must escape, yourself, before the gaoler comes back, or it will be a life-sentence for you, too."
It warmed Victoria's heart that her sister should call her "Babe"—the old pet name which brought the past back so vividly, that her eyes filled again with tears.