Ten minutes after Lottie fell senseless beside the stone steps of the Palace Augustus, a slight, girlish figure came quickly down the street. It was dressed in black, the only spot of relief being the fur lining of the hood which almost concealed her face. Though she was quite alone, she walked with a fearless and confident bearing, like one whose safety was insured. As she came near the gateway of the palace, a man, bearing the unmistakable signs of a footpad, approached her stealthily, but after a glance at the half-shrouded face, he made a bow, and spreading out his hands toward her, with respectful and almost awed deprecation, stood aside to let her pass.
Margaret, for she it was, returned the salutation with a gentle inclination of her head, and went on her way.
As she walked along in the starlight, a strange feeling of peacefulness, that for all its serenity had something of elation in it, pervaded her. She had just come from visiting a child down with the fever, which is as characteristic of Naples as its bay, or its volcano, and the blessings which the mother of the little one had called down upon Margaret's head, seemed to have borne fruit.
To-night, as she looked up at the stars, she could bring herself to think of Blair with a feeling of forgiveness and tenderness which she had not, as yet, been capable of.
In this life he could never be her own again, never; but perhaps in that mysterious after-life toward which they were all drifting, he would, in some way, come back to her. That he had loved her, even while sinning against her, she felt convinced; and to-night, as she walked through the silent streets, his face came before her, and his voice rose in her memory with a strange distinctness. In fancy she was back again at Leyton Court and at Appleford, and a reflection of these times, in all their glorious coloring of happiness, fell upon her spirit in the dark street, and illuminated it with a curious sadness that had a tinge of joy in it.
"Oh, Blair, my love, my love!" she murmured, looking up at the stars, very much as he had done about an hour before, "we shall never meet again here on earth, but who knows what may await us up there?"
As she lowered her eyes with a gentle sigh, she saw the figure of Lottie huddled up in a scarcely distinguishable mass beside the doorway of the Augustus Palace; she stopped immediately, and kneeling beside the unconscious girl, spoke to her gently. At first she thought that the girl was dead, but she detected a faint movement of the heart, and raising her head upon her knee, she moistened her lips with some eau-de-Cologne.
The light was so dim that she did not recognize her, and she was loosening the worn shawl and chafing the thin hands that hung limply at her side, when a man and woman came down the street.
Margaret beckoned to them. After a glance, they were keeping on their way; but she called to them, and hearing her voice their manner changed, and they hurried forward.
"A poor girl who has fallen in a swoon," explained Margaret.