CHAPTER XI. THE LIFE AT THE VILLA.
THE curtains were undrawn, and the candles were lighted. All within looked just as he had so often seen it. The sick girl lay on her sofa, with her small spaniel at her feet Miss Grainger was working at a table, and Emily sat near her sister, bending over the end of the sofa, and talking to her. “Let me see that letter again, Florry,” she said, taking a letter from the passive fingers of the sick girl. “Yes, he is sure it must have been Calvert. He says, that though the Swiss papers give the name Colnart, he is sure it was Calvert, and you remember his last words here as he went away that evening?”
“Poor fellow!” said Florence, “I am sure I have no right to bear him good will, but I am sorry for him—really sorry. I suppose, by this time, it is all over?”
“The wound was through, the throat, it is said,” said Miss Grainger. “But how confused the whole story is. Who is Barnard, and why did Calvert fight to save Barnard’s honour?”
“No, aunt. It was to rescue Mr. Graham’s, the man who was about to marry Sophia Calvert.”
“Not at all, Milly. It was Graham who shot Barnard; and then poor Calvert, horrified at his friend’s fate—”
Calvert never waited for more. He saw that there was that amount of mistake and misunderstanding, which required no aid on his part, and now nothing remained but to present himself suddenly before them as a fugitive from justice seeking shelter and protection. The rest he was content to leave to hazard.
A sharp ring at the door-bell was scarcely answered by the servant, when the man came to the drawing-room door, and made a sign to Miss Grainger.
“What is it, Giacomo? What do you mean?” she cried.
“Just one moment, signora; half a minute here,” he said.