The agreeable little discussion was interrupted, and Guy only laughed as Godfrey was called away.
But it might have been a different person who said suddenly to Staunton, as they drove back to Ingleby in the moonlight—
“Cuthbert, the doctor thought I should get well, if I do take care, didn’t he?”
“Oh yes, certainly. But you mustn’t play tricks with yourself.”
“Well,” said Guy, seriously and cheerfully, “I mean to try; and, somehow, I think there’s a chance for me, altogether.”
Guy slept that night without dream or disturbance; but for Florella there was no sleep for a long time. A whole rush of thoughts filled her mind; of ghosts and demons, black spirits and white, bad and good angels. She did not feel “creepy,” or in any way personally concerned, but she mentally realised, or, as she called it, “saw” all sorts of eerie situations. Guy Waynflete—she did not try in her thoughts to separate the generations—seemed to have been pursued by an evil power. Was there no good angel to help him?
Florella saw—as she saw the thought in her pictures—the radiant image, all light and wings and glory, the instinctive presentment of a heavenly being which was her spiritual and artistic inheritance. Perhaps, in the light of that fair fancy, she fell asleep; but suddenly there was no outward vision any more, but a great awe and a passionate yearning within. A voice seemed to cry from the depths, “Oh, helping is so hard—so hard! There is no angelness left. It takes it all. My wings can’t be smooth and tidy!” Florella woke right up in the morning sunshine. The vision was over, but she did not forget it.