"We have been expecting you," he said in Italian, "and we fear now that you come too late. Our poor lady is beyond human skill!"
Paul looked at him in astonishment. "I do not quite understand you! It is the Count of Cruta whom I came to see!"
The priest started back, and commenced fumbling with a lamp which stood on a table at the foot of the bed. "Are you not the German doctor from Palermo?" he asked, bending over towards Paul, with his keen, dark face alight with suspicion and distrust.
Paul shook his head. "I am no doctor at all!" he answered. "I am an Englishman, and my name is Paul de Vaux!"
"Ah!" There was a faint, incoherent cry from the bed—a cry, which, faint though it was, shook with stifled emotion. Both men turned round, and Paul could see that the other's face was dark and stern.
The woman, who had been lying on the bed still and motionless as a corpse, had raised herself with a sudden, spasmodic movement. Her cheeks were sunken to the bone, and her eyes were large and staring.
The seal of death was upon her face, but Paul recognised her. It was the woman whom he had seen last in the drawing-room of Major Harcourt's house, the woman whom Adrea had called her stepmother.
He took a sudden step forward, and she held out her hands in a gesture half of welcome, half of fear. "Paul de Vaux! Holy Mother of God! What has brought you here—here into the tiger's den? Come close to me! Hasten!"
Paul stepped forward, but the priest stood between them, holding out his hands in a threatening gesture. "Sister, forbear!" he cried sternly. "You have made your peace with God; you have done with the world and all its follies. Close your eyes and pray. Fix your thoughts upon things above!"