Luiza passed her hands over her face to conceal her confusion, and then repeated, her voice trembling slightly,—
“To the Arroios?”
“Yes; Savedra, one of the counsellor’s guests this evening, told me he saw you going there every day, on foot or driving.”
“Ah,” said Luiza, with a little cough, “I went to see the wife of Guedes, a girl who used to go to school with me, and who had recently arrived from Oporto,—Silva Guedes.”
“Silva Guedes,” repeated Jorge, thoughtfully; “I thought Guedes was at Cape Verde, as secretary-general.”
“I don’t know. They came here for a month last summer and stopped at the Arroios; she was sick, poor thing; I went to see her occasionally. Take that light away; it hurts my eyes.”
She complained of having felt unwell all the afternoon. She felt weak and feverish.
On the succeeding days she was no better. She complained vaguely of a heavy feeling in her head, of malaise. One day she was unable to rise, and Jorge, filled with uneasiness, stayed with her, proposing to send at once for Julião; but Luiza insisted that it was nothing,—a little debility, at the most.
This was the opinion Juliana expressed to Joanna in the kitchen,—
“The senhora has grown thin; there is some chest-trouble there,” she said, with an important air.