“I am very happy to-day. If you only knew what a good girl Marianna is!”
That very night the fever returned. Julião found her much worse on the following morning.
“This begins to grow a little more serious,” he said in a dissatisfied tone.
He was writing a prescription, when Donna Felicidade came in, very much excited. She was surprised to find Luiza sick; leaning over her, she whispered in her ear,—
“I have something to tell you.”
When Jorge and Julião had left the room, she seated herself beside the bed and proceeded to unbosom herself to Luiza, speaking now in low and confidential tones, now in a voice rendered shrill by indignation. She had been robbed, basely robbed, she cried. The man she had sent to Tuy, like the unscrupulous thief he was, had written to her servant Gertrudes that he was not coming back to Lisbon, that the sorceress had changed her place of abode, and that he desired to hear nothing more about the matter,—all in the clerkly handwriting of a paid copyist, and in horrible Portuguese. But not a word did he say of money.
“What do you think of the swindler? Eight dollars! If it were not for the shame of it, I should go to the police. I want to have nothing more to do with Gallicians. That was the reason the counsellor made no further advances; the sorceress had not wrought the spell.”
If she did not believe in the honesty of the Gallicians, however, it was very evident that she still believed in the arts of magic. It was not for the money, but for the annoyance. Where could the woman be now? It was enough to make one crazy. What did Luiza think of the matter?
Luiza shrugged her shoulders. Enveloped in the bedclothes, she lay there silent, with flushed face and heavy eyes. Donna Felicidade advised her, with a sigh, to take something to make her perspire; and finding she could obtain no consolation from Luiza, she went to the Encarnação to unbosom herself to the Senhora Silveira.
Towards morning Luiza grew worse. The fever increased. Jorge, very uneasy, dressed himself hurriedly at nine o’clock to go for Julião. He was going downstairs hastily, buttoning his overcoat, when he met the postman, who seemed to have a bad cough, going up.