The two ladies, accordingly, went to the veranda and, opening the door gently, peeped in.
“There she is,” Mrs Dempsey whispered, “standing in just the same position.”
The sound of her voice, though so low as to be scarcely heard even by the lady standing beside her, seemingly attracted the attention of both the girl and the Count, for they turned round simultaneously. Then Mrs Dempsey, whose gaze was solely concentrated on the girl, saw a face of almost indescribable beauty—possessing neatly chiselled, but by no means coldly classical features, long eyes of a marvellous blue, a smooth broad brow, and delicately and subtly moulded mouth; it was the face of a young girl, barely out of her teens, and it was filled with an expression of infinite sorrow and affection.
Mrs Dempsey was so enraptured that, to quote her own words, she “stood gazing at it in speechless awe and amazement,” and might, perhaps, have been gazing at it still, had not the voice of the Count called her back to earth.
“I hope, ladies,” he was saying, “that you do not see anything unusually disturbing in my appearance to-night, for I undoubtedly seem to be the object of your solicitude. May I ask why?”
Though he spoke quite politely, even the dullest could have seen that he was more than a little annoyed. Mrs Dempsey therefore hastened to reply.
“It is not you,” she stammered out, “it is the lady—the lady you have with you. I—I fancied I knew her.”
“The lady I have with me,” the Count exclaimed, in accents of cold surprise. “Kindly explain what you mean?”
“Why the lady——” Mrs Dempsey began, and then she glanced round.
The Count was standing in front of her—but he was quite alone. There was no vestige of a girl in green, nor of any other person on the veranda saving themselves, and immediately beneath it, at a distance of at least thirty feet, glimmered the white shingles of the silent and deserted—utterly deserted—seashore.