“To him?”
“To him.”
“It can but be untrue,” said Beatrice, still hesitating. “I can but go. What of him!” she asked suddenly. “If he were living—would you take me to him? Could you?”
She turned very pale, and her eyes stared madly at Unorna.
“If he were dead,” Unorna answered, “I should not be here.”
Something in her tone and look moved Beatrice’s heart at last.
“I will go with you,” she said. “And if I find him—and if all is well with him—then God in Heaven repay you, for you have been braver than the bravest I ever knew.”
“Can love save a soul as well as lose it?” Unorna asked.
Then they went away together.
They were scarcely out of sight of the convent gate when another carriage drove up. Almost before it had stopped, the door opened and Keyork Arabian’s short, heavy form emerged and descended hastily to the pavement. He rang the bell furiously, and the old portress set the gate ajar and looked out cautiously, fearing that the noisy peal meant trouble or disturbance.