Enistor, left alone, touched the old man, wondering how he would be able to revive him, as this was no ordinary faint. But the moment Alice left the room Narvaez sat up, apparently his usual self.
"Did The Adversary strike you down?" asked the Squire, still pale and unstrung.
"No! It was One I do not choose to name. But I defy Him! I defy Him!" He shook his fists in the air with impotent anger. "I shall win yet! I shall win yet!"
[CHAPTER XVI]
THE DISCIPLE OF LOVE
Next day at noon, Montrose returned to Tremore accompanied by the doctor, to be received by the housekeeper, as Mr. Enistor had gone to see Señor Narvaez, and Alice was still in bed. Knowing from Eberstein that the girl had been submitted to an ordeal, Douglas anxiously demanded if she was ill. But, much to his relief, the answer immediately reassured him.
"Ill, sir? No, sir," responded the housekeeper, who was a voluble talker, "though she did go to bed early last night with no dinner and only a glass of milk to keep her up, which isn't enough nourishment for a young thing like Miss Alice. But she was sleeping so lovely that the master said she had better sleep on. But I think she is getting up now, sir, and when she knows that you are here, sir——" the housekeeper looked significantly at the young man and departed smiling, with her sentence uncompleted. She was an old and valued servant, who quite approved of the match.
"You are sure Alice hasn't suffered?" demanded Montrose for the twentieth time, and prowling restlessly about the drawing-room.