This was an apartment adjoining her bedroom, and furnished more with a view to the repose which is so essential in the torrid climate of the West Indies, than to the pursuit of any active work. Its French windows, opening on the garden, were shaded by green jalousies, through which the luxuriant creepers thrust their tendrils and their leaves; the marble floor was strewn with plaited mats of various coloured straws; the furniture consisted of a couple of bamboo lounges and a marble table, on which stood a silver tray bearing fruit and cooling drinks. The only ornaments it contained were a large mirror and a couple of handsome vases filled with roses. Everything about the room was conducive to coolness and repose; and Maraquita, attired in white muslin, with a palm leaf in her hand, and stretched full length on one of the couches, with her eyes half closed, was a personification of the goddess of Sleep or Indolence, or perhaps both.
She started, and coloured slightly as Liz slipped into the room through the verandah. Her last conversation with Henri de Courcelles was in her mind. She had been thinking of it as Liz entered, and a secret intuition made her feel that her adopted sister would allude to the subject. A craven fear took possession of her, and made her heart beat to suffocation; but only for a moment. The next she had remembered her mother’s caution and promised championship, and had resolved to carry out her advice (if necessary) to the very letter. As she sank back upon her couch, Lizzie advanced towards her with affectionate solicitude.
‘Have I startled you, Quita? I hope not. It seems so long since we met; and so much has happened since then, that I felt I must come up and see you to-day. How are you, dear? Quite strong again?’
As she sat down by the girl’s side, and laid her hand tenderly upon her arm, Quita turned pettishly away.
‘That is rather a silly question for a lady doctor to ask me, Lizzie. How can I be quite strong again after such a nasty attack of fever? I am as weak as I can well be, and mamma is going to take me up to the hill range to-morrow or next day for change of air.’
‘I am glad of that, dear. It will be the best thing for you, for you must have suffered much, my poor Quita, I am sure, both in mind and body.’
Quita did not like this thrust, but she parried it bravely.
‘Well, I did suffer with the fever, as you know, and the only wonder is that it didn’t kill me, as it has done so many of the coolies. It was your poor father who saved my life. And then that he should go himself! I have felt that terribly, Liz. I was very fond of him. He was like a second father to me, and his sudden death has cut us all up, as well as you.’
There were tears in Maraquita’s voice as she spoke, which brought the kindred drops welling up to Lizzie’s eyes, and for a few moments the girls wept together as for a common loss.
‘Oh, Quita,’ said Liz, as soon as she could speak calmly again, ‘I know that you and your father and mother have felt for me in my trouble, for, kind as you have been to us, you can never realise the depth of it. My father was my world. He stood between me and every anxiety, and now that he is gone, I feel as if I stood alone, the centre of a storm of suspicion, and accusation, and reproach.’