“Well,” continued Nouna, “we went in, and the room was dark, with only one light, just as you saw it, and the screen was there, as it was just now. As Rahas talked to me, very slow and faint his voice seemed to grow, and then his eyes to grow very large and bright, so that they seemed like two great lamps, and I could see nothing else. And I got drowsy, and tried to put up my hands and to cry out that I was stifling—dying. But I could not; my hands were heavy and my voice would not come.”
“And as for me,” chimed in poor Mrs. Ellis, whose grey eyes grew round at the ghastly recollection, “when I turned round—for I was talking to Monsieur Fanah, little thinking of the heathenish doings which were taking place in my very presence—and heard the child cry ‘Oh!’ and saw her fall back on the cushions of the ottoman, I was so thunderstruck that for the first moment I couldn’t have uttered one word if you had paid me for it. I was going to throw some water over her when that man Rahas said: ‘She is not fainting; I have cast her down into a land of dreams.’ And I said: ‘Then, Mr. Rahas, you will please to cast her up again.’ And when he looked at me, and saw the expression of my face,” finished Mrs. Ellis triumphantly, “why he did so.”
“And what did you dream?” Lauriston asked the girl.
“When the eyes of Rahas grew larger and larger they seemed to fade away and to leave a great light. And standing up against the light was my mother, with her own sweet smile upon her face and her grand bearing. (My mother is like an empress in her walk, in her movements, Mr. Lauriston.) And she put out her hand towards me and I thought she said ‘Stay.’ And then, before I could speak to her she faded away, and I felt a weight at my heart, and tried to sigh, and could not. And then a blank came, and next I heard the voice of Mammy Ellis, and I opened my eyes and saw her and Rahas.”
“Perhaps,” suggested Lauriston, who was by no means ready to acknowledge that another man had an influence, mesmeric or otherwise, over the girl he loved, “perhaps you really did see a figure that you took for that of your mother.”
Nouna laughed scornfully at the notion. “As if I could mistake her! I heard her voice, I saw her smile. It was my mother.”
Lauriston turned to Mrs. Ellis. “Was there no possibility of any one entering the room and leaving it quickly without your seeing her?”
“Oh no,” said she at once. “Besides, Nouna fell with her head buried among the cushions, and her eyes were closed the whole time.”
“Nouna,” said Lauriston abruptly, after a pause, “you must not speak to that man again. The whole proceeding was a most disgraceful piece of trickery, such as no girl ought to be subjected to. Mrs. Ellis, I am writing to-night to the Countess di Valdestillas, to ask her to permit my engagement with her daughter. Now that you know the interest I take in her, you will forgive my urging you to be careful that she obeys my earnest wish in this. I shall not wait for a letter to inform her that her daughter is not in a safe home: I shall go to-morrow to the Countess’s solicitors, learn her address, and telegraph. And now I will say good-night, and I hope, Mrs. Ellis, you will forgive me this second nocturnal visit.”
He shook hands with both ladies, and disregarding Nouna’s undisguised anxiety to accompany him to the door, asked the elder lady if he could speak with her a few moments alone. With as much jealous indignation as if Mrs. Ellis had been eighteen and beautiful, Nouna flung herself into her American chair in a passion of tears as they left the room.