She turned and looked all about the room, very slowly, as a person seeking something. Then she looked again at him, silently, with that same face of disappointment; and her hands, that had been tightly shut on the golden crucifix appended to her rosary, opened and slipped softly to her sides. She turned to the door. He rose from his seat, and without taking his eyes from her, fumbled to lift the candle from its socket, to light her way; he was awkward in his amazement. He saw her pass the threshold. In a second he followed her. She was not in the next room. He passed through the two rooms that separated him from the door leading to the common stairway. He came to the door; it was as he had left it, secured for the night. Seized with dismay, in spite of the thought that she must have lingered behind in the shady embrasure of a window, he undid the chain and bolt and came out on the landing and looked, expecting inconsistently to see a white figure vanishing down the steps. He saw nothing but a faint light cast upon the wall at the turn of the stairs. He stood hesitating.
In a moment he heard below a sound of weeping; he went down with a trembling of the knees. On the landing of the piano nobile was the landlady. She had set her little brass lamp on the last step, and was crying. The door to the Countess's apartment was wide open, and the draught from there made the tiny flame flicker and smoke.
"What is it?" said Prospero, in a husky whisper.
"She is dead, the poor lady!" sobbed the padrona.
He felt his hair softly rising.
DORASTUS
She had large violet eyes, of a melancholy effect, and fine honey-colored hair, flowing smoothly over her ears. She looked excessively meek and always a little apprehensive, as if accustomed to reproaches, yet never quite hardened to them. One easily supposed her to be an orphan.
She lived with an aunt, her mother's half-sister, considerably older and less pleasing than her mother in that charming woman's brief day. Her cousins were all older than she; the girls were so perfect in every respect that intimacy between her and them was out of the question; the son, a big, blunt young man, was mostly away, and, when at home, too much taken up with other interests to be more than just aware of the violet eyes. So, life was very dull for Emmeline—"Emmie" she was familiarly called.