“It is for you; I saw how tired you were looking, and brought it on purpose. Now you must drink it,” she said in her charming, authoritative way. “And, oh, I am so glad to meet you at last, Mrs. Carling! I think of you so often.” She drew up another chair for herself, and the vicar slipped away to resume his duties as host. “You are so brave, so good—you set aside your so great sorrow and anxiety and think always of others; and padre has told me. It is wonderful,” Maddelena continued. “And, oh, I do so wish I could help you! I have so wanted to come and see you, but I did not like to, as we had never met.”
“Well, now we have met I hope you will come and see me some day soon, Miss Cacciola,” said Grace. “I have heard of you too, from my old friend Austin Starr.”
“Ah, yes—that nice Mr. Starr! He is seeking still for fresh evidence that might help your husband. Has he any success yet?” Grace shook her head sadly. “Alas! it is a terrible mystery. We sought to help him, my uncle and I, yes, and even Boris, as perhaps he told you, but we could discover nothing—nothing at all!”
“Yes, he did tell me, and indeed I am very grateful, Miss Cacciola. It is strange—terrible—that we can get no fresh light at all. But I am quite sure that the truth will be revealed. But for that faith I—I don’t think I could bear the suspense.”
“Do you know, at the first, Mrs. Carling, I thought—as Boris also and doubtless very many others did—that your husband must have been guilty, until I saw him in the police court that day, and then I knew—though how I knew I cannot tell you—that he was innocent; and I would do anything in the world that I could to help to prove it. But what can we do?”
Grace pressed her hand, keenly touched by the girl’s earnest, impulsive sympathy, but could find no words to reply. What, indeed could be said?
“I have wondered often of late,” Maddelena resumed, her dark brows contracted in thought, “whether our old Giulia would be able to tell you anything.”
“Your Giulia? Why, who is she?” asked Grace.
“My uncle’s housekeeper—in fact our only servant. She has been with him for many years and is devoted to us all. She is Italian, of course, a peasant, and quite uneducated, but she has—what do you call it?—clairvoyance, the ‘second sight,’ sometimes, and can see, oh, the most extraordinary things—for some people!”
“Really!” Grace exclaimed, almost in a whisper, her heart beginning to flutter, her eyes searching the girl’s vivid, thoughtful face.