But perceiving that it would be useless at this juncture to try to reason her out of her belief, such process being best reserved for the sober light of morning, Godfrey turned to give some orders to the housemaid.
"Ha!" exclaimed Idris, picking up the novel from the floor, "so you have been reading this? Then I don't wonder that you have been frightened. 'The Fair Orientalist' is not a book to be read at night in a lonely house."
"I will not deny that the book frightened me, but what was it that frightened Leo? He cannot read ghost-stories, and yet he howled piteously."
"Probably with that prevision instinctive in the brute race he discerned the coming of this catastrophe."
Beatrice, having now recovered herself, proposed a tour of the house with a view of ascertaining how much damage had been done.
The walls did not exhibit any cracks or fissures, and apparently were as sound as before, but on the floor of every room proofs of the recent earth-tremor were evident in the shape of fallen articles.
Breakage was especially triumphant in the kitchen.
"Ah me!" sighed Beatrice, sorrowfully. "Good-bye to my new tea-service! And my pretty majolica bread-plate gone, too! Nothing will convince me that this is not the work of the Viking. When he was alive I have no doubt that, being a heathen, he took a pleasure in slaying good Christian folk: and now that he is dead he shows his malignity by destroying their crockery-ware. A noble Viking, one would think, should be above such meanness."
On returning to the sitting-room Idris, for the enlightenment of Beatrice, began to relate his adventure with Mademoiselle Rivière; and, as Beatrice listened, she became strangely disquieted by the incident. Why should this be?
But when Idris, in the course of his story, dwelt on the beauty of Lorelie, and above all on the heroic light of her eyes when she bade him leave her to save himself, Beatrice readily discerned by the warmth of his tone how matters stood with him, and realizing this, her agitation increased. Surprised, frightened, trembling, she found herself borne along on the wild wave of her emotion to the certain knowledge that her feelings towards Idris were not those of friendship simply, but of love!