She arranged her hair and went quietly to the reception room. It probably would mean that Nelson had news of the French Fleet and a battle was imminent. Still—still suspense!
Time is long when one waits, however one may control oneself, and though she sat at first resolutely, presently she was pacing up and down, quicker and quicker as the pulses beat faster in her brain.
What was that! A cheer in the distance!—the screeching foreign cheer she had ridiculed with Nelson. It came nearer; it gained volume. Yes, the people were screaming like mad. Naples was yelling for joy. For what? For what?
She rushed to the windows. Two uniformed young men were walking, swiftly, steadily to the Embassy, looking neither to the right nor left. Whatever the cheers came from it was not from any words of theirs. They spoke neither to each other nor to any one else, and still the crowd ran after them, yelling, cheering.
She could bear it no longer. She flew to the entrance where many of the Embassy servants, men and women, had assembled. And as the officers neared it, she stood there, white and strained to receive them, both hands clasped upon her fluttering heart.
“What is it?” she shaped with her pale lips but could get out no word.
They knew her. Hoste and Capel had both shared her hospitalities. They waved back the crowd at the gates, and came running lightly up the approach.
“Madam, a great, a glorious victory. The French Fleet annihilated.”
And as the words left Hoste’s lips, some strain seemed to snap in her. She flung up her arms and fainted dead away, falling cruelly on the marble steps before them.
They thought they had killed her. They carried her between them into the long cool room of so many agitations and Sir William was awaked and came down; trembling, incredulous. “Thank God!” he said, when they told him, and even then could scarcely take it in. He ran and announced it from the steps of the Embassy while Emma still lay in her death-like swoon, and the populace dispersed, running also shouting to carry the news all over the city. Then and then only, he devoted himself to her, and saw her faint eyelids flutter, and the pale rose dawn again in lip and cheek.