“Thursday, ma’am. You have been away ten days,” the old servant answered coldly.
It was only the next day that Tabitha told her mistress she must leave her.
“There is no need to talk about what has happened,” she said. “I have kept your secret. I have let no one know that you were away. I packed Susan off for a holiday the morning after the ball. I don’t believe any one knows anything about you—unless you were seen yesterday on your way home.”
Then came stern words of renunciation, a conscientious but rather narrow-minded woman’s protest against sin.
“I, YOU, AND GOD CAN COMPREHEND EACH OTHER.”
It was two months after Allegra’s wedding-day, and Martin Disney had been warned that the closing hour of the young life he had watched so tenderly was not far off. It might come to-morrow; or it might not come for a week; or the lingering flame might go flickering on, fainting and reviving in the socket, for another month. He must hold himself prepared for the worst. Death might come suddenly at the last, like a thief in the night; or by stealthy, gradual steps, and slowest progress from life to clay.
He sat beside Isola’s sofa in the Roman lodging as he had sat beside her bed in that long illness at Trelasco, when her wandering mind appalled him more than her bodily weakness. He watched as faithfully as he had watched then, but this time without hope.