Miss Emily's cheek blanched. There was silence for a little while.
"Emily," said Langler again, "I ask you to take back those words."
Miss Emily sat down sharply on a chair by the table, having on still her hat and gloves, the little bird perched on her shoulder, her lips set. She answered nothing, and another most painful silence followed. I, for my share, did not know what to say, or where to hide myself away from such a scene so suddenly sprung upon us. I wished that the unhappy telegram had never come.
But after a minute of this silence Miss Emily's pallor rushed into pink, and the words broke from her in a heat not far from choking, and a strain of tears: "so, then, I am to abase my intellect before the incredible at your bidding, Aubrey! Then, I will say that I do believe in miracles, since such is your pleasure, Aubrey, but that I do not believe in this one."
"But this is precisely the only one that was ever well attested," said Langler, with a puzzled brow.
"Then, it is my whim to believe in the ill-attested, Aubrey, rather than in this," said Miss Emily, "since we are in the Inquisition, Aubrey, and expected to believe in miracles." She stopped a moment, and then went on, pouring out her words chokily, with stoppages: "I did not see the thing, I am not gainsaying my own senses, and to be charged with irreverence, Aubrey! Why was I not allowed to see it? Why were not you? To be charged with irreverence, Aubrey! The thing is not, so to say, 'the work of God'; it is related to the disappearance of Charles Robinson and of Father Max Dees, and of all the others, and to these two new 'miracles'—and Baron Kolár foreknew that it would happen in Dr Burton's church when he foretold Dr Burton's rise. And to be charged with irreverence, Aubrey! If you wish to find out the meaning of it all, go to a castle in Styria, for that is where the key lies—" and some more of this kind: guesses without proof, statements without form, but so sprung in a pile upon our minds that Langler and I stood dumb before them.
Thus, at any rate, for the second time in two days, those words: "go to Styria," were broached in the cottage: a seed of bitter reaping.
Miss Emily went to a casement, and stood there looking out, while upon me Langler turned a look which I took to imply surprise that I should have spoken to her of Max Dees. For some minutes nothing was said; but presently Langler moved to the window, and laid his hand upon his love; whereat she heaved up to him a smile which beamed with beatitude: and at this I slipped away.