“I am quite sure that only angels surround you, Cristina,” she said, now smiling outright. “The Devil is much too busy looking after his own to trouble about you!”
“And what if I were to tell you that I am one of his own?” said the old woman, looking round fixedly into the girl’s face.
And though the sun was shining, and Lily’s heart was full of joy, there did come over her a strange, eerie feeling of fear.
Cristina’s life in La Solitude, a life which must have been extraordinarily lonely before she, Lily, had come there, had evidently affected the poor old soul’s brain....
There are a good many lunatic asylums round Epsom, and among Uncle Tom’s friends was a very clever doctor attached to one of these institutions. He had sometimes told the Fairfields pathetic stories of his patients, and of their strange, uncanny delusions.
Lily’s thoughts turned instinctively to M. Popeau. She must ask him what could be done to rescue Cristina from a life which was evidently slowly driving her mad. There must be almshouses and homes of rest in France, as there are in England, suitable for such a case.
She took Cristina’s hand. “Look here!” she exclaimed. “It’s wrong to feel like that—really wrong!”
And then, as Cristina shook her head, she added, rather shyly: “I know you believe in the good God. Surely you do not think that He would allow evil spirits to surround you? Why, it’s a terrible thought!”
Cristina gazed at Lily with a strangely pathetic look.
“Forget that I said anything,” she whispered nervously. “If the Countess knew that I had said this to you, Mademoiselle, well—useful as I am to her, I think she would kill me! I am terribly, terribly afraid of her!”