I lay back on the sofa looking at her with a kind of pity.
"Then why not end it?" I said—"Or why not let me go away? It is I who have displeased you somehow, and I assure you I'm very sorry! You and Mr. Harland have both been most kind to me—I've been your guest for nearly a fortnight,—that's quite sufficient holiday for me—put me ashore anywhere you like and I'll go home and get myself out of your way. Will that be any comfort to you?"
"I don't know that it will," she said, with a short, querulous sigh—"Things have happened so strangely." She paused, looking at me—"Yes—you have the face of that woman I saw in my dream!—and you have always reminded me of—"
I waited eagerly. She seemed afraid to go on.
"Well!" I said, as quietly as I could—"Do please finish what you were saying!"
"It goes back to the time when I first saw you," she continued, now speaking quickly as though anxious to get it over—"You will perhaps hardly remember the occasion. It was at that great art and society "crush" in London where there was such a crowd that hundreds of people never got farther than the staircase. You were pointed out to me as a "psychist"—and while I was still listening to what was being said about you, my father came up with you on his arm and introduced us. When I saw you I felt that your features were somehow familiar,—though I could not tell where I had met you before,—and I became very anxious to see more of you. In fact, you had a perfect fascination for me! You have the same fascination now,—only it is a fascination that terrifies me!"
I was silent.
"The other night," she went on—"when Mr. Santoris first came on board I had a singular impression that he was or had been an enemy of mine,—though where or how I could not say. It was this that frightened me, and made me too ill and nervous to go with you on that excursion to Loch Coruisk. And I want to get away from him! I never had such impressions before—and even now,—looking at you,—I feel there's something in you which is quite "uncanny,"—it troubles me! Oh!—I'm sure you mean me no harm—you are bright and amiable and adaptable and all that—but—I'm afraid of you!"
"Poor Catherine!" I said, very gently—"These are merely nervous ideas! There is nothing to fear from me—no, nothing!" For here she suddenly leaned forward and took my hand, looking earnestly in my face—"How can you imagine such a thing possible?"
"Are you sure?" she half whispered—"When I called you "pagan" just now I had a sort of dim recollection of a fair woman like you,—a woman I seemed to know who was really a pagan! Yet I don't know how I knew her, or where I met her—a woman who, for some reason or other, was hateful to me because I was jealous of her! These curious fancies have haunted my mind only since that man Santoris came on board,—and I told Dr. Brayle exactly what I felt."