"I am glad to have seen it," the voice said, "and quite by chance, too; it is excessively interesting, so melancholy. Ah! you say that they laid him just there? It makes one shudder! No, I will not go near the place; it is too shocking."
At the last words Maurice and Lucia saw the speaker emerge from behind the altar on the side furthest from where they stood. She was a tall woman, neither young nor pretty, but very fashionable—distinguished, Lucia supposed she should be called; and but for the peculiarity of her voice, would have made a favourable rather than an unfavourable impression on a stranger. She stopped just at the top of the steps, and turned round to speak again to some one behind her who was still concealed by the altar. This time she spoke English in a lower tone, and with a greater drawl.
"Really, Edward," she said, "it is very small. Pray don't give the woman much; you know how heavy our expenses are. I think I ought to carry the purse."
"As you please, my dear; it would save me trouble, certainly."
At the sound of that second voice Maurice started and looked at Lucia. She had suddenly grasped at the stonework before her, and stood looking with passionate eagerness over the carved figure of the dying Duke towards the altar. He almost shuddered at the intensity of that gaze—the rigidity of intolerable suspense in her whole figure; but he could only be still and watch her.
The unconscious Englishwoman moved on; close behind her, following her with his old languid manner, came the man Lucia was watching for—Edward Percy.
Still she never stirred. They passed down the chapel with her eyes upon them, but they never saw her, and she made no sound or movement. Only when they were no longer in sight, everything seemed to grow suddenly black and confused about her—her hold upon the marble relaxed, and she would have fallen if Maurice had not gently supported her, and drawn her to a seat close by.
She did not faint, though she was cold and white and powerless. After a minute Maurice, bending over her, saw that she was trying to speak. Her lips seemed stiff and hardly able to form the words, but he made out,
"Who is she?"
He hesitated a moment; but she saw that he could answer, and her eyes insisted on her question.