They were still busy with their task when the elderly Italian arrived who was the communal doctor and chemist of the village. The smell of the room, the sight of the woman, was enough. The man was efficient and discreet, and he threw himself into his work without more questions than were absolutely necessary. In the midst of their efforts Manisty reappeared, panting.
'Ought he not to see Miss Foster too?' he said anxiously to Eleanor
Burgoyne.
Eleanor looked at him in astonishment.
A smothered exclamation broke from him. He rushed away, back to the library which he had seen Lucy enter.
The cool clear light was mounting. It penetrated the wooden shutters of the library and mingled with the dying light of the lamp which had served him to read with through the night, beside which, in spite of his utmost efforts, he had fallen asleep at the approach of dawn. There, in the dream-like illumination, he saw Lucy lying within his deep arm-chair. Her face was turned away from him and hidden against the cushion; her black hair streamed over the white folds of her wrapper: one arm was beneath her, the other hung helplessly over her knee.
He went up to her and called her name in an agony.
She moved slightly, made an effort to rouse herself and raised her hand. But the hand fell again, and the word half-formed upon her lips died away. Nothing could be more piteous, more disarmed. Yet even her disarray and helplessness were lovely; she was noble in her defeat; her very abandonment breathed youth and purity; the man's wildly surging thoughts sank abashed.
But words escaped him—words giving irrevocable shape to feeling. For he saw that she could not hear.
'Lucy!—Lucy—dear, beautiful Lucy!'
He hung over her in an ardent silence, his eyes breathing a respect that was the very soul of passion, his hand not daring to touch even a fold of her dress. Meanwhile the door leading to the little passage-room opened noiselessly. Eleanor Burgoyne entered. Manisty was not aware of it. He bent above Lucy in a tender absorption speaking to her as he might have spoken to a child, calling to her, comforting and rousing her. His deep voice had an enchanter's sweetness; and gradually it wooed her back to life. She did not know what he was saying to her, but she responded. Her lids fluttered; she moved in her chair, a deep sigh lifted her breast.