She stepped feebly down upon the dusty road. When her feet last pressed it, Manisty was beside her, and the renewing force of love and joy was filling all the sources of her being.
CHAPTER XVI
'Can you bear it? Can you be comfortable?' said Lucy, in some dismay.
They were in one of the four or five bare rooms that had been given up to them. A bed with a straw palliasse, one or two broken chairs, and bits of worm-eaten furniture filled what had formerly been one of a row of cells running along an upper corridor. The floor was of brick and very dirty. Against the wall a tattered canvas, a daub of St. Laurence and his gridiron, still recalled the former uses of the room.
They had given orders for a few comforts to be sent out from Orvieto, but the cart conveying them had not yet arrived. Meanwhile Marie was crying in the next room, and the contadina was looking on astonished and a little sulky. The people who came from Orvieto never complained. What was wrong with the ladies?
Eleanor looked round her with a faint smile.
'It doesn't matter,' she said under her breath. Then she looked at Lucy.
'What care we take of you! How well we look after you!'
And she dropped her head on her hands in a fit of hysterical laughter—very near to sobs.
'I!' cried Lucy. 'As if I couldn't sleep anywhere, and eat anything! But you—that's another business. When the cart comes, we can fix you up a little better—but to-night!'