Eleanor felt nothing but an angry impatience. Could even this remote place give them no privacy? She answered however with her usual grace.
'You are very good, Madame. I suppose that I am speaking to the Contessa
Guerrini?'
The other lady made a sign of assent.
'We brought a few things from Orvieto—my friend and I,' Eleanor continued.
'We shall only stay a few weeks. I think we have all that is necessary. But
I am very grateful to you for your courtesy.'
Her manner, however, expressed no effusion, hardly even adequate response.
The Contessa understood. She talked for a few moments, gave a few
directions as to paths and points of view, pointed out a drive beyond
Selvapendente on the mountain side, bowed and departed.
Her bow did not include the priest. But he was not conscious of it. While the ladies talked, he had stood apart, holding the hat that seemed to burn him, in his finger-tips, his eyes, with their vague and troubled intensity, expressing only that inward vision which is at once the paradise and the torment of the prophet.
* * * * *
Three weeks passed away. Eleanor had said no more of further travelling. For some days she lived in terror, startled by the least sound upon the road. Then, as it seemed to Lucy, she resigned herself to trust in Father Benecke's discretion, influenced also no doubt by the sense of her own physical weakness, and piteous need of rest.
And now—in these first days of July—their risk was no doubt much less than it had been. Manisty had not remembered Torre Amiata—another thorn in Eleanor's heart! He must have left Italy. As each fresh morning dawned, she assured herself drearily that they were safe enough.
As for the heat, the sun indeed was lord and master of this central Italy. Yet on the high tableland of Torre Amiata the temperature was seldom oppressive. Lucy, indeed, soon found out from her friend the Carabiniere that while malaria haunted the valley, and scourged the region of Bolsena to the south, the characteristic disease of their upland was pneumonia, caused by the daily ascent of the labourers from the hot slopes below to the sharp coolness of the night.