She sank back. A tear glittered on her brown lashes. She raised a hand to dash it away.
'I don't know, Father—I don't know. But to-day—for some mysterious reason—I seem almost to be happy again. I woke up with the feeling of one who had been buried under mountains of rocks and found them rolled away; of one who had been passing through a delirium which was gone. I seem to care for nothing—to grieve for nothing. Sometimes you know that happens to people who are very ill. A numbness comes upon them.—But I am not numb. I feel everything. Perhaps, Father'—and she turned to him with her old sweet instinct—of one who loved to be loved—'perhaps you have been praying for me?'
She smiled at him half shyly. But he did not see it. His head bent lower and lower.
'Thank God!' he said, with the humblest emphasis. 'Then, madame—perhaps—you will find the force—to forgive me!'
The words were low—the voice steady.
Eleanor sprang up.
'Father Benecke!—what have you been doing? Is—is Mr. Manisty here?'
She clung to the loggia parapet for support. The priest looked at her pallor with alarm, with remorse, and spoke at once.
'He came to me last night.'
Their eyes met, as though in battle—expressed a hundred questions—a hundred answers. Then she broke the silence.