Lifting her hand, she touched and stroked the marble, and the awe grew in her eyes.
"Feel!" she said. "This is not marble! It is very flesh, though turned to stone!"
And she shuddered.
"Only a statue, dearest!" he answered soothingly. "Around Naples, they say, the earth is full of such!"
"It is the White Lady!"
She had risen now and regained her self-control, and she spoke with unwonted dignity and calm.
"It is the White Lady," she repeated, "but you know, you have never consented to her spells. She rules here in the dusk! How you tremble! There is no need! Sunlight for you is but a few paces away! See, I will go with you to the entrance of the grotto!"
In truth a strange tremor had seized him. He stood as if unable to leave the spot. She was looking on his face with anxious eyes.
"Doubtless," he said at last, and despised himself as he spoke, "you would prefer other company than mine in the presence of your White Lady!"
She raised her white hands to her throat again, and laughed, a laugh which the vaults re-echoed as a sob.