CHAPTER XXIII.
In the morning he was detained by many matters of importance, and it was towards evening when he at length found leisure to visit his guest. He felt a certain hesitation and delicacy in entering her presence. He was conscious that he had done so much for her that, on her side, she could not meet him without some embarrassment, some pain.
He had seen her but twice; he was no more to her than a name. Yet he had known her in her island life: he thought that tie of memory would make him seem to her less of a stranger than any of these white-coifed pious women who changed places in vigil at her bedside. And a wonder which was warmer and wider than mere curiosity made him anxious to learn how she could have become alone and adrift in Paris, she whose life had been so safe and so sweet and so simple in the midst of the blue water and the flashing sunbeams, and free from spot or stain as the white narcissus growing in the orchard grass, as the white wings of the pigeons cleaving the azure air.
When he entered her chamber she was lying on a couch beside the open window; one of the Sisters was sitting near her doing some needlework. She flushed over all her face as she saw him, and she put out her hand timidly. Othmar bent over it and touched it with his lips in silence. Emotion held them both mute. The nun looked inquisitively at them.
Damaris was still weak, and pale, and changed, but there was the look of fast returning health about her. She was thin still, but no longer emaciated; her lips had regained a little of their damask-rose colour, her hair which had been cut short was bright and shining; she wore a loose plain linen gown which the women had made for her, and her arms were bare to the elbow; the afternoon was close and sultry, and she seemed to breathe with effort.
'I am so glad to see you so nearly well, my dear, and my wife will be no less glad to hear of your recovery,' said Othmar, as he recovered his self-possession. It was a subterfuge, in a way an untruth; but he used his wife's name almost involuntarily, as the only possible way of reconciling this child to her presence in his house.
'You have been very good,' said Damaris simply. Her words seemed poor and thankless, but she could think of no better ones. She was still bewildered at her own position, and wounded in her tenderest pride by the charity she had received. She was not ungrateful, but now that she saw him face to face, she would have given her soul that he had let her die on the stones of Paris.
'Where did you find me?' she added, 'I cannot remember—at least not everything.'
'You were taken unwell on the Solferino bridge,' said Othmar evasively. 'Do not think about that. You are safe here, and all my house is at your service; it is yours whilst you are in it, as the Spaniards say.'