They were wide open now. The look of desperation had faded, and there was in them only the appeal of one human being to another for help and sympathy.
"Eh, bien, Fatalité?"
She shifted her position wearily and stretched out her hands towards him, murmuring, "Je veux dormir."
If Emile had possessed either chloroform or any other narcotic he would at once have given it to her without much thought of the possible consequences. An inspiration seized him to use the power for soothing and alleviating provided by Nature. He knew that Arithelli would be an easy subject for the exercise of animal magnetism, and her morbid condition would make it even easier for him to send her to sleep.
He moved away the candle, so as to leave her face in shadow, and leaning forward he laid his hand across her forehead and eyes, and began a series of regular and monotonous passes, always in a downward direction. Once he rested his thumbs lightly on her eyeballs, remaining so for a few seconds, while his will went out to her, bidding her sleep and find unconsciousness.
CHAPTER XIII
"There is a woman at the beginning of all great things."
LAMARTINE.
The whizzing rush and discordant scream of the electric trams, the sun warm upon his face, aroused Emile from a restless, fitful sleep of a few hours. The street cries had begun to swell into a volume of sound, and at the earliest dawn the whole place teemed with stir and life. There was no hour in all the night in which Barcelona really slept. Some of the shops did not close before midnight, and people were continually passing through the Rambla, and entering and leaving the posadas, which were open for the sale of wine and bread soon after three o'clock in the morning.
Emile yawned and stretched, and pulled himself up slowly from the chair by the open window in which he had fallen asleep. He was cramped and stiff from his uncomfortable position. Anxiety and strain had deepened the lines on his face, and his eyes were dull and sunken. He looked less hard, less alert, and altogether more human and approachable.
A glance at the bed assured him that Arithelli was still asleep and in exactly the same attitude as he had left her. Though her sleep was not a natural one, at least it was better than drugs, and he had given her a respite, a time of forgetfulness. In a few minutes he would have to arouse her again to more pain and discomfort, and the inevitable weariness of convalescence. He stood inhaling the wonderful soft air and gathering up his energies to face the work of another day. Arithelli's affairs had to be put straight, and Vardri provided for in some way. He did not in the least know how this was all to be accomplished, and at present the problems of the immediate future seemed likely to prove a little difficult.