Biddy was hovering about the passage, as usual. She regarded Michael with marked disfavour when he asked if he could see her mistress. In her ignorant way, she had arrived at the conclusion that the Captain was at the bottom of the mischief.
'Why couldn't he leave things to sort themselves?' she grumbled within herself. 'But men are over-given to meddling; they mar more than they make.'
'My mistress is too ill to see anyone,' she returned shortly.
'Do you mean that she is in her own room?' he asked.
But even as he put the question, he could answer it for himself. The door of the adjoining room was wide open, and he was certain that it was empty.
'Sick folk do not always stop in their beds,' retorted Biddy still more sourly; 'but for all that, she is not fit to see visitors.'
She squared her skinny elbows as she spoke, as though prepared to bar his entrance; but he looked at her in his quiet, authoritative way.
'She will see me, Biddy. Will you kindly allow me to pass?' And the old woman drew back, muttering as she did so.
But he was obliged to confess that Biddy was right as he opened the door, and for a moment he hesitated on the threshold.
Mrs. Blake was half sitting, half lying on the couch in a curiously uneasy position, as though she had flung herself back in some sudden faintness; her eyes were closed, and the contrast between the pale face and dark dishevelled hair was very striking; her lips, even, were of the same marble tint. He had always been compelled to admire her, but he had done so in grudging fashion; but now he was constrained to own that her beauty was of no mean order. An artist would have raved over her; she would have made a model for a Judith or a Magdalene.