“No, nonsense! There are no such things. Lie down, or you will faint again.” To Zoe’s intense astonishment, the girl had pushed her away, and was trying to raise herself by a chair.
“Lady, it is true. I have bewitched you, and you don’t know it. Let me go away, before I do you more harm. If I give myself freely to death, that will remove the spell.”
“Lie still, and don’t be silly. There are no witches now.”
“There was one in Strio, lady—a girl only as old as I am—I knew her. She had no wish to do harm, but evil befell all those on whom she looked, and her lover fell ill and wasted away. Even the priest could do nothing, and when they took her to the festival of a very holy relic in another island, the roof of the church fell in, and killed several people. The day after she came back to Strio she was found dead at the foot of the cliff, and all said that she had thrown herself over so as to break the effect of her spells. And it was through me that the Lord Harold was lost.”
“It was through you he was recovered. Now, Kalliopé, let us go back quietly, and you shall lie down in my room. I am not excusing you at all. You have done very wrong—worse than I could ever have believed—but instead of being sorry for that, you accuse yourself of being a witch, which is absurd.”
“But you can be a witch without knowing it, my lady,” the girl objected feebly, as they passed along the verandah. Zoe shrugged her shoulders deliberately, and made no answer until she had her patient established on the sofa.
“Now I am going to talk to you, Kalliopé—I can’t call you Danaë yet. Why do you say your sister-in-law was a witch?”
“The schismatic woman? Because she was a witch, lady.”
“I never saw anything like your obstinacy, Kalliopé. She was your sister-in-law, and she was not a witch.”
“But, lady mine, she bewitched my brother!”