"Yes, and to me one of the strangest features of the affair is, that Sir Everard's symptoms seem almost precisely similar to my uncle's."
Burgo drew a long breath. "Is that indeed so?" he said.
For a moment or two they gazed into each other's eyes, Dacia's slowly dilating the while, reading there, perchance, what neither of them cared to express in words.
"Then you can no longer wonder, Miss Roylance," continued Burgo, "at my burning anxiety to rescue my uncle from the fate which, as it seems to me, is but too surely overtaking him."
"I did not wonder from the first," she said gently. "It is only of late that my eyes have begun to open by degrees to certain things. And even now I can scarcely believe that---- No, no; it is altogether too terrible for belief!"
For a little space she covered her face with her hands, and Burgo could see that her shoulders were heaving with suppressed emotion. He made believe to be busying himself with the lamp, while giving her time to recover her composure.
"Does it not seem a strange thing, Mr. Brabazon," said Dacia, presently, "that all through my uncle's illness, which lasted over three months, I was never allowed to help in nursing him, although again and again I begged to be let do so? An old woman, an Italian, and her ladyship that is now (I never have, and I never will call her 'aunt'), took it in turns to watch by him, and would not permit me to go near him unless one or other of them was in the room at the time. And now it is the same in the case of Sir Everard. I would so gladly help to wait upon him, and do all that lies in my power to relieve the others. But, as before, I am thrust aside, and except her ladyship and Vallance no one is allowed to go near him."
"It is nothing fresh to me to be told that Lady Clinton is the most devoted of nurses," said Burgo, meaningly. "I heard the same thing from my uncle's own lips. I am afraid, Miss Roylance, that you fail to sufficiently appreciate her affectionate solicitude in not permitting you to risk your health by tending the bedside of a sick old man. But about this Signor Sperani--what object has brought him to Garion Keep?"
"To me his object is plain enough, although up till now neither he nor his sister have so much as hinted at it. It is neither more nor less than to gradually ingratiate himself with me, with the ultimate view of persuading me to become his wife. Oh, I am neither so blind nor so simple as they take me to be!"
"What a vile plot!" was Burgo's sole comment. Indeed, he hardly knew what to say.