Here Mrs. Alford interrupted.
“But you don’t recollect what happened to you when you were away, until you were found wandering near Petersfield. Tell us, dear.”
“No—no, not exactly,” the girl answered. “All I recollect is that it was all red, green and gold—oh! such bright dazzling colours—red, green and gold! At first they were glorious—until—until sight of them blinded me—they seemed to burn into my brain—eh!” And she drew back and placed her right arm across her eyes as though to shut out from her gaze something that appalled her. “There they are!” she shrieked. “I see them again—always the same, day and night—red, green and gold!—red, green and gold!”
I exchanged glances with the woman Alford. It was apparent that the shock the girl had sustained had been somehow connected with the colours red, green and gold.
I tried to obtain from her some faint idea of the nature of what she had witnessed, but she was quite unable to explain. That she had fallen victim to some deep-laid plot was evident.
She remembered much of her visit to Florence, I found, for when I recalled the great Duomo, where I had first seen her with Moroni, she became quite talkative and told me how much she admired the magnificent monuments—the Battistero, the Bigallo, Giotto’s campanile and the magnificent pictures in the Pitti and Uffizi.
Moroni had apparently also taken her to Rome, presumably to consult another Italian professor, for she spoke vaguely of the Corso and St. Peter’s and described the Forum in such a manner that she must have visited it.
While I sat chatting with her it struck me that in the blank state of her mind certain things stood out very prominently—a mental state well known to alienists—while others were entirely blotted out.
I referred to the millionaire who lived in Stretton Street, but again she declared, and with truth, that she had no recollection of him.