The pale tragic figure before me held me incensed against those whose victim she had been, for it seemed that for some distinct reason her mental balance had been wantonly destroyed.
Again and again, as she sat with her hands lying idly in her lap, she stared at the carpet and repeated to herself in a horrified voice those strange words: “Red, green and gold!—red, green and gold!”
“Cannot you recollect about those colours?” I asked her kindly. “Try and think about them. Where did you see them?”
She drew a long breath, and turning her tired eyes upon mine, she replied wearily:
“I—I can’t remember. I really can’t remember anything!”
Sometimes her eyes were fixed straight before her just as I had seen her in the Via Calzajoli in Florence—when I had believed her to be blind. At such times her gaze was vacant, and she seemed to be entirely oblivious to all about her. At others she seemed quite normal, save that she could not recall what had occurred in those days when she was lost to her friends—days when I, too, had been missing and had returned to my senses with my own memory either distorted or blotted out.
Could it be that the same drug, or other diabolical method, had been used upon us both, and that I, the stronger of the two, had recovered, while she still remained in that half demented state?
It certainly seemed so. Hence the more I reflected the more intense became my resolve to fathom the mystery and bring those responsible to justice.
Further, she had been terrified by being told that I intended to come there to kill her! Moroni had purposely told her that, evidently in anticipation that we might meet! He had pointed me out in Florence and warned her that I was her bitterest enemy. Was it therefore any wonder that she would not tell me more than absolutely obliged?