"I hope so, my lady. But I would advise your coming as quickly as
possible."

"Is he conscious?"

"He knew Captain Vanstone this morning, my lady, just before I left."

The man-servant shouldered the crowd aside unceremoniously, so as to
force a passage for Lady Calmady.

"Her ladyship should go up to the villa at once, sir," he said to
General Ormiston. "I had better accompany her. I will leave Andrews to
make all arrangements here. The carriage is waiting."

Then, Honoria beside her, Katherine was aware of the hot glare and hard
shadow, the grind and clatter, the violent colour, the strident
vivacity of the Neapolitan streets, as with voice and whip, Garcia
sprung the handsome, long-tailed, black horses up the steep ascent.
This, followed by the impression of a cool, spacious, and lofty
interior, of mild-diffused light, of pale, marble floors and stairways,
of rich hangings and distinguished objects of art, of the soft, green
gloom of ilex and myrtle, the languid drip of fountains. And this last
served to mark, as with raised finger, the hush,--bland, yet very
imperative--which held all the place. After the ceaseless jar and
tumult of that many-days' journey, here, up at the villa, it seemed as
though urgency were absurd, hot haste of affection a little vulgar, a
little contemptible, all was so composed, so urbane.

And that urbanity, so bland, so, in a way, supercilious, affected
Honoria St. Quentin unpleasantly. She was taken with unreasoning
dislike of the place, finding something malign, trenching on cruelty
even, in its exalted serenity, its unchanging, inaccessible, mask-like
smile. Very certainly the ancient gods held court here yet, the gods
who are careless of human tears, heedless of human woe! And she looked
anxiously at Lady Calmady, penetrated by fear that the latter was about
to be exposed to some insidious danger, to come into conflict with
influences antagonistic and subtly evil. Wicked deeds had been
committed in this fair place, wicked designs nourished and brought to
fruition here. She was convinced of that. Was convinced further that
those designs had connection with and had been directed against Lady
Calmady. The thought of Helen de Vallorbes, exquisite and vicious,--as
she now reluctantly admitted her to be,--was very present to her. As
far as she knew, it was quite a number of years since Helen had set
foot in the villa. Yet it spoke of her, spoke of the more dangerous
aspects of her natu