a right to look at me as I’ve seen you sometimes when you thought I was asleep.  If I hadn’t been ill he’d never have left you.  I don’t blame you, Chris—­not I!  You love me?  I know that, my dear.  But one’s alone when it comes to the run-in.  Don’t cry!  Our minds aren’t Sunday-school books; you’re finding it out, that’s all!” He sighed and turned away.

The noise of sun-blinds being raised vibrated through the house.  A feeling of terror seized on the girl; he lay so still, and yet the drawing of each breath was a fight.  If she could only suffer in his place!  She went close, and bent over him.

“It’s air we want, both you and I!” he muttered.  Christian beckoned to the nurse, and stole out through the window.

A regiment was passing in the road; she stood half-hidden amongst the lilac bushes watching.  The poplar leaves drooped lifeless and almost black above her head, the dust raised by the soldiers’ feet hung in the air; it seemed as if in all the world no freshness and no life were stirring.  The tramp of feet died away.  Suddenly within arm’s length of her a man appeared, his stick shouldered like a sword.  He raised his hat.

“Good-evening!  You do not remember me?  Sarelli.  Pardon!  You looked like a ghost standing there.  How badly those fellows marched!  We hang, you see, on the skirts of our profession and criticise; it is all we are fit for.”  His black eyes, restless and malevolent like a swan’s, seemed to stab her face.  “A fine evening!  Too hot.  The storm is wanted; you feel that?  It is weary waiting for the storm; but after the storm, my dear young lady, comes peace.”  He smiled, gently, this time, and baring his head again, was lost to view in the shadow of the trees.

His figure had seemed to Christian like the sudden vision of a threatening, hidden force.  She thrust out her hands, as though to keep it off.

No use; it was within her, nothing could keep it away!  She went to Mrs. Decie’s room, where her aunt and Miss Naylor were conversing in low tones.  To hear their voices brought back the touch of this world of everyday which had no part or lot in the terrifying powers within her.

Dawney slept at the Villa now.  In the dead of night he was awakened by a light flashed in his eyes.  Christian was standing there, her face pale and wild with terror, her hair falling in dark masses on her shoulders.

“Save him!  Save him!” she cried.  “Quick!  The bleeding!”

He saw her muffle her face in her white sleeves, and seizing the candle, leaped out of bed and rushed away.

The internal haemorrhage had come again, and Nicholas Treffry wavered between life and death.  When it had ceased, he sank into a sort of stupor.  About six o’clock he came back to consciousness; watching his eyes, they could see a mental struggle taking place within him.  At last he singled Christian out from the others by a sign.