Mrs. Travis kept her eyes on the girl during this singular little lecture; she felt the fascination which is exercised by strange mental phenomena.

“Do you know Italy?” Madeline asked, with sudden transition.

“I have travelled through it, like other tourists.”

“You went to Naples?”

“Yes.”

“If I close my eyes, how well I can see Naples!  Now I am walking through the Villa Nazionale.  I come out into the Largo Vittoria, where the palm-trees are—­do you remember?  Now I might go into the Chiatamone, between the high houses; but instead of that I’ll turn down into Via Caracciolo and go along by the sea, till I’m opposite the Castel dell’ Ovo.  Now I’m turning the corner and coming on to Santa Lucia, where there are stalls with shells and ices and fish.  I can smell the Santa Lucia.  And to think that I shall never see it again, never again.—­Don’t stay any longer now, Mrs. Travis.  I can’t talk any more.  Thank you for being so kind.”

In a week’s time it had become a regular thing for Mrs. Travis to spend an hour or two daily with Madeline.  Their conversation was suitable enough to a sick-chamber, yet strangely unlike what is wont to pass in such places.  On Madeline’s side it was thoroughly morbid; on that of her visitor, a curious mixture of unhealthy speculation and pure feeling.  Mrs. Travis was at first surprised that the suffering girl never seemed to think of ordinary religion as a solace.  She herself had no fixity of faith; her mind played constantly with creeds of negation; but she felt it as an unnatural thing for one of Madeline’s age to profess herself wholly without guidance on so dark a journey.  And presently she began to doubt whether the profession were genuine.  The characteristic of the family was pretence and posing; Mrs. Denyer and Barbara illustrated that every time they spoke.  Not impossibly Madeline did but declare the same tendency in her rambling and quasi-philosophic talk.  She was fond of warning Mrs. Travis against attributing to her the common prejudices of women.  And yet, were it affectation, then the habit must be so inextricably blended with her nature as to have become in practice a genuine motive in the mind’s working.  Madeline would speculate on the difference between one of her “culture” in the circumstances and the woman who is a slave of tradition; and a moment after she would say something so profoundly pathetic that it brought tears to her companion’s eyes.

Mrs. Travis never spoke of her personal affairs; Madeline could supply no food for the curiosity of her mother and sister when they questioned her about the long private conversations.  The lodger received no visitors, and seldom a letter.  In the morning she went out for an hour, generally towards the heath; occasionally she was from home until late at night.  About the quality of the attendance given her she was wholly indifferent; in spite of frequent inconveniences,