“Si,” she replied, quite as sullenly, and without looking up.

But when her hand was taken and other words were uttered, she that had crouched there so long between death and life immovable, loving neither, rose possessed of a passion for the darkness and the void, and struggling bitterly with the detaining hand, crying for instant death.  No strength was in her to support the fury.

“Merthyr Powys is with you,” said her friend, “and will never leave you.”

“Will never take me up there?” Emilia pointed to the noisy level above them.

“Listen, and I will tell you how I have found you,” replied Merthyr.

“Don’t force me to go up.”

She spoke from the end of her breath.  Merthyr feared that it was more than misery, even madness, afflicting her.  He sat on the wharf-bench silent till she was reassured.  But at his first words, the eager question came:  “You will not force me to go up there?”

“No; we can stay and talk here,” said Merthyr.  “And this is how I have found you.  Do you suppose you have been hidden from us all this time?  Perhaps you fancy you do not belong to your friends?  Well, I spoke to all of your ‘children,’ as you used to call them.  Do you remember?  The day before yesterday two had seen you.  You said to one, ’From Savoy or Piedmont?’ He said, ‘From Savoy;’ and you shook your head:  ’Not looking on Italy!’ you said.  This night I roused one of them, and he stretched his finger down the steps, saying that you had gone down there.  ’Sei buon’ Italiano?” you said.  “And that is how I have found you.  Sei buon’ Italiana?”

Emilia let her hand rest in Merthyr’s, wondering to think that there should be no absolute darkness for a creature to escape into while living.  A trembling came on her.  “Let me look over at the water,” she said; and Merthyr, who trusted her even in that extremity, allowed her to lean forward, and felt her grasp grow moist in his, till she turned back with shudders, giving him both her hands.  “A drowned woman looks so dreadful!” Her speech was faint as she begged to be taken away from that place.  Merthyr put his hand to her arm-pit, sustaining her steps.  As they neared the level where men were, she looked behind her and realized the black terrors she had just been blindly handling.  Fright sped her limbs for a second or two, and then her whole weight hung upon Merthyr.  He held her in both arms, thinking that she had swooned, but she murmured:  “Have you heard that my voice has gone?”

“If you have suffered, I do not wonder,” he said.

“I am useless.  My voice is dead.”

“Useless to your friends?  Tush, my little Emilia!  Sandra mia!  Don’t you know that while you love your friends that’s all they want of you?”

“Oh!” she moaned; “the gas-lamp hurts me.  What a noise there is!”

“We shall soon get away from the noise.”

“No; I like it; but not the light.  Oh, my feet!—­why are you walking still?  What friends?”