. .I felt so faint. . .
Ah!. . ."
She tottered almost as if she would fall, and Sir Andrew,
quickly recovering himself, and crumpling in his hand the tiny note he
had been reading, was only apparently, just in time to support her.
"You are ill, Lady Blakeney?" he asked with much concern, "Let
me. . ."
"No, no, nothing--" she interrupted quickly. "A
chair--quick."
She sank into a chair close to the table, and throwing back
her head, closing her eyes.
"There!" she murmured, still faintly; "the giddiness is
passing off. . . . Do not heed me, Sir Andrew; I assure you I already
feel better."
At moments like these there is no doubt--and psychologists
actually assert it--that there is in us a sense which has absolutely
nothing to do with the other five: it is not that we see, it is not
that we hear or touch, yet we seem to do all three at once.
Marguerite sat there with her eyes apparently closed. Sir Andrew was
immediately behind her, and on her right was the table with the
five-armed candelabra upon it. Before her mental vision there was
absolutely nothing but Armand's face. Armand, whose life was in the
most imminent danger, and who seemed to be looking at her from a
background upon which were dimly painted the seething crowd of Paris,
the bare walls of the Tribunal of Public Safety, with
Foucquier-Tinville, the Public Prosecutor, demanding Armand's life in
the name of the people of France, and the lurid guillotine with its
stained knife waiting for another victim.
Pages:
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169