She cannot be within your dwelling without your
knowledge; if she be here--then I have found her, my journey is ended,
my wanderings have led me home at last. If she be not here, if I have
been mistaken, I entreat you to let me set eyes on that other whom I
mistook for her, to forgive then my mannerless intrusion and to let me
go."
Unorna had listened with half-closed eyes, but with unfaltering
attention, watching the speaker's face from beneath her drooping lids,
making no effort to read his thoughts, but weighing his words and
impressing every detail of his story upon her mind. When he had done
there was silence for a time, broken only by the plash and ripple of the
falling water.
"She is not here," said Unorna at last. "You shall see for yourself.
There is indeed in this house a young girl to whom I am deeply attached,
who has grown up at my side and has always lived under my roof. She is
very pale and dark, and is dressed always in black."
"Like her I saw."
"You shall see her again. I will send for her." Unorna pressed an ivory
key in the silver ball which lay beside her, attached to a thick cord of
white silk. "Ask Sletchna Axenia to come to me," she said to the servant
who opened the door in the distance, out of sight behind the forest of
plants.
Amid less unusual surroundings the Wanderer would have rejected with
contempt the last remnants of his belief in the identity of Unorna's
companion, with Beatrice.
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