Godfrey, who experienced a curious feeling of exhaustion and of emptiness of brain, yawned and apologized for having fallen asleep, whereon the professor and the colonel both assured him that it was quite natural on so warm a day. Only Madame Riennes smiled like a sphinx, and asked him if his dreams were pleasant. To this he replied that he remembered none.
Miss Ogilvy, however, who looked rather anxious and guilty, did not speak at all, but busied herself with the tea which Godfrey thought very strong when he drank it. However, it refreshed him wonderfully, which, as it contained some invigorating essence, was not strange. So did the walk in the beautiful garden which he took afterwards, just before the carriage came to drive him back to Kleindorf.
Re-entering the drawing-room to say goodbye, he found the party engaged listening to the contents of a number of sheets of paper closely written in pencil, which were being read to them by Colonel Josiah Smith, who made corrections from time to time.
"/Au revoir/, my young brother," said Madame Riennes, making some mysterious sign before she took his hand in her fat, cold fingers, "you will come again next Sunday, will you not?"
"I don't know," he answered awkwardly, for he felt afraid of this lady, and did not wish to see her next Sunday.
"Oh! but I do, young brother. You will come, because it gives me so much pleasure to see you," she replied, staring at him with her strange eyes.
Then Godfrey knew that he would come because he must.
"Why does that lady call me 'young brother'?" he asked Miss Ogilvy, who accompanied him to the hall.
"Oh! because it is a way she has. You may have noticed that she called me 'sister'."
"I don't think that I shall call /her/ sister," he remarked with decision. "She is too alarming."
"Not really when you come to know her, for she has the kindest heart and is wonderfully gifted."
"Gifts which make people tell others that they are going to die are not pleasant, Miss Ogilvy."
She shivered a little.
"If her spirit--I mean the truth--comes to her, she must speak it, I suppose. By the way, Godfrey, don't say anything about this talisman and the story you told of it, at Kleindorf, or in writing home."
"Why not?"
"Oh! because people like your dear old Pasteur, and clergymen generally, are so apt to misunderstand. They think that there is only one way of learning things beyond, and that every other must be wrong.
Also I am sure that your friend, Isobel Blake, would laugh at you."
"I don't write to Isobel," he exclaimed setting his lips.
"But you may later," she said smiling. "At any rate you will promise, won't you?"
"Yes, if you wish it, Miss Ogilvy, though I can't see what it matters.
That kind of nonsense often comes into my head when I touch old things. Isobel says that it is because I have too much imagination."
"Imagination! Ah! what is imagination? Well, goodbye, Godfrey, the carriage will come for you at the same time next Sunday. Perhaps, too, I shall see you before then, as I am going to call upon Madame Boiset."
Then he went, feeling rather uncomfortable, and yet interested, though what it was that interested him he did not quite know. That night he dreamed that Madame Riennes stood by his bed watching him with her burning eyes. It was an unpleasant dream.
He kept his word. When the Boiset family, especially Madame, cross-examined him as to the details of his visit to Miss Ogilvy, he merely described the splendours of that opulent establishment and the intellectual character of its guests. Of their mystic attributes he said nothing at all, only adding that Miss Ogilvy proposed to do herself the honour of calling at the Maison Blanche, as the Boisets'@@house was called.
About the middle of the week Miss Ogilvy arrived and, as Madame had taken care to be at home in expectation of her visit, was entertained to tea. Afterwards she visited the observatory, which interested her much, and had a long talk with the curious old Pasteur, who also interested her in his way, for as she afterwards remarked to Godfrey, one does not often meet an embodiment of human goodness and charity.
When he replied that the latter quality was lacking to the Pasteur where Roman Catholics were concerned, she only smiled and said that every jewel had its flaw; nothing was quite perfect in the world.
In the end she asked Madame and Juliette to come to lunch with her, leaving out Godfrey, because, as she said, she knew that he would be engaged at his studies with the Pasteur. She explained also that she did not ask them to come with him on Sunday because they would be taken up with their religious duties, a remark at which Juliette made what the French call a "mouth," and Madame smiled faintly.
In due course she and her daughter went to lunch and returned delighted, having found themselves fellow-guests of some of the most notable people in Lucerne, though not those whom Miss Ogilvy entertained on Sundays. Needless to say from that time forward Godfrey's intimacy with this charming and wealthy hostess was in every way encouraged by the Boiset family.
The course of this intimacy does not need any very long description.
Every Sunday after church the well-appointed carriage and pair appeared and bore Godfrey away to luncheon at the Villa Ogilvy. Here he always met Madame Riennes, Colonel Josiah Smith, and Professor Petersen; also occasionally one or two others with whom these seemed to be sufficiently intimate to admit of their addressing them as "Brother" or "Sister."