"Viola!"
Out of the darkness it came.
"Viola!"
She stopped and began to tremble. Who--what--could be calling her by
name, here, in the night? She heard the sound of oars plainly now. Then
she saw a thing like a black shadow. It was the prow of an advancing
boat. She sat quite still, with her hands on the oars. The boat came on
till she could see the figure of one man in it, standing up, and rowing,
as the Italian boatmen do when they are alone, with his face set towards
the prow. A few strong strokes and it was beside her, and she was looking
into Rupert Carey's eyes.
CHAPTER XXI
SHE sat still without saying anything. It seemed to her as if she were on
the platform at Manchester House singing the Italian song. Then the
disfigured face of Carey--disfigured by vice as hers now by the
accident--had become as nothing to her. She had seen only his eyes. She
saw only his eyes now. He remained standing up in the faint light with
the oars in his hands looking at her. Round about them tinkled the bells
above the nets.
"You heard me call?" he said at last, almost roughly.
She nodded.
"How did you--?" she began, and stopped.
"I was there this evening when you came in. I heard your boy singing. I
was under the shadow of the woods."
"Why?"
All this time she was gazing into Carey's eyes, and had not seen in them
that he was looking, for the first time, at her altered face.
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