Page:Maud Howe - Atlanta in the South.djvu/133

 man stopped before a house in one of the darkest, narrowest streets of the old French quarter. It was a high building of the Spanish time, with light iron balconies at each story, and heavy grated shutters such as the Spaniards love to guard their homes withal.

A woman was standing on the highest of the galleries. She greeted them silently and disappeared. They entered the wide door, and after traversing a long dark passage and crossing a courtyard filled with the heavy perfume of the sweet-olive and the orange-tree, they ascended an open stairway on the outside of the wall which led to an inner balcony. The window was open, and they entered a large bare room where the woman who had signalled them from above stood waiting. For the first time Rondelet saw the face of his guide, and knew it for the face he had seen bending over the grindstone in the little shop. The woman was she who had soothed Therese and begged her to be calm. He understood now to what patient he had been summoned. He heard his name called in a loud, fretful voice from an inner room. The woman pushed him toward an open door, and in a moment he was beside the sick bed. It was Therese. She lay with her splendid hair heaped about, and her bare, beautiful arms twisted above her head. He touched her burning wrist, looked into her