Page:The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg (1928).djvu/27

 In season she frequently carried a bouquet of tuberoses. She was a middle-aged woman of powerful build and in the circles frequented by Mr. Winnery it was said that she was a seeress and contemplated founding a new and what she chose to call an "eclectic" religion. In May it was her habit to retire to the Villa Leonardo in a lonely valley some miles beyond Monte Salvatore for the sake, it was said, "of meditation and soul growth." Old Mrs. Whitehead, who sought out every newcomer at least once, reported an encounter with Mrs. Weatherby which left her confused and baffled, owing, she said, to the spiritual cast which Mrs. Weatherby insisted upon giving to their brief conversation.

She was always accompanied by a plump and youngish woman dressed in black who appeared to be a sort of companion-secretary. No one had ever heard the name of this lady and she had had speech with no one. It was rumored that she was a deaf-mute.

As the fiacre reached the crest of Monte Salvatore Mr. Winnery's nerves became worn to a fine edge. He began even to think gloomily of suicide. His whole life, he told himself, had been a failure. He had attained the age of fifty-two without anything having happened to him. He had known neither love nor love's twin sister passion, and of late the thought of the experiences which he had overlooked troubled him profoundly. It was becoming a kind of neurasthenia. On its philosophic side he found the thought terrifying. It meant that