in reply to you?"
"She said nothing in reply."
"Thank you, Mr. Barberini. I have no more to ask you."
The day finished with journalists scrambling to escape with their reports and seize the first hansoms available to race to Fleet Street Outside, crowds filled the pavements, jostling and elbowing to see the chief protagonists. Cabs and carriages were brought to a halt in the street. Coachmen were shouting. Newsboys' voices were lost in the general noise. No one wanted to hear news about the war in China, Mr. Gladstone's financial proposals, or even Mr. Darwin's blasphemous and heretical notions about the origins of man. There was a passionate human drama playing itself out a few yards away, love and hate, loyalty, sacrifice and an accusation of murder.
Gisela came out of the main entrance, escorted down the steps by Harvester on one side and a large footman on the other. Immediately, a cheer went up from the crowd. Several people threw flowers. Scarves fluttered in the brisk October air, and men waved their hats.
"God bless the Princess!" someone called out, and the cry was taken up by dozens, and then scores.
She stood still, a small, thin figure of immense dignity, her huge black skirt seeming almost to hold her up with its sweeping stiffness, as if it were solid. She waved back with a tiny gesture, then permitted herself to be assisted up to her carriage, plumed and creped in black and drawn by black horses, and moved slowly away.
Zorah's departure was as different as could be. The crowds were still there, still pressing forward, eager for a glimpse of her, but their mood had changed to one of ugliness and abuse. Nothing was thrown, but Rathbone found himself clenching as if to dodge and instinctively placing himself between Zorah and the crowd.
He almost hustled her to the hansom, and climbed in after her rather than leave her alone, in case the crowd should bar the way and the cabby be unable to make a path into the clearway of the street.
But only one woman pushed forward, shouting unintelligibly, her voice shrill with hatred. The horse was startled and lunged forward, knocking her off balance. She shrieked.
"Get outta the way, yer stupid cow!" the cabby yelled, frightened and taken by surprise himself as the reins were all but yanked out of his grasp. "Sorry, ma'am," he apologized to Zorah.
Inside the vehicle, Rathbone was jolted against the sides, and Zorah bumped into him and kept her balance only with difficulty.
A moment later they were moving smartly and the angry shouts were behind them. Zorah regained her composure swiftly. She looked straight ahead without rearranging her skirts, as though to do so would be to acknowledge a difficulty and she would not do that.
Rathbone thought of a dozen things to say, and changed his mind about all of them. He looked sideways at Zorah's face. At first he was not sure if he could see fear in it or not. A dreadful thought occurred to him that perhaps she sought this. The rush of blood, the excitement, the danger might be intoxicants to her. She was the center of attention, albeit hatred, rage, a will to violence. There were some people, a very few, to whom any sort of fame is better than none. To be ignored is a type of death, and it terrifies, it is an engulfing darkness, an annihilation. Anything is better, even loathing.
Was she mad?
If she was, then it was his responsibility to make decisions for her, in her best interest, rather man to allow her to destroy herself, as one would govern a child too young to be answerable. One had a duty to the insane, a legal obligation apart from a humanitarian one. He had been treating her as someone capable of rational judgment, a person able to foresee the results of her actions. Perhaps she was not. Perhaps she was under a compulsion and he had been quite wrong to do so, remiss in his duty both as a lawyer and as a man.
He studied her face. Was that calm he saw in her an inability to understand what had happened and foresee it would get worse?
He opened his mouth to speak, and then did not know what he was going to say.
He looked down at her hands. They were clenched on her skirt, the leather gloves pulled shiny across the knuckles, both hands shaking. He looked up at her face again and knew that the eyes staring