For a second time that night they stood side by side looking upon darkness and the spangled sky. Only there was no courtyard with its signs of habitation. Clementina drew herself away suddenly from the sill. Wogan at once copied her example.
"You saw—?" he began.
"No one," said she, bending her dark eyes full upon him. "Will you close the shutter?"
Wogan drew back instinctively. He had a sense that this open window, though there was no one to spy through it, was in some way a security. Suppose that he closed it! That mere act of shutting himself and her apart, though it gave not one atom more of privacy, still had a semblance of giving it. He was afraid. He said,—
"There is no need. Who should spy on us? What would it matter if we were spied upon?"
[pg 289]
"I ask you to close that shutter."
From the quiet, level voice he could infer nothing of the thought behind the request; and her unwavering eyes told him nothing.
"Why?"