She looked up at me, her pale face dim as a spirit's in the dark.
“Shame!” she stammered brokenly. “To force me like this—you, who have—”
“Done nothing except love you too well; and you must give me the chance to win you back. You owe it to me,” I said almost fiercely; and she was silenced.
“Monica! where are you?” I heard Lady Vale-Avon's voice call, and could have thanked her for giving me the direction to avoid.
“Take us to that empty chapel quickly,” I said to the man. Then he, who would have known how to find his way in that stone forest blindfold, steered us through the sea of people, and into a haven beyond the waves. Not a chapel was lighted; but as my eyes grew used to the gloom I could see faces on the other side of the tall, shut gates of openwork iron which we passed.
“I have the key of this one. I will promise the people a better place if they'll come out,” whispered the messenger, stopping before a pair of these closed doors, and unlocking it with a great key.
I heard him speciously informing a group of shadows that [pg 258]they would be too far from the music to hear it well. He had a friend who would open another chapel nearer. Eagerly ten or twenty persons snapped at the bait, flocked out, and the instant their backs were turned, I half dragged, half carried Monica in. Then before she could escape, if she had wished to try, the great iron gates were shut and locked upon us.
“They will be looking everywhere for you,” I said. “Come with me to the back where it is so dark that no one can see us. This chapel must seem to be empty.”
“I want to be found,” the girl answered cruelly. “I'm going to marry the Duke.”
“If you love him and not me, I shan't lift my hand to keep you,” I said. “The other night I believed it was so, and made up my mind to trouble you no more. But Miss O'Donnel said—”