"Yes. The pilgrims to the shrine often saw a thin hand thrust through the window with a hedge sparrow or thrush perched upon it, and the rabbits, there were numbers of them, here, would come when he called, and let him feed them with the remains of his frugal fare. One day the village people received no answer when they called to him, not even the Pax Vobiscum, which amply repaid them for their pious charity. They waited two days, and then they entered the cell, and found him lying dead on his stone pallet, and a wild dove was resting on his breast. It flew away as they entered, but it was seen hovering about the cell for years afterward, and the Portmaris people say that a dove is always near here, even now."
If Yorke had read the story of the Hermit of St. Martin in a book—he didn't read many books, unfortunately—it would not have affected him at all, but told by this lovely girl, in a voice hushed with sympathetic awe and reverence, it moves him strangely.
"It's a pity there are not more hermits," he says, "a pity a man can't leave the world in which he has made himself such a nuisance, and have a little time to be quiet and repent."
"Yes, your grace," assents Leslie.
He looks at her quickly, and then away to the sea again.
"I wonder whether you'd be offended if I asked a favor of you, Miss Lisle."
"What is it?" she says, lightly. "In the old times the proper reply was, 'Yea, unto half my kingdom,' but I haven't any kingdom."
"Oh, it isn't much," he says. "I was only going to ask you if you would be kind enough not to address me as 'your grace.'"
Leslie looks at him with her slow smile, and a faint blush.
"Is it wrong?" she asks, apologetically. "I didn't know. You see, I have not met many dukes."