‘You are right,’ said the lady, earnestly; ‘and you fly from it.’
‘I go for other purposes; I would say even higher ones,’ said Tancred.
‘I can understand you; your feelings are my own. Jerusalem has been the dream of my life. I have always been endeavouring to reach it, but somehow or other I never got further than Paris.’
‘And yet it is very easy now to get to Jerusalem,’ said Tancred; ‘the great difficulty, as a very remarkable man said to me this morning, is to know what to do when you are there.’
‘Who said that to you?’ inquired Lady Bertie and Bellair, bending her head.
‘It was the person I was going to call upon when I met you; Monsieur de Sidonia.’
‘Monsieur de Sidonia!’ said the lady, with animation. ‘Ah! you know him?’
‘Not as much as I could wish. I saw him to-day for the first time. My cousin, Lord Eskdale, gave me a letter of introduction to him, for his advice and assistance about my journey. Sidonia has been a great traveller.’
‘There is no person I wish to know so much as M. de Sidonia,’ said Lady Bertie and Bellair. ‘He is a great friend of Lord Eskdale, I think? I must get Lord Eskdale,’ she added, musingly, ‘to give me a little dinner, and ask M. de Sidonia to meet me.’
‘He never goes anywhere; at least I have heard so,’ said Tancred.