From her embroidered bag she drew out a tiny handkerchief, a set of ivory tablets, and, last of all, a long thin key. The monk recognized it at once. It was of old Spanish work, damascened; and Antonio could not doubt that if the Fazenda official had been a less ignorant man he would have ordered a cheap duplicate, so as to keep the original for himself. Isabel drove it into the keyhole; and, a moment later, the well-hung door rolled back on its hinges and the afternoon sun filled the chapel with warm light.
They entered. Nothing had been touched since the moment of Sir Percy's accident. Without a word the monk stepped forward and began putting together the broken framework of the saw. After some hesitation Isabel joined him. Kneeling near his side she sorted out the shattered azulejos and succeeded fairly well in piecing them together.
"What shall we do with them?" she asked. "We have no cement. Besides, I am not sure that my father won't prefer to put them back himself. By the way, don't tell Mrs. Baxter what we've been doing."
"Give them to me," Antonio answered. And, having transferred them to a short plank, he carried the pieces off to his own cell and placed them in the cupboard. The damage to the two tiles was irreparable; but he resolved to puzzle out the secret of their manufacture and to make new ones in their stead.
"We can go now, can't we?" begged Isabel, when he returned to the chapel. There was a dutiful, almost daughterly, submissiveness in her manner which cooed to his pride more softly and winsomely than he knew.
"We can go," he said. "There will be time to take the path over the stepping-stones."
They relocked the chapel and mounted through the wood. Here and there its brown carpet of pine-needles was tawny with flecks and dapplings of mellow sunshine. In a patch of old garden, round an image of Saint Scholastica, they found autumn snowdrops, saffron, and sweet-smelling ranunculus. Overhead a blue gum-tree was in full flower, and all the while the wood hummed and thrilled with the diapason of the hidden torrent.
After they had crossed the stepping-stones Isabel halted, as if to absorb the loveliness of the rippling pool. Antonio remained silent, awaiting her good pleasure. Suddenly she said, without turning her eyes towards his:
"This is the place where I was so disagreeable yesterday morning."
He was too much surprised to reply.