To which she made no reply, though in her silence he found no sign of ungraciousness, and was more attracted than repelled thereby.
He remained beside her without speaking until the irritable, uneven tread of feet in the corridor warned them of the Bishop’s return; then again he looked at her and found her eyes upon him.
“Thank you very much for all your kindness,” she said. “Please—will you go now?”
“You wish it?” he said.
“Yes.” Just the one word, spoken with absolute simplicity!
He lingered on the step. “I shall see you again?”
He saw her brows move upwards very slightly. “Quite possibly,” she said.
He turned from her with finality. “I shall,” he said, and passed out without a backward glance into the hot sunshine of the Palace garden.
CHAPTER III
A BUSINESS PROPOSITION
There was a sheet of water in the Palace garden, fed by a bubbling spring. Cypress and old yew trees grew along its banks, and here and there the crumbling ruins of an old monastery that had once adjoined the Cathedral showed ivy-covered along the path that wound beside it. It was said that the frocked figure of an ancient friar was wont to pace this path in the moonlight, but none who believed the superstition ever had the courage to verify it.