Abruptly she rose. "It is fate," she remarked, her eyes greedy.
His glance, as he stood there, proud and stern, cut her sharply. "Say cupidity, Nanette!" he laughed softly. "It is more profitable not to betray me. In the one case you get much; in the other, little."
"Stay here," she replied, hastily. "I'll fetch the horse." And vanished.
A moment he remained, then resolutely turning to the door through which she had disappeared, opened it, and found himself in a combined sleeping-room and stable; a dark apartment, with floor of hardened earth and a single window, open to wind and weather. The atmosphere in this chamber for man and beast was impregnated with the smell of mold and dry-rot, mingled with the livelier effluvium of dirt and grime of years; but amid the malodor and mustiness, on a couch under the window, slumbered and snored the false Franciscan monk. By his side was a tankard, half-filled with stale sack, and in his hand he clutched a gold piece as though he had had an intimation it would be safer there than elsewhere on his person during the pot-valiant sleep he had deliberately courted. His hood had fallen back, displaying a bullet head, red cheeks and purple nose, while the wooden beads of this sottish counterfeit of a friar trailed from his girdle on the ground. From a stall in a far corner a large, bony-looking nag turned its head reproachfully, as if mentally protesting against such foul quarters and the poor company they offered. Its melancholy whinny upon the appearance of the woman was a sigh for freedom; a sad suspiration to the memory of radiant clover fields or poppy-starred meadows.
"Why, here's a holy man worn out by too many paternosters," commented the duke's fool, standing on the threshold; and then gazed from the gold piece in the monk's hand to the woman. "I need not ask where you got the silver, Nanette. 'Tis a chain of evidence leading—where?"
The gipsy replied only with dark looks, regarding his intrusion in this inner sanctuary as a fresh provocation for her just displeasure. The jester, however, paid no attention to these signs of new acerbity on her face.
Crossing to the couch, he shook the monk vigorously, but the latter only held his piece of money tighter like a miser whose treasure is threatened, and snored the louder. Again the fool essayed to waken him, and this time he opened his eyes, felt for his beads and commenced to mutter a prayer in Latin words, strung together in meaningless phrases.
"Why," commented the jester, "his learning is as false as his cloak. Wake up, sirrah! Would you approach Heaven's gate with a feigned prayer on your lips and a toss-pot in your hand?"
"Christe tuum—I absolve you! I absolve you!" muttered the friar. "Go your way in peace."
"Hear me, thou trumped-up monk; do you want another piece of gold?"