'Abroad so early?' were his first words, a mere tongue-found phrase.
'I was tempted by the fresh morning. It does not displease you, lord Marcian?'
'Nay, I am glad.'
'It is so long,' continued the gentle voice, 'since I was free to walk under the open sky.'
Marcian forgot that his gaze was fixed upon her, forgot that he was silent, forgot the purpose with which he had ridden forth.
'I hoped I might see you to-day,' she added. 'You have yet no news for me?'
'None.'
The blue eyes drooped sadly.
'To-morrow, perhaps,' she murmured. Then, with an effort to seem cheerful, as if ashamed of her troubled thought, 'I had listened so long to a sound of falling water that I could not resist the desire to see it. How beautiful it is!'
Marcian felt surprise; he himself saw the cataract as an object of beauty, but had seldom heard it so spoken of, and could least of all have expected such words on the lips of a woman, dread seeming to him the more natural impression.