"Do not be long."
"Can you not bear a parting of five minutes?" he asked with a smile.
"One minute is too long, Paul."
Seating Barbara upon a fragment of rock, Paul hastened over the grassy upland in the direction of the classic ruin, which was distant about a quarter of a mile from the shore.
At the edge of a small wood that intervened between himself and the temple, he paused for a moment to listen to Barbara, who was singing in a sweet plaintive voice the hymn to the Virgin accustomed to be sung in her convent at vesper hour.
"Fading, still fading, the last beam is shining.
Ave Maria! day is declining:
Safety and innocence fly with the light:
Temptation and danger walk forth with the night:
From the fall of the shade till the matin shall chime