'I fear, Madame, that I intrude upon you,' said the old priest, staring at her with embarrassment. 'I will retire.'
'No, no,' said Eleanor, putting out her hand, with some recovery of her normal voice and smile. 'It was only so—surprising; so—unexpected. Who could have thought of finding you here, Father?'
The priest did not reply. They left the chapel together. The knot of waiting children in the cloister, as soon as they saw Eleanor, raised a shout of glee, and began to run towards her. But the moment they perceived her companion, they stopped dead.
Their little faces darkened, stiffened, their black eyes shone with malice. Then suddenly the boys swooped on the pebbles of the courtyard, and with cries of 'Bestia!—bestia!' they flung them at the priest over their shoulders, as they all fled helter-skelter, the brothers dragging off the sisters, the big ones the little ones, out of sight.
'Horrid little imps!' cried Eleanor in indignation. 'What is the matter with them? I promised them some soldi. Did they hit you, Father?'
She paused, arrested by the priest's face.
'They?' he said hoarsely. 'Did you mean the children? Oh! no, they did no harm?'
What had happened to him since they met last at the villa? No doubt he had been in conflict with his superiors and his Church. Was he already suspended?—excommunicate? But he still wore the soutane?
Then panic for herself swept in upon and silenced all else. All was over with their plans. Father Benecke either was, or might at any moment be, in communication with Manisty. Alas, alas!—what ill-luck!
They walked together to the road—Eleanor first imagining, then rejecting one sentence after another. At last she said, a little piteously: