Lucy's eyes filled with tears. She pressed Eleanor's hand without speaking. They clung together in silence each mind full of thoughts unknown to the other. But Eleanor's features relaxed; for a little while she rested, body and mind. And as Lucy lingered in the clasp thrown round her, she seemed for the first time since the old days at the villa to be the cherished, and not the cherisher.
* * * * *
Eleanor went early to bed, and then Lucy took a warm shawl and paced up and down the loggia in a torment of indecision. Presently she was attracted by the little wooden stair which led down from the loggia to what had once been the small walled garden of the convent, where the monks of this austere order had taken their exercise in sickness, or rested in the sun, when extreme old age debarred them from the field labour of their comrades.
The garden was now a desolation, save for a tangle of oleanders and myrtle in its midst. But the high walls were still intact, and an old wooden door on the side nearest to the forest. Beneath the garden was a triangular piece of open grass land sloping down towards the entrance of the Sassetto and bounded on one side by the road.
Lucy wandered up and down, in a wild trance of feeling. Half a mile away was he sitting with Father Benecke?—winning perhaps their poor secret from the priest's incautious lips'? With what eagle-quickness could he pounce on a sign, an indication! And then the flash of those triumphant eyes, and the onslaught of his will on theirs!
Hark! She caught her breath.
Voices! Two men were descending the road. She hurried to hide her white dress, close, under the wall—she strained every sense.
The sputter of a match—the trail of its scent in the heavy air—an exclamation.
'Father!—wait a moment! Let me light up. These matches are damp. Besides I want to have another look at this old place—'
The steps diverged from the road; approached the lower wall of the garden. She pressed herself against its inner surface, trembling in every limb. Only the old door between her and them! She dared not move—but it was not only fear of discovery that held her. It was a mad uncontrollable joy, that like a wind on warm embers, kindled all her being into flame.