'Look!'—said Eleanor, touching Lucy's hand. 'There's the niched wall—and the platform of the temple.'
And Lucy, bending eager brows, saw across the lake a line of great recesses, overgrown and shadowy against the steep slopes or cliffs of the crater, and in front of them a flat space, with one farm-shed upon it.
In the crater-wall, just behind and above the temple-site, was a black vertical cleft. Eleanor pointed it out to Manisty.
'Do you remember we never explored it? But the spring must be there?—Egeria's spring?'
Manisty lazily said he didn't know.
'Don't imagine you will be let off,' said Eleanor, laughing. 'We have settled every other point at Nemi. This is left for to-day. It will make a scramble after tea.'
'You will find it further than you think,' said Manisty, measuring the distance.
'So it was somewhere on that terrace he died—poor priest!'—said Lucy, musing.
Manisty, who was walking beside the carriage, turned towards her. Her little speech flattered him. But he laughed.
'I wonder how much it was worth—that place—in hard cash,' he said, drily.
'No doubt that was the secret of it.'