[CHAPTER XIII]
THE CONVENT IN TRASTEVERE
He stared at her speechless, so taken was he with the immensity of the thing she had suggested. Fear, wonder, joy seemed to contend for the mastery.
"Why do you look at me so, Tristan?" she said at last. "What is it that daunts you?"
"But how is this thing possible?" he stammered, still in a state of bewilderment.
"What difficulty does it present?" she returned. "The Lord Basil himself has rendered very possible what I suggest. We may look on him to-morrow as our best friend—"
"But Tebaldo knows," he interposed.
"True! Deem you, he will dare to tell the world what he knows? He might be asked to tell how he came by his knowledge. And that might prove a difficult question to answer. Tell me, Tristan," she continued, "if he had succeeded in carrying me away, what deem you would have been said to-morrow in Rome when the coffin was found empty?"—
"They would naturally assume that your body had been stolen by some wizard or some daring doctor of anatomy."