By the aid of a few small coins the sacristan remembered that Father Felix lodged at the priest's house close by, and offered to fetch him. While he was gone Nigel made the round of the nave, the side-aisles, and the chancel. So lofty was the roof his eye could not pierce the gloom, but the cathedral was of no great extent, the chancel being in fact very nearly as large as the nave. The faint rays of the lantern lit up the carved and polished ages-old woodwork of the choir seats. Beyond was a shadowy land round which he walked in the space of a few minutes.
From the still deeper shadow of a group of pillars Nigel was startled by a woman's sobbing. Out of the great silence of the place it was audible, when his own footfall ceased for an instant, and then it ceased suddenly, as if the woman, learning that she was not alone, had regained command of herself. There ensued a soft murmur as of a recited prayer, one long familiar to her who prayed, and then as of some concluding personal petition, in which Nigel was almost certain that he heard the name of Albrecht von Waldstein. His mind being intent upon this name, that he should think to hear it even in this solemn environment was not in itself strange, but Nigel was inclined to regard the fancied recognition as having something of a supernatural significance.
At this moment the priest and the sacristan entered, and the holy father and his soldier penitent entered the confessional.
When Nigel came out he walked slowly to the door, where he was joined by the priest, who, his office performed, was cheerfully curious as any layman to hear the latest details from Magdeburg. News of the victory of the Church, as every Catholic was bound to esteem it, had reached him. He was willing to hear more, but made no comment. His sympathies, it appeared, were mainly confined to his own surroundings, his personal charge in Erfurt, and did not travel outward to the greater world. He was curious to hear whether the Jesuits were jubilant over the new phase in politics. It was clear that he at least was no Jesuit. The priest secular has always had a certain jealousy of the priest regular.
Nigel received his "Pax vobiscum," and turned away to make for his quarters. A few, and those feeble, lights burned at a distance from the cathedral. There was the blue sky, starlit as when he had entered. Standing still a moment or two to make sure of his direction in this solitary part of the city, he heard a light step beside him, and a tall closely-veiled lady asked him to set her on her way to the Prediger Strasse.
Muffled as the tones were, Nigel recognised them.
"Then it was your ladyship in the cathedral a while ago?"
"Sir! I do not know of what you speak! Can you not point me to the Prediger Strasse?"
"It is useless to pretend! You are she who calls herself Ottilie of Thüringen! And you are of the Holy Catholic faith! I am Nigel Charteris!"
"Had the night been lighter," she said in a tone of vexation, "I should have asked no man! Now I am forced to confide what I wished not to tell; I am of your faith."