"Well?" he said at length, since she still lingered in her silence.
"How much one may learn in a day," she answered, drawing her white palfrey nearer to his horse.
Fulviac agreed with her.
"The man on the end of the rope," he said, "learns in two minutes that which has puzzled philosophers since Adam loved Eve."
She turned to him with an eagerness that was almost passionate even in its suppressed vigour.
"How long was it before you came to pity your fellows?"
"Some minutes, not more."
"And the conversion?"
"Shall satisfy you one day. For the present I will buckle up so unsavoury a fable in my bosom. Tell me what you have learnt at Gilderoy."
Yeoland looked at the moon. The man saw great sadness upon her face, but also an inspired radiance that made its very beauty the more remarkable. He foresaw in an instant that they were coming to deeper matters. Superficialities, the mannerisms of life, were falling away. The girl's heart beat near to his; he felt a luminous sympathy of spirit rise round them like the gold of a Byzantine background.