"I never accused them of being interested in our concerns; but if they were, they might tell strange tales. Supposing they could read our hearts for instance?"
She glanced up and met his eye. They looked at each other hard. She gasped; whatever the stars might know, they had read each other's secret.
There was a noise of someone running up-stairs. It was the housekeeper.
"The carriage has returned," said Savrola in a quiet voice. "It can now take you back to the palace."
The old woman stepped out on to the roof, breathing hard from her climb. "I have aired the sheets," she said with exultation in her voice, "and the fire is burning brightly. There is some soup ready for the young lady, if she will come and take it, before it gets cold."
The interruption was so commonplace that both Lucile and Savrola laughed. It was a happy escape from an awkward moment. "You always manage, Bettine," he said, "to make everyone comfortable; but after all the bedroom will not be needed. My niece is afraid lest her mother be alarmed at her absence, and I am going to send her back in the carriage so soon as it returns."
The poor old soul looked terribly disappointed; the warm sheets, the cosy fire, the hot soup were comforts she loved to prepare for others, enjoying them, as it were, by proxy. She turned away and descended the narrow staircase mournfully, leaving them again alone.
So they sat and talked, not as before, but with full knowledge of their sympathy, while the moon climbed higher in the sky and the soft breezes stirred the foliage of the palm-trees in the garden below. Neither thought much of the future, nor did they blame the coachman's delay.
At length the silence of the night, and the train of their conversation were broken by the noise of wheels on the stony street.
"At last," said Savrola without enthusiasm. Lucile rose and looked over the parapet. A carriage approached almost at a gallop. It stopped suddenly at the door, and a man jumped out in a hurry. The door-bell rang loudly.