“What do you there, Virginia?” I asked her.  “What do you need of me?”

“Your pardon,” she said; and I heard her crying softly to herself in the dark.

“My child,” I said, and held out my hand to her, “you know that I am no man to have pardons worth a woman’s accepting, but I can assure you of Aurelia’s pity and pardon for what you have said against her.  Draw near and you shall have it from my hands.”

The straw rustled as she crept on hands and knees towards me.  Her face encountered my hands and rested between them.  It was burning hot, and so were her lips, which kissed my palms alternately and thirstily as if she were lapping water.  “Forgive me, my lord, forgive me,” she urged me.  “Oh, I am dreadfully ashamed!  Forgive me this once, I am wretched.”

“Child,” I said, “think no more of it.  I have no grudge against you—­all my thoughts are kindly.  Lie down, Virginia, and sleep.  Our friendship is too strong for a tiff to break it.”  She kissed my palms again and again and crept off the straw.  I heard her shut the door of the stable after her.  Where she passed the night I know not; but I remarked that in our subsequent wanderings she never let me know how or where she did sleep.  She met me next morning, her usual cool, nonchalant, reasonable self.

CHAPTER XVII

ERCOLE AT THE FAIR

If needs must have it that I was to accommodate crime by falling into it myself, it would appear that I was to do it with a certain air.  When I awoke I found a very decent suit of black prepared for me against the proceedings of the day:  a ribbon for my hair, shoes, shoebuckles, silk stockings, ruffles, a neat cravat edged with lace.  Thus attired, I was to be Fra Palamone’s secretary and lieutenant, to hold his devotional objects, pass them about for inspection, praise them discreetly, and take the money.  Virginia was to play the country girl, who, by simple ardour and appropriate questioning, was to excite general interest and stimulate the sale.  She, too, had a new gown and stomacher, and looked so well that, the frate said, it was quite on the cards that half his stock would be bought for her by enamoured contadini, and thus brought into circulation over and over again.  It was noticeable that far less time was spent upon her instructions than upon mine.  Fra Palamone was not at all sure how far I should prove amenable.

Crime, however, by which I mean an unfailing fount of ready lying, was a more difficult accomplishment than I had reckoned it.  I had no notion when I began what hard work it could be.  It was not for want of an exemplar, for although Fra Palamone sweated as he lied, it would be impossible to relate the quantity, the quality or quiddity of his lies.  Their variety was indeed admirable, but apart from that they shocked me not a little, for I could not but see that as ready a way as any of discrediting