Maria Dolores was silent for a little.  They had come to the southern end of the cloisters, where the buttresses of the Castle walls, all shaggy-mantled in a green overgrowth of creepers, fall precipitously away, down the steep face of a natural cliff.  They stopped here, and stood looking off.  The rain had held up, though the valley was still misty with its vapours.  Whiffs of velvety air, warm and sweet, blew in their faces, lightly stirred the dark hair about her brow, and, catching the flowery edge of her black lace mantilla, set it fluttering.

“That is a very good story,” she said, by-and-by, with a sober glance, behind which there was the glint of laughter.  “In view of it, however, I suppose there will be no use in my delivering a message I am charged with for you from my friend Frau Brandt.”

“Oh?” questioned John.  “What message?”

“Frau Brandt has received from the owner of the Castle the privilege of hearing Mass from the tribune; and she wished me to invite you in her name hereafter to hear Mass from there with us.  But I suppose, in view of your ‘lesson,’ that is an invitation which you will decline?” The glint of laughter shone brighter in her eyes, and her mouth had a tiny pucker, amiably derisive.

John looked at her, his blue eyes bold.

“That is an invitation which I am terribly tempted to accept,” he said, in a voice of unconcealed emotion, of patent meaning; and beneath his bold gaze, her dark eyes dropped, while I think a blush faintly swept her cheeks.  “And first of all,” he added, “pray express to Frau Brandt my grateful thanks for it—­and let me thank you also for your kindness in conveying it.  If, in spite of my temptation, I don’t accept it, that will be for a very special reason, and one quite unconnected with my ‘lesson.’”

Maria Dolores probably knew her danger.  She turned, and began to walk backwards, towards the point where you can pass from the cloisters, through the great porte-cochere, into the garden, and so on to the pavilion beyond the clock.  She probably knew her danger; but she was human, but she was a woman.  Besides, she had reached the porte-cochere, and thus commanded a clear means of escape.  So, coming to a standstill here, “What is the very special reason?” she asked, in a low voice, keeping her eyes from his.

His were bolder than ever.  Infinite admiration of her burned in them, infinite delight in her, desire for her; at the same time a kind of angry hopelessness darkened them, and a kind of bitter amusement, as of one amused at his own sad plight.

“I wish I were rich,” he exclaimed, irritably, between his teeth.

“Oh?  Is that the very special reason?” asked she, with two notes of laughter.

“No,” said he, “but it has a connection with it.  You see, I’m in love.”

“Yes,” said she.  “I remember your telling me so.”

“Well, I wish I were rich,” said he.  “Then I might pluck up courage to ask the woman I love to be my wife.”