Part 61 (2/2)

They went round the pillar of the dome to the south transept where there are almost always a number of benches set along the edges of a huge green baize carpet. They sat down together on the end of one of the seats.

”We can go back, by and bye, and hear the music, if you like,” said Francesca. ”The psalms will last some time longer.”

”I would rather sit here and talk, since I have had the good luck to meet you,” answered Lord Redin, resting his elbows on his knees, and idly poking the green carpet with the end of his stick. ”I went to your house, and they told me that you would very probably be here.”

”Yes. I often come. But you know that, for we have met here before. I only stay at home on Sundays when it rains.”

”Oh! Is that the rule?”

”Yes, if you call it a rule,” answered Francesca.

”I like to know about the things you do, and how you spend your life,”

said the Scotchman, thoughtfully.

”Do you? Why? There is nothing very interesting about my existence, it seems to me.”

”It interests me. It makes me feel less lonely to know about some one else--some one I like very much.”

Francesca looked at her companion with an expression of pity. She was lonely, too, but in a different way. The little drama of her life had run sadly and smoothly. She was willing to give the man her friends.h.i.+p if it could help him, rather because he seemed to ask for it in a mute fas.h.i.+on than because she desired his.

”Lord Redin,” she said, after a little pause, ”do you always mean to live in this way?”

”Alone? Yes. It is the only way I can live, at my age.”

”At your age--would it make any difference if you were younger?” asked Francesca. She dropped her voice to a low key. ”You would never marry again, even if you were much younger.”

”Marry!” His shoulders moved with a sort of little start. ”You do not know what you are saying!” he added, almost under his breath, though she heard the words distinctly.

She looked at him again, in silence, during several seconds, and she saw how the colour sank away from his face, till the skin was like old parchment. The hand that held the heavy stick tightened round it and grew yellow at the knuckles.

”Forgive me,” she said gently. ”I am very thoughtless--it is the second time.”

He did not speak for some moments, but she understood his silence and waited. The air was very quiet, and the enormous pillar of the dome almost completely shut off the echo of the distant music. The low afternoon sun streamed levelly through the great windows of the apse, for the basilica is built towards the west. There were very few people in the church that day. The sun made visible beams across the high shadows overhead.

Suddenly Lord Redin spoke again. There was something weak and tremulous in the tone of his rough voice.

”I am very much attached to you, for two reasons,” he said. ”We have known each other long, but not intimately.”

”That is true. Not very intimately.”

Francesca did not know exactly what to say. But for his manner and for his behaviour a few moments earlier, she might have fancied that he was about to offer himself to her, but such an idea was very far from her thoughts. Her woman's instinct told her that he was going to tell her something in the nature of a confidence.

”Precisely,” he continued. ”We have never been intimate. The reason why we have not been intimate is one of the reasons why I am more attached to you than you have ever guessed.”

”That is complicated,” said Francesca, with a smile. ”Perhaps the other reason may be simpler.”

<script>