avoiding their scope, pairs of lovers of the commoner class sneaked to
and fro under the trees. Whether the presence of these recalled early
memories which Sir George's fastidiousness found unpalatable, or he felt
his fashion, smirched by the vulgarity of this Venus-walk, his
impatience grew; and was not far from bursting forth when his guide
turned sharply into an alley behind the cathedral, and, after threading
a lane of mean houses, entered a small court.

The place, though poor and narrow, was not squalid. Sir George could see
so much by the light which shone from a window and fell on a group of
five or six persons, who stood about the nearest door and talked in low,
excited voices. He had a good view of one man's face, and read in it
gloom and anger. Then the group made way for the girl, eyeing her, as he
thought, with pity and a sort of deference; and cursing the folly that
had brought him into such a place and situation, wondering what on
earth it all meant or in what it would end, he followed her into
the house.

She opened a door on the right-hand side of the narrow passage, and led
the way into a long, low room. For a moment he saw no more than two
lights on a distant table, and kneeling at a chair beside them a woman
with grey dishevelled hair, who seemed to be praying, her face hidden.
Then his gaze, sinking instinctively, fell on a low bed between him and
the woman; and there rested on a white sheet, and on the solemn
outlines--so certain in their rigidity, so unmistakable by human
eyes--of a body laid out for burial.



CHAPTER II