perched, under the open sky, in celestial security.

He had learned to look for the unexpected in Miss Gerald, and he could
not have said that it was with surprise he now found her as capable of
the emotions which the place inspired, as himself. He made sure of
saying: "The earthquake, you know," and she responded with compassion:

"Oh yes; and perhaps that poor man was here, praying with the rest, when
it happened. How strange it must all have seemed to them, here where
they lived so safely always! They thought such a dreadful thing could
happen to others, but not to them. That is the way!"

It seemed to Lanfear once more that she was on the verge of the
knowledge so long kept from her. But she went confidently on like a
sleepwalker who saves himself from dangers that would be death to him in
waking. She spoke of the earthquake as if she had been reading or
hearing of it; but he doubted if, with her broken memory, this could be
so. It was rather as if she was exploring his own mind in the way of
which he had more than once been sensible, and making use of his
memory. From time to time she spoke of remembering, but he knew that
this was as the blind speak of seeing.

He was anxious to get away, and at last they came out to where they had
left the peasant girl waiting beside her donkey. She was not there, and
after trying this way and that in the tangle of alleys, Lanfear decided
to take the thoroughfare which they had come up by and trust to the
chance of finding her at its foot. But he failed even of his search for
the street: he came out again and again at the point he had started
from.