Wilfrid forget his hatred in an irresistible desire to catch him by the
arm and look in his face.

"Ah! you have not forsaken me," the greeting leaped out.

"Not now," said Rinaldo.

"Do you think of going?"

"I will speak to you presently, my friend."

"Hound!" cried Wilfrid, and turned his face to the wall.

Until he slept, he heard the rapid travelling of a pen; on his awakening,
the pen vexed him like a chirping cricket that tells us that cock-crow is
long distant when we are moaning for the dawn. Great drops of sweat were
on Rinaldo's forehead. He wrote as one who poured forth a history
without pause. Barto's wife came to the lamp and beckoned him out,
bearing the lamp away. There was now for the first time darkness in this
vault. Wilfrid called Rinaldo by name, and heard nothing but the fear of
the place, which seemed to rise bristling at his voice and shrink from
it. He called till dread of his voice held him dumb. "I am, then, a
coward," he thought. Nor could he by-and-by repress a start of terror on
hearing Rinaldo speak out of the darkness. With screams for the lamp,
and cries that he was suffering slow murder, he underwent a paroxysm in
the effort to conceal his abject horror. Rinaldo sat by his side
patiently. At last, he said: "We are both of us prisoners on equal terms
now." That was quieting intelligence to Wilfrid, who asked eagerly:
"What hour is it?"