kness enclosing
them stirred impulses which their daily intercourse had subdued, and in
the sense of her nearness he lost sight of the conditions which had
brought them together. The feeling seemed to communicate itself; for as
the gondola rounded the angle of the convent-wall and swung out on the
open, she drooped toward him with the turn of the boat and their lips
met under the loosened masks.

At the same instant the light of the Virgin's shrine in the corner of
the convent-wall fell through the window of the felze on the face lifted
to Odo's; and he found himself suddenly confronted by the tender eyes
and malicious smile of Sister Mary of the Crucifix.

"By Diana," she cried as he started back, "I did but claim my pay in
advance; nor do I think that, when she knows all, Sister Veronica will
grudge me my reward!"

He continued to stare at her in speechless bewilderment, and she went on
with a kind of tender impatience: "You simpleton, can you not guess that
you were watched, and that but for me your Veronica would at this moment
be lying under lock and key in her cell? Instead of which," she
continued, speaking more slowly, and leaning back as though to enjoy the
full savour of his suspense, "instead of which she now awaits you in a
safe nook of my choosing, where, within half an hour's time, you may
atone to her with interest for the infidelity into which I have betrayed
you."

"She knows, then?" Odo faltered, not daring to say more in his ignorance
of Sister Mary's share in the secret.

Sister Mary shook her head with a tantalising laugh. "That you are
coming? Alas, no, poor angel! She fancies that she has been sent from
the convent to avoid you--as indeed she was, and by the Reverend
Mother's own order, who, it seems, had wind of the intrigue this
morning. But, the saints be praised, the excellent sister who was
ordered to attend her is in my pay and instead of conducting her to her
relatives of San Barnado, who were to keep her locked up over night,
has, if I mistake not, taken her to a good woman of my acquaintance--an
old servant, in fact--who will guard her as jealously as the family
plate till you and I come to her release."

As she spoke she put out her head and gave a whispered order to the
gondolier; and at the word the boat swung round and headed for the city.

In the violent reaction which this strange encounter produced, Odo was
for the moment incapable of taking any clear note of his surroundin