He came very slowly, with priest-like dignity, yet in his deliberation of movement there was purpose. It was seldom that the Bishop of Burminster performed any action without a definite end in view. There was indeed something almost fatalistic in all that he did. The wandering friar himself who was said to haunt that sleeping garden could not have moved with greater assurance or more studied detachment of pose.

The man and the woman watching him from their hiding-place drew closer together as if in some fashion his coming inspired them with awe. It was true that Montague Rotherby’s lips bore a smile of cynical amusement, as though the situation appealed more to his sense of humour than to any other emotion. But it was not any humorous impulse that moved him to put his hand suddenly and reassuringly through the tense thin arm of the secretary and closely grip it.

She started sharply at his touch, made for a moment as if she would free herself, then stiffened and stood in rigid immobility.

For the Bishop was drawing nearer, and there was resolution as well as protection in Montague’s hold.

Slowly came the advancing figure, and the tension of the two who waited grew acute. Though he smiled, Montague’s teeth were clenched, and there was a glitter of ferocity in his eyes. He formed his plan of action while he waited. If the Bishop passed them by, he would release his companion instantly, bid her begone, and himself cover her retreat.

It was the only feasible plan, and in the morning she would thank him. In the morning she would realize that circumstances had placed her in his debt, and she would be ready to meet the obligation in accordance with his views. She certainly could not flout him or even keep him at a distance after this. Without forcing himself upon her, he had become her intimate friend, and she was not a woman to repudiate an obligation. She would acknowledge with gratitude all that he had done for her.

He no longer questioned with himself as to wherein lay the attraction that drew him. The attraction was there, and he responded to it, without scruple, as he had responded to such all his life. After all, it was no responsibility of his what she chose to do with her life. It was not likely that he was the first man to come into her existence. She knew very well what she was doing, and if she relaxed her guard he had no hesitation in storming her defence. After all, it was but a game, and women were quite as adroit in their moves as men, even more so in some cases, he reflected, though in this one it had certainly so far not been a difficult contest.

Swiftly the thoughts succeeded each other as he watched with a grim vigilance the advancing figure.

The Bishop was close to them now, almost abreast of them. He could see the harsh lines on the thin, ascetic countenance. There was something mediÆval about that iron visage, something that was reminiscent of the Inquisition. This was the type of man who would torture and slay for the fulfilment of an ideal—a man of stern fanaticism, capable of the highest sacrifice, but incapable of that which even a dog may show to his master—the Divine offering of love.

Now he had reached the old yew in the shadow of which they stood, as if he had attained his destination he stood still.

Montague felt a sharp shiver run through his companion’s arm, and he gripped it more closely, with a steady, warning pressure. The Bishop was not looking in their direction. There was yet a chance that he might pass on and leave them unobserved. The situation was ridiculous. They had no reason for concealing themselves. But the instinct, old as mankind, that prompts the two whom Fate has thrown together to avoid the intrusion of a third, the unacknowledged dread of being caught in an equivocal position, the half-formed wish to protect that gleaming, iridescent wonder that is called Romance from the sacrilegious touch of the outside world, all of these impulses had conspired to bring about this absurd concealment which the man found both gratifying and exasperating. To be discovered now would be humiliating, but if the critical moment passed and they were left in peace he recognized that another powerful link would be added to the chain that some caprice had induced him to forge.

As for the woman, he had no clue to her thoughts. He only knew that with her whole soul she hoped to escape undetected.

The Bishop had turned towards the edge of the lake, and was standing there in sombre reflection.

“What on earth is he thinking about?” questioned Montague with himself. “He can’t know we are here! He wouldn’t play such a cad’s game as that.”

Nevertheless his heart misgave him. He had no faith in the Bishop’s sense of fair play. In his own weird fashion he believed him to be even more unscrupulous than he was himself. That any beauty of scene held him in that trance-like stillness he did not believe. He was merely thinking out some fell design for the glory of the fetish he worshipped.

Montague began to grow impatient. Were they to be kept there in suspense all night while he worked out his fantastic problems? He began to consider the possibility of making a move unheard and unseen while the Bishop remained wrapt in meditation. He had passed so close to them without seeing them that it seemed more than possible that an escape could be accomplished without any very serious risk.

He pressed his companion’s arm and was aware of her eyes strangely luminous in the shadow turned towards him in enquiry. By some trick of the moonlight, the pale features took on a sudden unexpected beauty. He saw her in that moment not as the woman she was, faded and weary with the long harassment of overwork and anxiety, but as the woman she might have been, vivid, enchanting, young.... The illusion was so arresting that he forgot his purpose and stood, gazing upon her, bound by a spell that he had not known for years.

There came a sound through the magic stillness—the soft chiming of the quarter from the Cathedral tower. The Bishop stirred as if a hand had been laid upon him, stirred and turned.

His face was in the full moonlight, and it was the face of a denunciatory prophet. He spoke in hollow tones that reached them like a voice of doom.

“As I thought!” he said. “As I might have known! You may come out of your hiding-place. No subterfuge will serve either of you. Go—both of you! Let me never see you again!”

“Damnation!” said Montague.

The vision flashed away from him. He saw only the red fire of his wrath. Then, strangely, the vision returned. He saw her again—a woman of amazing possibilities, a woman to dream about, a woman to love....

He took her cold hand very firmly into his own and led her forth.

She tried to resist him, to free herself. He knew that later. At the time he realized but the one overmastering determination to vindicate himself and her in the eyes of the denunciatory prophet. He strode forward and confronted him.

“Damnation!” he said again, and he flung the word with all the force of his fury. “Who are you to dare to speak to either of us in this strain? What the devil do you mean by it?”

He spoke as one man speaking to another, but the calm gesture of the Bishop’s uplifted hand dispelled the situation before it could be established.

“Who am I?” he said. “I am a priest of the Lord to whom profanity is no more than the vapouring of fools. How do I dare to speak to you thus? I have never flinched from my duty in the bold rebuke of vice. What do I mean? I mean that you and this woman have been detected by me on the very verge of sin. And I tell you to go, because I cannot stop your sinning until you have endured your hell and—if God is merciful—begun to work out your own salvation.”

“The man is mad!” said Montague.

A moment before, he had been in a mood to take him by the throat, but now he paused, arrested by the fanatical fervour of the Bishop’s speech. Quite suddenly he realized that neither argument nor indignation would have the smallest effect. And, curiously, his anger cooled. Any other man he would have hurled into the placid waters of the lake without an instant’s hesitation. But this man was different. Almost involuntarily he accorded him the indulgence which the abnormal can practically always command.

He turned very quietly to the woman whose hand had closed convulsively in his own, but who stood beside him, immobile and emotionless as a statue.

“Miss Thorold,” he said, “I must apologize to you for—quite inadvertently—placing you in this extraordinary situation. The whole thing is too monstrous for discussion. I only ask you to believe that I regret it from the bottom of my heart, and I beg that you will not allow anything so outrageous to prejudice you with regard to the future.”

Her eyes were downcast. She heard him without raising them. And still no shade of feeling crossed her death-white face as she made reply.

“I am not likely to do that,” she said coldly and proudly. “I am not likely to blame you for showing kindness to me in the house of one whom mercy and humanity are unknown. I do not hold you responsible for another man’s wickedness.”

It was a challenge, clearly and unhesitatingly spoken, and Montague marvelled at the icy courage of her, the biting disdain. As she spoke, she drew her hand from his, and paused, facing him, not deigning to look upon her accuser; then, as he spoke no word, calmly, regally, with head erect but eyes cast down, she walked away over the moonlit grass, and so passed out of their sight.