“Here’s where the little ragged rascal fell and broke his neck. Impudence, I suppose--looking into a garden of the gods. Poor little Humpty-Dumpty! How his mother screamed, I make no doubt, when they took the news to her, and ran out into the streets regardless of appearance. What a merciful dispensation it was that created women with a great capacity for making scenes!” Then he went on, the episode forgotten, and turned now toward Friar’s Court. All the blinds of the cottages were drawn--all lights out, the owners fast asleep. Except at one window, where a dim light burned behind the curtain. “The beggar girl,” said he, and scaled the wall again, no leave asked. But he found only a consumptive child, just now sleeping restlessly--a tallow candle in a bottle keeping guard. Yet the windows were so near that it was but the work of a moment from one window to the next. The blind was down, but this was no hindrance; the window open just a little way. “Bad practice this,” said he, smiling; “they die just the same when the time comes, open or not.” And he slipped in easily, with no humiliating contortions of the body, but a grace that never left him, creeping through holes or scaling precipices. And Marigold lay fast asleep, contentment and healthy comfort on every limb and feature. How different from the little wasted form beyond the wall! “A very pretty girl with a decided power of acting, if I judge rightly, and not exactly a beggar except in Alphonso’s eyes. What inhuman things these priests become! That he should let her come away so coldly yesterday, and never a word about her since. But all last night harping on Barringcourt, who surely set him the best example so far as women are concerned.” He stayed for little more, for now the dawn was breaking on the Temple’s roof. And next you see him in the Palace cloisters, next in the sweet-scented rose-garden, the sun risen and shining down upon his shabby morning-coat. Soon he espied the High Priest sitting under a broad chestnut tree--preoccupied with nothing but his thoughts; and towards him with no great haste--if anything, more slowly--he bent his steps. “After all, Alphonso, there is much in life to be thankful for. This garden, this fresh morning air--the flowers and birds--they make a charming paradise.” He noticed as he spoke, for little escaped him, that the night’s rest had brought little return of health to his host’s face. He looked unusually spiritless. Yet, as one taught to respond unconsciously to the world’s salutations, he smiled as he answered: “A charming paradise! Yes, a charming paradise! Yet the morning air, the flowers and birds can pall on one. I’ve heard them in this same garden twenty-five years. Before that in other gardens forty years. The birds sing all alike. Even the larks become monotonous.” “Have you slept well?” “Excellently--with a touch of nightmare.” “An interesting nightmare?”