And so a few weeks sped by, and then, when the High Priest was indisposed--a sudden heart-attack, the doctors said--Marigold called to see him and stayed the afternoon, St Armand being there too; and, as you know, she made an ideal nurse. And when she was gone, the patient became gloomy and irritable, and then St Armand smiled, looked at his watch, and went out for a stroll. CHAPTER XXVI It was that hour of dusk that was his favourite--not night, not day, but glimmering shadows suited to Lucifram. With shadowy strides, the shadowy cloak encircling him, he passed the cattle grazing lazily within the parks that stretched round Marigold’s dwelling-place, and thence through the rose-garden, the velvet lawn, towards the open windows. He had chosen his hour wisely and well, for, thinking of love-sick maidens and their curious lack of all originality, he remembered the twilight was their special hour--twilight and silence, the open window with the sad night breezes, the solitary figure, the total oblivion of time. Thus also he found Marigold, sitting alone upon a couch drawn near to a window, leaning against the cushions. Her simple satin dress, pure white in the shadows, draped the fragile figure gracefully; but, as he crept shadow-like through the open window, he paused to look at her. All the animation that deceived the world with its strange brilliancy had vanished, and he saw only the face of a tired woman, with pure face-lines, and an expression never meant for Lucifram--a haunting sweetness struggling triumphant through the sadness. “Ah, Marigold,” said he, “you’re very pretty, though it takes an old married man like myself to notice it evidently. Considering you’ve got such a little time left upon Lucifram, it seems too bad you should spend it idling.” And so he approached her from behind, laying his hand with the blood-red ring upon it, on the couch back. “Marigold.” She started and looked up. “St Armand! What an unusual hour for a call! I--I thought I left you looking after the High Priest.” “You did. But, like all people who have nothing tangibly the matter with them, he is bad to do for sometimes.” “What is the matter with him? I thought him looking unusually well.” He came and sat down beside her, on the other side of the couch. “Yes, you were his medicine. As soon as you came, he was better. Before, he was worse; and since, he has been much worse.” “Then I was a very poor medicine.” “No, you are dangerous. To accomplish a lasting cure, you must stay with him for ever.” She laughed. “Well, I couldn’t do that.” “But you might arrange a kind of continuity.” “What do you mean?” “You could come oftener, and with a certain promise to return.” “I don’t think I am good for him,” and she shook her head thoughtfully. “You are squeamish, Marigold. Your greatest charm at one time was that you were not.” “And now my greatest charm has gone.” And she sighed and laughed in a breath.